"You really want to know?"
"Mel, I was always thinking about you. I could never mention you to anybody else because I knew that you would be long gone. I thought you perished with the planet." the Doctor said, smile fading away as he thought back to the Time War. The dreaded and horrible Time War.
"I was shot. I wasn't looking behind me and they shot me. I went into the TARDIS and transported myself to Earth so I could regenerate. Ended up brunette, fancy that." Mel explained, "But in order to do that I had to let the TARDIS charge on a sealed scar from a rift in time. Took about 50 years, but I did some travelling around the Earth. Easy to get around with a psychic paper and a sonic probe. Well, ever since the pilot fish destroyed it. Little buggers.
"Anyway, so I was able to travel around the Earth until I saw Rose and her friend. Ricky? Mickey? Something like that. But I heard them mention a TARDIS. At first I didn't believe them, but I followed them. All of a sudden they started shooting at them, so I took them and ran to her place. That's when I saw you. You were still in the process of regeneration, so I explained to them what's happening. Saved them from a robot tree.
"Then I left. I left because I couldn't bear to see you so vulnerable. Plus I knew I would see you in the future. Plus my TARDIS was ready. It was perfect timing in my opinion. I saw the Sycorax ship in the sky and decided that I wanted to check it out. I saw you come out of your own TARDIS, which nice retro look by the way, and I figured out the blood control. You didn't recognize me at first. It must've been the regeneration brain.
"I saw you fight too, which makes me ask you. Where did you learn to do that? Might I say it could use some work." Mel explained.
The Doctor stared at her in awe. He loved it when she told stories and rambled. It was very soothing to hear her voice again, even if it wasn't the same voice. He still liked her.
"Excuse me?" Mel said.
"Did I just say that out loud?"
"No, but it's kinda funny how your face scrunches up after every time I ramble."
They both laughed and sipped their drinks.
"I think it's hilarious how we've only met after fifty years of you being on Earth, I mean I've been roaming all over the Earth for the past couple centuries." the Doctor said.
"I've been keeping it on the low. Defeating a couple species in the United States. I like it there. Very, shooty. And aloof. Reminds me of home in a crude and rude way." Mel said. "Education system is bogus though, I had to substitute teach this science class one day in the high school and they looked at me like I had three heads and twelve eyes!"
The Doctor laughed, "Yeah, I've never taught in a school before. Maybe I will someday, just for a laugh."
"Well, I'll tell you right away that some of the teachers don't even know what they're talking about! This one teacher claimed that there was no such thing as aliens, and of course I had to hold myself back. Because Americans can be so cheeky, and I don't want to end up on an experimenter's table."
"No, I suppose not. It's not the greatest feeling in the world." the Doctor said, thinking back to the past regeneration where humans operated on him but he ended up regenerating because the surgery went terribly wrong.
"Yeah, well I'm glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. Now I can get off this planet, maybe visit Clom again."
The Doctor looked at her, "No, that's a bad idea, I may or may not have gotten on their bad side and now they want to kill me."
"What did you ever do to them?"
"Nothing, I just looked at the princess."
Mel giggled, "Well that was a mistake, you should know the culture by now!"
"Yeah, yeah, long story short I shouldn't ever go back there again."
They both giggled and they looked at their drinks.
The Doctor looked at her with sad eyes, "Do you know what happened to Gallifrey?"
"No, I've been trying to search for it for years. Time travel, I've been searching it for years after my TARDIS was finished charging. Then I came back in time for supper, or in your case, the Sycorax. But no, I can't find it anywhere. It's like it was wiped from the star maps, but that's impossible. I was ready to go back into battle, but there was nothing to go back it. It's just, gone."
The Doctor sighed and took her hand in his, "Mel, this is going to be hard. Very hard. And I've lived with this for all of my life. But there is something I need to tell you."
"What is it?" Mel asked. "You can tell me anything, you know that. And I'm going to be completely honest, if you tell me that Gallifrey blew up along with the TARDIS I wouldn't be surprised. I knew all along. I was there, right outside the perimeter. I watched it burn."
"Well, that's exactly what happened. It blew up in flames. Time Lords and Daleks alike. Gone."
Mel looked down at her cup, "I knew it. All this time I knew it but I never wanted to admit it. I lived my life like there was nothing to live for because I knew that it was gone. I knew that I could never go home."
Tears ran down her cheeks, "All this time, I knew that I could never see my friends, or my home, or the mountains, or the two suns. I could never see you again. I prepared myself, and I could almost believe it. But I hoped, foolishly hoped, that it wasn't gone."
The Doctor got out of his side of the booth and went to her side, embracing her. She accepted the embrace and started crying in his shoulder. He felt absolutely horrible about telling her that, but she needed to know. She couldn't go back to search for her home when there is nothing left to see. Even if it was in a pocket universe her TARDIS would never survive the journey. She would be fighting the war, for eternity.
Weeping.
She hadn't been truly sad for a long time.
And there she was, crying in her best friend's shoulder.
The home she once knew was gone.
The Doctor let go and wiped a tear from her eye, "But we have each other. We may have lost the mountains and the sky, but we still have each other."
Mel sniffled, "You're right."
The Doctor smiled again, "There we go, keep yourself in happy spirits."
Mel couldn't help but smile at his disposition, "Happy spirits. I hate alcohol."
"Me too!" the Doctor laughed. "And pears. Pears are just absolutely nasty."
"That's also true. I'd personally rather have apples, especially honey crisp. Go to Minnesota in the United States, they have the best apples during the fall! Oh, the apple picking is absolutely amazing."
The Doctor looked at her with his brown eyes, "I suppose, I've never really tried apples. I've always stayed away from fruit. But bananas are good."
"Good source of potassium." Mel said, and they both laughed.
"See! There's the Mel I knew in the academy!"
"You're right. We still have each other."
They finished their drinks and they threw away their cups. They walked around the small town, admiring all the cute little shops and the beautiful fall leaves. They walked in a small local park where some of the children of the town were playing on the small rickety playground, screaming and playing tag. The Doctor and Mel were looking around, admiring the beauty of the Earth.
Because even if you lost everything, home is where the heart is. Or hearts.
The Doctor decided to make the first move, and intertwined his hands with hers, and their fingers interlocked.
They kept walking down the path, when the hairs on the back of Mel's neck stood up.
Mel looked behind them, and froze.
"Doctor..."
He looked behind him as well.
"Doctor, don't blink."
"I wasn't planning on it. Is there any more?"
Mel kept staring at it, "I don't know, but keep your eyes on that one, I'm going to look for any more if there is any."
Mel turned her head just in time to see another one only one foot away from her. Teeth bared.
"It's only these two, Doctor. But we are Time Lords, and they know that. If they feast on our time energy they could live forever. We have to get out of here." Mel said.
The Doctor grimaced, "I hate weeping angels."