She glanced at the ring on her finger and smiled. It was quite a motif, that the sign of his love had spared her. And now he would be a hero, when the story got round, the schoolteacher who had saved everybody. It was quite a shock to discover that there were hostile creatures from other worlds. But there was also her own fallen angel. And he was, perhaps, representative of a gentler humanity that existed in the stars.

She sat down and let Wolsey leap into her lap. ‘You’re going to have to get used to a new householder,’ she told him. ‘But you like him, don’t you?’

There was a knock on the door. She leapt up, much to Wolsey’s disgust, and ran to it.

Her fiancé stood there, wearing a hat and a jacket that she’d never seen him in before.

Joan folded him into her arms and kissed him.

Then she withdrew, staring at him in surprise.

She picked her way back through the hall and into the sitting room, supporting herself on the furniture as she went. She finally sat down. ‘John…’ she murmured. ‘Do come in. I’m sorry to be so… forward.’

‘It’s not that.’ The Doctor closed the door and stepped into the centre of the sitting room, not quite looking at her. ‘You know what’s happened, don’t you?’

‘No.’ She looked up at him, terrified. ‘Please tell me.’

‘I had to change back. To save you. You asked Smith not to give August the Pod. He didn’t. I did. I’m the Doctor.’

‘Oh…’ Joan closed her eyes for a long, hard, instant. Then she opened them. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you. Doctor. Is there nothing about you that’s like the man to whom I’ve become engaged?’

‘I think we believed in the same things. In the end. We’re the same shape of person, using different memories. You made him more like me. He was willing to give his life.’

‘Don’t tell me that, I didn’t want him to give his life. I didn’t want to go through that again! My God, I don’t think I can go through⁠ —’

She forcibly stopped herself. ‘You don’t love me then? You have his form, his habits⁠ — and you move like him. But you don’t love me?’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘Why? Is he not a part of you? The human part?’

‘There is no human part. I’m a Time Lord. A different species. He was a character I created, a fiction.’

‘Rubbish. I don’t give my heart to fictions. When his spirit inhabited you, you were not so different to the way you are now. John, if you’re simply lying to me, there’s no need, you can take my heart and go⁠ —’