Disclaimer: I don't own the rights or creative copyright to Doctor Who, and claim no monetary benefits from this story or otherwise related. I do wish I owned a TARDIS, but hey, that part's harder.
A/N: I'm a grizzled fanfic writer and new Nu-Who chick. So far I've watched 1.5 seasons and I know a smattering of other details from surfing online; I plan on watching the rest of Nu-Who shortly, and I also want to dabble in the Classics. You may notice some of the details in this story run contrary to the most commonly accepted information about the Ninth Doctor (eg. he was newly regenerated at the start of "Rose"). Bear with me, trust me, and you will find a story that works. Hopefully you'll be tempted to say that it is fantastic!
Description: The Ninth Doctor was born a soldier and a statistician. It turns out that retribution demands neither. The universe has plans, and with the TARDIS' help, he will learn what sort of man he is. Series 1 (Pre/During).
Retribution Time
by darkhelmetj
"Do you think this is stupid?" The Doctor slumped against the TARDIS seat and absently tossed the globe between his palms. "I mean, really mad. Travelling alone, like this."
The computer screen winked several times, and for a moment the Doctor thought the time ship had responded. Then the screen flickered and dissolved into static. He frowned. The monitor had finally fizzled out. The craft had taken plenty of damage during the Time War, and functional antique that it was, he didn't know where to go for replacement parts.
It used to be the Doctor looked for adventure; a few regenerations ago, he would have picked a quadrant of the universe and flown off in search of a mystery and mechanical supplies. Monster of the week, someone called it once. Fly the TARDIS in, solve the problem, flit away before anyone noticed. It was the stuff of pulp fiction, like the novels he kept stashed in the time ship's cupboards in case he was stuck somewhere. Trashy books made awful situations better, because nothing, not even brushes with death, were worse than rank storytelling. Or so he'd thought.
But there was something worse: being stuck between the soggy papers, inside those horrible apocalypse stories, and not being able to do a single morally acceptable thing.
Adventuring was reckless and for chumps. The Doctor wasn't a chump. Smarmy ass and destroyer of worlds, perhaps. But not a chump, and certainly done with adventures. It was time to find the tools.
The box had slid under the floor frame, far enough he had to direct it with his fingertips until it was close enough to grab. He gave the flaky monitor a few good hits with the rubber hammer, until eventually the connections resolved and the picture returned. Unlike much of the technology he'd seen in the universe, the Time Lords had built their devices to last. It meant a great deal of finger waggling behind the scenes, and for every circuit board he knew how to fix, there were three more that functioned only a few steps above magic.
He glared at the ship's central pillar, underneath which rested the TARDIS' connection to the time vortex. "This is sort of the best I can do, unless you feel like scouring creation for replacement bits. I know you could. This box goes off course often enough, you must have your sticky fingers in it."
He tossed the hammer back into the box. His fingers trailed the edge of the screen, eventually falling to the TARDIS' controls. The ship was warm, and even if it never replied, he knew it listened. The heart was alive. More so than his kin.
More than him.
"Or, you know, you could say something. Try and keep this miserable git company." Folding his arms, he leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and tried to lose himself in the time ship's rumble. "You're stuck with me. Sorry. That's life."
The engine rumble wasn't the same as a voice, not really. The ship had always been there, probably always would be, but there was a reason he'd taken companions. Space and time were large, and lonely. Though as far as he could tell, he'd lost the privilege of company. He couldn't speak on behalf of the Time Lords; they were dead, and the dead were beyond judging.
In his eyes, he didn't deserve anything except the TARDIS. It was unique and broken, like him. And they were both alone.
He slammed the start-up sequence into gear, eyes narrowing as he sorted out a destination. "It's time we popped off and found something to do. Going to turn into the scenery if we stay much longer."
He nearly called it an adventure, but an adventure wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to pay retribution. And be damned if the universe took it willingly.
1883. Krakatoa burned from two-hundred megatons of explosive compression. The sea steamed and hissed. The trees fell from tsunamis, debris, and molten lava. The population tried to flee. Mostly, they died and burned with the land.
Earlier, underneath the ominous smoke of the mountain, the Doctor had impeded them to run. He was a stranger, a foreigner in dark leather and a green jumper. A navy officer, some claimed. They didn't trust him, though one man had taken time to sketch his image in wavy palm oils across a scroll.
