The entrance to the lifts couldn't even be seen through the riot of colors.
Obviously, the search for the two escapees was in full swing. Just as
obviously, it wasn't being handled very well. The Doctor and Sarah gave
the tangled mess swarming the elevators one glance, and took the stairs.
The distortions from the Pause were stronger here. Almost alive. The shadows appeared to have melded with the echoes, creating strange looming shapes that murmured quietly, or hovered just at the edge of vision . And there was something disturbing about how much the circular stairwell resembled a drain. A flicker of motion that was another person would overtake them, and then only continue down the stairs for so long when it would abruptly disappear. There wouldn't be any fading away, the colors would just wink out of existence. Every time it happened, the seemingly innocent stairs below them looked more and more sinister. When another troop of soldiers charged past them, the Doctor and Sarah were forced to cling to the railing as they walked, hanging on with eyes closed until the guards vanished. Neither had been able to watch; it had felt as if the rush of color was a current drawing them downward, to be swallowed up by the dimly lit spaces below. Spaces that felt too much like nothing.
It was some time before the Doctor felt like speaking. Apparently one thousand years had been long enough to forget why he always took the lifts around here.
"Well," he said, as cheerfully as he could, "This will take some time."
Slight nod from Sarah.
Concerned, he studied her face carefully. It wasn't like Sarah to be this quiet. "If you're tired," he said, noticing that she was starting to lag behind, "we can find a place to stop, once we're past these stairs. Someplace off to one side, where we won't be noticed."
Not bothering to look up, she said dully, "Someone might hear us."
"Not at all. The aural effects from the temporal displacement won't be negated the way the visual effects would be."
She took a moment to translate that into layman's terms. "So even if someone could see us, they can't hear us?"
"Even if we shout."
"Good. TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS!!"
She stormed downward in a fury, taking the steps faster than was really safe. The Doctor was hard put to keep from being trampled. "All that time without a word from you, Doctor! I've never met anyone so, so insufferably, don't you dare start laughing.."
"I won't, I'm not, I'm trying very hard not to." He ducked as Sarah swung a fist wildly, almost losing her balance in the process. "You should wait until we're on level ground before you start hitting again. And it wasn't," he raised his voice to be heard over new insults, "It wasn't too long for you at any rate."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"
Luckily, they'd just left the stairs and walked into a deserted section of the Tower. Otherwise, the Doctor might have worried about being heard, never mind the temporal displacement. Sarah could certainly yell..
"And you're wrong, it was a long time. Ages and ages." She stomped away from him, pacing in a large circle while the Doctor stared, bemused. The dust-filled sunbeams from an opening high in the wall were lovely here, almost fluttering from the Pause effects. Calming. They had no effect whatsoever on Sarah's temper.
"I thought you'd only be gone for a while, that you'd be back as soon as you'd finished whatever it was you had to leave me behind to do. And that wasn't South Croyden by the way." She stopped to give him a reproachful look. "Nowhere near. I was so far from home I had to take a train. I rode for hours, wanting to laugh it off as just another screw-up, and all I could think about was how much I wished you h-hadn't left."
"Sarah.." he tried, hearts aching at the hurt in her voice.
"You were gone for years! You never sent word to me, or Harry, or anyone! All that time wondering if you were all right, wondering why you were staying away so long, just one message years later with a gift you didn't even bring in person. I thought I'd go mad!"
She stood in the path of a sunbeam and swatted irritably at the tendrils of light that swirled around her. "You asked me not to forget you and I didn't. I couldn't. It was always in the back of my mind, the idea that you might come back any day. You'd stroll in as if nothing had happened, as if you hadn't been gone for.." She choked a little, then tried to laugh. "That, or you'd be running for you life from some hideous something- or-other that was trying to take over the planet. Either way you'd be there, finally, and it would make up for all the time you'd been gone."
All the time he'd been gone. It seemed like it should have been just a short while, compared to the ages he'd spent traveling. Ten years. Barely an instant. Not long enough to affect anyone.
The two of them stared at each other from across the room, from across a breach of time that the Doctor had never imagined existed.
"The Time Lords, they told me you were trying to come back to Gallifrey. To stay." Sarah took a deep breath, and tried to smile hopefully. "Weren't you ever coming back to Earth?"
