You were eight years old when you were visited by an angel.

After the Doctor left you the first time, you stained your hands blue with crayon and marker, pasting the walls with pictures of that mysterious, gigantic blue box. Every night you sat on the edge of your bed, pulling back the curtains and looking to your front yard below, waiting for that machine to appear somewhere in the grass.

And that didn't change – not even when you grew up.  

~

"What are you looking for out there?"

You stepped back from your living room window, letting the curtain cover the view of your apartment complex parking lot. You felt a familiar weight settle in your gut as you accepted, for the thousandth time, that there was no blue box waiting for you outside that window.

Darren was waiting for you on the couch, cradling a bowl of popcorn he had made while you stood at the window. "You know," he said, a mouth full of popcorn, "I find it more than a little insulting that you think a concrete parking lot is more visually stimulating than yours truly."

You rolled your eyes and sat down, grabbing a fistful of popcorn from the bowl. "I invited you over here to watch a movie. That implies that I don't want to be looking at you, doesn't it?"

Darren smirked, the freckles on his cheeks wrinkling. "That hurts, Terra. It really does."

You leaned your head against his shoulder as he un-paused whatever pay-per-view movie you had both decided to watch. "You're the one who's leaving for New York, of all places. Insulting you is the only way I'll get through this."

Darren's arm slid behind you on the couch. He leaned his chin on the top of your head so that when he spoke, you felt it reverberate through your skull. "You could come with me."

It wasn't that you hadn't thought about it before. You and Darren had been dating since senior year of college – it was now just coming up on your year anniversary, and maybe, leaving your college town together for bigger adventures would make sense. It made a lot of sense, when you thought about it objectively. What was there for you here?

There was the Doctor. You had stayed in one place for so long – you had gone to college in your hometown so that he wouldn't lose track of you. So you remained where he could find you, content to find adventure inside a blue box instead of outside your town lines.

There was no way Darren would understand. There was no way anyone would understand – no one you had told had ever believed you.

You shifted against him and tried to focus on the opening credits on the screen. "I have a life here," you lied.

You'd had this conversation at least a dozen times. But Darren exhaled and said the same thing he always did: "You could make a life somewhere else. That's what people do, they move on to new places and adapt."

"You know I'm not good at adapting," you said, but you tried to keep your voice light. Tried to circumvent an argument. "I almost had a heart attack when they changed the wallpaper in this building's lobby."

He laughed, but you wouldn't have recognized it as one if you hadn't felt his sharp exhale of breath through his t-shirt. It was quiet, and disguising something else. He pulled you tighter. "I'm going to miss you," he said quietly, into your hair.

You lifted your head so you could look at him. "I'll always be right here," you said.

~

"You're gonna be okay, right?"

Darren was still hugging you, curbside, at the airport. You smiled and shook your head. "You're the one I'm worried about being okay," you said. "New city, new job, new apartment? It's a lot to handle."

"And you better be on a plane to visit the second I get settled," Darren said, pulling slightly away so he could look down at you. He reached down and moved your bangs behind your ears so he could see your eyes more clearly, like he always did. "Don't get into serious trouble, okay?"

"I make no promises." After investigating so many possible alien attacks and strange activity, you had a file two inches thick of misdemeanors and breaking and entering charges. Everyone just thought you were an adrenaline junkie, and they weren't wrong.

"Listen, if I get a call from the station that I have to send you bail money, we're over," Darren said, feigning seriousness.

"Reasonable, I guess. Will you still pay my bail?"

Darren squeezed your hands tightly as he pulled away from you. "I make no promises."

He tilted your face to his and kissed you gently on the lips. There was a finality in the kiss that you weren't expecting, in the way that he kept his hands firmly in yours and didn't pull you closer. The kiss was quick, over before you had even had time to close your eyes. You felt breathless when he pulled away, but not because the kiss had swept you off your feet.

