I like to think that he told her everything I forgot. It's not like it's all piled in some great big encyclopedia in his head, though, so chances are bits and pieces will be left out, knowing me. Who knows, though. He's got the rest of his life with her. He might remember something once in a while, and over time it'll add up to everything I knew I should have said as soon as she was gone. That's what I like to think. That's what let me turn away from her kissing him on that beach and get on board the TARDIS, leaving her for the second time, pretending that nothing was wrong when in reality both of my hearts were breaking all over again.

It was easier, I suppose. She was going to be happy this time. I know that. It wasn't going to be that same sense of adventure that one gets in the TARDIS, with all of time and space at your fingertips. But knowing her, and of course knowing me, they'd find plenty of trouble on their own. Just as she had done with me before.

That didn't make it painless.

Because he could tell her he loves her hundreds of thousands of millions of times over and it would not equate me being able to tell her once – just once. He can look into those trusting chocolate eyes for hours on end and it will still not let me look at them ever again. He can hold her hand for the rest of his life and I will still be alone.

It was that way before. It has to be that way again. Back into the stars with me, into those infinite hours of possibility, where I can pick and choose my way because it's what I was born to do.

It's bearable because I like to think he told her everything. I like to think that he told her my name, the one secret I would have only shared with her. I like to think that he told her about Gallifrey, about my children, the things I have tried so desperately to forget sometimes. I like to think that he told her about the loneliness I felt for nine hundred years without her, and, in doing so, doesn't feel that loneliness anymore.

I like to think that one of us can be happy with her. And that she can be happy with him.

I know my time with this face is ending, that face she knew and loved best. I know that if I went back to see her in the only way that I can now, she wouldn't know me, and it would be wasted. I know that somehow I have to find a way to keep moving without her.

So it's with that mindset now that I turn away from Bad Wolf Bay in my own universe, in my one last-ditch effort to feel close to her again. The chances of her even being here right now in her universe are so slim it's laughable. But the waves remind me of those glistening tears in her eyes. The wind carries her voice over. She won't be lost in this world as long as I remember her.

And she will be happy where she is. That has to be enough for me.