Moment Forty-eight

She was the only person he had ever truly loved, but they could only have one more day together. Then, her time would be up and she would die. That was why Kazran had kept Abigail in the ice for all these years, because he knew what would happen to her if he let her out. Sometimes, he would go down to the vault and look at her, perfectly preserved at the age she had been when she went into the ice. He loved her, but he could never be with her.

It was all the Doctor's doing. If the Time Lord hadn't altered his past, Kazran would never have got to know Abigail and she would be just another person his father had frozen as "security" against a loan her family had taken out. Instead, he and the Doctor had visited her every Christmas Eve, letting her out of the ice for a few hours. For the first few years, this arrangement worked well - until Kazran grew up and fell in love with Abigail.

But Abigail was dying. She had been dying when she went into the ice and, though the time in suspended animation had slowed the progress of her illness, it hadn't cured her. One more day was all she had left and Kazran had sought to delay that day for as long as possible, selfishly hoarding her like a miser hoarding gold. The Doctor was trying to rewrite Kazran's personal timeline to save the lives of over 4000 people, including the Doctor's friends, Amy and Rory. But Kazran had become even more misanthropic than he had been before the Doctor entered his life. Abigail was the only person he cared about, but he would lose her if she spent one more day out of the ice.

In the end, however, the Doctor had persuaded Kazran to let her out just one more time, to let her have that final day. Abigail's singing was the only thing which resonated perfectly with the clouds of ice crystals which covered this planet; the only way the Doctor could save Amy and Rory and everyone else trapped on a stricken spacecraft was to have her sing. Not only that, but there were times when love meant knowing when to let go.

So Kazran and Abigail had one more day together. Christmas Day, a day Abigail had loved but had not experienced since before she went into the ice. She and Kazran had spent it with her family, the first time she had seen them since Kazran was a young man. But, as the day wore on, her illness finally began to catch up with her. By evening, she was too frail to walk. She lay on the sofa with Kazran beside her, holding her hand. Presently, she spoke. "Kazran . . ." Her voice was weak, the voice of a dying woman.

Kazran only shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. He had, he now realised, been afraid of having his heart broken, a fear which had overridden his old fear of becoming like his father. And that fear had made him selfish, made him keep Abigail in the vault for all those years, denying her the chance to be with her family. Now, she was free of the ice, but she was dying and there was nothing he could do to save her.

"I knew you weren't like your father . . ." Abigail paused, then added: "Do you remember the song I sang when we first met?" The first time she had been let out of her tank had been because the Doctor and Kazran needed it to transport a stranded Fog Shark back into the sky. To soothe the creature, she had sung In The Bleak Midwinter and she now began to sing the same song. Her voice was now a shadow of its once beautiful self, but she still sang . . .

Until she finally gave out, leaving the song unfinished in mid-verse. Kazran held her in his arms as she took her last few breaths, then reached out to close her eyes for the last time. As he looked down at the body of the woman he had kept in the ice for so many years, he vowed to remember the lessons the Doctor and his companions had taught him. He owed it to Abigail, who looked more beautiful than ever.