Reassurances and protests died in his throat. Somehow he'd made the decision without knowing it. He would never visit Earth again, never visit any of his human friends. They had their own lives. She, Sarah, had her own life. One more visit would have just dragged everything out of place for her again. It was better to let things go back to the way they were supposed to be. Better for everyone.
He wished he could remember when he'd decided that.
The look in his eyes gave Sarah all the answer she needed. "I must have been a fool," she said, knuckling away angry tears. "All that time wishing you'd come back, if only to say hello, when it's so obvious that I missed you more than you ever missed me."
It wasn't as if this were the first time she'd lost her temper with him. Not a day went by when they had traveled together when she hadn't gotten at least a little annoyed. This was different. He'd hurt her, very badly, and now he was at a loss to make it better. "Sarah, that just isn't true." The Doctor started to walk over to her, to put a hand on her shoulder. The black look she gave him made him reconsider. "I hated to let you go, but you would have had to leave eventually. None of my companions have ever wanted to stay forever. Sooner or later they all chose to leave."
"Yes," Sarah pounced on that. "They chose to leave. They weren't kicked out and then left behind for no reason."
There were only the companions who had come before her to base that on but still.. She was right. Everyone else had chosen to leave, or circumstances had forced them to leave. She was the only companion whom he had actively chosen to send away, and for no other reason than because it was time for her to go.
The argument had gotten a little sidetracked. "You couldn't have just gone on traveling with me," he said as gently as he could. "You had your own life to lead."
Sarah let out a scream of frustration. "Of all the self-certain..Who are you to decide what my life ought to be?!"
It was a perfectly ordinary question, and it took the Doctor completely by surprise. He hadn't decided, her life was just supposed to be a certain way, just like his life was supposed to be.. He stood for several seconds, mind racing, desperately trying to find what should have been an obvious reply.
Then he smiled. "Nobody," he said to Sarah's baffled glare. "I'm a complete nobody to decide that for you." Before she could snap at him again he took her in his arms and rocked gently back and forth. "Or for me."
"Don't..don't do that," she said, and then wrapped her arms around him. "I'm not finished being mad at you."
"I know, Sarah. I know."
What an awful lot of things he'd done lately because of a vague idea of what he "ought" to do. As if everything in life was a series of items on a checklist. "I've been a complete idiot. Do you forgive me?"
There was a muffled "No," but she didn't loosen her grip. He chuckled a little.
"I truly am sorry I took that decision away from you, Sarah. But I couldn't come back because.."
His voice trailed off for some reason. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I couldn't come back..I..I couldn't.."
Now, this was important
Something in his voice made Sarah look up, startled. "Doctor?"
This felt like being hypnotized, like having memories taken from him and being left with some rote-phrase to answer questions with. "..I couldn't.."
The two of them stood frozen in place, Sarah's eyes full of concern, the Doctor staring forward, expressionless.
Abruptly, he pulled away. "I couldn't come back," he told her, and walked off.
The answer had all of the cold finality that a two-thousand-year-old Time Lord could muster, and it stopped Sarah in her tracks. For about two seconds. "Why?"
"Because I.." He hadn't noticed the distortions of sounds outside the Pause for some time; now they were annoyingly loud. He put a hand to his forehead. "I..you know, I really hate change."
It had been so long since he'd heard Sarah laugh, he'd almost forgotten what that sounded like until now. "Doctor that's just silly and you know it. If you aren't used to change at your age.."
Her laughter faded as the Doctor started to walk away again. She ran to catch up with him, and took hold of his sleeve, her voice softer now. "Why? The real reason."
Genuinely angry, he yanked his arm free from her grip and snapped, "Because, Sarah, there was too much left to do!"
"I see." Her voice had gone icy. She didn't understand, not really. How could she? He didn't understand it himself. "I've never known you to put aside anything just because you were in a hurry. Now I'm supposed to believe that you didn't come back because you simply didn't have time?"
No response to that. The path of the Pause led them into an ancient vault. Most of the lights had gone out here, and the ones left cast only a few beams of water-colored light that pooled across the floor. The Doctor kept walking. His head hurt, and more than anything, he wanted quiet. He tried to put distance and stone columns and shadows between them, but Sarah wouldn't be left behind, and she wouldn't be shouted down by silence.
"Too much to do, hmmm? No time to waste? You had years, centuries, and you.."
