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The weather had finally dropped to just under twenty degrees, and you had never felt more greatful to feel a somewhat cool breeze drift in through your open window. The fan that sat in the corner of the room had reached the end of it's lifespan, so you made a mental note that today you'd go out and buy a new one as soon as you could.
Turning onto your side, you checked the digital clock on your bedside table: 02:14am. Exhaling a sigh of defeat, you felt around for a glass of water, only to recall that you had left it on your kitchen worktop while working on your PhD. You turned on your bedside lamp which released its soft yellow glow, and padded over to the kitchen in your apartment. You weren't sure why you'd woken up, it was likely the heat and stuffiness in your room about to suffocate you to death. You poured yourself some water, the cool liquid reviving your throat and slowly easing away your oncoming headache. The sky was relatively clear considering the pollution which often clouded the vast London sky. You stepped out onto the small terrace in your apartment, which was a generous luxury in this economy, and admired the few stars gleaming in the sky.
Just over a year ago, you'd been in a completely different galaxy with the Doctor, sitting by the open TARDIS doors while observing a cluster of nebulae. For once, he'd finally taken off his blazer and sat beside you, pointing out cosmic phenomena humans had yet to discover back on Earth.
Ever since you could remember, you'd possessed an endless curiosity about the universe, often finding yourself awake at ridiculous hours simply thinking about what might exist beyond the solar system. As soon as you'd graduated school with top grades, you'd thrown yourself into academia without hesitation. One degree had quickly become another, and before long you had started your PhD: though after travelling with the Doctor, studying the universe through textbooks suddenly felt painfully small.
You rested your elbows against the terrace railing, absentmindedly tracing your finger along the cold metal as the city hummed quietly below. Even at this hour, London never truly slept. Somewhere in the distance came the muffled sound of sirens, followed by the low rumble of a passing train. Ordinary sounds. Human sounds.
And yet, after everything you had seen with him, Earth no longer felt entirely real. Sometimes you still caught yourself looking up whenever you heard an unusual noise in the sky, half-expecting to see the TARDIS materialising above the rooftops. Other times, you would wake suddenly from dreams of foreign stars and unfamiliar constellations, only to find the dim glow of your apartment ceiling instead.
You had tried not to think about him too much after he left.
Your fingers tightened slightly around the glass in your hands as a warm breeze drifted across the terrace. The Doctor had always spoken about the universe as though it were alive: breathing, shifting, constantly moving - and somehow, after meeting him, the world had begun to feel larger and lonelier all at once. You stared up at the scattered stars above London, barely visible through the city lights.
“Bit rubbish tonight,” a familiar voice said somewhere below.
Your breath caught instantly. You moved toward the terrace railing before you could properly process the words, fingers tightening around your glass as you looked down onto the street beneath your apartment. There, illuminated by the orange glow of a streetlamp, stood a blue police box with someone all its owner standing next to it.
Your heart stopped.
It looked almost unreal, wedged between parked cars and overflowing bins, like something your mind had carelessly pulled from memory and dropped into the middle of London.
"Mind if I come up?"
All you could do was stare at the man on the street, heart hammering against your chest. Maybe it was time to admit yourself to hospital. Maybe the exhaustion from weeks of poor sleep and endless research had finally caught up with you. Because why else would the Doctor suddenly be standing outside your apartment after all this time? After you had both agreed that leaving was the safest option. After he had taken you home.
Without him.
The Doctor shifted slightly beneath the streetlamp, squinting up toward your balcony.
“I can climb if necessary,” he called. “Though fair warning, last time I tried that I fell into someone’s hydrangeas.”
Despite everything, a short breath of laughter escaped you. His expression softened instantly at the sound.
“There you are,” he murmured, almost to himself. Your chest tightened painfully.
“What are you doing here?” you finally managed.
“Well,” he said, rocking back slightly on his heels with his hands in his pockets, “that’s a long answer and it’s currently two in the morning.”
The Doctor stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat as he glanced down the empty street, observing the area you now called home once more.
“So,” the Doctor said after a moment, looking back up toward you with a small, uncertain smile, “am I coming up, or are we doing the dramatic staring thing all night?”
You should’ve told him no.
Really, you should have.
Instead, you heard yourself say:
“The lift’s broken.”
"Stairs it is."
Before you could answer, he disappeared from view.
You remained standing by the terrace railing for a moment longer, staring down at the empty stretch of pavement where the TARDIS sat wedged awkwardly between parked cars. The warm breeze no longer felt comforting. Instead, your thoughts had begun crashing together so quickly that you could barely keep up with them.
He was here.
After an entire year, he was somehow standing outside your apartment as though disappearing from your life had only been a minor inconvenience.
The distant sound of footsteps echoing through the apartment stairwell pulled you from your thoughts. Rapid and uneven, accompanied by what sounded suspiciously like someone tripping at least once on the way up.
Some things, apparently, never changed.
