"O.K. Rose, some sightseeing for you" the Doctor said walking towards the console. He wiped the slight tear away from his eye. "In memory of you..." He turned a knob on the centre mound and pressed in a button. The TARDIS gave a sigh and dimmed her lights. The Doctor sat on the battered swivel chair and agreed, "Yep, you missing her too?" He leant forward and stroked one of her panels. He reclined backwards and rested his feet on the console, and with one of his feet flicked a lever. "Off to Barcelona".
The Time Lord's machine creaked into action, slightly reluctant to move as much as her master wanted. She was becoming slightly human, if it was possible. This was probably as possible as, the Doctor becoming slightly human. The strange thing was that, this was, actually happening.
Yes, the 900 year old Time Lord, last of his race, fought in the Time War and lost, in his tenth body, young, fit, funny, is on his own. And he's humanizing. Why? Rose Tyler, a shop girl in London. It started in that basement in Henrik's. Run for your life and all that. He was going to go swanning off. But she went with him. From the end of the world to the Gamestation, where he gave his life for her. He absorbed all the energy of the time vortex, and he regenerated. New teeth, new Doctor. Together until the army of ghosts, until Torchwood, until Bad Wolf Bay, where she said, "I love you".
Love, he's in love and she's gone.
It's human to miss the ones you love She's drilled human into him. He's become a harder, darker person. Angry.
Now, he's heading towards Barcelona. Again. The last time Barcelona's co-ordinates were set was after his regeneration and they were cancelled to take Rose home. It's not Rose's home now. She's on a parallel Earth in a big house with her Mum, Dad, boyfriend and brother or sister.
A smile hasn't crossed his face since being with Donna, not that she was better than Rose, he just needed company.
Is that "dogs with no noses" joke still funny?
Thoughts of Romana, Grace and Sarah Jane filled his head, was it like this leaving them? Did they feel the way he did? Did they love him?
Sarah Jane did. But she's living a life of adventure on her own. It was Aberdeen! Then they met again. In that school, Deffry Vale. They said "Goodbye" that time.
He never said it to Rose. She was special. And they were going to be together forever. Never say "Never ever". Had he really been fooling himself? It's the curse of the Time Lords isn't it?
A ping echoed through the TARDIS and her machinery died down to background murmur showing that it had landed at his destination. The Doctor slowly got out of the chair and it sighed as his weight eased of it. He bent over the console and reached for his glasses in his suit jacket pocket, he put them on and inspected the screen. The Doctor scanned his sonic screwdriver across the monitor, circles and patterns appeared, known to him as his own language, Gallifreyan. "Someone's trying to stop the second Renaissance era with hooligan scrawl" he explained to himself.
Flashbacks of the time he took Rose to an art gallery on the moon, flittered through his head. That picture of her: Untitled. The paint, how frightened he was. The question: "Who Am I?" The Doctor remembered what he had thought to himself: "She was Rose Tyler… Rose was his best friend and his job was to protect her…Rose and the Doctor it went together… Rose defined him."
The Doctor walked over to Rose's jacket lying on a coral. He lifted it up to his face, and breathed in Rose's smell: perfume, sweat and must. He removed his own brown pinstripe jacket and placed the two of them on the seat. He took off his brown and blue spotty tie and tied up Rose's blue jacket with his own brown and blue pinstripe one.
He needed a clothes change, things had changed. The Time Lord's eyes lit up and for the first time in hours, days, he couldn't tell, he smiled, not a beaming grin, but a knowing small smile. The Doctor in his tan coloured Converse All Stars flew up the TARDIS' spiral staircase and into the TARDIS wardrobe. Less than two minutes later he was dressed in a new blue suit, white shirt, red tie and maroon Converse.
He jumped onto the staircase rail and slid down into the main console room. "Brown to blue." he announced to no-one in particular, "Artistic license, colour negativity." He passed the two jackets and stroked them. "New, new, new Doctor!" He exclaimed. He grabbed his tan long coat from a platform on his right. "It'll be ok" he said to the TARDIS, patting one of her coral pillars. "She's fighting aliens in that universe, plenty to fight here." He put on his coat. "Let's go kick some arty-farty butt!"
The TARDIS' doors flew open and the 900 year old was as rejuvenated as ever before.
He brushed his hand through his hair and licked his teeth. "Rose Tyler…" he said as a grin spread across his face, "I love you!" And the Doctor skipped out of the TARDIS, turned round and heralded – "FANTASTIC!"