Hey guys :) As my more regular readers know, I like to (try to) look into the minds of the Doctors at particular moments in time. Usually I get "inspired" by a particular look on someone's face. In this case, it was the look on Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Nine!)'s face when he reveals to Jackie in S1E5 that his plan to save the world from the Slitheen would mean that Rose wouldn't be safe, and Rose gives him a simple answer : Do it.
Enjoy! Please remember to review and let me know what you thought!
"Our inspectors have searched the sky above our heads, and they have found massive weapons of destruction," that was the voice of the stand-in Prime Minister, Joseph Green, and Rose saw the Doctor exchange a look of confusion with Harriet jones as the three of them leaned over the speaker in the center of the table. "Capable of being deployed within 45 seconds."
"What?" The Doctor whispered, looking at her. She met his gaze steadily, though she knew her eyes betrayed her fear.
"Our technicians can baffle the alien probes, but not for long," Green continued. "We are facing…extinction. Unless we strike first. The United Kingdom stands directly beneath the belly of the mother ship. I beg of the United Nations: pass an emergency resolution. Give us the access codes! A nuclear strike at the heart of the beast is our only chance at survival, because from this moment on, it is my solemn duty to inform you, planet Earth is at war."
The Doctor pushed away from the table and paced the room in large strides. "He's making it up." He told Rose and Harriet. "There's no weapons up there. There's no threat, he just invented it."
"Do you think they'll believe him?" Harriet asked him, shock evident on her features, as she regarded the Doctor with wide eyes. It seemed impossible to her that anyone could believe the creature's blatant cry, to buy into his desperate cry for the nuclear codes.
"Well, you did last time," Rose reminded her drily.
"That's why the Slitheen went for spectacle," the Doctor realized, speaking as much to himself as he was to Rose and Harriet as he strode purposefully to the door. "They want to whole world panicking, 'cause you lot, you get scared, you lash out."
"They release the defence codes…" Rose started, moving towards him.
"And the Slitheen go nuclear." The Doctor finished the sentence.
"But why?" Harriet demanded as the Doctor pressed a button that would open the steel doors of the cabinet room.
The doors slid open quietly and the Slitheen stumbled the face him, apparently caught off guard by the Doctor's decision to face them, if only briefly. "You get the codes, release the missiles. But not into space, 'cause there's nothing there. You attack every other country on earth, they retaliate, fight back," as he spoke, the one still in costume, Margaret, moved forward to face them, a cruel and ugly smirk on her borrowed face, "world war three: the whole planet gets nuked." He finished as she continued to move forward until she stood only a few feet away from them.
"And we can sit through it safe in our spaceship waiting in the Thames." She confirmed, her chin lifting confidently. "Not crashed, just parked. Barely two minutes away," she taunted, her voice taking on a sing-song like quality.
"But you'll destroy the planet, this beautiful place, what for?" Harriet demanded, a disbelieving frown on her face.
It wasn't Margaret who answered. "Profit." The Doctor stated, his face hard. "That's what the signal is, beaming into space: an advert."
"Sale of the century," Margaret agreed, the cocky smile gone from her face as she regarded the two humans and the Time Lord with a snarl on her lips. "We reduce the Earth to molten slag, then sell it, piece by piece," there was the smile again. "Radioactive chunks capable of powering every cut-price star liner with a budget cargo ship. There's a recession out there, Doctor, people are buying cheap. This rock becomes raw fuel."
"At the cost of five billion lives," the Doctor added, his voice relaxed but his stance tense and angry. He wore his jacket like leather armor, encasing him and making him indestructible.
Margaret let out a scoff. "Bargain."
The Doctor didn't react. "Then I give you a choice. Leave this planet, or I'll stop you." He promised her, and Rose could see that he meant it. Her Doctor abhorred violence and believed in giving a chance where it was deserved, but in threatening every human and their planet, the Raxacofallapatorians had denied themselves that chance.