You quietly set your glass down onto the kitchen counter before glancing around your apartment in mild horror. Research papers covered almost every available surface, your laptop sat open on the sofa beside several empty mugs, and somewhere underneath a pile of notes was the cardigan you'd been looking for three days ago.
Before you could decide whether or not you cared, three quick knocks sounded at the front door.
Your chest tightened painfully.
For a second, you simply stood there staring at it. A year ago you had watched entire galaxies burn into existence beside this man, yet somehow opening your front door suddenly felt infinitely more terrifying.
Taking a slow breath, you finally crossed the apartment and pulled the door open.
The Doctor stood there slightly out of breath, one hand braced against the doorframe while the other remained shoved deep into the pocket of his coat. His hair was windswept from the summer air, his suit just as rumpled as you remembered, and despite everything, despite the year apart, despite the silence, he looked exactly the same.
His eyes flickered across your face carefully before drifting past you into the apartment.
You scoffed to yourself, "Look what the cat dragged in."
The Doctor began studying the various chests of drawers and shelves which held your work. "You know once I was dragged around by a cat and it's not an experience I like to look back on."
“Blimey,” he said softly, noticing the mountain of papers scattered across your kitchen counter. “You really did become a doctor.”
You let out a quiet laugh before you could stop yourself, stepping aside to let him into the apartment.
“Not quite,” you replied. “Still working on the doctorate part.”
“Mm,” the Doctor hummed absentmindedly as he wandered further inside. “That'll make the two of us. Universe hasn’t got a chance.”
He shrugged off his coat slightly, though not fully, like he still hadn’t decided whether he was staying. His eyes moved quickly around the apartment, taking in every detail at once: the research papers spread across the counter, the open laptop glowing faintly on the sofa, the collection of books stacked precariously beside your desk.
“You sleep at all?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
“See, that’s worrying. Humans need sleep. Very important. Brains go strange without it.”
You raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said humans only sleep because we haven’t evolved properly.”
The Doctor looked momentarily offended.
“Out of context,” he replied quickly. “Very unfair of you to quote me.”
A smile tugged reluctantly at the corner of your mouth, and for a second the tension in the room eased into something familiar.
The Doctor noticed immediately.
He always noticed.
“There you are,” he said quietly, almost more to himself than to you.
Your chest tightened painfully.
Before you could respond, he picked up one of the papers from the kitchen counter, scanning across the equations at an impossible speed.
“Oh, this is brilliant,” he muttered. “Bit concerning, but brilliant.”
“That’s my thesis.”
“Yeah, I gathered that from the terrifying amount of suffering radiating off the page.”
You folded your arms loosely across yourself, watching him carefully now that the initial shock had started to settle. Up close, he looked exactly the same as you remembered, and somehow older at the same time.
The Doctor glanced up suddenly, catching you staring.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, that was definitely a look.”
You looked away toward the terrace instead. “I just... didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
The room fell quiet.
When the Doctor spoke again, his voice was softer than before.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Didn’t think I would either.”
The silence stretched carefully between you, fragile enough that neither of you seemed willing to move too suddenly and risk breaking it.
The Doctor placed your papers back down onto the counter with unusual care before drifting slowly further into the kitchen, fingertips brushing absentmindedly against the edge of the worktop as he moved. His gaze wandered briefly toward the open terrace doors and the dim London skyline beyond them before returning to you again.
“So,” you said quietly, leaning back against the counter behind you, “what are you doing here anyway? Earth being invaded by Daleks again?”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he gently pushed some hair out of his face.
“No, not this time.”
“Cybermen?”
“Nope.”
“Aliens disguised as politicians?”
“Always possible,” he admitted. “But not urgently.”
Despite yourself, a small laugh escaped you. The Doctor’s expression softened instantly at the sound, and he took another absent step closer as though he hadn’t even realised he was doing it.
“Then why are you here?”
The question lingered between you and for once, he didn’t answer immediately. His gaze dropped briefly toward the floorboards before lifting back to yours again, and there was something unexpectedly careful in the way he looked at you now.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” you admitted before you could stop yourself.
The Doctor swallowed and looked down at his battered converse.
“I know.”
You folded your arms a little tighter across yourself, more out of nervous habit than anything else, while the Doctor remained standing opposite you with his gaze fixed somewhere near the floor, and for the first time since he had walked into your apartment, neither of you seemed entirely sure what to say next.
“You were right about bringing me home,” you said quietly, your eyes drifting toward the open terrace doors where the warm night air still moved softly through the apartment. “Separating was safer.”
The Doctor swallowed slightly, his fingers tightening briefly inside the pockets of his coat, but he didn’t argue. He knew you were right, and somehow that only seemed to make the expression on his face tighten further. The Doctor had always carried the weight of danger with him no matter where he went, as though chaos simply followed in the wake of the TARDIS, and no matter how many times you had insisted that the risks never mattered to you, he had never quite been able to believe that they shouldn’t matter to him. You had told him countless times that travelling with him was what you wanted, that you understood the dangers and had chosen that life anyway, but somewhere along the line his fear of losing you had quietly become stronger than his ability to keep pretending he could protect you forever.
