Wilfred Mott and the Stranger from Scotland

He went to the café. Where the Doctor had told him he was dying. He ordered the same drink he'd had then, on that day, when he had been the most important man alive. Or second most important at least, not that he liked to think of himself as anything of the sort, thanks to what had come next. It was his fault the Doctor had died, or his Doctor anyway. The Earth had come close to disaster many times since, with alien invasion and nasty little black murderboxes and all kinds of nonsense only the Doctor could have stopped, so Wilf knew he was out there, knew that somewhere out there, somebody was travelling through time in an old blue police box saving the world time and time again, but he wasn't Wilf's Doctor. Wilf's Doctor was dead.

And it was his fault.

He didn't dwell on it often. Mostly, the memories remained suppressed, replaced with concern for Donna's well-being and day-to-day worries and fears, but sometimes, sometimes he remembered how he had felt on that spaceship, when the Doctor had refused the gun, refused the help Wilf offered until he heard the Time Lords were coming back. Until his people threatened to destroy the universe itself. And Wilf had thought the Master was stark raving mad. Next to those lot, why, he was the sanest man alive without competition.

Thinking of that day always led him to the ending though, with the Doctor curled up in a ball inside that glass tank, body racked with radiation and pain. Those following weeks of uncertainty, that final salute, farewell, bon voyage, as the Frenchies would say. Then nothing.

Wilfred Mott went back to being an ordinary old soldier, an unblooded soldier who had never tasted the fight but still considered himself a soldier nonetheless. A man you would pass in the street, but never suspect what he had seen. Wilfred Mott had saved the Earth, by the side of the greatest man who had ever lived. And Wilfred Mott had killed that man, through no fault of his own. It was his fault. Maybe he would never forgive himself for that.

Donna knew, even though she didn't. Donna knew without knowing, without remembering.

"You seem sad, Granddad. What's wrong?" she had asked, earlier that morning and Wilf knew she could never know. It was nothing. It always would be nothing. Donna would never know how Wilf had killed her Doctor. Because Donna never knew the Doctor. It would stay that way, had to, for her own sake.

"Well hello there," a lilting Scottish voice interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to see a man, a stranger with silver hair and a little vein on the side of his head that stood out. There was a wry smile on his face. Something off. "Mind if I sit with you? I hate being in cafés on my own. May as well stay at home, you know what I mean? Mind you," he pulled a face "I don't much like being in cafés in general to be honest. Not sure why I bothered."

Something about the man made Wilf nod, let him sit down. The stranger from Scotland grinned, a mad kind of grin, and then looked away awkwardly. A couple of other patrons of the café looked at him oddly, unsurprising really. Dressed as he was, the stranger from Scotland was likely to attract attention. White shirt, black jacket, like one of those show-off magicians or something of the like. White shirt, black jacket with red lining. Not the sort of thing you wore out to town on a Saturday afternoon, was it? Either magician or what? Religious fanatic, trying to convert him? Still, what could it hurt. It wasn't as if the stranger from Scotland knew the things Wilf had seen, or he wouldn't be bothering to talk to him. No, he'd think Wilf was insane. Wilf wasn't convinced he wasn't, actually, it was all a bit...well, barmy really. That was the only word for it. Completely and utterly barmy.

"Why did you?" he asked, attempting to distract himself with conversation. Yes, that would work. A pleasant chat with a stranger from Scotland. That was all this was.

The stranger shrugged. "Sometimes you do things without having reasons. People do all the time. They walk into rooms and wonder what they did that for, then they walk back out again. Common phenomenon. And anyway," the stranger from Scotland continued. "I was feeling a bit peckish and I thought a cooked breakfast about now would be much appreciated."

Nodding, Wilf agreed with the stranger, who proceeded to order his meal accompanied by a coffee so dark 'it makes black holes look like Barbados on a sunny day'. He found himself smiling. This new companion of his had an interesting turn of phrase and did seem like a bit of an eccentric, but otherwise he was a nice enough fellow.

"Whereabouts are you from?" Wilf asked the stranger, whose only response was to look vague.

"Now that's a question. I'm from...everywhere, really." The stranger shrugged again. Seemed like a recurring theme with him. "Been there, done that. Bit of everything. Staying still...not really my strong point."

Wilf laughed and took a sip from his cup of tea, which was at the present moment growing rather cool. Adding some hot water, he looked at the stranger, whose eyebrows were furrowed with a peculiar intensity, the likes of which Wilf found impossible to describe. The stranger from Scotland looked over his shoulder, impatiently waiting for his own drink.

"Wilfred." Wilf extended a hand across the table, which the stranger stared at cautiously. "Wilfred Mott."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr Mott." the stranger replied, shaking his hand carefully.

"Just Wilf."

"Just Wilf." the mysterious man repeated. "How long does coffee take? Normally I just skip the wait, you know. Like I said, sitting still...not my strong point."

At last, the drink came, after another few minutes of the stranger's bizarre chatter. He was a funny one, to be sure, but likeable in an almost familiar way that Wilfred Mott couldn't quite place. Who did the stranger from Scotland remind him of? There was something, in the manner of speaking that went on and on, playing elaborate word games, something in the confidence with which he moved, knowing that he was unusual and not really caring what people thought of him. The stranger from Scotland drank his coffee, looking over his shoulder again for his meal. He had no concept of time. But he talked on, rattling off distracting Wilf from the fact that he had never given his name.

Anecdotes, about various trips around the world. One after the other, he rattled the off the stories. He seemed to just like having someone to talk to, and talk he did. It seemed like he would never stop. Wilf didn't mind, it was amusing. Entertaining. Something to take his mind off things. Soon he was laughing along to the stranger from Scotland's jokes, chipping in with his own.

