The Time of Change

The Doctor's Wife

There is an explosion unlike any I have ever seen. It fills the void of the universe, illuminating every shadowy crevice and secret hiding spot. The daleks are blasted into oblivion by the unbelievable gold light; nothing is left of them but smoking husks and incinerated eyestalks. All at once I find myself able to move again, and I drop to my knees, shielding my face from the flare. A full thirty seconds pass before it dims to regular daylight once more. Blinking to adjust my vision to the drastic change in lighting, I straighten, casting my gaze around in search for Annalise.

A few feet away, she is sprawled out, motionless, on the pavement. Her freckled face is toward the sky, hair fanned out around her. A few of the dark, half-curled strands obscure her face from view. On my knees I shuffle to her side, my pantlegs scraping unpleasantly against the rough concrete. I reach out to touch her arm, but I hesitate as I stare hard at her throat and chest. The longer I look, the more I'm able to convince myself Im seeing a gentle rise-and-fall motion. The air itself seems to fluctuate around her, afraid to get too close.

Seconds turn into minutes, and I realize the only sound I hear is my own breathing. Swallowing hard, I brush the hair away from her face, and my fingers slip over the side of her neck. They hover over her skin for a moment before I feel brave enough to press down.

No throb.

No pulse.

Nothing.

"Hey, love," I whisper with a nervous chuckle. "You did it again. I don't know how, but you did it, just like I said you would." Still she does not stir. Subconsciously I find myself setting my jaw, my back teeth clenched together as if bracing for impact, as I shift off my knees and into a sitting position. "You need to wake up now, love. The baby's set to come, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to be woken by birth pains."

I scoot slightly nearer, breaths escaping me unevenly as I realize that I'm terrified of touching her. My hand visibly trembling, I hold my fingers just over her mouth and wait to feel any semblance of air passing through her lips. Seconds that last millennia pass before panic envelopes my chest, and I shudder. With a burst of adrenaline that overcomes the fear I feel, I drop my head onto her chest, pressing my ear to where her heart—hearts—should be, and listen. I listen painfully, impossibly closely, but everything is utterly silent.

Including the place where I should hear the steady thump of my wife's hearts.

Her hearts, the old and the newly-awakened.

Why aren't they beating?

She's fine.

She is always fine.

She has to be fine.

I promised her.

I promised nothing would hurt her ever again.

I promised.

I lift my head off her chest and stare at her, my eyes inexplicably feeling like baseballs, like they are too large and too heavy for my face. She is no more beautiful now than she ever was purely because that would be impossible, yet it seems like I'm seeing her for the first time all over again. It's all new in a nostalgically familiar way that reminds me suspiciously of someplace on Gallifrey of which I've long forgotten the name—in a way that feels like home.

For the umpteenth time in my lives, my gaze rakes over her features, soft and kind and gentle: the tiny, adorable nose, pointed ever so slightly at the tip, that scrunches near her eyebrows whenever she laughs; the small lips that smile in such a way that it causes the soul to melt; the area directly to the left of those lips where a contagiously cheerful dimple resides; her dark brown eyebrows that always furrow in the most endearing way when she is confused or thinking or worried. But the feature for which I long the most is one I don't see. Her still eyelids cover a pair of striking, electrifying, time-stopping, perfectly clear blue eyes that can stun an entire crowd because of how they light up when she smiles or laugh. They are eyes that crinkle at the sides and almost disappear into high cheekbones when she beams at me, eyes that grow wider than humanly possible when she is nervous or embarrassed, eyes that twinkle and shine when she gets excited, eyes that meet mine and effortlessly capture my undivided attention. They are eyes that, since the dawn of time, have seen directly through every front or mask I used to protect myself—and, by extension, protect her.