With terrifying speed the Doctor spun about and charged back out of the shadows. "Yes, Sarah, I had centuries!" Enraged, too furious to care that he was frightening her, he forced her to back up against the wall. "I had centuries and you didn't! I wouldn't stay for that, I won't.."
"Oh so now I'm too mortal for you?!" She'd rallied in an instant. No one could intimidate Sarah for long. "I didn't know you had such a weak stomach."
"That isn't it at all!"
"Isn't it?!"
The whole situation was absurd. They had practically the entire ruling class of Gallifrey hunting them down and yet here they were, right under the hunters' noses, shouting at each other. He should have found all of this hilarious. He would have laughed, if the anger weren't clawing at him from inside.
"Sarah you can throw your little temper tantrum all you like but we are not going to discuss this."
"Oh yes we are!"
He tried to turn away, but she ran around him and planted herself in his path.
"Get out of my way, Sarah."
"I won't!" She defiantly stayed where she was, her hands balled into fists. "You can talk or not, or you can throw me out of the way, but I'M going to talk, and you're bloody well going to listen!"
He could throw her out of the way if he wanted to, without any effort at all, and through all the rage he suddenly felt a thread of cold fear. He couldn't remember ever being this angry, not in all his centuries. It was a blind fury that could make him knock someone aside, pitch them into a wall or break them in half and he couldn't even look at Sarah for fear of that, because that would be, that would be..
"Did it repulse you so much, Doctor? Did it just sicken you that I was going to grow older, while you could regenerate over and over and stay the same horrid person?"
"No, I.."
"You, a Time Lord with all the past and future at your disposal, with centuries of life to spare, and you couldn't stand to be in my presence for one more minute!"
"You don't understand at all!" he roared. "If I'd let you stay it wouldn't have mattered how long I could live because.." He couldn't even imagine what he was trying to say, and then the words came rushing out, "Because once you were gone I wouldn't have wanted to live another day, much less another thousand years!"
There.
He'd said it. The real reason.
This was why he'd left, and never gone back. This was why he was always just the tiniest bit glad when one of his short-lived companions decided to leave. They had never, none of them, been just amusements for him. And he had never grown tired of them. He had merely let them go, so reality wouldn't interfere with memories. And as for Sarah.
He sank down against the wall, feeling strangely tired. "Ohhh Sarah, don't you see? I couldn't lose you like that. Not ever. If I stayed away, I could keep you alive. I kept you with me, living and breathing in my mind, for twelve hundred years."
There didn't seem to be anything left to say.
Sarah just stared at him. The poor thing was probably in shock. Understandable, seeing as how he'd responded to a simple tantrum by taking everything in his hearts and thrusting it in her face. He shouldn't expect her to, well, he shouldn't expect. That's all.
Still, the silence hurt.
Feeling a little foolish, and very hollowed out, the Doctor rested his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and stared at the floor.
And then she was kneeling beside him, her arms around him. Beautiful, loving Sarah, who it turned out had missed him almost as much as he had missed her.
"Stupid," she scolded, "foolish." She kissed his head and the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I never knew, I never dreamed.oh forgive me, you must have been so lonely."
He looked up at this, into eyes that were filled with tears. She was hurting, for him now instead of just because of him. Suddenly it was the worst thing he could imagine, that she should hurt at all.
He cupped her face with one hand, brushing aside a tear, and kissed her, softly.
And then again, hard enough that she made a small startled noise in her throat.
Half-afraid he would feel too alien to her, ready to let go the moment she tried to push away, he pulled her close until she was cradled in his arms. He twined his fingers in her hair, and kissed her mouth and face, trying to take away her tears, her pain. Trying to drink her like wine.
.and Sarah, who had no intention of pushing away, could only cling to him, dizzy and half-fainting from the feel of him, the taste. Nothing that marked him as different mattered; she kissed the racing double-pulse in his throat, and stroked her fingers over alien skin that was as cool as someone who'd just come in from the cold.
.and the Doctor felt as though he was holding something sweet and fragile that burned with fever.
What a strange treasure I've been keeping all these years, he thought. And what a relief to let it go.
Luckily, no guards wandered through that section of the Tower. It takes a lot of energy, having one's life turned upside down. Too much to consider moving, or talking, or even thinking, for at least a little while.
