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In his nine hundred and six years of existence, there had been many times when the Doctor had been on his own. Not by choice, really. Hardly ever by choice. In all probability, just lately, since the day he had to say goodbye to his dear friend Donna Noble. The turn of events always seemed to turn the mighty Time Lord into the lonely god, no matter how badly he might not want to be alone.

Not that his life was a bad one after all- When each of his days travelling in time and space was still unpredictable and full of adventure and excitement after nearly a millennia, how could he possibly not love his life? But still, Doctor Chinny and Clara Oswald seemed to have come just to remind him that travelling alone had made of him a mere wanderer.

That it was 'better with two'.

Those three words had been reverberating in his brain since the day he had first heard them. There had even been a time when he had been such a starry-eyed dreamer that he had let himself believe not only that the magic of 'being two' could actually exist, but also that it could be bestowed upon him. For what seemed to be the tiniest fraction of his long and wondrous existence, he allowed himself to taste what the word 'two' only rarely came to mean and how life-changing that meaning could be. He had treasured it as much as he had always treasured the universe and every galaxy and star and planet and creature in it. He had wanted to keep it close to him, and sing to it, and share his greatest joys and also his darkest hours with it. But most of all, he had wanted to protect it and to take care of it. Knowing only too well that the word 'forever' had never been written in the rules of the game he'd been long playing, he had eventually reconciled himself to the thought that he would cherish the word 'two' just for as long as he possibly could. He had somehow taken for granted that it would be 'long enough'.

Never had time and space felt any crueller, or proved him to be more wrong.

One day, just like that, he found himself alone again. Then came Martha and Donna, and with them, the word 'two' became what it had always been, a synonym for friendship and companionship. But it never regained that magical quality again. At least, not to this version of him.

He wasn't so sure, however, that he could say the same thing about his future self at all. He had seen the way the other Doctor looked at Clara and the way Clara looked at him, and something about their sheer happiness at just being together had made him feel he was looking at his very own pinstriped self, back on the days before a void in space had most unexpectedly put a blood-chilling white wall 'forever' between him and Rose.

For some reason he couldn't quite grasp, the vision of the new Doctor and his current companion had unpredictably filled him with hope.

"Oi! Sandshoes! Is that you?" Bow-tied Him's voice suddenly called calling in the distance, thus waking him up from his reverie.

"Are you honestly expecting me to answer such stupid question? Who else could it be?" He sounded annoyed when he answered the Eleventh Doctor's question with two new other questions but, curiously enough, he was grinning from ear to ear as he got up from his seat on one of the steps of the unpopular spiral staircase that had led them to the secret passages underneath the city.

Why should he insist on not admitting to himself that he just hated being alone? And since he was probably destined to forget all this the same way he had lost all of his memories of how he had recently contributed to saving Gallifrey, Chinny would never know the relief he had felt when his call eventually put an end to the wanderings not only of his mind, but also of his sonic screwdriver, whose blue light had been pointing for ages at the rose carved in the central keystone at the top of one of the archways. "Any luck?"

"No!" the Eleventh Doctor shouted from afar. "And judging by your question, I guess you didn't find her either!"

"You're right! I didn't!" he shouted back as he got up from the staircase.

The Tenth Doctor heard his successor's footsteps become quicker and gradually louder until he finally emerged out of the archway crowned by the boat and the cross. The green light of his own sonic screwdriver was shining up on his face. It might have been an optical illusion, but the Tenth Doctor would have sworn that Future Him looked quite blue around the gills.

"Are you okay?" he asked him with concern. "As far as I know, it's still me who's regenerating when this is all over."

"No, I'm not," the older Time Lord replied angrily, "and I won't be okay until we find her, so let's get into that archway over there, shall we?"

"Be my guest," replied the Tenth Doctor nonchalantly, leading the way with his hand and letting him go through that last archway first. In spite of his tone, he knew the other Doctor's concern to be genuine, and after taking just a few steps along the only tunnel they'd so far left unexplored, he spoke again, determined to make him feel better. "Don't worry so much about her. She's a clever girl, Chinny. She'll be fine."

