It was rare when the Doctor and his companion were not running for their lives, or saving a desperate soul from a pitiful fate. Even rarer was it for the creature to spend a few precious moments sitting contentedly, while watching the odd couple enjoy their day without any hungry demons nearby. Today was that kind of day. The creature sat on the railing of the TARDIS, gazing as the two laughed gayly. Her mouth twitched as the Doctor tried to explain a complicated element to his bewildered companion. She understood of what he spoke, of course she did, she is no longer what she used to be. She puts her input here and there, responding to Doctor's questions, contradicting him when her opinion differs, but of course, her words go unheard. She consider's it therapy, talking to him, or anyone, even though no one can hear her; but the very act responding, or imagining a conversation, brings a since of calm to the pending madness. Or maybe she was already mad, she was in fact talking to herself.

Spending nearly five hundred years with him brought about all since of madness, but then she had always wanted to stay with him forever, now forever is what she had, and she almost regretted it. Trapped behind a wall of isolation was not the ideal of living an immortal life, and now she completely comprehended why the Doctor needed his companions. Living alone will drive one to the brink of utter and unreasonable madness. Only in her case, it was different, and arguably even worse. She was alone, yet she wasn't. Cloaked in a blanket of invisibility she lived and breathed the same air, but did not exist in his world. She liked to think she lived in the forth dimension, a alternate reality within her own world; a one way mirror.

And as she continued to watch she became aware she no longer felt satisfied by sitting idly. She felt restless with a frightening need to scream and kill something, anything. She wanted someone to look at her, to truly look and see her as she fought for her survival along with the survival of the other lives. Such a task should never be done alone, the Doctor knew that all too well, but for all she knew she lived alone, with only the demons to play with.

She had understood why the Doctor always had a companion. Even he could not stand the silence, the loneliness, with no one to hold his hand.

Loneliness...

After so many years of living in confinement in this mirror world, but never existing, never touching, never being seen or heard, it might as well be living in hell. It was terror to live in a world of demon's and monsters, always aware of the things hiding behind her back.

This was her punishment. She lived, but was invisible to the world and to those she loved. She was destined to save the Doctor, again and again. Protecting him from the world that tried to devour him, save him when evil tried to snatch him from existence.

It was already punishment enough that she lived in a world where she was locked away with demons, but to have the one she loved never once glance at her, to hear her cries as she screamed his name, never know it was she who held his hand as he stood alone; this was her true punishment.