Bringing you home had hurt him incessantly, just as it had hurt you. And you both knew that.
At the time, though, all you had been able to see was the way he had stood in the TARDIS doorway avoiding your eyes while explaining, in that careful quiet tone he used whenever something mattered too much, that this was the best thing for you both.
“I hated you for a while, actually,” you admitted softly, the words leaving your mouth before you could stop them, "I hated that I had agreed to leave you."
The Doctor looked up at you immediately.
“I hated that you were probably right.”
The words settled heavily into the silence between you, and for a moment neither of you moved while the warm summer air drifted softly through the apartment and stirred the papers scattered across your kitchen counter.
“I tried to leave you alone,” he admitted quietly after a long pause, his voice softer now than it had been since he arrived. “Really tried.”
Your chest tightened painfully at the confession.
The Doctor let out a small breath of laughter through his nose, though there was no humour behind it this time, and slowly he began moving closer again without seeming entirely aware he was doing it.
“Kept telling myself it was the right thing,” he continued, his eyes flickering briefly toward the open terrace doors before finding yours again. “You were home, you were safe, you were finally getting the life you were supposed to have.” His jaw tightened slightly. “And I thought eventually I’d stop wondering what you were doing.”
Silence.
“Didn’t work.”
The words were quiet, almost embarrassed somehow as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck while averting his gaze.
He had reached the other side of the counter now, standing close enough that you could see the exhaustion beneath his usual restless energy, close enough that every small movement suddenly felt impossible to ignore.
“Everywhere I went, I kept looking for you without meaning to,” he admitted softly. “I’d see something ridiculous... strange stars or planets with oceans underneath the ground or books written in languages humans physically can’t pronounce: and my first thought was always that you’d love it.”
Your fingers tightened unconsciously around your sleeves.
“Doctor…”
“And it got worse,” he interrupted gently, almost smiling to himself despite the sadness lingering behind it. “That’s the annoying part. Thought time would fix it a bit, but instead I just…” He glanced away briefly before looking back at you again, his expression unbearably open now. “Missed you more.”
Your breath caught slightly.
The apartment suddenly felt far too small.
“Then why come back?” you asked quietly, though the question sounded weaker now somehow, less certain than before. “If you knew this would make everything harder again?”
The Doctor looked at you for a long moment without speaking.
Then he took one final slow step closer.
Barely any space remained between you now, and you became painfully aware of everything all at once: the warmth radiating from him in the summer air, the slight crease between his brows, the fact that his hand had twitched like he wanted to reach for you but kept stopping himself.
“Because I couldn’t stand it anymore,” he admitted quietly, “I’d land somewhere new and spend half the time wishing you were there to see it with me,” he continued, his voice rougher now around the edges. “And then I’d think about coming back here and tell myself not to because you were finally moving on and I had absolutely no right to ruin that for you.”
His eyes dropped briefly toward your mouth before lifting back to your eyes again.
You paused to take in his appearence. You missed his permenantly dishevled hair, the faint freckles that graced his face, his eyes full of energy and curiousity, much like yours once were. The Doctor reached for you slowly, with a small measure of uncertainty, his hand gently held the side of your face and his thumb swept over your cheekbone. Your breath stilled as you felt a rush of heat run through your body, you could feel the pulse of his two hearts quicken along with your own. He further closed the gap between the two of you, his lips brushing against yours, a silent question of want and forgiveness. He looked at you with half lidded eyes, filled with desperation and quiescence.
The Doctor - your Doctor, was in your flat, in your living room, at that, standing before you after you thought you'd have to live with only memories of the man that you loved. You swore to yourself that you wouldn't compromise whatever relationship you had while travelling, that it would ruin what you had. Since you had met him, he was the key to your curiousities, and you were the peace in his world of incessant chaos.
You pressed your lips to his in a quiet resolve, dissolving any sense of hesitancy between the two of you, silencing the Doctor's weltering train of thought. He immediately responded, cradling your face with both his hands, fearing that you'd slip away once again if he let go. You held him by the collar of his shirt with one hand and ran the other through his brown locks, earning a small smile against your lips from the Time Lord.
"I'm so sorry," he murmured against your lips, pulling away slightly to look at you, "I'm sorry for leaving you, I'm sorry for coming back I-"
You interrupted him by once again catching his lips with your own, a flood of supressed emotion coarsing through you, wrapping the arms around the back of his neck as he pulled you in by the waist.
You gently broke away from him after a while, taking a moment to observe him once more.
"I missed you," you whispered, fixing his tie while you felt tears well in your eyes. "I haven't gone a day without wishing I was with you again."
He swallowed a little, eyes gleaming as they met yours before he pulled you into a hug. The Doctor pressed his lips to the top of your head and lingered briefly before resting his chin atop your head.
"Could you stay? At least until sunrise?" you asked somewhat timidly, contradicting your usual confidence.
"I'll stay as long as you need me to sweetheart."