The Time of Change

Then Stay

After a few minutes, a huge black object looms up in front of us and catches my attention. It is silhouetted against the dim night sky as the clouds migrate away, their destructive deeds done for now. He's brought me to the water tower. My heart swells in a very uncomfortable fashion, the feeling warm and bubbly while also accompanied by a sharp sting of uncertainty. Somewhere in my head I'm marveling at how he remembered that this used to be my favorite place to go.

He carefully maneuvers the car into the grass beneath the tower and turns the car off. Without a word he climbs out, crosses to the other side and opens my door for me. I step out, blushing in the practically nonexistent light, and follow him to the old metal ladder. We begin to ascend with him leading and me following up the rungs. I grab his extended hand when I reach the platform, and once he pulls me up, we immediately plop down on the edge. Subconsciously I reach my left hand up and grip that same bar above my head.

After a few silent minutes of staring out at the dark, quiet city, I say lowly, "I haven't been here since... Wow, I think the last time I was here was the day you came back. Is that sad? That's sad." He glances at me over his left shoulder, the corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement. "No, it's not sad," he chuckles.

Another beat of silence chases his reply, though this one is considerably weightier than the others. There could be many poetic, witty ways to break it, but instead I choose to blurt clumsily, "Where've you been, Doctor? I-I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't ask, but I just - " I pause, looking down at my right hand in my lap. I rub my thumb over the other fingers to keep them warm in the damp night air. My sigh mists in front of my face as it leaves my lungs. Just as a tremor passes through me, another hand is suddenly on mine, intertwining its fingers with my own. I lift my eyes to meet his and notice that while everything around us is dark, his greens seem remarkably, inexplicably bright.

"I've been to a lot of places," he tells me. "Too many to count. Other worlds, other galaxies, most of which I've already forgotten. But I can tell you that I was in England in 1896." Raising my eyebrows, I nod interestedly. "I met this woman who worked in a tavern. She came running after me because I didn't pay, and ended up... She died the next day."

I shiver, this time not from the cold. His gaze is focused on the woven metal under our bodies, introspective and thoughtful. "What happened?" I inquire, half not wanting to know. He sighs and gives me a weak, tight smile. "She saved me. Pushed me out of the way of a Cyberman. You'll probably meet those at some point," he adds, inclining his head my way. "But that particular stop... That is what I remember most from being away. It wasn't that long ago, actually."

I scrunch up my nose. "It was a hundred and seven years ago."

He laughs loudly, and it's a free sound that echoes in the stillness and seems to shake the remnants of dead limbs from the hibernating trees. I watch him with a small smile on my own lips and shift myself so that I can rest my head on his shoulder. As I do so, I notice that my head fits perfectly into the side of his neck. I feel the gentle vibrations of his chuckling. The sensation is quite comforting. He leans his cheek onto my hair, his thumb tenderly stroking the back of the hand he still holds.

Brushing the wet hair out from behind my glasses and out of my eyes, I quietly quip, "I've missed this." I don't know exactly what I mean. I have missed many things about him, from the way our personalities seem to be two parts of the same whole to simply him being present and beside me. Perhaps I should have been clearer. I worry for a moment that he won't understand the meaning behind what I said.

It's a brief moment, though, because two seconds after I speak, he replies, "I've missed you."

I raise my head a little bit and find my nose brushing his jaw. He peers down into my eyes. We're very close, uncomfortably so if he had been anyone else. As I blink up at him, I see a flash of age-old anguish in his irises. It makes them a darker shade of green, one that has me wondering if I even truly know who this man is. My heart nearly breaks at the sight of such pain, even though it's simultaneously quivering with avidity and swelling with a feeling I cannot place. And still yet I get the strangest feeling that he's searching me for something. Just as I think this, he gives my fingers a soft squeeze, reassuring me that all is right in the world because he has returned.

I let my head fall back on his shoulder. "Then stay," I whisper.

I feel him press his cheek more securely into the top of my head.

The world around us is being washed away by the rainwater. This tiny town's lights and people and silent streets ready themselves for a holiday of gifts, presents, love. It's as if neither past nor future exist at this junction. There is only right now. There is only this instant. I'd live forever right here if I could only stop time's merciless ticking.

A small eternity passes, but it feels like nothing. I don't know if it's still late night or early morning. I don't know what day it is. My body melts into his, and not long after the loud half-moon appears in the sky, surrounded by adoring stars, I catch my eyelids drooping. Within mere moments, I'm enfolded by nothingness.