In the painting, Krakatoa smoked behind the Doctor. He discovered, months later, that the image survived. It outlived its creator, its home, and most of those who had viewed it.
He'd gone to the island to try and save them. In the end, he'd barely escaped to the TARDIS before the lava had flowed and the air concussed. He'd offered, begged even, for them to follow. There was room. It was bigger on the inside. He couldn't save them all, but he could try.
They wouldn't abandon their home. The Time Lords hadn't run, either. He was the only one who ever did.
It took nearly an hour to scrub off the ash in the shower. He'd burned in places, and every time the soap found a new laceration he hissed loudly. It was best he was alone, and even better that the dirt was stubborn, because he wasn't ready to look in the mirror. The tears embarrassed him, and he doubted he could meet his eyes. As far as he cared, trying wasn't enough. When people died, it meant you lost.
No one had won the Time War. Gallifrey had burned, before he'd ripped it from the surface of space and time. Before the planet and the Dalek fleet had sunk, flaming, into the ocean. He didn't remember much beyond that. He didn't need to.
The TARDIS didn't say anything, later, when he took a wrench to the navigation screen and shattered the glass. He cackled and wept as electricity cascaded across the frame and into the ship's heart. Served it right, he thought. Served him as well. So many fires burning in history and the two of them were impervious. He was more than useless. He couldn't save a single person.
Eventually, he collapsed onto the floor, wincing from the slices the stray shrapnel had cut into his palms. He picked the shards quietly from his skin and tried not to bleed over the floor.
"All right, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm the worst doctor, you know. Couldn't save the island. Or them. Then I go and break you. Fantastic piece of work, I am."
The TARDIS remained tactfully silent, even after he retrieved a first aid kit and set to cleaning the wounds properly.
"Krakatoa," he muttered, tightening the bandage with his teeth until crimson pinpricks soaked through the white. "Had to be Krakatoa. I wanted a beach. That's all. Just a nice beach, a hundred miles, no people. But, no. Hell and brimstone. You could have warned me. Better yet. You could have stopped me. Or maybe not. I couldn't stop them. Maybe it's all fixed. Maybe nothing changes."
He liked Earth. He had good memories of it. Visiting Krakatoa had been a stupid fluke born from the flaky navigation system; the way he saw it, it probably wouldn't be his last misdirected flight. His luck wasn't very good. But if he was going to wander, he might as well do it someplace familiar. It hurt him the right way, reminded him why Gallifrey had to burn. Humanity shared a face with the Time Lords, and if the latter couldn't life happily, then he could at least save the former.
He found a new screen that evening. It was in the storage room where he always looked for spare parts, the very place he'd stripped clean before giving up a week earlier. There was a suspicious lack of dust on its exterior. It was newer than the previous one, and when he plugged it into the outputs, it flashed with an updated navigation chart.
The TARDIS didn't talk, exactly. But sometimes it knew what he needed.
"Fine," he said. "I'll try it again. Not much else to do. I'm no better than the stupid apes."
And a coward, but he couldn't say it out loud. He didn't have to do anything. He could jump into a star's furnace and it would be over. But he was the last of the Time Lords. Killing the rest had nearly destroyed him. He wasn't about to do himself in. That was someone else's burden.
"I want a proper ocean this time," he said. "No burning. Just water. Normal, cold water. You got that?"
1912. The Southampton shore was frigid with the remnants of ice. The Doctor stood along the pier and shivered, inwardly surprised that his coat didn't keep in more of his heat. His body usually regulated temperature well, a by-product of his double circulatory system and higher metabolism. The chills could have been from the weather, but he was beginning to suspect it was the hulking shadow of the passenger ship, moored along the docks, breaking his composure.
"I should have packed my furs," a nearby woman said, drawing her overcoat up to her chin. "I know they wouldn't agree with the water, but blimey, I think I might freeze."
"With warm blood like yours, it shouldn't be a problem." Her husband chuckled and glanced at the Doctor. "Now him, I might be worried."
They'd met earlier, while both the Doctor and the family had readied to board the ship. They'd been excited to run into him. He looked just like their son, who'd recently joined the Navy and was out on patrol in the Atlantic. His ship would cross the Titanic's path twice while in British territory. They planned to wave to him from the balcony. The Doctor's presence convinced them they'd have good luck, or so they'd explained.
