A Rose by Any Other Name
Disclaimer: I do not own a sonic screwdriver.
The sun dies and he's left in a dark world. Because when the light in your life is gone, it is very dark indeed.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
-C. S. Lewis
And it seems as if fate has conspired to eavesdrop on his agony, because suddenly there is a women on the TARDIS. And her very presence mocks him, because the one he lost…
She is never replaceable.
Where is she, then? Popped out for a space walk?
She's gone
Gone where?
I lost her.
He freezes when he sees what Donna has found. It's Hers. It must have been left here before she—and he instinctively clamps down on that thought.
And Donna is spouting off something about an abduction but all he can hear is a great rushing void and then he realizes that she is waiting for an answer and he has to tell her something and all he can get out is, "That's my friends."
He hopes, prays, that she will just let it go, but it's never that easy and life seems determined to kick him while he's down, because Donna wants to know where she is.
"She's gone." He forces himself to say it. The hurt this causes astonishes him, because saying it makes him relive it all over again, but he's completely lost control of this situation and everything is exposed and raw and he doesn't know how to lock the door.
And still she's not done. Can't you see, he silently begs. Leave it alone. Please. But in her confusion and anger she jams a hot poker right on the exposed flesh of his heart. So he drags the words out from the place where he is trying to hide it all away and says, "I lost her."
This is finally enough to get through to her and she realizes that something is Not Right and he is able to wrestle back control and grab the shirt (which has suddenly become frightenly precious) and focus on getting rid of this—inconvenience—so he can…
Be all alone.
He banishes that thought and says briskly, "Right. Cheswick."
He refuses to think about—
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Trust me.
Is that what you said to her? Your friend? The one you lost? Did she trust you?
But events won't let him get away; don't let him do what every cell of his being is begging for; to get back on the TARDIS and to run and run and keep on running, although he suspects in his heart of hearts that there is nowhere far enough to run from this. And he remembers another time, not so long ago, when he was also running, until he met someone who changed "running from" into "running to."
He misses her.
And Donna can't leave the subject alone. Donna's in a car with Robot Santa, but still wants to know, "Did she trust you?" He closes his eyes for a brief, very brief, moment. An image comes to mind of her face. It's teasing, laughing, stubborn; and for an instant the pain seems to grow unbearably large. Then he locks eyes with Donna and says firmly, "Yes, she did. And she is not dead. She is so alive."
He tells Donna that she's Not Dead. That's very important, that she's not dead. Because then he can shut out the pain, shove it under and if he has to think about it at all he can pretend that she isn't gone, she's just…gone.
Because the one thing, the only thing that keeps him going is holding close the thought that her face is still out there. That she is very much alive. It's his lifeline, his thread to sanity.
Did she trust you? He knows that answer beyond a shadow of a doubt. She trusted him so much it scared him sometimes. He didn't believe it at first. He's almost forgotten, but when he first met her, he was…not nice.
He didn't want to be hurt again. After the Time War…
The wound was so huge, so gaping, he'd cauterized it to go on. He'd burned all the thoughts, all the memories, because he was bleeding to death.
And he'd run. He'd tried to run from anything that could cause such hurt.
But she ran right along with him.
Does she trust him, now that's the question. He doesn't know, because Time Lords are not all knowing. But he holds tight to what she told him on the beach.
I…I love you.
It becomes more impossibly precious every passing hour.
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Wish we had a time machine. Then we could go back and get it right.
Yeah, yeah. But... even if I did, I couldn't go back on someone's personal timeline. Apparently.
He tried. It didn't work, it never works, he knew it shouldn't work, but he still tried.
Still, as he and Donna recover after her near escape, it's surprising how normal this all feels. If he closes his eyes it could be…her next to him, laughing at their latest adventure, asking questions about the newest mystery. But instead it's Donna sitting beside him on the ledge and as he gazes out over the city, it's a reminder of how much has changed. Last year at this time…
He speaks almost without thinking. "I spent Christmas Day just over there, the Powell Estate. With this…family. My friend, she had this family. Well, they were…."
