The Curtain Closes

.~.

There is a man sitting on a bench just outside of New York city. He's hunched over himself with a yellowed piece of paper in his hand and he is sobbing. Of course this was always meant to happen, this was the inevitable end to the adventure. Did it have to be this hard? Did it have to be so final?

It has been a little over a year since Derek has gotten his Anaxagoras back. A little over a year and finally Stiles is 18. A little over a year and the burnt out remains of his house has been bulldozed and leveled. There is nothing there but an empty plot and Derek has never been happier to say goodbye to painful memories or more aware of the finality the house being gone meant. Moving on.

The alpha pack, rogue hunters and Gerard have all been dealt with and now there is only peace. Derek can be the Alpha his sister would be proud of. He could deal with Peter had whatever his schemes-though it seems that he is content in just being alive. Derek Hale's life is finally going normal as can be expected and it is all thanks to a madman in a blue box.

"Why are you here?"

"I paid my respects and decided to see you."

"Respects? Did you know them? Was it during...that time?"

"Yeah. Yeah it was."

That time. The time the Doctor couldn't be there for them, the time after they'd been sent back and had lived their lives together without him. That is what That Time meant.

"How did you know to find them?"

Derek shrugs, it is an alien feeling. Shrugging like a normal twenty four year old man without the world on his shoulders. Its a Stilesism. "Purely accidental on my part." Derek answer truthfully.

It was purely accidental. Of course it was, Derek had never thought in a million years that he would run into Rory and Amelia Williams in New York back then. "I didn't realize it until..."

Until Amy cried. Tiny little old Amy Pond with withered hands and white hair had cried once she'd realized who he was, though they'd never met before (he'd seen her, knew who she was but had never had the pleasure in being properly introduced.)

'Oh its out of sync, you see. Not yet, you wont understand.'

He doesn't say this to the Doctor doesn't want to give him hope. Because it can't happen. Stiles had explained why and Derek more than understood fixed points in time (he understood that more than he would have liked to. Yet...still...he tried to find some sort of loop hole.

After seeing them like that, Derek had all but thrown the wrist strap at Anaxagoras when he returned to the proper timeline (to be specific, Derek had just returned from 1930's New York to Stiles, who already knew this was going to happen. But later on that will be explained-maybe.)

He vowed never to mess with wrist strap by himself again. They'd never told him why they were in New York during that time, never made mention as to how long. Though Derek could tell it had been a long long while by the state of their very well lived in home.

Best not to say anything specific.

"It just happened for you, didn't it?"

"Is it that obvious?"

Derek nods and takes a seat beside the Doctor. He wants to be better at this, maybe put an arm around him maybe give a few words of encouragement, but he can't because he's Derek Hale and completely awful at this -Jackson would be better at this. Derek can't bring himself to try anything so instead, he just sits beside the Doctor on the bench, letting his warmth seep into him. Hoping that it might be enough.

"I never thanked you." Derek says. "About Stiles."

"No need." The Doctor says after a beat, he's still bent over himself only now, he's staring at the space between his feet hand still clutching the paper. "It was always supposed to happen. It was a fixed point."

"Still," Derek rolls the sleeves of his green sweater up to his elbows and turns his head up to the sky, allowing the sun to warm his face. "thank you."

"This is a very inappropriate time to thank me for getting you two together. It really is."

"It really isn't." Derek says. "If there is one thing I've learned from any of this, is that the adventure always ends. Its hard, it's just happened for you it's still fresh but at least there was a goodbye. No one died Doctor. Well, no one died young." He sighs. "They lived a long life. They had adventures, they had you and when they didn't-couldn't have you anymore they were able to move on."

"Why are you telling me this?" The Doctor asks but does not look up, does not straighten his posture. He really wants to ask how he knew to be here at all but doesn't quite know how to get it out. "Why are you here Derek?"

"Because Doctor, it was all in the coordinates." He lifts his wrist where the damned vortex manipulator is. There had been a letter left by River the day he'd returned home in 2004. Along with the screw driver there had been the letter detailing this event. Not in full but this date, this time. 'Please go to him for me,' the letter had said. How could Derek say no to his River? He'd never been able to do it before. "I hadn't wanted to be the one to use this, it makes me uneasy. But it had to be me."

"And what are you here for?"

"I don't know." Derek said honestly. "My River just said to be here, this date, this time and this place."

"Your River."

"The one that's already dead or who will die." Derek says with a uncomfortable clench in his heart. "How could I refuse a dead woman's wish especially River Song?"

"You can't."

"Exactly."

They sat in companionable silence for five minutes, neither looking at each other or speaking. The Doctor sat up and stretched while Derek tipped his head forward and yawned. Five minutes of complete and total silence between them, comforting and warm was all they were to have, apparently When the Doctor turned towards Derek to speak- he didn't know what he would say- the young man was gone.

He didn't say thank you (there was no one there to thank and, obviously, the Doctor was not going to whisper thanks to air.) The Doctor stood, tucked the paper into his pocket and walked away.

Muse: Ah...I was filled with all of the feelings. Wrote this. Next up I'm hoping for some Captain Jack meets Stiles again (in the appropriate timeline) but I'm not entirely sure how that would work out. Another ramble, sorry about that. Still trying to get a grip on these characters.