-REMEMBER ME-

CHAPTER TWO

The Very Beginning

Eighty-two years after our childhood, we sit in the grand hall for graduation. As they call out your name, your beautiful name, and you become an honorary Time Lord (by the skin of your teeth, I might add. If there's an opposite of Valedictorian, you're it). I clap so hard for you and I cry, I cry for my lost childhood friend who ran away who I'm so very proud of.

And as I graduate, and become a full Time Lady, your eyes meet mine, and there's not even a flash of recognition. You half-heartedly clap, bored with the long Time Lord ceremonies, impatient to get out of there. You don't remember me. You never remember me.

And you just had to do something stupid.

Post-graduation parties and everything, I get it. I was at one too, but not like what you did.

But why? Why did you have to run off with your friends to the Medusa Cascade? Were you drunk? High on the plants that grow in the caves in the mountains of Solace? Just high on life? Why? Why did you have to do something so stupid?

And you come back, and you're the talk of the graduated class. Nobody knows exactly what happened, how you did it. None of you ever talk about it, but you're all heroes. You've done something so incredibly heroic and so incredibly stupid. You've single-handedly sealed the rift at the Medusa Cascade, and you're the hero you've always wanted to be.

The Doctor, they call you now. The Master, they call him. The Rani, they call her. The Corsair, they call him. You and your friends. You chose your new names, and you chose them well. The promises you make.

Your real names are lost, and your fates are sealed.

You're the Doctor, just like you've always wanted to be.

I miss you more in that moment than I have since I was a little girl.

And we drift even further apart.

There's no classes anymore. Real life has begun. You go back to the Academy, and I become a governess.

My friend's family needs me, and I don't run out on the people I care about. Not like you do.

Every night I sit on the red grass, and look up at the sky. Every night, I think of you. I wonder if you are safe. If you are happy. If you are looking upon those same stars and dreaming of the day you leave Gallifrey and visit them. I wonder if you are dreaming of the day you can run away.

I wonder if you ever remember me, your childhood friend, who you promised the stars.

I wish I could go with you.

I've got a list, you see. A big book filled with 101 places I want to see. All over the universe.

The Rings of Akhaten. Appulapachia. Woman Wept. Barcelona. Siluria. The Towers of Darillium. Hedgewick's World of Wonders.

And Earth.

Oh, how I'd love to see Earth.

Take me there, Doctor. Rescue me and show me the stars.

It's only hundreds of years later that I see you again, one last time. I'm working in the shop, to repair the broken TARDISes. And there you are, you and a young girl I've never seen before.

You look at her as though you're surprised she exists. Grandfather, she calls you. But you've never been married, Doctor. You've never had a child. I would know. You would be the gossip of Gallifrey, if you had.

Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey.

She's from your future.

It's a matter of fate, of destiny, that I run into you that day. You're so old. You've aged so much. What have you been doing to yourself, Doctor, since the last time I saw you? I miss you. Please take me with you.

But you don't. You don't even recognize me when I stop you from entering the wrong TARDIS.

"Doctor," I call out to you. And your eyes meet mine for the first time in years. My hearts are thumping as they haven't for years. You don't recognize me. But I know you. And I still want to take care of you, even if you've forgotten me. I want you to go out and see the stars and have the best time of your life because I can't.

"Yes? What is it, what do you want?"

"I'm sorry. But you're about to make a very big mistake. Don't steal that one. Steal this one. The navigation system's knackered, but you'll have much more fun."

And off you go, to see the stars. And I don't even ask you if you'll take me with you. Why would you? You can't even remember me.

"Run you clever boy, and remember."

Somehow I feel as if you owe me, but I can't remember how. It's dreadfully unfair of me, and I feel horrible for feeling it, but you owe me, Doctor. I don't know how, or why. But all I ask is you remember me, and you can't even do that.

Run you clever boy, and remember me.