It lurks behind the door, hiding from view, hiding from even the strongest of senses. Even from a Time Lord.
He walks into the TARDIS, throws his coat over the coral pillars and sends a fake smile to his companion across the room.
It had been a year today since he lost the woman he loved.
He vows the Daleks and Cybermen will pay. They will be destroyed for the pain they inflicted upon his being.
Without his Rose, the Doctor was merely a shell. An emotionless shell.
A fake.
Martha often reminds him of that girl. Some little thing she does, or says, will send him spiralling into memories, and for that one moment he'll believe she was still with him. Smiling, running, holding his hand.
But she's not. She never is.
And yet, to his utmost surprise, he sometimes wishes she were dead. It is easier to overcome the loss of someone if they die. You can move on and accept that you will never see them again. But when they are still alive, living their life day after day, with no way of contact, it hurts more.
It hurts like a blade piercing a heart. It hurts like a bullet wound. It hurts worse than heartbreak.
Martha does not know much of Rose, but she understands that he loves her, and that she lives in her shadow. She dislikes this of course, but understands.
And yet it lurks behind the door, feeling the rage and the power the Doctor holds, and knows how powerful they would be together. It knows the Doctor wants revenge, it knows the Doctor is full of hate toward particular beings. And it knows that it could bring all the Doctor wants back. But it stays hidden, hiding in the shadows while he speaks.
"So Martha, where to next?" he asks in his typically cheery voice. But it is all fake; Martha knows this, she can feel the sadness radiating off him.
"Oh, I don't know," she replies, hiding the fact she knows he is faking happiness. "Maybe we could just stay in the Vortex for a bit, you know, relax?"
The Doctor grins at her, but again it does not reach his eyes. He nods and pulls a lever.
It watches still, once again feeling the Doctor's thoughts of revenge. It is then it decides what it is going to do. Martha has left for her room, and it knows the Doctor will take his rage toward the Daleks and Cybermen out on any nearby object. It has been watching for a while, and can almost predict his moves before the Doctor has performed them.
It creeps up behind him and reaches out. The Doctor moves suddenly, causing it to miss. If it could talk, it would growl in frustration. Once again, it moves behind him and reaches out. Only this time the Doctor does not move. And it gets him.
The Doctor feels something on his shoulder, and looks. There is merely a shadow. He brushes it off as nothing, until the shadow grows, consuming more and more of his body.
Frantically, the Doctor attempts to brush the shadow off, but to no avail. He falls to the floor, and becomes the shadow.
-----
Rose Tyler looks out at the stars from her bedroom window. She could name each one by name if she tried.
It has been one year since she saw him last, and knows that he is out there travelling. She only wishes she could be with him to witness the stars first hand.
"Rose, dear, dinner's reading if you want it?" Jack Tyler asks from the door. She already knows the answer, but can't help asking.
Rose turns her dangerously anorexic body toward her and shakes her head. She is in control, she thinks. She feels in control of her life, and knows that when she reaches her target weight she'll be fine.
But her target weight was nine stone… then eight and a half… and it just dropped. Once she reaches a target, it is not enough, and she must lose more.
She does not realise that she is ill. She knows that she should not look how she does, and yet her mind overpowers it, and says that she is ugly and fat, and must shrink another size.
Jackie smiles sadly at her daughter and leaves the room.
Rose knows tat she could be very close to death, and yet she welcomes it with open arms. She would like to die, because then she would not have to suffer with the pain of being separated from the Doctor.
It had to happen. It couldn't not. If they had not been separated, there could be a paradox, and Reapers and… well, she didn't want to make him have to clean up after her.
For now, she'd try to live up to her name.
Her name on the list of the dead.
-----
"Martha?" the Doctor calls strangely down the halls. She comes out from her room and looks at him.
He is different. It was not that he looked different, as such. But he had a strange gleam in his eye, and a crooked smile that made him seem almost evil.
"Yeah?" she answers.
"We're going somewhere. And you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna kill some Daleks, and some Cybermen," he replies. His voice is laced with malice. Martha is almost scared.
The Doctor stalks off to the Control Room and pulls the lever. They are going to find Dalek Jast, and he was not going to survive.
The shadow mentally congratulated itself.
Meanwhile, Martha is in her room. She is pacing, running her hands through her hair. She does not understand how the Doctor has changed so much in so little time. She was prepared to pass it off as sadness, but his voice has no sadness, only hate.
The chase had begun.