“Do you know,” the Doctor said after a long and profound silence. “I‘ve spent my entire life charging around time and space, getting myself into trouble – and out of it again – and I’ve only just realised something?"
“That you still haven’t paid that overdue library ticket?”
The look that earned held savage daggers, but they were blunted with the slow curve of a smile, and finally vanished into a laughing grin. “I thought I was the one with the smart alec come-back lines?”
“You are. But I’ve been practising. Buffy has a sharp wit. She keeps me in good form.”
The Doctor’s free hand swept up the curve of firm leg muscles. “You can say that again.” He slapped skin with friendly familiarity. “Not bad for nearly a thousand years.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.” The reply held quiet amusement.
“No. Not bad at all. Considering.” The younger Time Lord’s grin fell back into contemplative lines. “The thing is,” he said, getting back to his earlier point, “all this jaunting about? It’s all been centred on this one, little, insignificant planet, who’s primary inhabitants are basically a bunch of stupid apes. Apes with promise, I’ll give you, but still apes. Most of them.”
“Apes,” the Watcher pointed out, wondering where this thought was going, “who have managed to produce some of the most powerful sorcerers and witches ever seen in this dimension.”
“And whose fault is that?”
There was a pause as the Watcher considered his answer. “Ours,” he admitted eventually. “Well, not ours, exactly. But the first Director’s. And your grandfather’s. And a couple of others. They meant well.”
“They screwed up,” the Doctor said bluntly. “But the end result wasn’t down to them. Your grandmother stayed to watch and nudge and try and get some balance back into things. And then your father did much the same. And you – “
“Tried to get every benefit out of it I could, without wanting the duty or the responsibility that went with it. That’s old news, Merlin and I’d rather not rake over the ashes again. Not today, at any rate.”
“Not where I was going, Ripper.” The Doctor’s smile was warm. The fingers that tightened on his did so with affectionate pressure. “Besides. You just rebelled for half a century or so. I ran away. Turned renegade. Earned my reputation. But that damn planet keeps calling me back. Those – stupid apes – have been some of the best friends I’ve ever had. Taught me almost everything I know.” The smile became a little wistful. “Taught me how to be stubborn. How to keep from becoming jaded by experience. How to value life. Theirs are so short, and yet … so full. Or can be.” He paused to study his company’s face, his eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief. “You know what else they taught me?”
“No. But I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.” The Watcher had to smile. That look was irresistible.
“How to love. How to feel. How to be in the moment. And to be the moment. Time – just doesn’t matter, does it.”
There was a long silence while the Watcher pondered the point. In some ways his duty was finally over, his destiny done. The Council was gone; its oaths and its intentions meaningless. And there was nothing left to hold him to his obligations, no penalty that time would press to make him serve even another day.
He’d still go back.
He’d go back because he cared – and because he too had been taught to love. By a bunch of stupid apes who never knew when to call quits, when to give up, or when to walk away.
He could measure the sweep of time from beginning to end. Could walk through it with equal confidence. Could step back, or forward, could leap a thousand years in the blink of an eye, or spend eternity studying a single second. He was one of the last Lords of Time – and the Doctor was right.
It really didn’t matter.
“This is what matters,” he said, pulling his fellow time traveller up and into his arms. “What you do with each and every breath. Why you do it. How you do it. And if you do it right – “
The Doctor leaned in and kissed him with determined passion. He never finished the sentence. But the thought stayed with him, and they shared it, mind to mind and heart to heart.
Then you have lived your entire life, in that one, perfect moment …