"I'm all right, if you're asking." He folded his arms and leaned against the dock pole. "You from around here?"
The man laughed. "Wouldn't think so. Wouldn't think you are, either. You talk like a northerner."
He smiled slightly. "I was born there. Haven't been home lately. Has it changed, much?"
"Still the same. Rocks and hills. The chill wind and brisk fog coming up from the fens."
"How'd you afford this, then? The north isn't exactly prosperous."
"I earn a modest income. Enough to be part of history."
The Doctor had already determined the accident was unavoidable. Whether it was fixed, he couldn't tell. He'd witnessed some disasters, minor in the larger scheme, which had been flexible. Mostly, the Titanic's story was complex, too much so for a single person to intervene. The ocean was filled with ice, and if it wasn't a specific berg, it would likely be another.
The ship would sail with or without him. But be damned if he let these people board.
"Listen," he said, pausing as the wavering hesitation in his voice surprised him. If he'd kept one thing for nine-hundred years, he thought it was confidence. "You can't get on that ship."
"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow and glanced at his wife. To the side, their children ran and shouted on the dock. "Do you have a reason?"
"Yeah. No." He grimaced and tightened his grip on his arms. To be honest or not, that was the all-important question. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.
"Are you being nefarious?" the man continued.
"Me? No. Not nefarious. I'm trying to save you. I've sort of heard things. About this ship. About the people on it. Some say it's going to sink."
"Bollocks. The HMS Titanic is unsinkable. It's the pride of England."
"It's been sabotaged." The words came quickly. They always did, when he fell into the role. As the adrenaline spiked, and the adventure came even when he didn't want it. "You said I look like your son. You've caught me. I'm Navy. We've been tracking a potential insurgency to this sailing. It could be anyone. We're sort of stumped on the details. It's a massive plot."
"We'd have heard. They wouldn't lie. The tickets they've sold. Life savings!"
"The pride of England. You think we don't know that? I shouldn't even tell you, except you remind me of someone I've lost. People who've gone. You still have family, and that's precious. Not something you get back."
The wind whistled between the piers. The woman shifted uncomfortably and glanced to her husband.
He ran a hand across his moustache and calmly met the Doctor's gaze. "Could you guarantee our safety? If we boarded? Your team, can they stop it?"
"I can't guarantee anything unless you stay here." He reached a hand. "Promise me you won't get on board. You do that, I'll fix the rest."
"There are no refunds."
"You get your lives. I promise you'll live. Think about you son, how he'd feel if you left him alone."
"How you feel, I'd imagine." The man considered the Doctor, then shook his hand firmly. "Is that why you fight?"
"Maybe. Could be I've got nothing left because I did." He shrugged and turned. "Your choice. There's always a choice."
"There's the truth. I've made my decision. Please, stay a moment."
The Doctor spun back. The mother had flagged down a street photographer, who was happily setting up his equipment on the pier. "Oi? What do you have in mind?"
"Something to commemorate this great ship. And then, if I find out later you are selling lies, I have a face to provide the police."
The Doctor thought to the TARDIS camouflage and grinned. "All right. Deal."
Their backdrop was macabre. The ship would hold over three-thousand human beings on its voyage. And though he'd hoped to save them all, he was willing to take the smaller victory. Not everyone would die. Because he'd dared to hope, the tally would be four less.
He could barely contain his grin. It wouldn't do if the picture looked stupid. If he was pasting his image into history, he could damn well look appropriately dour.
"What's your name," the man asked, after the photo. "Myself, I'm James. My wife, Miranda. Children, Michael and Charles."
The Doctor paused, wondering if he could say it. He hadn't, all those other times. He'd been ashamed to tell them, the people he'd tried to help. Didn't feel he deserved the title. But here, perhaps, he could have it.
"The Doctor," he said, turning back to the street. "Nice to meet you."
"Doctor? Doctor who?"
"Just the Doctor."
The Doctor kept a chart on the wall. It was really just scratches in the steel, divided by a fracture he'd created by dragging a crow bar down the TARDIS' interior.
