Time Travel Can Be Very Useful
She didn't want to come with him.
He'd offered her the chance to travel through space, to see all kinds of crazy, amazing things, things she'd never get to see if she stayed on Earth.
He'd offered her adventures beyond anything she could imagine.
And she'd turned him down.
At first, he'd thought she was considering it. But then that idiot boyfriend of hers – Ricky? Ticky? Was Ticky even a normal human name for that time period? – had spoken up, and she'd decided to stay.
Of course, she wouldn't want to come with him. Why should she? It was dangerous, very dangerous. He'd told her that. She had her whole life ahead of her. Why would she want to spend it nearly getting killed?
And he was, really, just a very, very old man with a couple of toys. She had seen it in his eyes, he was sure. The pain, the guilt… he'd been through far too much. There was darkness inside him, he knew.
Maybe it was for the best that she hadn't come. He'd probably end up getting her hurt or killed, like so many others. She was so sweet and so young… he knew he wouldn't have been able to stand it if she'd come with him and gotten killed because of him.
Stupid little blonde girl in her stupid little shop… why did she have to make things complicated?
In the end, though, she was just another human, right? He'd met thousands and thousands of humans and had had no trouble forgetting them. It shouldn't be too hard to forget this one too.
But somehow, as he was traveling, he found it impossible to keep her out of his mind.
He'd be eating in a restaurant on some alien planet and he'd suddenly wonder what she would think of the food.
Or he'd be watching a star be born and find himself wishing she was there to see it.
Or – worst of all – he'd be on Earth, somewhere, some time, and he'd be walking along on a crowded street and see two people holding hands, talking and laughing together like nothing was more natural in the world.
And he'd think of her and wonder if maybe, just maybe, they could have been like that. If she had only come with him…
The problem, the reason he couldn't seem to forget her, was that in the incredibly short time he'd known her, she'd given him something that no one he'd ever met before had been able to give him.
She had given him peace. Peace from the overwhelming pain that his people were gone forever. Peace from the horrible guilt that he was the one who had caused it. For some reason, when he'd been with her, when he'd seen her smiling at him, he'd been able to forget all that, just for a little while, and be really… happy.
He hadn't been really happy in hundreds of years.
It was too late now, though. He'd offered her everything he had to offer, and she'd still refused.
Now he just had to get back to saving the universe again. That was all there was left for him.
But one day, as he was monitoring a conversation between two aliens, not really concentrating because as usual he was thinking about her (he really had to do something about that, not focusing on the job), he heard five words that gave him hope again.
"It also travels in time."
He had no idea what this thing that travels in time was that the aliens were referring to. But he did know that his TARDIS could travel in time.
Time travel. He tried to remember. Had he told her that the TARDIS was also a time machine?
No. No, he definitely hadn't.
She still might not want to come with him, but… it was worth a try, anyways.
And that was how, 29 years, 6 months, and 17 days after he had given up on the blonde girl who'd given him peace, he entered the TARDIS and took it back to that same street, 10 seconds after he'd left for the first time.
And as he opened the TARDIS door to speak to her, he couldn't help but smile a bit at the irony of what he was about to say.
"By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?"