They stayed there the entire night - the Doctor and his newest, perhaps last companion - lulled by the sighing echoes of the empty room, curled together, asleep in the Pause.
The distortions from the Pause were stronger here. Almost alive. The shadows appeared to have melded with the echoes, creating strange looming shapes that murmured quietly, or hovered just at the edge of vision . And there was something disturbing about how much the circular stairwell resembled a drain. A flicker of motion that was another person would overtake them, and then only continue down the stairs for so long when it would abruptly disappear. There wouldn't be any fading away, the colors would just wink out of existence. Every time it happened, the seemingly innocent stairs below them looked more and more sinister. When another troop of soldiers charged past them, the Doctor and Sarah were forced to cling to the railing as they walked, hanging on with eyes closed until the guards vanished. Neither had been able to watch; it had felt as if the rush of color was a current drawing them downward, to be swallowed up by the dimly lit spaces below. Spaces that felt too much like nothing.
It was some time before the Doctor felt like speaking. Apparently one thousand years had been long enough to forget why he always took the lifts around here.
"Well," he said, as cheerfully as he could, "This will take some time."
Slight nod from Sarah.
Concerned, he studied her face carefully. It wasn't like Sarah to be this quiet. "If you're tired," he said, noticing that she was starting to lag behind, "we can find a place to stop, once we're past these stairs. Someplace off to one side, where we won't be noticed."
Not bothering to look up, she said dully, "Someone might hear us."
"Not at all. The aural effects from the temporal displacement won't be negated the way the visual effects would be."
She took a moment to translate that into layman's terms. "So even if someone could see us, they can't hear us?"
"Even if we shout."
"Good. TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS!!"
She stormed downward in a fury, taking the steps faster than was really safe. The Doctor was hard put to keep from being trampled. "All that time without a word from you, Doctor! I've never met anyone so, so insufferably, don't you dare start laughing.."
"I won't, I'm not, I'm trying very hard not to." He ducked as Sarah swung a fist wildly, almost losing her balance in the process. "You should wait until we're on level ground before you start hitting again. And it wasn't," he raised his voice to be heard over new insults, "It wasn't too long for you at any rate."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"
Luckily, they'd just left the stairs and walked into a deserted section of the Tower. Otherwise, the Doctor might have worried about being heard, never mind the temporal displacement. Sarah could certainly yell..
"And you're wrong, it was a long time. Ages and ages." She stomped away from him, pacing in a large circle while the Doctor stared, bemused. The dust-filled sunbeams from an opening high in the wall were lovely here, almost fluttering from the Pause effects. Calming. They had no effect whatsoever on Sarah's temper.
"I thought you'd only be gone for a while, that you'd be back as soon as you'd finished whatever it was you had to leave me behind to do. And that wasn't South Croyden by the way." She stopped to give him a reproachful look. "Nowhere near. I was so far from home I had to take a train. I rode for hours, wanting to laugh it off as just another screw-up, and all I could think about was how much I wished you h-hadn't left."
"Sarah.." he tried, hearts aching at the hurt in her voice.
"You were gone for years! You never sent word to me, or Harry, or anyone! All that time wondering if you were all right, wondering why you were staying away so long, just one message years later with a gift you didn't even bring in person. I thought I'd go mad!"
She stood in the path of a sunbeam and swatted irritably at the tendrils of light that swirled around her. "You asked me not to forget you and I didn't. I couldn't. It was always in the back of my mind, the idea that you might come back any day. You'd stroll in as if nothing had happened, as if you hadn't been gone for.." She choked a little, then tried to laugh. "That, or you'd be running for you life from some hideous something- or-other that was trying to take over the planet. Either way you'd be there, finally, and it would make up for all the time you'd been gone."
All the time he'd been gone. It seemed like it should have been just a short while, compared to the ages he'd spent traveling. Ten years. Barely an instant. Not long enough to affect anyone.
The two of them stared at each other from across the room, from across a breach of time that the Doctor had never imagined existed.
"The Time Lords, they told me you were trying to come back to Gallifrey. To stay." Sarah took a deep breath, and tried to smile hopefully. "Weren't you ever coming back to Earth?"
Reassurances and protests died in his throat. Somehow he'd made the decision without knowing it. He would never visit Earth again, never visit any of his human friends. They had their own lives. She, Sarah, had her own life. One more visit would have just dragged everything out of place for her again. It was better to let things go back to the way they were supposed to be. Better for everyone.
