Empyrean Intellect || Tenth Doctor x OC

5. Spaceman

"So..." Sky was the first to speak but the incessant urge to nibble on her lip from nerves made it difficult to say more than one word.

It was just the two of them. She, the Doctor and the TARDIS. Rose had gone to rest after a say of chaos, though the Doctor had needed to choreograph it by refusing to go anywhere until she did so. The girl hadn't wanted to leave them alone, and in part Sky hadn't wanted her too either, too afraid of what awkwardness might come from it.

How was it that two souls who were once nigh inseparable, could be so scared of once another's sole company? They could feel it in one another, the emotion flowing through their bond like a warm current in the ocean. But Sky could also sense his hope and his desperation to have time as Rose had been ushered out of the room.

"So..." He retuned her words and she smiled.

The Doctor stood a few feet away. She leant on the railing by the pilots bench while he stood by the walkway leading off into the depth of the TARDIS.

"She-Rose...she's resting?" Sky asked lamely, barely meeting his eyes and he shuffled on the spot.

"Just for a cuppa, then we'll be off." They nodded in time with one another and the silence around them grew tense. Too tense. Dangerously tense.

"What about her home? Is it far?"

"Earth." The Doctor confirmed. "2006...you missed the turn of the century." A light smirk came her way and that simple gesture was all it took to make her smile.

"Hmm...once you've seen one you've seen them all. Nothing could beat New Years Eve 3799." His head fell back as the memory came to him as well. They were all images of her laughing and singing, and awfully dancing. Her fourth regeneration, a little mad and a little silly, screaming words to a song she had carried with her for years since her first visit to Earth.

"Ah yeah!" He grinned, before his face turned sour. "All the people they could have reincarnate..."

"Hey, I like Take That!" The exclamation caught her off guard and the Doctor grinned as he heard her beginning to hum an incorrect melody to a song she thought she still knew.

The sweet humming called to him, just like that song in his mind had done since the young age of 355. Slowly, he walked to her but it felt like he was floating.

Humans. They found it so hard to find anyone, to find that someone like it was some great importance that hey had a particular smile or chin or hair colour. It had never made any sense. Because of this, because here they were with different faces and bodies and personalities and yet they were still drawn to one another like magnets. The whole of time and space and they had found another by chance. But what was chance? Could it be that it had been this calling, this magnetic pull that had made it possible, that against all odds something had finally pulled them back together like a bath on a fishing line.

Sky hadn't noticed his closeness until the Doctor's hand hall her cheek, the warmth spreading through her like an electric current. Her eyes met his and she swallowed the gasp she involuntarily went to take. The entirety of her past was in those eyes. All of it. She couldn't remember a time she hadn't known them, she couldn't believe she had forgotten them.

As a tear threatened to spill from her eye, The Doctor pulled her close and leant his forehead against Sky's.

"Where have you been?" He asked, interrupting her the moment 'Earth' was whispered through their bond. "Before..."

"That needs longer than a cup of tea." Sky whispered back hoarsely and upon reopening her eyes, she found him gazing right back at her. "A lot of ground was covered." Too much to remember even, at the moment it was all a blur of colours and events. Especially as she looked at him, focusing on his made all that was around her blur into nothingness.

He was so different but so familiar.

"I can't believe it's you." It was a good job he was close as her words barely left her lips. She could have used their bond but she needed to hear the words aloud, she needed to know she wasn't talking to herself. "Really you." Her own hand came up from her side where it had hung limp and she stroked his stubbled cheek.

The stubble was new, he had always been clean shaven.

Such a small detail. Such a stupidly small unimportant detail was all it took to push her over the edge and before the second tear could fall, the Doctor pulled her into him. He cradled her head as it dropped and pressed into his should and squeezed her almost as hard as her hands clutched at his suit.

"It's me." Theta's lips grazed her ear as he whispered those words which were everything. "It's really me." The lightest of kisses, so to not scare her away, was pressed to her temple before he lightly pulled her head back to be able to look at her. "You and me."

For such words to be so comforting yet so haunting at the same time was as painful as a paradox. They were reunited, but they were alone. No one else came with her, not like it had been before - there was no longer a long line of beaming smiling faces to be greeted after her. Just them, alone.

"You and me." There was a time those words where spoken and that was all they thought they needed. Runaways. Rebels. Children. "How..." Sky leant back only enough so she could study his face, but the tone changed as she tried to find the right words. "The last time we, I saw you...how many...what number is-"

"Tenth." He got the gist of what she meant and tried to make it easier for her. "The last generation you seen was the Eighth."

"Eighth?" She repeated, nodding.

She had spoken with the ninth during the war. He had fled the war as that eighth brilliant man and everything had still seemed hopeful. But when he had returned a warrior, ashamed and hard and broken, he had refused to see her. They had already said their goodbyes once, before he had changed and that's how they had chose to leave it. They lived with regret for that choice, both of them; until now. "Handsome man." Sky smirked at him cheekily. "Very charming....I only missed one?" The Doctor only nodded. "It could have been worse. What was he like?"

"Erm...big ears." Sky burst into giggles and it made him stop to watch her. It was a beautiful sound, and she was still so beautiful. "What about you?" Theta returned the question.

"Oh...I almost lost count." She joked because the reality of the answer hurt. "The tenth...You see I'm not much better at keeping myself out of trouble than you are."

Theta's smile dropped as she predicted it would and she couldn't bare to look at him. They may have both been on their tenth now but it had not been like that when they last saw each other amidst the war. Then, she had only been on her fifth. She had grown older in each and taken things slow back home with their family while he went out and had adventures, getting himself hurt.

That's why it was such a shock to him, it was four of her regenerations he had missed. Four. All he could thing in that moment was how he had missed knowing four precious souls because of his own stupid pride.

"How?" Now those really were some long stories; half of which she couldn't really remember. On one occasion, she had just awoken regenerated with no memory of how apart from blood stained clothes and a faint image of a Slitheen in her head.

"Stories for another time maybe?" Lelia smiled sadly. "The war was hard, I was lucky I could regenerate." That was all he needed to know, at least for now. But serious story time could come later when emotions weren't so raw,

"I'm sorry." Theta spoke before he even thought about it. "I should have be-"

"It wasn't your fault." Her smile could have stopped wars if he had his way. "Spaceman."

One word. One little word and his hearts swelled so much he lost control of his own emotions and as he cried, he laughed and tightened his hold on her so much Sky started to believe they would fuse together.

It was proof that it was her. It wasn't an imposter, it wasn't a stranger, it was her.

'My love.' Sky chuckled upon hearing the silent words. An old fashioned saying for a once old fashioned man.

All she needed now, was to stop seeing all of those she lost in those eyes.