[Narvin wants to protest the statement about Dallas being a good lad, but even he's not *quite* so tactless as to speak ill of the dead. Sometimes. So he tries to think of a good experience instead, something from before the Barge. He has to think far back to find one that isn't tainted with vindictiveness or failure.]

The night I finished at the Academy my whole cohort went to Low Town to...cavort. [Enjoy the image of Narvin attempting to cavort.] We hadn't much cared for each other while in classes, the competition for the best grades had been fierce, but since we were all leaving, all going our separate ways, adults now, proper Time Lords, it seemed right to come together one last time. For that night we were almost like friends.

I remember going right up to the edge of the dome and pressing my my hands against it, and marvelling at how unexpectedly warm it was.

[There was more to that excursion as well to make it memorable. Trying black market Dalek juice and getting into a fight with a Shobogan, among other things. Getting all the remains of his youthful misbehaving out in one night so he could spend the next thousand years properly dignified and solemn like a good Time Lord. But there was only so much he was going to tell the Doctor. (At least while sober.)]

I recall how warm it was living outside of the domes. Mt. Lung had wonderful forests.

[He hates that he's going to destroy that world one day. It's slowly starting to settle in that he's not going to be able to avoid it in a bizarre sort of acceptance.]

I was loomed in the Capitol. A small, not very notable House. I'd never been outside the domes.

I doubt my tales are what you seek...

Possibly not.

But I would like to imagine even you have had some moments of quiet contentment.

Contentment? An interesting choice of description...

...I've got one.

[There's a long, silent pause.]

I know it happened during everything that fucked me up. I don't need to hear it from anyone because I don't care.

...I was building a trap I'd designed. This was way back, just after John had taught me the basics. He wanted to see how I applied them.

It was called the "Addict's Chair," the thing I was making. A two-person trap, with one chair saved for a drug addict. It involved two different poisons, and antidotes for each being mixed mechanically--whatever, it's not like anybody cares about the details. We never got a chance to use it, anyway.

I was constructing the inner workings of the distributor machine, and I was getting frustrated because no matter what I did, I couldn't get one piece to socket into the other. I was on the verge of crying. I didn't want to disappoint him. Just when I was about to break down, he came up right behind me, placed his hands over mine, and turned the right one so, so slightly. The pieces fit into place. I'd just been holding one of them at the wrong angle. Only four fuckin' degrees off, can you believe that?

He must have known what I was thinking from my body language or something. He said I had natural talent, and if I stopped worrying about letting him down, it would emerge. His hands on mine, and those words--I just felt so...

I felt loved.

I know it's small, and probably insignificant to people who didn't lead the kind of life I did before I joined him, but it was so important to me. Still is, in some ways.

You're precisely correct.

That people aren't frequently told that they have talent or ability. That they don't receive that guiding hand when they need it, and because of that so many people turn to any other sense of support they can find.

I do hope that once you have your deal, his hands will guide to a better resolution for someone.

He'd still be a civil engineer giving a shitload of his time and money to nonprofits and cheap housing for people under the poverty line if the...if the accident hadn't happened. Or he would have been until the cancer took him.

Once I erase that night from history, and eliminate his cancer, he'll have his life back.

[Hoffman listens to that story as quietly as he can and then.]

Why didn't you two use it?

I didn't know you built that thing.

The perfect opportunity never presented itself.

It seems I know few stories of late that have happy endings.

Endings are rarely happy in that they end. I suppose I'm more looking for a good result.

Those seem to be few and far between.

[Hoffman has been reading over some of these stories man.]

Not a huge turnout.

No. Not much of one.

[He sighs] I suppose that's too much to hope for.

I'm sorry I can't contribute. The only stuff I've got are awful "Laughing at other people's misfortune" stories.

He has? [There's a pause here. The Doctor really doesn't know what to say about this.] A pity.

Very much so. [And knowing that he goes back to being dead and already was a ghost makes it all the worse.]

I quite liked him-he gave me a remarkable Christmas present. He called my outfit 'horrific'. [There's a small scoff.]

I would tell you a story, but you've lived through them all already.

Oh, Dally... [ :C She will miss him. ]

What kind of stories were you looking for, specifically?

Less violent. More nostalgic, if you will.

Because if we can't even give any of those brought here unwillingly or each other warm memories, then what precisely are we doing here?

I wrote an adventure novel...

Oh? Do tell.

[Tim doesn't really want to talk about this, given his own disappearing inmate, but the Doctor's had to deal with it more often. So he's rousing himself long enough to check on him.]

You okay?

Not really. Hardly anyone has a good story to tell. [And this bothers him. A lot.]