Late afternoon on a cold January just outside London, the fierce wind whipped the previous night's snowfall up into drifts against trees, walls and fences. Concrete angels and stone monuments dotted a frozen lot enclosed by sharp wrought-iron fencing. One of the statues was wrapped in a navy blue jumper and a battered leather jacket, his large ears turning a bright red from the biting cold. He'd been standing there in the cold for over an hour now, staring down at an old mouldering headstone, leaving passersby to wonder at a stranger's fixation with a centuries-old grave.
IN LOVING MEMORY
SUSAN FOREMAN CAMPBELL
DIED JANUARY 21, 2223
CHERISHED WIFE, MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER
The engraving was almost completely worn smooth by time, but he didn't need to read the letters to know what they said. He'd told her that he would return one day. When he locked her out of his TARDIS to give her the home and life she deserved with David, he'd promised her that they'd see each other again.
In all his centuries of traveling, he'd never kept his promise to return to Susan, to visit her again. It wasn't that he'd woken up one morning and decided he never wanted to see her again… He just never found the time. One adventure to the next, companion after companion, regeneration after regeneration. How odd that a Time Lord should lose track of the passage of time…
She must have thought he'd died soon after he left her; she did not know of the thirteen lives granted to the accursed loom-children of Rassilon. He'd never told her the full story of the Pythia's curse, of the New Order. It was irrelevant to her anyway; he had certainly never planned on setting foot on Gallifrey again. She didn't need to know that she was the last real child ever born there, that if she'd been born ten minutes later, she would have died before taking her first breath as a scorned witch exacted her revenge on the world that rejected her, stripping it of its ability to foster new life and leaving Gallifrey barren.
Children. Grandchildren. Great grandchildren and their offspring as well, likely, a whole host of descendants carrying a tiny drop of diluted ancient Gallifreyan blood swimming around in a sea of Homo sapiens were all that remained of his ancient race.
The TARDIS was parked behind an old Yew growing in the corner of the graveyard. It could take him to Susan, take him to any point between standing under a fallen bridge left in post-Dalek invasion London and laying frozen and silent in the Earth under his feet. He could go to her, all grown up and with children rolling about on the carpet and explain to her, explain and explain and explain, until he bled out all the hatred and misery of the centuries between them, and beg her forgiveness for stealing the future of her race which she had already forgotten by the time he left her. He could stay with her and play grandpa to her beautiful children, be the queer old man again and forget the future of his race too. Forget the dead companions he failed to save, the ones that left him when his sins were too great to be forgiven, the ones that left because their love for another was greater than their love for him. Forget the faces of those that died at his hands for the greater good, forget those that died in the crossfire simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and he could do nothing to warn them. Forget the sight of Gallifrey burning, the screams of his brethren in his mind as they were consumed by the inferno.
No, he left Susan because he wanted her to have a full life, to have the home and roots she thirsted for. He would be guilty again to burden her with his broken past, present, future. She must be whole for the sake of her children, not hollow inside with the knowledge of a lost future.
The wind kicked up again, spiraling down his collar and around his neck. The doctor shivered, feeling the cold seeping into his bones at last. He wondered if he would ever feel warm again.