Only Just After

The last echo faded away. There was nothing to say.

"I say," said Jackie Tyler, "I know he's the Doctor and he's got reasons for things, but did he have to put us in bloody Norway again?"

Rose stared at the Doctor. He stared at her.

"What now?" she said.

The Doctor had to stop himself looking at the spot where it had been a few moments before. It had never dematerialized without him before. It left a new kind of loneliness.

"Whatever you like, I suppose," he said.

Several Hours After

"Well, this is it," said Rose, as they stepped off the train. "We're home."

"Home," repeated the Doctor. "Not too different from the old London, is it? Say, have you still got that dog —"

He stopped when he saw the way she was staring off into the distance. Her mascara was still smudged on her cheeks. There was a faraway look in her eyes. She looked tired. That was the word. Tired.

"Do you know what I think," he said, swallowing.

"What?"

"I think I want chips. Do you want chips?"

"I don't know what I want, Doctor." She spared him a quick glance, then went off down the platform without him. He watched her go the same way he had watched the TARDIS go. A new kind of loneliness. He tucked his hands in his pockets and followed with a sigh.

One Evening After

"Ah, so this is Tony!" The Doctor bent over the little bespectacled boy who had come to greet them in the foyer. "I say, that is a nice tie. You'll have to take me to the place where you get your ties."

"Are you the Doctor?" asked Tony.

"Yes, yes I am." The Doctor's gaze slid over to where Rose stood in the corner. "I am indeed the Doctor. And you are indeed Tony."

"I already said that," said Tony.

"Yes you did."

Three Days After

Pete came into the kitchen midmorning to find the Doctor sitting at the table, staring into the distance.

"Can I get you a cup of tea or something, Doctor?" he said.

The Doctor didn't reply right away. After a moment, without turning his head, he said, "I'm not sure what I've done to myself. Nine hundred years of cosmic life, and this is how it ends. With domestic."

"Jackie told me how something went funny and there ended up two of you," said Pete.

"Isn't that just like Jackie. Something went funny. They're all gone, Pete. They're all gone and I'll never see them again. Donna, my TARDIS, not even Jack. I just stepped into this world without a second thought and now they're gone forever."

Pete sat down across from him.

"Think you made a mistake, do you?"

"Didn't have much choice. This was the best thing. I think Rose thinks she might have made one, though. Then again, she didn't have much choice either." He drew in a sigh again. "If she won't have me here I'll have to find someplace to stay. I can grow a new TARDIS, in a couple of years. It won't be the same, but… only one life to live, how bad could it be?"

Pete watched him carefully. "You know what I think, Doctor?"

"No, what?"

"I think you need to stop pretending to be all right to keep other people happy. They can see right through it. Rose used to tell me all the time how lonely you were. She worried you would do something stupid, without her. And looking at you now I think she might have been right." He leaned across the table. "Sometimes we need to feel sorry for ourselves, and sometimes we need to do it with somebody else. You're only human, Doctor."

The Doctor stared at him. Finally he gave a little laugh and raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"Oh, you don't know what you just said, Pete Tyler. How right you are. Only human… how right you are."

They hadn't seen Rose standing in the doorway, listening to them, and they didn't notice when she moved away.