"You have any relatives?" the stranger asked, suddenly, straight out of the blue after a particularly ribald one about monkeys which earned the both of them a dirty look from the manager. Wilf had felt almost like a naughty schoolboy. The stranger from Scotland had switched gears abruptly, going from jocular and friendly to once again enigmatic and...other. A sense of purpose entered his voice, rather than the aimlessness he had projected earlier. A chill air entered the room, and then it was gone, replaced by a smile that erased Wilf's suspicions entirely. It was just a friendly question. Nothing more.

"There's my daughter, Sylvia. And her daughter, Donna." At this, the stranger nodded. "With a great-grandchild on the way."

The stranger from Scotland's eyes lit up, as if candles at been lit inside. Another of his mad grins crossed his face, and he looked as though he desperately wanted to something but couldn't find the words. Before he could, his food arrived, and the moment was over.

"Congratulations," he managed, through a mouthful of tomato, changing tracks again, equally sudden as all his previous derailments. "You know, I've been around a bit. Tried a lot of food. But never have I come across anything that beats a cooked breakfast."

"Well, you are Scottish," Wilf laughed, shaking off the uncertain feeling he had.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," muttered the stranger, tearing into the strips of bacon ravenously, like they were the last meal of a starving man. He swallowed them down, taking another swig of his coffee. "Thank you for informing me." Sarcasm oozed from his words, like yolk from the fried egg he had now set his attention to. He made an approving noise; evidently the breakfast met his approval.

For a few minutes, there was little to say. The stranger from Scotland ate in silence, aside from the occasional complimentary comment regarding the meal. Wilf became immersed in the flow of people outside the window, watching the passers-by and wondering what their stories were. Had any of them ever, unknowingly, met the Doctor? What if one of them was the Doctor, in his new face, just passing by for a visit. Not that he was the kind of man who made visits.

"Tell your granddaughter I send my best," the stranger murmured, intercepting the stream of Wilf's thoughts for the second time that day.

Still staring out of the window, Wilf felt the air grow cold again, as it often did around this stranger from Scotland. "What did you say your name was?" he asked, turning back to – the empty seat opposite. Of course. The air had grown cold as the door had swung open, was still swinging, as the stranger from Scotland upped and vanished into the thin air from whence he came. And Wilf suspected, if not knew, that the stranger from Scotland both was and was not exactly that. He was not a stranger, and yet he was. And sure as eggs were eggs, that man was not Scottish.

Standing up, ignoring the complaints from the owner that his 'friend' hadn't paid for his meal, Wilf followed the man out of the door, looking for the dark clothing on a near empty street. He thought he saw a boot darting into an alleyway. Apprehensively, Wilf followed, walking into the darkened street.

A blue police telephone box stood in the shadows.

That voice, that unmistakably Scottish and yet – and yet no, it wasn't, couldn't be. "Hello Wilf."

Turning, eyes full of tears, Wilf looked into the face of the most familiar stranger he had ever encountered. "Doctor. It's...it's you. You're...you. Why didn't you just-"

The stranger from Scotland shrugged once more. "What do you think I'd have said? 'Oh, hello Wilf, it's me, I'm the Doctor, parked my TARDIS round the corner and everything. How's Donna doing? Still amnesiac as ever? Good. Now I'll be off, bye-bye.'"

"So what, you do this a lot, then?" Wilf tried to blink back the tear-drops welling in the corners of his eyes. "Visit your friends without telling them it's you? Just tell me, Doctor, do you ever miss her? Donna? She wouldn't recognise you, you could see her again, couldn't you?"

"I can't." the stranger from Scotland's voice caught in his throat. "I can't see her again. I miss her every day, her and all the rest, Rose, Martha, Amy and Rory, Susan, Jamie – ah, we'd have had some right old times, me and that Jamie McCrimmon, now that we're both Scottish – but I can't see them again. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," Wilf apologised, the words spilling out. After all those years unsaid, at last there he was, the Doctor, and Wilf could finally voice the words he wanted to say. "Your death was my fault."

"No," the stranger from Scotland, no, the Doctor, shook his head. "Things happen sometimes, and if you blame yourself you'll never get anywhere. It wasn't your fault. You can wallow in that or you can go home and do what you've always done – look after her. Look after Donna and make sure she knows she is the most special, most important woman on this Earth. And when your great-grandchild comes along, make sure they know just how important they are too. You'll do that for me? Promise?"

"I promise."

The Doctor smiled, not the grin of a madman he donned so often, but a sad, bittersweet smile of a man who knew loss. Saying nothing, he walked past Wilf towards his TARDIS, all the while saying goodbye without using words.

"Wait-" Wilf interjected, and the Doctor turned around. "You're not travelling alone, are you? It's not good for you."

A genuine smile, of a category unknown and unquantifiable, crept slowly up the Time-Lord's face. "No. There's Clara. My Clara. She's got a gob on her to, let me tell you that. Not like Donna though. Different."

"Good," Wilf nodded. "That's all I needed to know. Good luck, Doctor."

Once again, like that time all those years back at Donna's wedding, Wilfred Mott saluted the renegade Time Lord, crying just as profusely as last time, and he saw the Doctor struggling to maintain a detached façade. And then, slowly, the Doctor raised his hand too, saluting the old soldier in a final farewell. He turned and walked into the TARDIS, shutting the door of the time machine behind him, and then the wind rose up, that wild creaking and groaning acting as the unsaid goodbye.

Wilfred Mott turned away from that backstreet and smiled. Of all the things that could have happened, this was by far the least expected and the most welcome. The stranger from Scotland had given him his forgiveness. Things felt different now.

That wasn't all the stranger had given him.

Hope.

Hope for the future.

Hope for life.