"Moisturize me!" Cassandra screamed.
Rose stared at the pitiful thing that had once been human as she creaked and dried, skin stretching taunt across her frame.
"Moisturize me!"
Rose stepped up beside the mad man she had run off with less than an hour ago. She tried to avoid thinking of her reckless stunt of running off with a man she barely knew. Her gut had said to take this once in a millennium chance and she had, seized it even when her instincts hissed at this man sometimes. She knew he was dangerous, could feel it deep inside, but she also knew reflexively that he was not dangerous to her. He had accepted her into his blue box and into his orbit and she knew that was like a safety net. She may get hurt under his watch, but he would not allow her to die, nor would he be the one to harm her.
But looking at this bitchy trampoline, screaming for mercy as she started to crack before their eyes, Rose felt more out of place then she had when she had first been introduced to a room full of aliens. The Doctor had a hard look on his face that spoke of pain and horror and memories. It was not the face of mercy.
"H-Help her." Rose said softly, knowing what the answer would be.
"Everything has its time, and everything dies." The Doctor said curtly, eyes never leaving Cassandra.
Rose flinched as the skin exploded from the tautness, splattering blood and skin across the room. She caught a look of the Doctor's face. It did not look surprised or weary or even happy. It was just empty, like he was watching someone drop their coffee on the ground. It didn't affect him and was simple observation of someone else's mistake. Dispassionate.
Rose watched him stride off, completely at ease and was suddenly struck by the fact that he was indeed an alien and the very man she had watched run off to blow her shop up after calmly stating Wilson was dead. She watched him walk away and thought about running after him.
Instead she stayed and watched as the rest of the guests all departed. Then she turned and looked out the windows at the rolling flames of the exploding sun and the chunks of rock that had once been earth. The Doctor returned of course, and she babbled her feelings out, about the earth, not Cassandra. And then he offered his hand.
"Come with me." He said.
She took the hand, letting long fingers wrap around hers. She heard something in his words. Something like soothing and hope and calm all at one. He tugged her back to his bigger-on-the-inside blue box and when she stepped out they were back in London in a crowded street on a planet she had just watched blow up.
"You think it will last for ever. The people and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day it's all gone. Even the sky."
She swallowed reflexively, an all consuming sadness filling her suddenly. It was hard for her to think of all that was surrounding her suddenly being gone, of having already seen it being gone.
"My planet is gone. It's dead."
She looked over at him, suddenly jolted by the fact he had answered that question she had given up on.
"It burned. It's just rocks and dust. Gone before it's time."
She could hear it in his voice and she wondered if he felt just as she did now. Felt this sorrow that was too big for her. Wondered if he had stared out at the flames and dust that were his planet just like she had.
"There was a war and we lost." His voice was bitter and tinged with an old rage.
"A war with who?" She asked, knowing she shouldn't.
He gave her a look and she knew he would not answer that.
"What about your people?" She asked instead, hoping to hear some good in all of this.
"I'm a time lord. I'm the last of the time lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on own cause there is no one else." He said.
It was sorrow she heard in her voice. And resignation. And rage and acceptance and above all, a festering loneliness.
"There's me." She said, voice cracking as she tried to see past her own sorrow, past her own emotions.
"You've seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?" he asked, voice both warning and hard.
He sounded as if he expected her to say yes, to plead to go home and never see her again. She could already see walls building behind his eyes, waiting for her rejection.
"I dunno I want…I want…" She stuttered.
She had seen a bit of his life. An hour of it and she was frightened a bit. Frightened more about how she felt, then what she had been through. More frightened at how casually he had let Cassandra die. More frightened of how sad she was and how big the world suddenly seemed.
But she didn't want to leave this man. He needed her and she could see that so plainly.
All she had to do was say yes and he would take her home. She could go back to her mum and Mickey and carry on with her normal, safe, life. He would not begrudge her.
But the more she looked at him the less she wanted to leave and her mind was turning in circle after circle. And then she inhaled.
"Can you smell chips?" She asked, snapping out of all those stupid feelings by the smell of her favourite food.
"Yeah." He laughed, tension suddenly gone. "Yeah."
"I want chips." She said, serious.
"Yeah. Me too." He smiled, looking suddenly younger.
"Right then. Before you get me back in that box we're having chips. And you can pay." She said smiling.
This was much better then all those useless 'what-ifs' trying to make home in her mind. She would eat some chips and think and talk and then she would know what she wanted to do (but she already knew her answer, she just had to really cement it)
"No Money." He grinned, hands in his pockets and out of her suddenly wanting reach, teeth showing in his grin.
"What sort of date are you? Fine then tight-wad, chips are on me. We only have five billions years till the shops close." She smiled, poking her tongue out.
He laughed, and she looped her arm in his, smiling as they took off down the street. He smiled at her, eyes looking at her and she didn't think of 'Wilson is dead' or Cassandra splattered all over the floor. She expected when she went flying off with this mad man there would be a lot more people dead behind them. And looking into this grinning man's ancient eyes she thought it was more than worth it.