"Right then! I'll be off… Unless… Uh…. I don't know… You could come with me."
When the Doctor burned his own planet, committing genocide so large that he deserved nothing less than death itself, he never thought he would feel anything but guilt again. Not if he wanted to stay sane. How could he feel joy in the midst of such despair? He was a murderer, and yet there he was, stammering like a stupid ape, the beginnings of perspiration gracing his palms.
He inferred, from Rose's taken aback expression and furrowed brow, that she was in a state of contemplation. Her inexperienced human mind calculating and computing all the reasons to or not to run into the mysterious blue box with the enigmatic alien man who stood before her. The Time Lord, who, for one reason or another, had an inexplicable desire to travel with her. He was going to lose her, he realized, opening his mouth to sweeten the deal.
"This box isn't just a London hopper you know, it goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."
"Don't, he's an alien. He's a thing," Mickey cried, the Doctor's persuasion be damned. If the Doctor had taken a disliking to his uselessness earlier, his bitter expression now was a whole different story.
"He's not invited. What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go, anywhere." The Doctor was well aware that he shouldn't be making his reckless, semi-suicidal life sound so irresistible. He should be telling Rose Tyler to run; run fast and far away from him. Something about her though, something so ordinary and so, so human, made him want her to stick around.
"Is it always this dangerous?" Rose questioned, uncertain. Truth be told, the Doctor was glad she asked. A minuscule corner of his guilt subsided. Rose Tyler deserved to know this.
"Yeah," he said honestly. Her placid look faltered. His hearts felt like weights within his chest, she was going to say no.
"Yeah, I can't. I've er, I've got to go and find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so..."
Dangerous as the Doctor might have been, he was quite talented at exercising control. His features begged to contort to the likings of the sheer disappointment and grief flooding his mind, but he refused to allow them to falter. Rose Tyler had made her decision, and he would be on his own.
She had said no.
"Okay. See you around." He spoke in terse sentences. Traveling alone had never felt so lonely. It didn't though, when he held Rose's hand in his.
His mind and body disconnected momentarily. He knew he should get into the TARDIS, he knew he should dematerialise the TARDIS, he knew he was supposed to leave Rose with her boyfriend and never see the teenager's compassionate caramel colored eyes ever again. The thought was like stones falling one by one within his stomach, weighing his body in place. Rose's eyes were gazing intensely into his, and he wondered if it was his own wishful thinking, or if she was really begging him to stay.
Reluctantly, he shut the door, trapping Rose outside of his life, forever.
His heavy footsteps echoed throughout the console room with more volume than they had ever before, the metal grating uncomfortable beneath his feet. His hands that had been holding Rose's less than hours ago violently pressed the buttons on the console, finding their rightful place automatically. His eyes downcast at the controls, and this regenerations overly large ears picked up the whirring on the TARDIS as it appeared within the time vortex.
His mind reached out, calling for someone; anyone at all. Eerie silence clouded his brain. Once again, he was reminded that they were all dead.
He laughed darkly, the realization of his plight striking him as pitifully ironic. He had always been bad at being a Time Lord… Or maybe he had been the best at being a Time Lord. It didn't matter now though; he was both.
Spur of the moment, he set the TARDIS coordinates for the 60th century, an urbanized planet very integrated between humans and aliens, he amended internally, remembering bitterly that there was no human on board in which humans weren't aliens too.
He didn't really care much where he ended up, but he figured he might as well give the TARDIS something to strive for.
"Do your worst," he whispered to the console. He intended to sound playful but came off bitter, a side effect of excess loneliness, the engines whirred in response, landing without grace.
The TARDIS arrived in the seventy first century,and, as miss landings went, had been pretty accurate this time around. If only the seventy first century on this planet had not consisted of the underground society of suicidal snake-like people trying to blow up the place. He had saved the world again, without help and unnoticed.
Passing a pub on his return trip to the TARDIS, the Doctor decided a victory drink was in order. He was quick to make a detour indoors, the dimly lit bar suiting his darkened mood quite nicely, and the din of the place perfect for drowning out his thoughts.
Despite this, his thoughts managed to wander. He recalled each and every moment of his latest expedition, pain aching inside his hearts as he remembered every so often when he would turn slightly while he talked, or inflect his voice a certain way, or say something to himself in the simplest way possible… So simple that even a human could understand exactly what he meant.
He was alone, he reminded himself. He had been since the Time War. He hadn't even thought to look in a mirror until he got to Rose's flat, because no one he cared about would be seeing him anyway. He knew the right thing to do was travel without companionship until the day he died. God knows, it's what I deserve, he thought honestly.
