"Is that the real reason, Evan? I've noticed you've been withdrawing from me since your near-death experience on Aldahrafani Prime."

"I still feel responsible for your sacrificing your former self to save my life, Doc," he said quietly. "I don't want to be so helpless ever again."

She briefly took his hand, "So you want to learn how to control the TARDIS if anything ever happens to me, right?"

"You changed right before my eyes, and I was helpless to do anything to help you. You were in so much pain."

"My body renewed itself. The woman I was when we met died on Aldahrafani Prime. On my world, the process is known as 'regeneration'."

"You wouldn't have been forced to endure that, had I known how to work the TARDIS to save you from it."

"You really should start reading the Laws of Time, Evan. If you would have done that, the results would have been disastrous. Catastrophic events would have been set into motion that would have destroyed the existing fabric of the timestream."

"Then everything that happens is cemented into the timestream?"

"Yes. You would have destroyed yourself had you even attempted to alter the course of time."

"I have a lot of reading to do, it seems."

Her deep green eyes regarded him gently, "Besides, you wouldn't be able to control the TARDIS unless I was working the controls with you."

© 2001, Quantum Inquirer