It's one of those stories, like your parents told you every night, only better. The ones that go on and on, because they can go to any place and any time and there is always more you haven't seen, always more you don't understand, like an unspoken catchphrase: There is Always More to Tell.
And you know, eventually you wonder about Always More to Tell. Where does it end, you ask. It can't really go on forever. Nothing does.
Nothing.
Eventually people grow old. The Doctor will leave Rose, or she'll leave him, or she'll die. And that part will be over. Perhaps forever.
But then, the really interested listener wonders, what More is There to Tell then? Something goes on.
This is one future...
"What story do you want tonight?" Rose asks, tucking the covers up under her daughter's chin. She turns to the bookshelf and picks out a few books for young Tiffany to choose from, but the girl reaches out and touches her arm, signaling her to stop.
"I don't want any of those tonight, Mum," Tiffany explains. "Tell me one of your stories. One with the Doctor."
"Now, come on," Rose replies, shaking off the hand. "There's a reason your father and I stopped telling you those stories. You don't want to get too attached to the Doctor."
"Why not?" Tiffany wonders, now genuinely interested. "You never told me that part."
"You were too young to understand."
"I'm nine now, Mum. I'll get it. Really."
"All right... you know the TARDIS?"
"Was that the box or the dog? I can't remember."
Rose chuckles, seeing the joking look in her daughter's eyes. "It's the box. You remember. And you know how it can take you to any place you want?"
"Yeah, and any time, too. I remember that bit."
"But it always stays with the Doctor, you know? Well, except for that one time with the Dalek Emperor... But the point is, it's his box. The only one left. No one can have it but him, and if they did they couldn't use it."
"Yeah, so?"
"So... before I met him, I didn't know any place but Earth, or any time but now. And then along comes the Doctor, whisks me off to the year 5 billion and something, so far off that they've changed the numbering and it's called 5 slash apple slash something-or-other. It's the end of the world. The sun is going to expand, goodbye Earth, and there are observation decks full of rich aliens there to pay respect to the birthplace of humanity. Never seen anything like it before. Nothing at all."
"You told me that one. I thought you went to see Charles Dickens first."
"Yeah. Never thought I could have met him, either. Or Queen Victoria, or the werewolf."
"You told me that one too, mum. What're you getting at?"
"Let me finish. And once we went to 2012, which was about two years before you were born but still in the future back then, and we met the last of the Daleks. Poor thing, only ever had one purpose and couldn't do it anymore, waiting on orders that'd never come, and then..."
"Oh, Mum, don't tell that one!" Tiffany's eyes well up with tears. "It's so sad..."
"But he changed, remember?" Rose smiles. "For a while he was something new, just by touching me. The birth of a new race, don't you see? And I never would have been there, it never would have happened, if not for the Doctor and his box."
"Okay..." She wipes her eyes with her sleeve.
"It's like being friends with the guy who owns the first car. You can go anywhere, he can take you to see all kinds of things, but he's got the only one. Without him, you go back to the same old, same old, but worse because you know there's more out there you won't ever get to see again, or at all. You've only heard the stories, you don't really know it like your father and I do, but can you imagine what that's like?"
Tiffany pauses.
"Wow... Mum... I'm sorry. I never thought of it like that before. I won't ask for the stories anymore if you don't want."
It's Rose's turn to pause now. She sits there, deep in thought, for a few moments before she answers.
"It's all right. I'll tell them if you still want to hear. But you have to realize you can't get too attached. You know the Peter Pan movie sequels where Peter comes back to London and finds Wendy's daughter?"
"Yeah?"
"The Doctor is like that, but he's not as dumb as Peter Pan. One day you might meet him, and he'll still look as young as in the stories, and he'll probably even work out that we're related. And he might even offer to take you somewhere, because you remind him of me and your father. But you can't do it, Tiffany. You can't. Otherwise that'll be your life, running around the universe with him. You'll miss out on all the things you'd be doing here on Earth, like a husband or a career, and you won't even care because it'll seem so great. Until you get hurt, or old, or something, and he takes you back here, and suddenly an everyday life, here on Earth, is like being in a cage around the whole world that you only just noticed is there because someone let you out for a moment. And you know, you just know, that he's never coming back, that this is your life now. If he were a normal man, if he had to go to the shops to buy food and such, you might meet him again and convince him to take you back, but he isn't, and he doesn't, and you won't. So you're stuck in the cage, but you remember what was outside and sometimes you wish you didn't because that would make it so much easier to pretend it never happened, but you do, so you go through life like you're carrying this great big weight that you can't let anyone see..."
She realizes suddenly that she has begun to cry, great slow tears that took a long time to well up, and pauses to collect herself.
"And it's hard, Tiffany. It's really... hard, that's all. Don't do that to yourself."
"But Mum..."
"Yes?"
"Mum, they say it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."
"I don't know, Tiffany. When you've loved and lost, there's all this crying... sometimes it never stops."
The door to the bedroom closes the last little bit, and Mickey Smith walks back down the hallway, not crying because the knowledge went away and came back, but simply hanging his head, because he's always known...