A/N: Written for Rosethorn. Many thanks to my excellent beta, Paranoid Seat.

The thing about falling, Ian thought, is that sooner or later, you hit the bottom.

Barbara looking up and catching his eye from across the staff room, smiling and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Usually it hurt.

Surely that first moment, when safety ran out, was noticeable. But cartoon characters ran off the edge without looking, and stayed running without anything to support them. Then they looked down.

Maybe he'd looked down.

Maybe, like Alice in Wonderland, he'd got used to the falling and could barely remember the rabbit hole.

Barbara animated, passionate, excited; her eyes bright and her hands flying like her words.

She had always been a friend - a kind, intelligent, fascinating and extremely attractive friend - but somewhere, whether at Coal Hill School; in Cathay or the Cave of Skulls; on Skaro or Marinus or somewhere in between, Barbara Wright had become the most important person in his universe (and that was much broader now), for decidedly non-platonic reasons.

Barbara blazing fury and spitting contempt, because they were worth more than this and how dare he treat them like this; stupid old man, no gratitude or common sense.

Somewhere they had become a 'they', in his head at least.

He cut himself shaving, went to fetch a tissue and, catching sight of her in the corridor, managed to walk distractedly into the doorframe.

She fussed over him; told him off; enquired as to whether he had a quota of head wounds per month to fill. He played along, joking, the good-natured friend, and knew it was quite impossible to risk this.

Barbara thoughtful, curious, concerned; putting her trust in him as they went to explore the junkyard that night.

He always was terrible at keeping his own secrets.

Barbara putting a hand to his burning cheek and kissing him, still laughing against his mouth.

The thing about falling, Ian realised, was that if you fell far enough, the rest of your life would be the fall. And it would be wonderful, with Barbara's hand in his, falling just the same.