A spare glass of brandy on the desk. Former Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart eyed it cautiously, sipping his own drink with some trepidation. He knew that the man he had poured the glass for, insisted that a glass be poured for every time he took a drink, would wait until the minute his friend had given up hope before turning up, madcap grin on his face; which would, no doubt, be new, unfamiliar. Hopefully something older-looking, that would be nice, less irritating for the ageing – no, dying – old man. Sir Alistair sighed, clinging to the faintest chance that today would be the day. If he gave up on the Doctor, within seconds, the groan of the TARDIS would be heard and the Brig could fall back onto his bed with relief.

Funny, that. Even now he still thought of himself as the Brigadier. Possibly because he was thinking of the Doctor, how the Doctor had never coped with his friend's status changes over time, stubbornly referring to him as the Brigadier. And it was contagious. The Doctor was contagious. You found yourself thinking like him, thinking about time as a traversable place, and aliens as everyday occurrences. You got used to it.

Laying back on the soft pillow of the private hospital bed, Sir Alistair knew damn well there were only a few months left, at best. He was dying. It happened to everybody some day. Except you-know-who, but he was like that. Eternal. Eternally infuriating Sir Alistair scoffed. Before he died, he knew he needed to see his oldest friend again, one last time. A proper goodbye. The thought of the Doctor continuing alone, as per usual, hurt. But he cast that thought to the side and considered, briefly, his daughter. Kate was UNIT's head of science, a mother, Sir Alistair's pride and joy. A few months she had come rushing into his office, back when he had been well enough to have an office, excited, with news of the wandering alien.

"I met him, Dad. I worked with the Doctor."

And he couldn't have been more proud: of his daughter fore-mostly; and of the Doctor too. If the eccentric Time Lord was working with Kate, had someone in UNIT who could keep a level head around him despite having grown up hearing his exploits as bedtime stories, Sir Alistair could be content knowing that someone was keeping an eye on the Doctor on his behalf. Those companions were all well and good but the Brigadier wanted someone watching the Doctor for him, after he was, after he was gone. However soon that would be.

"You don't mind if I drink this?" a heavily-accented 'Scottish' voice piped up, and Sir Alistair opened his eyes, shaking himself awake. Sat at the chair by his bed was a silver-haired – yes! He was old! - gentleman, dressed in a black suit, dark starry-looking jumper under his black jacket; the latter of which had a red lining reminiscent of...reminiscent of that cape, the cape, one of the capes the Doctor always used to wear in those UNIT days so long ago. Those bloody awful capes. Subtle, understated, that was him. Practically his middle names. Not that he had middle names. Or a first name. If he did, 'Subtle' and 'Understated' were close contenders, followed swiftly by 'Modest'.

"I've been...waiting for you, Doctor. My compliments regarding your accent."

The eyebrows, oh the fury in those eyebrows, how they furrowed. "What are you trying to say? You think that just because I'm an alien I can't be Scottish? That's, that's racist that is. Almost as bad as the movie. Do you know, they've got a horror film called 'Alien'? No wonder everyone keeps invading you, I said."

Chuckling faintly at the Doctor's incessant babble, laughing for the first time in a few days, Sir Alistair couldn't help but raise a smile. "It's good to see you, old boy. At least you're not young and pretty-looking this time."

The Doctor looked around in what was probably mock offence but could easily be genuine given his fickle nature. "Don't you start. It's bad enough when I get this off Clara, all 'Doctor why's your hair grey if you've just regenerated' and 'why've you got lines on your face?' and why is everybody suddenly a critic honestly Brigadier it's just ungrateful, it is. I saved this planet, you know."

"And you never shut up about it..."

"Rude." Sipping the brandy, the Doctor made an appreciative sound. "This is good. I mean, I've had better, time machine and all, but comparatively, this isn't half bad."

With the Doctor, you had to take what few compliments you could find, ignore the veiled layers of insult and puffed-up egotism, and just accept his rare gestures of friendship "Thank you. I ordered it specially. Suspected you'd be a fussy one."

"My last one, he didn't drink. He tried, bless, but he was a child sometimes, especially when the finer points of life are considered." the Doctor shook his head. "To think that I let myself spit out some of the best wine ever made honestly, my tastebuds were a mess. Midlife crisis, you know. Happens to the best of us."