The aliens at the door began to laugh. "What, you?" Margaret laughed as she stepped forward, the smile on her face until suddenly, her features were dangerous and threatening. "Trapped in your box?" She finished, meeting his eyes with a dark scowl.
"Yes." The Doctor answered. "Me."
Margaret began to laugh again, but the smile disappeared from her face when the Doctor hit the button that closed the doors, locking them back into the cabinet room.
The Doctor was leaning against the steel wall, his arms crossed over his chest and his face hard and dangerous. He knew a way out, of course. The Doctor always had the answer, and the lives of the three of them were nothing if they could save the billions of people on the planet, but he could never allow himself to threaten anyone's life so blatantly, and saving the lives of the many for the safety of the few had never worked out for him before.
It was because of that past decision that he was here now.
"All right, Doctor, I'm not saying I trust you, but there must be something you can do." Jackie pleaded over the phone.
"If we could ferment the porch, we could make ascetic acid," Harriet suggested.
"Mickey, any luck?" Rose asked.
"There's loads of emergency numbers. They're all on voicemail." Mickey answered.
"Voicemail dooms of all," Harriet said sarcastically.
Rose began to pace. "If we could just get out of here."
"There's a way out," the Doctor said then, his voice low and his face dark as the hint of a Storm raged in his blue eyes.
Rose turned to him, meeting his eyes. "What?"
The Doctor lifted his head and met her gaze straight on, his arms still defensively crossed over his chest. "There's always been a way out." He told her honestly. He hadn't been planning on telling her, no really, but the words had slipped out and now she was looking at him like that.
"Then why don't we use it?" Rose asked, somehow sounding both demanding but her voice still kind.
The Doctor pushed himself off the wall and move forward, leaning forward towards the speaker on the table and bracing himself against the backs of two chairs with his hands. "Because I can't guarantee your daughter will be safe," it wasn't to Rose that he spoke, but to Jackie.
"Don't you dare. Whatever it is, don't you dare." Jackie threatened, though the concern of a mother was hardly enough to stop the Doctor from saving the human race.
"That's the thing, if I don't dare, everyone dies." The Doctor said bluntly.
Without him noticing, Rose had moved so that she stood across from him on the other side of the table. "Do it."
He looked up in surprise to meet her clear, hazel gaze, surprise making his face slacken. "You don't even know what it is, you'd just let me?" He asked her in wonder, his voice soft as he looked into her warm eyes, disbelief turning his blood into ice. Never had someone trusted him with such resolve, with so much determination, and he felt the fight disappear from his eyes.
"Yeah." She replied simply, still looking at him that way, with trust and faith in her eyes but resignation on her face, as though she it didn't matter that she died.
He continued to stare into her eyes in shock, looking for any trace of doubt, and distrust, any fear, but he saw none. Her gaze lit a fire in his heart, a burning flame that warmed his core and turned the ice that had formed in his veins into lava, surging through him, and he couldn't look away from her face. She was so young, his Rose, just a young girl with life and a mother and a boyfriend, just a human who'd travelled with him.
Except she wasn't.
She was a young girl who'd said no to him, and for the first time in his life, he'd decided to go back and ask again. He was the girl that he wanted (did he dare think needed?) that he'd gone back and asked her to come with him a second time.
She was the girl who'd saved his life before she even really knew him, swinging from a chain in a dark hidden chamber under the London Eye to kick the Nestenes into the consciousness, tipping the anti-plastic in as she did.
She was the girl who'd called him a designated driver, making him laugh when he'd been determined to be angry and aloof.
She was the girl who'd asked him to help Cassandra, even though some of the people on board had died because of her trick, even though she'd almost died because of the old bat's trick.
She was the first one he'd told about his planet, his people, because he knew, deep in his core, he knew that he could trust this young human girl.
She was the one who'd said there's me and made him realize that he might be the only Time Lord in the Universe, but he wasn't alone. Not anymore. Better with two, after all.
She was the one who'd taken his hand in a morgue in Cardiff in 1860.