This Doctor hadn't been alive for very long. As his memories of the Time War grew foggier, and he journeyed more, he realized he'd left parts of himself behind, hidden somehow in that lost period. He understood happiness at a theoretical level. Hell, he'd have been happy with content. But beyond his abstract grasp of the concepts, they seemed locked in that previous personae. The one he couldn't remember.
There had been a Doctor in the war, hadn't there? He saw the face, his face, another face, in his dreams.
The face in the mirror was different. The ears always surprised him, no matter how many times he saw them. And he didn't make it a habit of looking at himself; the hard gleam in his eyes unsettled him. Then there was the hair, close-cropped for convenience. For clothing, a weather-resistant jumper, and a leather jacket, generic enough for him to blend in during many time periods.
A soldier in looks and, as far as he could tell, in mind. He wanted to protect people. Sweep in, save the day, all that. And he knew he was competitive, which wasn't very surprising. His previous incarnations had all been cocky troublemakers, what with their flashy clothing and overconfidence.
The trouble was there were no enemies left to fight and no Time Lords to impress. Without Daleks or much else to contend with, he pitted himself against the universe.
The universe was losing. Barely.
He counted the marks and grinned. Even a single life spared went to his score. Fixed, unavoidable disasters went as points to the other side. His failures, too. He didn't like to think on those. He also didn't know how space-time calculated retribution, but he thought if his life had become a prison sentence, he was making marvellously fast work of the years.
It was a pity he couldn't share it with anyone.
"I'm doing fantastic, you know. Peaches. Look at all these happy little people. I should be counting each of them. I could draw little heads on them too, except you know how well that goes." He snorted. "I like statistics. They're not personal. I can work when it's not personal."
The TARDIS stayed silent.
"Oh, shut it." He flicked the time dial and let it spin. Figured, at this point it didn't matter where they ended up. The box seemed to have a mind of its own, anyway. "Come on, luck of the draw. Let's go see the universe."
1963. "Excuse me," he said, threading through the packed Dallas crowd with an outstretched arm. "Excuse me. Oi, I said excuse me!"
Flashbulbs popped along the roadside as the presidential parade progressed. The Doctor flinched and scowled as his retina retained the after-images. Eventually the crowd gave way and he wiggled into a seat halfway up the grandstand.
Retribution could get you noticed. It was attached to major disasters like a pre-lit firecracker. He hoped he wasn't in too many of the photographs. It had never been an issue before, because he'd always kept to the shadows, either literally or figuratively, in the events he attended.
He didn't even know why he was there, except the TARDIS seemed to think it was critical. Which was odd, because it was a fixed point in time. Too much hinged on Kennedy's death. Future policy, the direction of the United States of America. The moon landing. The latter was more important than the rest, though it took a few thousand years of hindsight to see why.
Down the street, the motorcade rumbled amidst the cheering crowd. The Doctor checked his watch. A few minutes, at most. Then death. A death that would galvanize a nation, drive them to the stars.
Death did that, sometimes. Maybe that was why he was there. It wasn't Kennedy he understood. It was Oswald, up in the building with his scope aimed, waiting to take the life. Cold-blooded, killer. He didn't know what those bullets would bring. Couldn't, at least not as a human.
The Doctor was a Time Lord. He saw the strands and how they wove, and he knew crashing Gallifrey and the Daleks into the space-time foam had been the only choice. He was no different from Oswald. He'd had the conviction. He'd held the gun.
Shots rang across the street and between the buildings. The gunfire echoed over the empty grassy knoll and into the news cameras' microphones. John F. Kennedy slumped in the motorcade. Jackie Kennedy screamed.
The Doctor turned as the crowd surged. He wondered if the scene had been the same, on Gallifrey. If they'd panicked and ran. Or, if they'd simply disappeared.
"You think that's what I needed," he asked the absent TARDIS. Sometimes, during similar events, he felt reality flow around him, as he he'd temporarily stepped from the normal phase into a different world. For all he knew, he had. The crowd blurred, sound deepened.
"You think I need to see this. That's it. That's why you sent me here. I'm not supposed to stop anything. I'm a murderer. Like him. Is that all I am? A stupid, bloody, murderer?" He slid against the wall and stared blankly at the panicking throng. "Time keeps on going, like always. And I'm part of it."
The crowd had noticed him. They listened. People stared and pointed. Two police officers approached, hands moving to their gun holsters.