"Presuming this is the incarnation who Kate came talking to me about, 'a five-year old with floppy hair and a bow-tie', that sounds about right." the Doctor narrowed those impressive eyebrows again and Sir Alistair felt the need to clarify chronology, remembering he was dealing with a time traveller. "The nasty black murderboxes. Last month, for us. How long ago was that for you?"

Shrugging vaguely, the Doctor pulled a face. "Few hundred years? I think I turned 2000 but to tell you the truth, I sort of lost track. 'Over 2000' I say now. Sounds better than 'probably two millennia but I don't have a clue', right? Actually," he continued "I saw Kate not that long back. Cybermen. The Master. He...may or may not have become a woman but you didn't hear it from me. Regeneration's a funny business. You never know what you'll end up with...Master, Mistress, Mister, Mattress..."

Brandy spurted everywhere, as Sir Alistair pictured the aforementioned scenario. There had always been a strange sort of tension between the Doctor and the Master, presumably a Time Lord thing but the Brigadier had been suspicious of those two. A female Master...Mistress, rather...oh dear lord what had they unleashed? Fire and brimstone would rain down upon them and- realisation dawned on Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. The only reason his friend was telling him this, things which would interfere with time or some nonsense whatever the excuse was, was that the old man was dying. These secrets, the would take them to his grave so events could unfold as they were supposed to. Damn. This was bloody typical of the Doctor, playing games with time, especially since...well, since the thing they did not talk about happened. Very few people knew how severely the Time War had affected the Doctor and very few people were permitted to. Those files were not only classified but destroyed, after careful deliberation, a changing of history out of respect to their friend. It would be unfair to reveal secrets like that, damned cruel for a start.

"I'm dead by then aren't I?"

All of the humour and feigned levity, the mask the Doctor wore at times to disguise emotion, slipped away, his face becoming lost, drawn and pale. "Ish. It...wasn't that simple."

"Things never are. Not when you're involved, Doctor." A smirk. A good sign. "What does dying feel like, Doctor?"

Silence, as the grey-haired apparently Scottish-and-proud Time Lord thought for a moment. "It-" he began, and broke off again. "It feels a lot like living. Paradoxical I know. But everything's a paradox when you come down to it, right? This isn't the last time we'll meet, I promise you that. Spoilers."

"I do believe, Doctor, that you aren't making any sense."

"Would you believe me if I told you I'd just met hallucinatory Santa Claus after dream-crabs tried to take over the world?" The Doctor changed the topic abruptly "Because that was a thing that happened."

"Where did you park the TARDIS? I didn't hear you arrive." Do not encourage the Doctor. Do not fuel his positively monstrous ego. Do not question the Great Nonsense. Things just happen and none of them make a shred of sense, but you have to pretend everything is perfectly normal. Because you don't have any other options.

"Clara parked her." The Doctor beamed proudly "In the lift, actually, bit of a squeeze. She's getting good, though she missed the year. Twice. And then she landed us in Birmingham by mistake, but we got there eventually."

Sir Alistair smiled. "As I recall, old fellow, you weren't much better yourself." Again with the eyebrows, vicious, accusing. Out of all the Doctors Sir Alistair had met, this was most definitely the most confrontational of the lot. He said that every time he met a new one. It was like a rite of passage now. "I presume Clara's your latest assistant?" The Time Lord nodded. "Wish her my best. And when we meet again, however this happens..."

Hanging his head sadly, the Doctor sighed. "It's complicated. A long story. I – look, this is hard, you know? Saying goodbye, not my thing. I mostly just leave people without warning. Watching friends age and die is...it's not easy, Brigadier, especially not with you. I suppose I came for the brandy. Knew it'd be good." Smirking, the Doctor stood up, his eyes shining slightly with the beginnings of well-suppressed tears. Extending a hand, Sir Alistair reached out to the considerably older Time Lord "Goodbye, Brigadier. Properly, because of our history, I thought you deserved this much. I say I thought it, Clara did. Was talking about you with her and she suggested this..."

"Tell Clara thank you."

"I will."

He was gone, without warning, without proper farewell, just that handshake, which meant everything, really.

An empty glass on the desk. Former Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart eyed it cautiously, rolled over, and finally fell asleep.