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He's been given a new lease of life, twelve shiny new regenerations, freshly-minted. He checks himself out in the mirror, tries smiles and frowns and things in between. Not bad, he decides, nicely worn-in-looking already, quite handsome from certain angles. Not that he's vain, but...
He has her eyes. The lilt in his voice matches one he barely remembers, and he starts thinking about time-travel, paradoxes, and the dangers of crossing one's own time-line on a whim.
It's not really a whim, he's been waiting all his life for this, to be reckless enough to try it. He is reborn, feels powerful, unstoppable.
There's someone he needs to see.
He waits until Clara is asleep, pops his head round the door of her room to check that she's not going to ask him what he's doing, and then – for the first time grateful for eight hours alone – he gets ready.
He brushes his hair, cleans his new teeth. He puts on new (newer) clothes and finds a pair of boots that fit well and aren't too grubby. He wants to make a good impression.
He tries to decide on the perfect gift (Flowers? Something small and thoughtful? Something extravagant?) before leaving the TARDIS empty-handed.
It's late, and there's no answer when he rings the doorbell. He shrugs, lets himself in with the sonic screwdriver and heads to the sitting-room. It is a perfect reflection of hazy long-ago memories. The fireplace, the big old radio, the sofa that he used to hide behind.
He hears water running, so he waits.
He picks up a discarded teddy-bear (George) and smiles at it. It stares back at him, one-eyed. He sits it on the sofa and continues exploring the room. Telephone, bookcase, her ridiculous collection of snow-globes. He picks one up, shakes it, watches the snow fall on London.
He's not really sure what he's going to say to her. He's gone over it in head a thousand times, but he really doesn't know what will come out when he opens his mouth. He hopes he won't say something stupid, hopes he won't offend her by accident.
Then he feels it. His least-favourite Gallifreyan god is lurking in the house and that water is still flowing.
He runs up the stairs three at a time. He bangs on the door of the bathroom. “Susan!” he shouts, because that's her name, “Susan!” He tries the handle but the door is locked. He swears. “Susan, if you don't open this door I'm going to break it down.”
There's no answer, so he aims his foot at the weak-point just above the lock. The door flies open and there she is, lying unconscious in the bathtub.
This is the day he left her, and it had seemed as good a day as any. “You don't die now,” he says, knowing perfectly well that time doesn't work like that. If she dies now he never gets to this point, has never said goodbye to her on the other last day of her life.
He lifts her from the water, carries her into her bedroom and drops her on the bed. He stares at her and he can't remember what you're supposed to do when a human isn't breathing. He finds a pulse in her neck, but it's weak and fading. Her single heart is going to stop, and then she will be dead.
He glances up to see Death sitting in the armchair by the window.
“Don't even think about it,” he warns her. “Don't you fucking dare.”
Death smiles with a horrible sweetness.
“She's not yours,” he says, desperate. “You're not supposed to be here.”
Death stands. “All I have left have one agnostic who foils me at every turn. The least I can do is take care of his family.”
He stares at her, wasting precious time (it has never been so valuable). His hearts pound in his chest, his mouth goes dry. He swallows. “What would it be like if no one ever died?” he asks, dangerous. “I wonder what would happen.”
She isn't scared.“You couldn't do that. Nothing in the universe could do that.”
You can't kill Death, everyone knows that, every kid on Gallifrey could have told him that in the nursery. “Do you know what I am?” he asks.
She shrugs, unconcerned. “The Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Darkness. Sometimes the Healer of Worlds. They're just names, they don't mean anything.”
He points at the woman on the bed. “I'm her son. If she dies here, now, I will break every rule, I will topple every concept, I will not rest until you're forgotten.”
Death touches his cheek, colder than his skin. “Don't be stupid, Doctor.”
He doesn't pull away. “I never liked you anyway.”
Death tilts her head. “What will you give me?”
“Anything.”
“Clara Oswald?”
He stops himself before he can agree. “No, you're not taking anyone. I won't swap one life for another.”
“You've done it before.”
“That wasn't me,” he says, and he knows that he means it, this time.
“I almost had you,” she says, and this is the root of the matter. “I was so close. I could feel your lips on mine, your hearts beating their last.”
His mouth twitches into a smile. “What a pity.”
“I won't be left frustrated.”
“Maybe I'll cross the road and get hit by a bus,” he says. “Maybe I'll slip getting out of the shower and break my neck. Maybe the TARDIS will get sick of me and throw me into the vortex.”
“Don't play with me,” she warns, but he's well past caring.
“Her heart's about to stop,” says Death, matter-of-factly. “You've failed.”
“Not yet,” he says, and invents a new god.
Chance rolls the dice. They are carved from the bones of civilisations, brand-new and older than the universe itself. They tumble through eternity, possibilities rising and falling as they turn. They fall, one after the other, onto nothingness.
Chance smiles on her first believer.
The Doctor wins, this time.
He know she won't remember this, because there's always a price to pay. He covers her with a blanket and strokes a lock of wet hair from her forehead. She's half-awake, she knows he's there.
He tells her everything, or at least his version of everything. He tells her about Gallifrey, about Skaro, about River Song and Sarah Jane Smith. He tells her about her great-granddaughter, the alien girl with the human name.
She doesn't say anything as he talks, asks no questions and demands no explanations.
There are fairies at the bottom of the garden. Nobody can get rid of fairies, you just have to hope they leave you alone. They are one of the oldest things on the planet, tied to the Earth across a dozen dimensions, eternal and unstoppable.
The Doctor gets rid of the fairies.
He locks the door with the spare key from the kitchen, thinks about keeping it and then posts it back through the letter-box. He checks his watch and estimates that Clara will be waking up soon. He hops over the garden fence and walks back to the TARDIS unnoticed.
In the library he inspects the new theology. The fourth god of Gallifrey has made her presence felt. There are new fairy stories, new cautionary tales. He'd like to spend the day reading, but someone has to make breakfast and then he's promised to take Clara to see the Great Wall of China.
He puts the books back on the shelves, in a section right at the back. Gallifreyan history is not a subject for casual readers. He sets up a perception filter and then whistles as he walks to the kitchen.