They're all sitting around the table in the Tyler's flat and he is pretending to use his sonic screwdriver to identify the mashed potatoes, while She is kicking him under the table and Jackie is half-angrily defending her cooking skills. And Mickey is leaning back in his chair, laughing at all of them and then, later on, they're outside looking at the stars and he's standing with her, holding her hand, and it's Christmas, and the world has been saved. Again…
But that was last year. And the realization that this is a world without any Tyler's in it hits him with an almost physical force. Even Mickey, who was practically an honorary member—
They're all gone. And someone is echoing his thoughts, saying, "Still…gone now," and he realizes he's speaking out loud.
Donna, who he is quickly discovering thinks the saying is NEVER let sleeping dogs lie, asks him, "Your friend, who was she?"
Who was she…It is a question he cannot answer, so he deftly (okay, perhaps not so deftly) switches the conversation back to safer places, like camouflaged robot mercenaries.
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I'll sort it out, Donna. Whatever's been done to you, I'll reverse it. I'm not about to lose someone else.
Huon particles. Of all the things. He promises Donna, "I'm not about to lose someone else." Donna doesn't know, but when he tells her, he's really trying to convince himself because somehow life seems so fragile lately. And so he reassures Donna. He reassures himself. They'll make it. They will. They will.
He can't lose someone else.
There is a reason they call him the Lonely God. It is a fact, but it is also a choice. It is a choice he made, after—just, after. He was the only one left. And he didn't think he could survive that sort of change again. So he made sure to never…let anyone in. And perhaps it was easier with some than others. But he kept himself safe and he did his job and he…went on.
It was a shield. It was a prison.
But she…
Even at the very beginning, his shields were sending up warning signals that there was danger down this path. So he acted like he didn't care. Because he was sure that, in the end, she would be gone.
But...
When they were fighting the Slitheen, stuck in the Cabinet room and he had one of his brilliant (if possibly a bit mad) plans; she was ready to do it before he had told her what it was, and he asked her, "You don't even know what it is, you'd just let me?"
"Yeah." That's what she said. She'd been with him for all of a week, her mum didn't like him, her boyfriend didn't like him, he was probably going to get her killed, he had taken a year out of her life (although not on purpose, but still) and…just, "Yeah."
She scared him.
He'd explained to her, "You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords."
And that was the way it happened. Oh, he had his companions, but sooner or later…Sometimes it was him. Sometimes it was them. Either way, they left.
She was different. She came back. And she came back to die.
After that, his shield had been smashed to smithereens.
What was it she said? I want you safe. He never asked her how she managed to get into the heart of the TARDIS. He wishes he could now.
The daft thing had always liked her.
She wore down his shields. She was different. No matter what, she trusted him. No matter what, she stuck by him.
Thing is, she came back again. And this time she was prepared to leave her family behind. Forever. For him. She would have, if…
But she astonished him. And with all the things he'd seen in 900 years, that's saying something. She never left. She never gave up on him. Through sheer stubborn bullheadedness, against all reason she stuck with him until he let himself…
Trust again.
Love again.
He never was happier.
Because he was no longer alone.
He doesn't know what he is now.
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But I love you.
That's what made it easy.
They find the secret base and they find the secret alien presence, but there are other, more personal secrets about to be revealed.
He sees the signs. He is all too familiar with the marks of betrayal. He wants to be wrong, for Donna's sake, but when he sees Lance sneaking towards the Racnoss he knows. Even before Lance stops and laughs with the Empress, he knows. Because Lance is not a hero.
Listening to Donna, she doesn't know. He wishes he could spare her the pain. She looks at him in her confusion and he tells her, "I'm sorry." He wonders why it is that love always hurts so much.
He wonders if it is worth it.
He doesn't think so.
And when Donna, who he has never seen looking so lost, not even when confronted with the cold, unadulterated beauty of space, says, "But I love you," all of sudden he's no longer in the bowels of H.C. Clements but on a sandy, wind swept beach in Norway and he can't say it and why didn't he say it and why…
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Who is this little physician?