"We'll go down fighting, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Together?"
"Yeah. I'm so glad I met you."
She was the one who'd kissed Charles Dickens on the cheek, a quick goodbye, and had sparked a jealousy in the Doctor that he couldn't remember ever feeling before.
She was the one who'd barely reacted, beyond mild surprise, when he'd told her his age.
She was the one who'd earned a TARDIS key, a promise of which she couldn't understand the significance, but one that lightened his heart and eased his pain. Not alone, not anymore. Not while she was around.
She was the one that had stayed by his side as a helicopter zoned in on them with a bright light and police cars came racing from every street, encircling them.
She was the young girl that made him smile when she fell asleep on the jump seat in the console room, the young girl whose body he cradled to his chest when he carried her sleeping form to her bedroom.
She was the young girl who was always ready to sacrifice herself for the good of others, and he loved and hated that about her.
And the way he was looking at her now was the one a man looked at a woman when he'd only just realized how much he loved her, as though she were the only person in the room, the only person on earth, who had ever mattered and would ever mattered. Time stopped for the Time Lord as he looked at the girl who always said the right thing, who made him feel like he belonged, who took his hand in her smaller one like it was the easiest thing in the world, and whose warm hand fit so perfectly in his that he can't imagine not being able to hold it.
"Please, Doctor, please, she's my daughter. She's just a kid!"
Wrong. "Do you think I don't know that?" He asked, his voice gentle when he began to speak but hardening as the words continued to tumble from him mouth. "'Cause this is my life, Jackie. It's not fun, it's not smart, it's just standing up and making a decision, because nobody else will.
"Then what're you waiting for?" Rose asked quietly, her eyes locked on the Doctor.
He lifted his gaze to hers, his blue eyes burning with hot intensity as he looked at her, wanting her to understand, needing her to. "I could save the world but lose you." He told her, not once looking away from her face. Because he could. It would be so easy to save the world, but he knew, deep in his soul, that if he lost Rose Tyler, if he lost yet another person who cared about him, a person who made him feel like he wasn't alone, he would never recover.
It was her warm presence, her kind soul, her honest mistakes and her desperation to fix wrongs that was slowly weaving its way into his tortured mind and making him better. It was her inviting hand and that tongue-touched smile of hers that brought smiles to his face. It was her witty comments and passing remarks that made him laugh when he felt his mind retreating into itself. It was her. She was the reason he was healing, the reason he could heal, and he would not be able to heal from losing her.
He tried to convey this in a single look, just with his eyes. He tried to show her how much he needed her, how if he lost her, he would drown in the vast loneliness of his own mind and never resurface. He wanted her to know what she meant, who she was to him. He willed her to understand that she wasn't just another ape – she was very quickly becoming his everything.
She met his eyes steadily for a few moments, and slowly, her lips began to curl upwards, and while it was certainly not the time for wide grins and laughter, he desperately longed to see the tip her tongue poke out from under canine, his hearts squeezing painfully when the idea that it might be the last time he would ever see it passed through his thoughts. He pushed them away angrily.
It was Harriet Jones who made the final call, decidedly ordering him to go ahead with his plan. Over the phone, the Doctor instructed Mickey as the younger man hacked through the Royal Navy's data systems, and felt a begrudging respect for Rose's boyfriend when he fire the missile at 10 Downing Street.
The Doctor watched as Harriet and Rose dashed around the room to empty a small cupboard and once he was satisfied they'd done everything they could, the three of them stashed into it, under a shelf that probably wouldn't survive being sat on. He took both of their hands in his, ignoring the way his hearts sputtered when Rose gripped his one hand tightly with both of hers. He could feel her pulse, unnaturally quick, through their slight contact, and he hoped that the contact would help ease her fear if only a little bit.
The crash was violent and jarring and seemed to last forever, they were tossed around the small room haphazardly, and at Rose's shriek he held her hand tighter, holding on to her as best he could from their awkward position. His eyes shut tightly as the room rocked with them in it, papers flying everywhere and the room shaking so badly he felt as though he were vibrating himself.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over.