"They're always clever, aren't they?" the other Doctor replied, coolly. "Unfortunately, clever girls aren't always fine once we've bumped into their lives, Sandshoes. You of all people should know that."

The Tenth Doctor stopped on his tracks, and when the Eleventh Doctor noticed that he could no longer hear any footsteps behind him, it hit him how this time, he had put his very own foot in it.

He came to a halt and turned to the other Time Lord, then spoke.

"I'm sorry," he said. Looking into his predecessor's eyes, he hated being the cause of all the rage and fury he was seeing in them.

"Don't you dare say something like that to me ever again, you hear me?" replied the Oncoming Storm as he heatedly stepped towards him.

"I've said I'm sorry," he replied, feeling the other Doctor's agitated breath upon his face. "I'm worried sick about Clara. I'm sure you can understand that."

The two Doctors stood still for a while, just looking at one another as blue and green flashes of light bathed their faces. Their body language had at first been menacing, but gradually it became conciliatory, until eventually the both started to chill out.

"I'm sorry too," said the Tenth Doctor. "I wish I didn't know there's always a chance for things to go terribly wrong. I was just trying to… You know. Be of some comfort."

"And I thank you," replied the Eleventh Doctor, a shy smile curling up his lips. "I know you meant well, and I know you know how worried I am. But that's no excuse, Sandshoes. I shouldn't have said what I said. I'm sorry. I'm really terribly sor... Oh no, for goodness' sake… Did you hear that? All of a sudden, I'm being apologetic! I'm turning back into you again!" he protested, raising his eyebrows before he opened his mouth wide to exclaim, with a scornful look, "Ouch!"

"'Ouch'?" asked the Tenth Doctor with a frown. "Why 'ouch'? Was it really that bad, being me?"

"Well, come to think of it, being you actually wasn't. But being some other guys before you… Ouch indeed! No sense of fashion at all!"

The Tenth Doctor's loud snort happened to have the effect his previous words of comfort had not, as it made the other Doctor smile and momentarily calm down. The two Time Lords kept smiling shyly for a moment before they resumed their march along the quill tunnel, their sonic screwdrivers flashing their lights in all possible directions.

"The first time I met her, she died," said the Eleventh Doctor, unable to find a reason why he shouldn't share his present worries with his past self. "On a previous occasion I didn't actually get to meet her, but she also died. She was different back then. It wasn't really her, and dying to save me was what she was supposed to do. It's… complicated. Now she's the real thing and she might be in real danger and I'm not there to protect her. Of course she's clever. Aren't they all clever? But she's not infallible. If she died again… That would be it. She'd never return."

The Tenth Doctor had not made a single sound in the interim, not because he had nothing to say, but rather because he was, as a matter of fact, incapable of speaking. Too many memories had suddenly come back to disturb him.

"Listen to me," he finally managed to say, stopping in his tracks again and forcing the other Doctor to do the same, "and now I'm not trying to comfort you – now I'm making you a promise. We'll find her. Even if we have to stay here forever and a day, we're not leaving without her."

Those words had sounded everything but deceptive or dishonest. And yet, the Eleventh Doctor didn't believe for a single second that his past self had really meant them.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Sandshoes," he said, blinding the Tenth Doctor as he put his sonic screwdriver directly in front of his face.

"What makes you think I can't keep that promise?" the Tenth Doctor asked offhandedly.

"That you've never broken the rules," replied the Eleventh Doctor, locking eyes with him.

"I'm sorry?" asked the Tenth Doctor, confused.

"You never break the rules, Sandshoes," his future self said calmly. "I sometimes bend them a little. Other times, more than just a little. And more often than not, I don't observe them in the slightest."

"Your point being?" a disconcerted Tenth Doctor asked.

"My point being, staying here forever sounds pretty much like breaking the rules to me. Staying here forever is what I would do, but not what you'd do."