"I love you," you said, inhaling deeply. You said it as a reflex; you weren't sure Darren would have initiated it if you hadn't.

He nodded, stepping away. "I love you too," he said.

You stood on the curb until you could no longer see him walking through security through the glass doors. Even then, it took you unreasonably long to get the courage to get back in the cab. The driver reminded you, gently, that the meter was still running.

"Right. Yeah." You climbed in the back, still feeling the faint whisper of Darren's lips on yours, and how you had to keep reminding yourself of how it had felt.

~

"Terra? Are you okay?"

You almost hung up when you heard Darren's voice answer on the other side of the phone. You were clutching a pillow to your chest, clawing into it with your nails. "No, I don't think I am," you admitted. "I – Darren, I need you to come home."

"What? What's wrong?"

You couldn't find the words to say that your last surviving family member – your last blood relative, at least – had died. Your aunt, your last connection to your dad and anyone else from your family. In a car wreck, of all random, painful ways. "My aunt," is all you managed to choke out. You knew he would understand what you were trying to say. "Please. Darren, how fast can you get here?"

You could hear rustling on the other end of the phone. "I'll be there as soon as I possibly can."

~

Darren still had a key to your place. That brought you a small sense of comfort – like you still had a connection to someone, at least. Like you weren't alone. After your dad had died your stepmother had drifted away, moved on. Your aunt had been the only person in your life who gave a damn. Darren let himself in and found you on the couch. You hadn't moved since you'd called him. You were numb, waiting for some crushing wave of grief or denial to settle in over you. You could feel it, just beyond your consciousness, but it wasn't hitting you yet. You were in stasis, unable to feel anything at all, except dread. As if you were waiting for your aunt to die, over and over again.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," Darren was saying as he knelt next to the couch, pulling your hair back from your face. It was dark in your apartment, but you could make out the concern.

You didn't know why, suddenly, you felt bitter instead of comforted.

You sat up slowly, blood rushing to your head. How had it come to this? How had you gone from having adventures in other dimensions and worlds, to staying in your same town with your same boyfriend and losing everything?

You needed more than Darren. You needed the Doctor.

"I have to tell you something," you said quietly. "I have a secret."

Concern passed over Darren's face, hard as he tried to remain stoic. "Okay," he said.

You took a deep breath. "When I was eight, when my dad remarried, a man came to visit me," you said. "He called himself the Doctor."

  You didn't look at Darren as you explained everything – from that first trip in the TARDIS to the time you almost died at the hands of the Weeping Angels, to the very last time you had seen the Doctor, on campus helping you solve mysteries just a few years before.

Darren's face never changed. When you finished, you watched his mouth open and close a few times, trying to find the words.

"Terra," he said, and he grabbed your hand. "You're upset. It's understandable. I don't know where this is coming from but it's okay, and I'm here for you –"

You pulled your hand quickly from his and stood, backing up a few feet. "You don't believe me."

"It's not that I don't believe you, just..." Darren got to his feet, too, using the coffee table for support. "Terra, listen to yourself. Time traveling, spaceships, aliens? It's...it's not logical."

"This isn't about what's logical," you said desperately. "This is about needing the Doctor, right now. He was always there when I needed him. When my parents divorced, when my Dad died, when I thought I was alone – he'll be here, he always is, always –"

Darren kept his arms folded, gripping his forearms with his nails. "An imaginary friend. You're describing an imaginary friend."

He didn't understand. "No," you said, and your cheeks grew warm. He was looking at you like he had never looked at you before – trepidation, narrowed eyes, mistrust, and...judgment. "He was more than that. He is more than that. He'll be here. He always is."

Darren was backing away, his eyes wide. "And, what, all this time and you've never mentioned anything about this supposed alien in your life?"

You were shaking. Every single part of your body was shaking, from your hands to your legs. "I wanted to. Obviously I wanted to," you said. "What do you think all of those breaking and entering charges were from?"