The Doctor ran. The police followed, but they didn't know where he was going. The crowd obstructed the path. A block away, he felt the TARDIS' psychic tendrils reach out and draw him in. The doors swung open as he careened towards it, then shut, blocking the bullets as they ricocheted against the dimensional wall.
"I'm not like him." Breathless, the Doctor stumbled to the nearest chair and collapsed. "I've killed and I've destroyed and I care. I can't stop seeing them, all their faces burning. It matters. It means something." He trailed off, eyes widening.
He was part of the cosmos. Hardly a god, but breakable. Fallible. Like a human, like all the species he'd saved at the cost of his home planet. He'd wondered why the TARDIS continually returned them to Earth. Why he let it subtly redirect the coordinates.
Humanity had its villains and heroes, just as the Time Lords had. They all made mistakes. The villains didn't care.
He did.
He closed his eyes and let his arms fall to the sides. "If I'm stuck with all this, what am I supposed to do, if I care so damn much? The world's off spinning through space and I can barely hang on. I mean, a brain like mine and I don't know what to do."
The navigation screen flickered, then beeped. The Doctor cracked an eye.
"Energy signature. Nestene, looks like. So, that's it. Just keep going. Have more stupid adventures. I guess you're saying I'm allowed to have them, again. Me, the destroyer of worlds, gets to stop and have fish and chips. I'd like that, you know. Just once, fish and chips, no trouble, no problems. I don't even care who with."
The TARDIS beeped again.
He sighed. Perhaps that was his retribution. Always the calm before the storm, and then the storm. Never a rest.
"Well, that's your choice," he said, dialling up the systems. "The Nestene, then we're going to stop in London and eat. I'll bring you back some. You can burn them up in your little hideaway there and we'll be on our way. Imagine, the TARDIS, powered by cod and potatoes. Fantastic!"
Or maybe, if he were lucky, things would be different, and it wouldn't just be tally points on the wall. He never lost that hope, that eventually something would change, the odds would tip fully in his favour, and he'd be finished repaying his debts.
What he would do then, he had no idea.
"Nestene," he said, as the time vortex thrummed and the TARDIS dove through space-time. "Haven't seen them in ages. Almost sounds like fun."
Rose. Her name was Rose, this poor, stupid girl who'd stumbled into the Nestene hive and then saved his life - inexplicably, he thought, because he was no one and humans weren't supposed to care that much - and then had said no, she wouldn't go with him. He thought he'd be lucky, that maybe she'd come along.
He decided to have other adventures anyway. He added to the scratches on the wall, each one lanced into the steel with a crow bar. And they were horrible and boring because he had so many stories, lifetimes' worth, and not a single person to share them with.
Her name was Rose. She'd saved his life. He should have said something better. He wasn't good with pickups, at least not in this body. He'd hesitated and she could tell, because she was that kind of girl, and she only went with the best. It wasn't that her clueless boyfriend was better.
It was that she knew the Doctor wasn't. He could tell that from the few times they'd spoken. She was an unemployed store clerk who lived with her mum, and she wanted more. She wanted the exceptional. It was a challenge, almost. A stinking gauntlet thrown down, because he was exceptional. He had told her who he was, and he was ready to be the Doctor again, well and truly.
By the time the TARDIS reappeared on the street, he was already opening the door, a wide grin on his face. Rose looked shocked, and that was perfect, because he'd practiced the line over and over in front of the mirror until he had it just right.
"Oh, and did I mention that it also travels in time?"
Rose only asked about the wall markings once.
"Was this you?" She ran her hand across the splintered steel. "Or someone else? I guess I don't know much about the TARDIS. Was it always yours?"
The Doctor laughed. "Yeah. Always was, always will be. You don't think that someone else would be daft enough to keep the police box, do you?"
"Heh, no. Why'd you do this, then?" She frowned. "Some of them are new. The scratches. These ones, they're almost gone. Like, the ship is healing itself."
"I had to track something. Something important."
"Is it still? Important, I mean."
He considered her, Rose, the unexpected companion. He kept telling himself she wasn't one, not really. He didn't entertain guests. His luggage included death, and he hardly wanted to bring it to Earth, let alone to this genuine, optimistic young woman. But against all reason, even with his useless protestations, she was still there.
