Hannah

Not long after, the Doctor shooed everyone out of the TARDIS infirmary, to let Wilf rest. "He'll be fine. I'll stay and watch over him for a while," he added. Leaving the door open so the light shone in from the hall, he dimmed the ceiling lights inside the room and pulled out a chair to sit next to the old man's bed. Wilf had already slipped under the edge of peaceful slumber.

As he sat down, though, he happened to glance around the room, and discovered Hannah still standing in the far corner, gazing solemnly at the patient. He watched her for several minutes, but her gaze never shifted to meet his eyes.

Finally, sighing, he got up again and stepped quietly over to her side. "Madame?" he queried softly.

At last, she tore her eyes away and looked directly at him, and he caught his breath, realizing the imperious haughtiness that had resided inside them for so long was absent.

"Why do you care?" she asked simply.

He blinked. "About humans, you mean? Or about these humans in particular?"

"Both. Either."

He thought for a moment, and chose to answer the general concept first. Her eyes showed earnest confusion, for once, and deserved a straight answer. "Because they're people; amazing, wonderful, brilliant, vibrant people. Who aren't afraid to go out there and live. They live such short lives, but they pack so much living into them! And they can accomplish such fantastic, amazing things!" He switched tracks suddenly, startling her with a question. "Do you remember the Year of the Picnic?"

It was Hannah's turn to blink. "Yes. I remember it."

"Why? You didn't go on the picnic. It wasn't any big civic gathering. It was just an ordinary meal out of doors, by one single, ordinary family – all of five people, if I remember correctly. Absolutely nothing unusual happened. Just a plain, boring picnic lunch, the kind that happens gazillions of times every day, everywhere in the galaxy. And yet... our entire race called that entire year the Year of the Picnic for decades. Why? Because it was the only thing that happened that year, for anyone. Because the Time Lords had fallen into such stagnant decay that they were utterly unable to take any action, no matter how trivial."

He shook his head. "I can't live like that. I never could. I had to go out and live, every day, just like these humans do. And I've never regretted it." He sighed. "Mother, you know I parted philosophical company with the Time Lord Council centuries ago, and I paid the price; put on trial, banished from their society for an entire century. And where did they banish me to? Here on Earth! Not exactly their most brilliant solution."

"You speak as if you don't miss Gallifrey at all." There was accusation in her voice, but it lacked the heat that had fired it for so long.

He shook his head. "You know that's not true. I miss it every second of every day. But in truth, the Gallifrey I miss was lost a very long time ago, long before the last Time War. If indeed it ever really existed in my lifetime. Tell me the truth, Mother. I know you witnessed that stagnation yourself; I remember hearing you decry it, both publicly and privately. Is it really the Gallifrey of those final centuries that you mourn for so ceaselessly? The slide into never-ending war, and all the horrors it brought? The refusal before then to engage with the universe at large, for fear of 'interfering'? The breathtakingly sociopathic arrogance that led not only to Rassilon planning to wipe out the rest of creation in favor of his select few, himself included, of course, but also to the entire rest of the Council (save yourself) going along with it, damning the universe to oblivion? Do you really miss all that?

"Or is it Ancient Gallifrey you miss, whose people – our ancestors – strode among the starlanes and timelines like heroes, who weren't afraid to do, to see, to make, to care? The people Mike wrote about in his book? Is that why you disapproved his writing it – because you couldn't bear the reminder of what we Gallifreyans had lost along the way?"

Her eyes dropped, and after a long, pregnant pause, he saw she wasn't yet able to answer him truthfully. So he retreated to his previous point, and swept his arm wide. "These people, these humans, are like the Ancient Gallifreyans. Oh, they have petty faults galore, but at their best, they are so very, very good. Even at their worst, they're full of action. And so very often, all it takes to change them from their worst to their best is simply having somebody care. I've seen it, done it, so many times I can't count them all, and every single time, they amaze me with their brilliant inner light." Again, he paused to let the point sink in, and again, she didn't reply. But he saw that she was listening, truly hearing him, for the first time in... well, maybe in his entire life.

He switched gears again. "But why do I care about these particular people here? Because they're my family. Built and expanded one by one, by marriage and birth and genuine caring and concern. And love and respect." Things with which you seem amazingly unfamiliar, he didn't add aloud.

"That's what River said," she murmured, still looking away from him towards the man on the bed. "She said she was meeting your family for the first time, and it opened her eyes to the real you, that she'd never seen before."

The Doctor inhaled deeply, startled. He realized suddenly that's what he'd been seeing from both Rose and River: the acceptance of each other as reflections of the very different parts of himself, and of his life, present and future. Rose had known from the very beginning that she only had him for a short time, compared to the rest of his life, and was showing anew her love for him by accepting this manifestation of that obvious fact so calmly. He smiled to himself, a little wistfully. Not that she isn't going to fight tooth and nail for every minute she can get, though. And as he thought it, something deep inside him relaxed, and he realized he was going to be able to accept River now when she did come (back) into his life, because of the respectful way his two women had dealt with each other during this holiday. And so, apparently, would she. Now I'll just have to keep track of where she is in her timeline, pre- or post-Summerville. He sent a mental thank you to his future self through the aether, realizing even as he did so that he was setting up the very Time Echo that would send River and Jenny back in time.

He looked back at Hannah, seeing she'd at last raised her eyes again and was searching his face as if reading his thoughts. (He was glad she couldn't without physical contact.) Still, she said nothing. Finally, she simply nodded, and walked past him out the door into the hallway.

And that's when he saw Davey.

The boy had also stayed behind, standing behind the open door where the Doctor hadn't seen him from Wilf's bedside. He'd obviously heard every word, and it had impacted him deeply; his eyes were deep black pools of emotion. The Doctor walked slowly over to him, stopping a pace away, and simply waited, helplessly, his love and anguish written on his face, waiting for his son to make the first move.

And he did so, launching himself across the gap between them and into his father's welcome, loving arms, and they held on tightly, wordlessly drinking in each other's love and respect.

Until they heard Mike scream out the Doctor's name.