intergalacticstarlight:

Oh, she’s done it.

This time she’s properly well and done it, but she couldn’t be arsed to care about that in this moment. In this moment where her love’s eyes moisten and his face does just the same, the memory playing out and tugging at both of her hearts as though it were yesterday. Feels like yesterday, in this regeneration. Closest she’s ever gotten to yesterday, in fact, and she feels the colorful warmth of freedom pulsing through her veins.

She’s never been closer to forgiving herself than she is at present. Never been closer to deserving the happily ever after that she’s found with her Koschei in their little-but-not-little TARDIS. Oh and when he reaches out to touch the image she wishes she’d have thought to make it a hard-light hologram. Though perhaps not. Perhaps that would be a bit too much for either of them, and the past is better left where it belongs- in the past, as a memory.

Intangible but present all the same.

Theta can feel the other Time Lord’s wish to pull his younger self close because she feels much the same impulse each time the memory’s been played, which has been a lot in the course of the orb’s making. When his question comes the smile on her face widens, brightens, and the moisture in her own eyes reflects the reassurance that quickly follows.

“Yes. Course it is, love. It’s us then, it’s us now, it’s us always. That’ll always be us. Two idiots in love. Happy, finally, again.”

She pauses, and says the next three words with such reverence and certainty that he can tell there is no fear left inside them. Not an ounce of hesitation to speak of.

“I love you.”