He says it so flippantly. "Oh, I'm sort of…homeless."
He wishes he could feel it flippantly.
He has the TARDIS, of course, which most days feels a lot like home. Except when he remembers…
…Gallifrey…
But for a while, the TARDIS was home. All the time. Because she was there.
He doesn't know where home is anymore.
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No human's ever seen this. You'll be the first.
All I want to see is my bed.
They escape the Rachnoss and he takes Donna to the creation of the Earth. And all he can think about is what she would think. And how he never took her to…so…many…places.
It's not regret. It's an utterly heartrending sense that the universe has a small hole in it, where there used to be someone…
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Empress of the Racnoss -- I give you one last chance. I can find you a planet.
I can find you a place in the universe to coexist. Take that offer and end this now.
He is haunted by the Empress, because he sees the similarities between them. Thinks what he would do if there were a way to bring them back, to what lengths he would go. If there were a way to bring her back…
So he gives the Empress a chance. He offers her a home. He wants to scream, "Take it! Just take it." Take it and grab it and never let go. Because he would give anything…
But she doesn't take it, and so he stands there and watches as fire and water destroy the last of the Racnoss.
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Well, you could always...
What?
… Come with me...
He hears the pleading lilt in his voice and he hates it, but he hates the thought of facing the emptiness of the TARDIS even more. To be left alone in a place that ambushes him at every turn with reminders of her. He desperately wants Donna to be there, to be a distraction, to let him hide from himself.
To hide from the dark.
But asking exposes him once again, exposes his hearts to a rejection that, in many different forms, he's gotten all too used to over the years.
Except he can't get used to it; not at all. Each time it happens it freezes a piece of his heart and one of these times he thinks his hearts will either be completely hardened and he won't care, about anything, or they will be completely broken, and…
He's not sure which would be worse.
And Donna's smiling, but she says no, and even though he realizes it's probably the right decision, that it's not fair to ask this of her right now…another small part of him dies. He doesn't want Donna to know this, though, so he pretends it doesn't matter, but he's not fooling anyone and Donna tries to explain and actually does a pretty good job, but as she's going off on the terrors of the universe and Time Lords he can't help but thinking, She would understand…
There is awkward silence and an even more awkward goodbye and he prepares to quietly slip away.
Of course, Donna doesn't let him.
He tells Donna, "I don't need anyone," but what he really means is I don't want to need anyone. Donna doesn't hesitate to disagree with him, to tell him he does need someone.
If only to stop him.
And Donna's right, she's so right, only not perhaps in the way that she thinks.
Because his greatest threat is to himself.
And Donna is calling him back one more time and she asks him, "Your friend, who was she?" and he can't hold the thoughts back any longer and they swell over him with the force of the solar wind.
…Asking her to go with him for the first time…Giving her the key to the TARDIS…Holding her hand after she watched her father die…Dancing with her on the floor of the TARDIS…Laughing with her at jokes only they understood…Taking her places he'd always wanted to share with someone…
…Those glorious months when he knew no fear, only a bursting, unquenchable joy that he hadn't experienced since the Time War. Because she was by his side. Because they were together...
…Those glorious moments when it felt like the entire universe consisted of just the two of them…
And for the first time, he lets himself feel the pain and the grief and the sorrow and the agony of watching her slip from that lever, of saying goodbye on that beach, of knowing that it was the end.
…But he wouldn't change those moments for anything…
And he realizes that, this time, he can't keep it all hidden away forever. Because she is too much a part of him to lock away like he has so many others in the past.
And he thinks she would like it that way.
And he somehow manages to get the words out past the lump in his throat.
"Her name was Rose."
Throughout the entire episode of Runaway Bride there were little ripples of how the Doctor was affected by the events of Doomsday. This story was an attempt to put a voice to some of the Doctor's thoughts of which we were given only a glimpse. On a purely literary note, the title of this story refers to the fact that the Doctor never once uses Rose's name throughout the entire piece…until the end.