Somehow, between the Nestene and that lonely period when she'd been absent, when she'd turned him down, and after the Slitheen and the Dalek and all the times she'd nearly died-
Somehow she'd become important to him. A single person whose life was his responsibility.
"No," he said. "Well, yeah. But no. Not the most important. Not anymore."
"So what is?"
His shoulders stiffened. He hated when she asked nosey questions. Smart questions, he loved those. The rest, those made him uncomfortable. Mostly because he didn't know how to reply. He was barely sure of the answer, himself.
He forced a grin, turned her way, and clapped his hands together. "Fun! Always fun. Lots and lots of fun. Fun's my best friend."
She rolled her eyes. "All right. You don't want to talk. I get it."
The TARDIS alarm screeched; the Doctor sighed, his grin disappearing.
"Energy signature," he said. "Coming our way. Fast."
"Better have a look, then. And you can tell me later. Don't think you'll wiggle out of that one."
There wasn't a later. Not the right sort. Not one without Jack's company, or Mickey's, or her mum. There were endless, personal reasons why the marks on the wall didn't matter. The Doctor had other things to sort out, and even more that worried him. He lost track of exactly how many times they saved a life, saved a planet, saved the universe.
As long as Rose was there, his world felt complete. As long as she lived, he believed he'd repaid retribution, at least enough to avoid solitude. His life was stark, raving mad, and she loved it. She contributed to the madness, to the degree he wondered, stupidly, if humans also had past lives, and if she'd come from Gallifrey at one point.
Sometimes, he wondered if she loved him, though he never gathered the courage to ask. He was still a coward. That much hadn't changed.
But Rose reminded him to breathe. To smile. To live.
It was enough. And it was fantastic.
The Time War wasn't over. With those words in mind, the Doctor threaded yards of cabling, welded the connections, programmed the circuits until the D-Wave hummed throughout Satellite 5. It had been minutes since anyone had called in. Not Jack, or Lynda. He was sure they were dead. He grimaced and kept working.
The War was now personal. The TARDIS was gone, with Rose inside, hopefully someplace safe. He did care about the Daleks getting their slimy little tentacles on the ship, but at this point he wasn't worried about them cracking space-time and destroying everything.
He cared about keeping Rose from becoming one of them. She'd shown the tinheads mercy in Henry van Statten's archives, and they'd repaid it by kidnapping and threatening to murder her. The awful part was he couldn't forget her actions and the precedent they'd set. It was why he'd sent her far away, to the past, where the Daleks would never reach her.
When he thought of activating the D-Wave, he saw the condemnation and incredulity in her eyes when he'd pointed the gun at van Statten's Dalek. And he knew he couldn't stinking do it. Not because they didn't deserve it, because bloody hell, they did. They deserved to burn in the pit of Gallifrey with the rest.
But if they burned, Rose would never forgive him. He couldn't be a murderer. Not with her as his conscience.
"She's safe," he said. "She's safe and you can't reach her. I'll bet you can't even find her! She's just one girl. One girl in the entire universe, and she matters to me, you stupid null points!"
The door shuddered, then shattered. The Daleks began to enter.
The Doctor stood and placed his hands on the activator. It would end soon. He would be dead, the Daleks possibly with him, and there would be a winner. The war of all wars would be over.
The Doctor was dying. Quickly, from what he could tell. While Rose slept off her journey in the time vortex, those same energies tore his body apart. It started small; he barely noticed until his hands began to twitch. It didn't hurt, which worried him more. The changes were more complex than his brain could process. And the slightly psychic, hyper-intelligent brain of a Time Lord could handle a lot.
He knew what would happen. The regeneration process was unreliable. He didn't know how he would come out. He had to prepare the TARDIS, have it ready to take her home with a single pull of a lever. She'd traversed space and time to save him, but she wasn't the Bad Wolf anymore. She couldn't operate the time ship.
She had come back to save him. It wasn't how it was supposed to work. She was his responsibility, and never once had he considered that she was there for him, instead. He didn't think he was allowed that. A real, true companion. One who would give her life for his, without hesitation. They'd experienced danger, certainly. But he'd always kept her safe. This time, she'd thrown herself back in. She'd been a far more ferocious Time Lord than he'd ever hoped to be.