"From being with some Doctor?" Darren exclaimed, incredulous. "You're dreaming. All the time, waiting for some – some fairytale to come and save you. That's not living, Terra."

You tried to keep your lip from quivering. Tried to keep your face strong and stoic, like you used to when the therapists would say you were living in an imaginary world. But this was different. Darren – to hear him say it – was a whole new world of pain.

"Don't try to tell me what living is," you said. "Doctor or no Doctor, you don't get to tell me that. If you don't believe me, I won't make you stay."

Darren was opening his mouth to say something – maybe an apology, maybe a retort – but you didn't give him time to take a breath. You stormed over to your front door, opened it, and held it open for him. Slowly, he followed you, keeping his eyes averted.

He paused in the doorway. And you almost said something. Because suddenly, closing that door meant closing the door on the last person in your life who cared about you, who you could call when you were upset.

Closing that door meant being completely and utterly alone.

You couldn't get his look of horror out of your mind. His judgment and his disbelief. No matter what, you couldn't shake the embarrassment and the shame.

So you shut the door, and you let it slam.

~

  You sat on the living room floor with the shoebox you had kept since the very first day you had met the Doctor. Inside the small box were pictures upon pictures of the TARDIS, the doctor, and the adventures you had gone on - all of the worlds and planets, solar systems away. You picked them up, one by one, your hands shaking.

You surrounded yourself in a sea of blue police boxes and alien worlds. It was real. It had to be real. Your memories were so strong and vivid. You could practically hear the Doctor's voice in your ear, his vibrant "Geronimo!" and his lightning fast accent. His excitable demeanor and his comforting words.

The Doctor. Your Doctor.

The pictures you had drawn were blurring before you as you fought against tears. Everything was falling apart, again, like it always seemed to in your life. Your only family, gone. The boy you loved, gone and ashamed of you. He had looked at you like you were crazy.

The Doctor was the only one who had ever understood.

He was who you needed right now, more than anything. You needed someone who would take you by the hand, tell you everything was alright, and lead you on a chaotic, exhilarating adventure. The Doctor was the only family you had left, now.

Maybe you could find him.  

You stood so quickly that the pictures scattered, taking to the air and floating down leisurely. But your mind was racing.

You knew exactly where to look in the police logs. You knew key words that signified aliens: mysterious disappearances, strange lights, strange sounds. And when you found those key phrases online, you knew you had to go investigate.

And, if you were lucky and if you were right, the Doctor wouldn't be too far behind.

~

The woods were thick and dark, so that even with a flashlight, you could barely see a few feet in front of you. The police log had given very vague descriptions of the site where people had gone missing and come back claiming to have seen strange lights and figures; you were wandering. It was freezing, and you couldn't shake the feeling of dread that had taken over your mind like a fog.

Focus. You had to focus. You had a job to do – a job the Doctor would want you to do.

It was hard to focus, though, with your phone ringing.

You answered without looking at the caller ID, because you knew who it was. "What?" you whispered, quietly.

"Terra, we shouldn't leave things the way we did," Darren was saying, and his voice sounded hazy, like he was talking through water. Terra stopped walking so that she wouldn't interfere with the service anymore. "We should talk through this."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"I'm sorry I freaked out. But you have to understand, I –"

"I understand it's hard to believe," you said tightly. You saw a light up ahead, moving closer. You took a few steps forward, cautiously, lowering your voice. "But if you're expecting me to take everything back and claim it was the grief talking, then you should just go back to New York, Darren."

"I'm not expecting anything!"

"Well then why are you calling?" You exclaimed, your voice loud, too loud. "Darren, I can't –"

Your voice was drowned out by a shout, and then a gunshot.

The heat in your abdomen was fierce, and fiery, and it burst through you like acid. You tried to stay upright. You tried to say something to Darren. But all that came out of your mouth was a strangled, animalistic scream of pain as you fell to the forest floor.

You could hear Darren's panic from your phone, lying just out of reach.