His eyes snapped open and his gaze met Rose's, who was equally wide-eyed as she looked around the room in wonder. She'd been verbally adamant about surviving, of course, but a part of her had made its peace with this being the last of it. Blue met hazel, and a shared grin spread on both of their faces.
They'd made it. They were alive.
Harriet Jones cleared her throat and the two of them stood, the Doctor getting to his feet first and tugging Rose up, who let go of his hand to dust off her jeans. He felt the loss of the contact straight through his system, but moved determinedly to the door, kicking it open. Very little of the infrastructure remained, he realized, as he took in the rubble that had been 10 Downing Street, part of the steel wall of the cabinet room still standing, and he idly wondered if they would rebuilt it.
Harriet Jones took off, heading towards a large crowd of people, and Rose and the Doctor moved along a less populous path, sticking to the edges of the crowds and not drawing attention to themselves. Rose went right home, to her mother, and the Doctor went to his TARDIS, though everything in his mind told him to stay with her, to not let her out of his sight. He ignored it.
When he called her to inform her that he'd been ready to leave soon, he vehemently denied her invitation for tea. This body did not do domestics – he wasn't interested in a sit down with Jackie and Mickey and learning their life stories, the only human he cared to spend an extended amount of time with was Rose. When she argued and he finally said, "Well, you can stay there if you want," he regretted it immediately.
Because what if she did? What if she realized that she could have tea with her mother and spend time with her boyfriend, but she couldn't do that if she was off travelling with him. What if, after nearly being blown up, she decided she should be spending more time with her family, leading a normal human life, the way it should be?
Every part of him rebelled against the idea. As much as he wanted to know she was safe and alive, he needed her with him. More even. She was supposed to be with him, holding his hand, seeing the universe, and for a moment, he felt more selfish than he ever had in any of his lives.
But he didn't care.
So he cheated.
If Jackie and Mickey could offer her something he never could, he would make a counter-offer.
"But right now, there's this plasma storm brewing in the Horsehead nebula. Fires are burning 10 million miles wide. I could fly the TARDIS right into the heart of it, then ride the shock wave all the way out, hurtle right across the sky, and end up anywhere." He let out a breath. "Your choice. "
And he hung up.
He let out a heavy sigh and blinked several times before shaking his head and getting back to work on the TARDIS. He regretted hanging up before getting an answer from her. What if she wasn't coming? What if that was goodbye and he hadn't even said it? What if he never saw her again? He shook his head again and got rid of the thoughts. Right now, he would make sure he was ready to leave Earth and not be called back a moment later because he'd forgotten something. When he offered Mickey the virus to erase him from the internet, he idly wondered if that was the last she would see of him as well, and the thought wasn't pleasant.
"What do you want me to do that for?" Mickey questioned him
"'Cause you're right. I am dangerous. I don't want anybody following me."
"How can you say that, and then take her with you?" Mickey demanded, nodding his head towards Rose's building.
The Doctor looked to where Rose had just stepped into sight, backpack on her shoulders, and felt his stomach swoop pleasantly, as though he'd just gone over the crest of a roller coaster. Now time for the fall.
When he offered Mickey a chance to come along, it wasn't just because he'd unwillingly come to respect the young man, but also because maybe, just maybe, he could offer Rose a semblance at a normal life if she had her boyfriend with them. The invitation left a sour taste in his mouth, and he tried to hide his relief when the younger man declined.
Rose tossed her backpack into his arms, and he placed an annoyed expression on his face.
I'm signing up. You're stuck with me! Ha!
Stuck with her.
That wasn't so bad.
Well, loves? What did you think? I'm a huge fan of Eccleston - he's my absolute favourite Doctor, and I miss him tons. Hope you enjoyed this fic - still working away on One for the Team, for those of you who are reading that, but inspiration struck and I can't not write about 9 when I get it strikes my fancy!