By all laws of the universe, the Daleks should have killed him. The act of dying slowly was different. He would survive. But not as himself. The change frightened him. He couldn't remember if it had in the past.
"I was content," he said quietly. He splayed his fingers across the TARDIS panel, wincing as the first real tendrils of the cellular breakdown crossed his face. "I could have died like that. But I'm not going to die. I'm going to change."
He wouldn't wear the jacket, likely. He didn't know what he would like in terms of clothing. He wouldn't have the stupid ears that he'd gradually found endearing, or the nose, or the northern accent, or the careful impulsivity or the angry sass or all the things he'd built his future on.
He wouldn't be the Doctor that Rose knew and trusted.
"Mmmmm." She finally stirred and sat upright. "What happened?"
"Don't you remember?"
"It's like, there was this singing."
"That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away."
He was losing his mind. Maybe literally. Rose giggled. He grinned. He tried not to cry.
He didn't want to sing. He wanted to dance. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her when she wasn't glowing with time energies and would remember. She didn't remember. He saw it so clearly on her face. The fog there, the fading knowledge of time and the TARDIS and how it felt to hold the entire universe in her hands.
He understood. He didn't remember his previous transformation. He and Rose carried remnant memories of having done something profound. Of the Daleks, and genocide. The time vortex had robbed them of mercy, at least beyond first chances. They'd trusted the universe to reciprocate. Optimistic, idealistic.
"Rose Tyler," he said, voice cracking. "I was going to take you to so many places. Barclona! Not the city Barcelona, the planet, Barcelona. You'd love it, fantastic place! They've got dogs with no noses!"
She laughed, but he saw the confusion underneath. Here he was, about to regenerate, and he was blathering about noseless dogs. She had no idea what was going on. She was frightened.
"Imagine," he said, "how many times a day you end up telling that joke and it's still funny." He felt it, deep inside. The energy surging. The process beginning.
"Then, why can't we go?"
"Maybe you will, and maybe I will. But not like this."
"You're not making sense."
"I might never make sense again! I might have two heads, or no head. Imagine me with no head, hah. And don't say that's an improvement. But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with-"
He didn't remember if the regeneration hurt all the previous times. It did now. The wave cascaded through his chest. He gasped and fell back, and as Rose lunged towards him, he threw out a hand.
"Stay away!"
Her eyes widened. "Doctor, tell me what's going on."
"I absorbed all the energy of the time vortex, and no one's meant to do that." He laughed and grimaced. He laughed because it was an understatement, and no one should ever do that, because any other person would be dead a hundred times over. Except him, and Rose.
Rose, who wasn't from Gallifrey, let alone a Time Lord. Rose, who should have been dead, but wasn't. Rose, who he was scaring to death, who he didn't want to leave that way, who he desperately wanted to hold because his nervous system was screaming. Rose, who was still alive, for no believable reason other than to be there for him.
"Every cell in my body's dying," he said.
"Can't you do something?"
"Yeah, I'm doing it now! Time Lords have this little trick. It's sort of a way of cheating death. Except, it means I'm going to change. And I'm not going to see you again." He couldn't say it. He had to say it. He could be afraid around her. He could be a coward. "Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go-"
"Don't say that!"
He shuddered, and a corner of his mind began to count the seconds. It was all so mechanical, like clockwork ticking down to a final crescendo. He wanted to spend eternity with her. There was time for a few words, at most.
"Rose, before I go. I just want to tell you. You were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic."
Her eyes watered and creased. She smiled. He should have said it sooner. A hundred times, a million. The Doctor the coward, he thought.
I love you Rose Tyler. This daft, dying man loves you.
Perhaps he'd made retribution. Perhaps he'd be lucky, and when everything changed and he died and was reborn, he would do things better. He thought he'd done well enough, considering. He'd lived through a war, saved the universe.
Saved her. It was amazing, really. How far he'd come. He was ready. He'd earned this. The chance to be more than content. The chance to be happy.
He was happy. "And do you know what?" he said. "So was I."
He grinned because it was better than screaming. She grinned back, and then the universe cracked and the world stopped. It was the end; it should have been terrifying, the melting and reforging of his soul.
Except, Rose Tyler loved him. And if he was very lucky, she'd love the Doctor he would become.
End
A/N: Thanks for reading. :) See you next time.