It's the nature of human life. The blink of an eye. The beat of a single heart. Flickering candles which gutter and disappear. Short stories which end all too soon.

That doesn't mean he has to like it.

It's one of the reasons he rarely chooses to sleep. It's a waste of time (he needs so little), and often he dreams. Adric, Sarah Jane, Rory and Amy: alive as though they had never gone. Voices, faces, body language, all real, all still here.

And then he wakes. A kind of time travel all its own. He wakes, and is alone.

The End