Until We Burn | Dr Who

Chapter One Hundred and Five: Planet of the Dead

Stepping back from the engine, I stretch out my different aches and pains. "And that, I think, is all the sand gone."

"Get in!" Barclay yells, giving me a high five.

"All right, everyone. We've got the engine sorted," I announce, earning a round of exhausted cheers from everyone sheltering in the bus. "Now, Angela, I need you back behind the wheel. Boys, help me check the duckboards. We're gonna give it another try."

Once the boards are all arranged, lined up before the wormhole, Angela tries to turn on the engine. It wheezes and putters into silence again. Seeing the others' disappointment, I jump to discourage any doubts. "Was never going to work on the first try but I'm certain it lasted longer that time. Try again, yeah? Everyone start praying — doesn't matter which god — and keep everything crossed. We'll get out."

I retreat to the bus, soothed the second the shade hits me. Letting my eyes closed, I stretch again, rubbing my neck as I loll my head from one side to the other. My whole body aches and my mind is foggy from the heat. We won't last much longer out here before heatstroke starts to take its toll.

"Closer and closer. They're coming."

Frowning, I look to the back of the bus where Carmen and Lou sit. She rocks slightly, her eyes fixed on something beyond the window, wide and terrified. He does his best to comfort her. When he sees me coming, he forces a smile. "How long?"

I try to reciprocate, sitting backwards on the seat in front of them. "Not sure. We've got the engine cleared of sand, so hopefully not long. I'll check in with the Doctor soon and see how he's getting on."

At that, his smile grows wider. He pats my hand and chuckles, "I know that look. How long have you been married?"

"I think it's... Gods, it's a month exactly. Way to spend an anniversary, right? What about you two?"

He secures his arm around her and, even in her fear, she warms to him. "Nearly thirty years," he says. "We were so young when we met, like you."

"Oh, trust me, we're definitely not young."

"But you are. Time flies when you are in young. Before you know it, you have wrinkles, you ache in the morning, a life of adventure and exploring turns to taxes and grocery shopping and laundry. That is what marriage is — knowing you won't be alone in the little things. And I am the luckiest man in the world because I get to do all of that with her."

I think of the Doctor and I living like that. In honesty, it is a recurring dream for me. We have our own version of domesticity aboard the Tardis that I adore, but the thought of those little things calls to me more and more with each passing day. There is one thing that I know without a doubt. He is my person. He's my Carmen, the one I want to get old with, the one who will be beside me when I wake with pain, or find new wrinkles and grey hairs.

Aging used to be something I feared but now I long for it. The one problem is that, when I picture myself getting older, I can't imagine the same of him. I fear it. That when I'm too frail to walk on my own, when I'm grey and tired, he will be exactly the same as he is now. And when I'm dead, he'll just keep going. I'll become another memory, like his last wife, his children, his grandchildren, his friends. Names to pass by in a graveyard. Never forgotten, just another cause of his never-ending grief.

Loving him will be a cruelty one day, but not today.

"They are coming. Closer, closer."

At Carmen's mutterings, my attention falls to her again. I take her hand in mine. The sudden touch brings her attention to me, her panicked eyes boring into mine. "Who's coming, Carmen?" I gently ask. "What do you see?"