Rose had given him another shot at not screwing up yet another person's life, and he should be glad. Glad that he wouldn't be responsible for ruining such a pure, innocent, intelligent, and oh-so-young girl's life.
Guilt clouded his chest and made it's way to his brain. He shouldn't have even asked her! He had let himself think, just for a moment, he didn't have to be on his own anymore. When her hand was in his, as their feet slapped the concrete, when she swung out to save him, the Doctor had felt alive. For the first time since the Time War, he felt like he wasn't just a walking corpse. He felt like he had survived.
It was almost as if he had found something… Someone… He had been searching for.
So he asked her to travel with him. That wasn't a crime was it? Wanting to keep feeling the way Rose Tyler had made him feel. He finally could remember what it felt like to not wallow in misery all the time! Why should he let that slip away?
Now, it seemed he had to.
He brought his Hypervodka to his lips and took a long swig.
"Are you alright?" The Doctor turned his head with a start, catching the stare of a tall thin man in pinstripes sitting next to him.
"I'm really not in the mood for flirting," The Doctor said sharply. The man's eyebrows raised to his forehead, like he didn't believe him.
"You look lost," The man remarked, running a hand through his seemingly gravity defying hair. The Doctor pierced into the man's brown eyes with his blue ones, scanning them. They were clouded with sadness, loneliness, even nostalgia.
"So do you," The Doctor shot back, irritation evident in his words.
The man nodded, lost in his own thoughts for a moment. "I lost someone," He explained vaguely. "From the looks of it, so did you."
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Not really," He said truthfully. He hadn't lost someone… He had lost that feeling...The feeling that holding her hand had given him. "Who did you lose?" He asked, because even in sadness, the Doctor was always curious of the mundane lives people led.
"A girl," The man smiled, just for a moment, "An amazing… Beautiful girl," He paused.
The Doctor offered a sympathetic look; loss of love, the most human reason of them all.
"And I wish… More than anything… I wish I had a time machine, just to go back and see her again one last time…." The man's dark eyes moistened ever so subtly, and the Doctor's hearts ached for him, almost as if he could feel the man's wistful sadness in the back of his own mind.
"Well, even if you did you couldn't do that because you'd become part of events and-" The Doctor opened his mouth to ramble, but stopped abruptly.
The image of Rose staring at him, her eyes pleading him not to disappear, was forever burned into his mind. As it resurfaced, his entire self focused on studying it. He couldn't have been imagining that… She was looking for him to ask her again, to give her another chance to reconsider.
He racked his brain, trying to come up with a reason he could ask Rose Tyler to join him in space and time travel again. Then it hit him, she didn't know it was space and time travel! He'd never told Rose that TARDIS was time machine! A space machine… That's easy, anyone could say no to that! But even Rose Tyler, with her chips, her telly, and her stupid lump of a boyfriend, even she couldn't say no to a time machine.
He bid the heartbroken man in front of him a one hearted goodbye, slamming some of this planet's currency on the bar before hurriedly navigating his way to the exit. The bright illumination from the star this planet was rotating blinded him momentarily, heeding him on his journey.
He knew it was illogical to rush, the TARDIS being a time machine and him being hundreds of years and thousands of kilometers past the place and time Rose stood regardless how how fast he reached his time and space traveling box.
Setting foot on the metal grating brought relief to his system. He savored the possibility that the next person to step into the TARDIS might not be himself. He slowed his brisk pace only to set coordinates, not wanting to land to early or too late and muck everything up.
Somehow though, he knew the TARDIS was on his side for this one. She needed him as much as he needed her, and she knew missing this date would devastate him all over again.
His breath refrained from exiting his lungs, which he knew was idiotic as not breathing wasn't exactly going to assist him in soothing his nerves. Has he ever asked twice? He wasn't sure… All he knew was that he needed to now.
He exhaled, and opened the door. Rose's eyes met his again, a sight he once believed he would never have the privilege of again.
"By the way… Did I mention? It also travels in time." He hoped the line didn't sound quite as rehearsed as it actually was.
The muscles in his fists clenched and unclenched, attempting abate his nerves. He had left the door ajar, certain from Rose's expression that she was going to come running inside.
What if he was the one who had to close it?
He didn't though. Much like he had predicted, Rose Tyler came running into the magical blue box with a widespread grin across her face. The Doctor knew, as soon as the TARDIS doors shut, with Rose now in toe, that he would forever be grateful that he had come back.
And he'd thank… The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows.. Someone had convinced him to come back, something had happened… He just couldn't quite remember…
Oh well, he thought.
He would solve that mystery later.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Reviews are greatly appreciated!