"Well, maybe just this once, I might just want to break some rules," answered the Tenth Doctor, as he reached for his neck and nervously started to rub its back.

"And why would you go such lengths for me when you never did for you?"

And with that last question, the Tenth Doctor's bewilderment dissipated. Now how finally understood. That hadn't really been a question. That had been more like a bullet going straight into each of his shattered hearts.

"Well, look at me!" he said, opening his arms as he looked down. "I was regenerating when you came and the process was interrupted. I'd say the only reason why I'm still here is because you've bought me some more time. And you know what? I'm loving it. I'm loving this extra time I'm getting just because you broke the rules first! So right now – and I hope the universe won't mind too much about it – I couldn't care any less about the bloody rules."

"Nice try, Sandshoes," said the Eleventh Doctor, "but the fact that you're being so elusive won't stop me from asking the one question that you don't want me to ask."

"And what question could that be?" asked the Tenth Doctor with disdain.

"Why did you do it?" his future self asked him angrily as could be.

"Why did I do what?"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, Sandshoes," he said, clenching his teeth.

"I've lived for nine centuries and I've done an awful lot of things, Chinny, so what on earth do you mean?"

"To her," slowly said the Eleventh Doctor, shutting his eyes. "Why did you do what you did to her?"

The Tenth Doctor had already known the real question long before it was asked, but that knowledge had not prevented his hearts from starting to beat faster the moment it was said out loud.

"How could you forget why I did that?" he almost whispered. "How could you forget that, of all things?"

"You know what, Sandshoes?" cut in the Eleventh Doctor. "It's great to be me, I love being me! But it was also great to be you. I may just have a complaint or two about those days... I particularly remember one when I felt l was in one of those cartoon films where an angel and a demon will pop out of a character's head and try to talk them into making the decision each of them wants them to make. In fact, we could've staged it at the time, as a certain humany Doctor happened to be available, but did we ask him what he thought? No we didn't! We just did things our way, like we always do, right? So now that we finally have a chance… You'll be the angel, I'll be the demon." He came to a stop, and turning to face prior him, he gritted his teeth as he went on. "Why-on-earth-did-you-do-it? And the answer better be convincing!"

And then, there was a long silence. When, eventually, the Tenth Doctor spoke, his voice was full of misery and guilt.

"You know why I did it."

"No I don't," the Eleventh Doctor promptly replied. "I may have done at the time, but this new Doctor can't understand. He needs to be told again or he won't stand a chance."

"What else could I have done?" the Tenth Doctor shouted, squinting. "Huh? Tell me, Chinny! What else was there for me to do?"

"Well, lots of things!" replied the Eleventh Doctor, his eyes opening wide.

"I would've lost her again in the end," replied the other Doctor, trying to fight the tears that were now welling in his eyes.

"But you don't know that!" the older Doctor told him, raising his voice.

"Isn't it always the same, Chinny?" the Tenth Doctor asked as he turned to a wall. He lifted his arms and let his hands rest on the cold stone as he looked down, his gaze sinking into the darkness. "Didn't we lose Martha or Donna? Did you not lose your other friends? Do you seriously believe you will never lose Clara?"

"No if I have anything to say about it," replied the Eleventh Doctor, confident as he had never been before. "And you didn't lose Rose, Sandshoes – you locked her up and threw out the key."

"Don't I know!" sobbed the Tenth Doctor.

"You must have hurt her," the Eleventh Doctor muttered.

"That's the thought that keeps running through my head every single day since then. I can only hope that, in time, she'll understand why I did it."

"I would never do to Clara what you did to her."

"Don't use regeneration as an excuse to detach your actions from mine, Chinny," said the Tenth Doctor, angrily, as he turned to him. "Deep down inside, you and I… we're no different."

"Maybe not," said the Eleventh Doctor, "but at least I hope I won't repeat the mistakes of my past."

And then, they continued their exploration of that tunnel in the deadliest silence.