He wished he could remember when he'd decided that.
The look in his eyes gave Sarah all the answer she needed. "I must have been a fool," she said, knuckling away angry tears. "All that time wishing you'd come back, if only to say hello, when it's so obvious that I missed you more than you ever missed me."
It wasn't as if this were the first time she'd lost her temper with him. Not a day went by when they had traveled together when she hadn't gotten at least a little annoyed. This was different. He'd hurt her, very badly, and now he was at a loss to make it better. "Sarah, that just isn't true." The Doctor started to walk over to her, to put a hand on her shoulder. The black look she gave him made him reconsider. "I hated to let you go, but you would have had to leave eventually. None of my companions have ever wanted to stay forever. Sooner or later they all chose to leave."
"Yes," Sarah pounced on that. "They chose to leave. They weren't kicked out and then left behind for no reason."
There were only the companions who had come before her to base that on but still.. She was right. Everyone else had chosen to leave, or circumstances had forced them to leave. She was the only companion whom he had actively chosen to send away, and for no other reason than because it was time for her to go.
The argument had gotten a little sidetracked. "You couldn't have just gone on traveling with me," he said as gently as he could. "You had your own life to lead."
Sarah let out a scream of frustration. "Of all the self-certain..Who are you to decide what my life ought to be?!"
It was a perfectly ordinary question, and it took the Doctor completely by surprise. He hadn't decided, her life was just supposed to be a certain way, just like his life was supposed to be.. He stood for several seconds, mind racing, desperately trying to find what should have been an obvious reply.
Then he smiled. "Nobody," he said to Sarah's baffled glare. "I'm a complete nobody to decide that for you." Before she could snap at him again he took her in his arms and rocked gently back and forth. "Or for me."
"Don't..don't do that," she said, and then wrapped her arms around him. "I'm not finished being mad at you."
"I know, Sarah. I know."
What an awful lot of things he'd done lately because of a vague idea of what he "ought" to do. As if everything in life was a series of items on a checklist. "I've been a complete idiot. Do you forgive me?"
There was a muffled "No," but she didn't loosen her grip. He chuckled a little.
"I truly am sorry I took that decision away from you, Sarah. But I couldn't come back because.."
His voice trailed off for some reason. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I couldn't come back..I..I couldn't.."
Now, this was important
Something in his voice made Sarah look up, startled. "Doctor?"
This felt like being hypnotized, like having memories taken from him and being left with some rote-phrase to answer questions with. "..I couldn't.."
The two of them stood frozen in place, Sarah's eyes full of concern, the Doctor staring forward, expressionless.
Abruptly, he pulled away. "I couldn't come back," he told her, and walked off.
The answer had all of the cold finality that a two-thousand-year-old Time Lord could muster, and it stopped Sarah in her tracks. For about two seconds. "Why?"
"Because I.." He hadn't noticed the distortions of sounds outside the Pause for some time; now they were annoyingly loud. He put a hand to his forehead. "I..you know, I really hate change."
It had been so long since he'd heard Sarah laugh, he'd almost forgotten what that sounded like until now. "Doctor that's just silly and you know it. If you aren't used to change at your age.."
Her laughter faded as the Doctor started to walk away again. She ran to catch up with him, and took hold of his sleeve, her voice softer now. "Why? The real reason."
Genuinely angry, he yanked his arm free from her grip and snapped, "Because, Sarah, there was too much left to do!"
"I see." Her voice had gone icy. She didn't understand, not really. How could she? He didn't understand it himself. "I've never known you to put aside anything just because you were in a hurry. Now I'm supposed to believe that you didn't come back because you simply didn't have time?"
No response to that. The path of the Pause led them into an ancient vault. Most of the lights had gone out here, and the ones left cast only a few beams of water-colored light that pooled across the floor. The Doctor kept walking. His head hurt, and more than anything, he wanted quiet. He tried to put distance and stone columns and shadows between them, but Sarah wouldn't be left behind, and she wouldn't be shouted down by silence.
"Too much to do, hmmm? No time to waste? You had years, centuries, and you.."
