Lost In Time: A Doctor Who Fanfiction

Chapter 109 -The Time Traveler's Wife

Lyssa stared at the drawing of herself for longer than she wanted to admit, the words at the bottom of the page repeating themselves endlessly in her mind.

The best day of my life.

The symbolism of the imagery, what it was supposed to represent, was incredibly obvious. She could try to explain them all away separately, but together? Even she couldn't deny that.

Her first thought was that maybe it was just a dream of John's, a really-truly dream, not a memory disguised as one. After all, it wasn't exactly hard to believe that a man as deeply in love as John would have dreams about that day, as much as she blushed to think about it.

Except... John was writing it as a memory, not as a dream. As something that had already happened.

And they weren't married.

She glanced down at the ring, resting neatly on her left ring finger, meant to represent their engagement. It obviously wasn't real - the TARDIS had included it as part of their disguise, and she'd been the one to put it on - admittedly after having to talk herself into it - but the fact was, John thought it was real.

And here he'd drawn it on her other hand, on a finger that had no meaning, as far as she was aware. She could see hints of a band on her left ring finger, but that hand was mostly covered up by the flowers, leaving only the faintest glimpse that there was something there.

And now that she was looking closer, she could see other signs that things didn't quite match up. Her hairstyle looked a tad modern for the tastes of 1913, as did the glimpses of her dress, though admittedly she couldn't see much of either. And her necklace... John had never seen her necklace - it definitely didn't fit the time period, and she kept it tucked neatly beneath her blouse, had since they'd arrived here.

So what did that mean? That the Doctor's memories of her mixed with John's dreams to create this? Although that didn't explain the ring. She'd never worn the ring before this adventure, and certainly not on any other finger, given its part to play in her subterfuge. So... perhaps memories of an older her?

Although that meant that someday she would be looking like that - and looking like that at the Doctor.

Unbidden, her mind pulled up the memories of his explanation of how John would see their relationship - that he would remember her, she'd be written into his memories as a significant part of his life, though he wasn't sure who she'd be to him. That they'd have a similar relationship to what they already had.

She'd thought he meant close friends.

What if he'd meant something different?

She already knew he and River would never be a thing - they'd both made that quite clear back with the Pandorica. And while Rose had never said anything either way, her relationship with Ten was different than it had been on the show - less... flirty and more platonic, including her goodbye after Doomsday. The Doctor had never really been serious about anyone else, that she could recall, at least in the episodes she'd seen - humans were too short lived for him to want to risk hurting himself like that.

Except... she would live longer than humans - she'd seen multiple hints of that, and the Doctor himself had confirmed it. She didn't know how long, but she knew she'd likely live a lot longer than was natural. His 9th-12th regenerations all knew her well, and she hadn't seen any signs that she wouldn't be there for any episodes, but rather the opposite, as she'd been jumping to adventures that had never been a part of the show. And that was a span of... at least a thousand years. Not to mention that when she'd jumped to Nine just after the Time War, he'd indicated that he already knew her well enough to be despondent at her supposed death during the War.