You couldn't breathe. Everything was pain.

You were dying.

That's all you knew, that's all you felt, that's all you could see – death. Your heart was slowing, it was thumping pathetically in your broken chest. Your tears fell down your cheeks and they felt like fire, ripping apart your skin. Your hand reached out, but there was no one there.

Except, there was.

There was the Doctor, and the whirring of the TARDIS as it materialized before you.

~

It hadn't taken Darren long to figure out where Terra had gone, after a frantic look through her search history and a panicked call to the police. But he was too late.

When he got there, there was a man kneeling over her body, and a blue police box in the distance. His heart was beating faster and faster as he approached them, unable to breathe as he stared at the man – the man, exactly as Terra had described.

And then at Terra, covered in blood. Her eyes, wide open, unblinking.

 "You're real," Darren breathed.

The Doctor, his eyes watering, turned back and looked up at him. He even had that bowtie that Terra had kept mentioning. He held her hand with the tenderness of a father. "And you're Darren," he said. "She always talked about you."

It hit Darren, hard, in the gut. She had talked about him to the Doctor, but had never trusted him enough to tell him about the Doctor?

Of course she hadn't. Look how he had reacted. And look what had happened because of it.

"God, Terra," he whispered, and he sank to the ground next to her. "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry –"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, stop that. It's not your fault."

Darren lifted his head to look at the man before him. "Then whose is it?" he hissed, bitterness filling him and easing the pain of grief, for a moment. "Is it yours?"

The Doctor looked back at the stupid police box, his throat tightening. "I don't know."

"Why couldn't you save her?" Darren exclaimed. "If you're really a time traveller, go back in time and stop this!"

"I can't. I know it's hard to understand, but there are fixed points in time –"

"What kind of an excuse is that? You got her into this! You brought her on adventures and got her in trouble and made her do everything, and look what happened! Look what you did!"

The Doctor's face remained expressionless. "I did what I thought she needed me to do."

"How?" Darren said. "How, how could she need this?"

The Doctor looked down at Terra for a moment, and then back up at him. "I'll show you," he whispered, and then he pressed a finger to Darren's temple.

The memories came flooding in.

Terra, sitting alone at her mother's funeral.

Terra, alone in her room in her stepmother's house.

Terra, alone at school.

Terra, alone in the hospital. Terra, alone at her father's funeral. Terra, alone in college, alone at work, alone alone alone –

Darren blinked and stared down at Terra, fighting tears. Fighting the urge to scream and throw the Doctor across the forest floor. Terra always talked about how she'd grown up alone, how she felt isolated, but he had never known to what extent. "Why would you show me that?" he asked.

The Doctor smiled sadly, his eyes heavy with age. "So I could show you this."

Terra, running with the Doctor. Terra, laughing as she stepped into the TARDIS. Terra, hugging the Doctor like she would never let go.

 Terra, meeting Darren. Terra, right after their first date, closing the door and smiling. Terra, saying I love you for the first time. Terra, calling Darren when she felt alone.

The Doctor pulled away, grabbing hold of Terra's hand again, tightly. "She needed you as much as she needed me."

Darren moved Terra's hair behind her ears so that he could see her, really see her. He needed her just as much as she needed him, and now she was gone.

"You're not alone, either, Darren."

"You sure about that?" He looked up at the Doctor, who was now standing. He held out a hand to Darren, which Darren took, balancing on his shaking legs.

The Doctor snapped his fingers. Behind him, the doors to the police box opened, revealing a world of light and whirring sound. "Do you want to come with me?" he asked. "I could show you what Terra would have wanted you to see."

Darren lifted Terra up, cradling her body tightly to his. "Take me everywhere you took her," he said. "I want to see everything she saw."

As Darren followed the Doctor through the doors of the TARDIS, Darren leaned his forehead close to Terra's. "You're okay," he lied, to himself. "You're going on an adventure."