Prologue

Prologue

The face in the mirror was dour and pale. The Doctor ran a hand over his chin - impeccably shaved by a straight razor on Savile Row - and assessed the image. His newly-trimmed hair curled just at the ends, this new style sleeker than the last. He hoped she liked it. He straightened his white bow tie until it was perfectly aligned with the collar of the newly-pressed tuxedo shirt. He inspected his tall top hat, and brushed the silk until the fabric shone.

He took a long steadying breath and turned his attention to the object on the TARDIS console.

It was a sonic screwdriver, silver and gold with a blue light on top. He eyed it critically, as if it were merely a piece of electronics he meant to perfect. In retrospect (or was it foresight) he didn't necessarily approve of the finger loop, but the basic design could not be altered. He opened the hidden panel and checked the memory buffers.

The device weighed heavy in his hand, and his arm (and hearts) sank with the load. Still, there was nothing to be done, no time left and nowhere else to run. Lake Silencio loomed ever larger and closer as time inside the TARDIS flowed on. He desperately wished that he didn't have to set River on the path to her death (even as he was on the path to his own) but he had made a promise, long ago: he wouldn't change one line of their history, no matter how unfinished it felt right now.

To honour that promise, he had to make this visit before she killed him.

He contemplated presentation, and gently placed the sonic screwdriver in a velvet-lined ebony box and snapped it shut. He set it on the console, but as soon as his hands fell to his sides, they reached up to snatch it back. He tore it out of the box and thrust it into the receptacle on the console, running one more set of diagnostics. The TARDIS responded with a series of chirps - mem checksum valid.

With trembling hands, he removed it from the console and reached for the box. In the end his nervous fingers, of their own volition, slid it instead into the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket, next to his own screwdriver.

One last look in the mirror. In the past, he may have chided himself at the tears that flowed down his face. But not now; too much water under the bridge, too many loved ones lost. Stoic visage be damned.

Still, it wouldn't do. She deserved the best of him.

So he took a deep breath, then another, and so on until he regained control of his emotions and his features. He pasted on a reasonable facsimile of a cheery face, and made sure the gleam reached his eyes.

It was time.

He switched his timeship out of cloaking mode and strode to the TARDIS doors. Without further preamble, he stepped outside...

... into a shower of nearly-scalding water.

The Doctor yelped.