With terrifying speed the Doctor spun about and charged back out of the shadows. "Yes, Sarah, I had centuries!" Enraged, too furious to care that he was frightening her, he forced her to back up against the wall. "I had centuries and you didn't! I wouldn't stay for that, I won't.."
"Oh so now I'm too mortal for you?!" She'd rallied in an instant. No one could intimidate Sarah for long. "I didn't know you had such a weak stomach."
"That isn't it at all!"
"Isn't it?!"
The whole situation was absurd. They had practically the entire ruling class of Gallifrey hunting them down and yet here they were, right under the hunters' noses, shouting at each other. He should have found all of this hilarious. He would have laughed, if the anger weren't clawing at him from inside.
"Sarah you can throw your little temper tantrum all you like but we are not going to discuss this."
"Oh yes we are!"
He tried to turn away, but she ran around him and planted herself in his path.
"Get out of my way, Sarah."
"I won't!" She defiantly stayed where she was, her hands balled into fists. "You can talk or not, or you can throw me out of the way, but I'M going to talk, and you're bloody well going to listen!"
He could throw her out of the way if he wanted to, without any effort at all, and through all the rage he suddenly felt a thread of cold fear. He couldn't remember ever being this angry, not in all his centuries. It was a blind fury that could make him knock someone aside, pitch them into a wall or break them in half and he couldn't even look at Sarah for fear of that, because that would be, that would be..
"Did it repulse you so much, Doctor? Did it just sicken you that I was going to grow older, while you could regenerate over and over and stay the same horrid person?"
"No, I.."
"You, a Time Lord with all the past and future at your disposal, with centuries of life to spare, and you couldn't stand to be in my presence for one more minute!"
"You don't understand at all!" he roared. "If I'd let you stay it wouldn't have mattered how long I could live because.." He couldn't even imagine what he was trying to say, and then the words came rushing out, "Because once you were gone I wouldn't have wanted to live another day, much less another thousand years!"
There.
He'd said it. The real reason.
This was why he'd left, and never gone back. This was why he was always just the tiniest bit glad when one of his short-lived companions decided to leave. They had never, none of them, been just amusements for him. And he had never grown tired of them. He had merely let them go, so reality wouldn't interfere with memories. And as for Sarah.
He sank down against the wall, feeling strangely tired. "Ohhh Sarah, don't you see? I couldn't lose you like that. Not ever. If I stayed away, I could keep you alive. I kept you with me, living and breathing in my mind, for twelve hundred years."
There didn't seem to be anything left to say.
Sarah just stared at him. The poor thing was probably in shock. Understandable, seeing as how he'd responded to a simple tantrum by taking everything in his hearts and thrusting it in her face. He shouldn't expect her to, well, he shouldn't expect. That's all.
Still, the silence hurt.
Feeling a little foolish, and very hollowed out, the Doctor rested his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and stared at the floor.
And then she was kneeling beside him, her arms around him. Beautiful, loving Sarah, who it turned out had missed him almost as much as he had missed her.
"Stupid," she scolded, "foolish." She kissed his head and the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I never knew, I never dreamed.oh forgive me, you must have been so lonely."
He looked up at this, into eyes that were filled with tears. She was hurting, for him now instead of just because of him. Suddenly it was the worst thing he could imagine, that she should hurt at all.
He cupped her face with one hand, brushing aside a tear, and kissed her, softly.
And then again, hard enough that she made a small startled noise in her throat.
Half-afraid he would feel too alien to her, ready to let go the moment she tried to push away, he pulled her close until she was cradled in his arms. He twined his fingers in her hair, and kissed her mouth and face, trying to take away her tears, her pain. Trying to drink her like wine.
.and Sarah, who had no intention of pushing away, could only cling to him, dizzy and half-fainting from the feel of him, the taste. Nothing that marked him as different mattered; she kissed the racing double-pulse in his throat, and stroked her fingers over alien skin that was as cool as someone who'd just come in from the cold.
.and the Doctor felt as though he was holding something sweet and fragile that burned with fever.
What a strange treasure I've been keeping all these years, he thought. And what a relief to let it go.
Luckily, no guards wandered through that section of the Tower. It takes a lot of energy, having one's life turned upside down. Too much to consider moving, or talking, or even thinking, for at least a little while.
They stayed there the entire night - the Doctor and his newest, perhaps last companion - lulled by the sighing echoes of the empty room, curled together, asleep in the Pause.
