The TARDIS cried for her thief. Oh how she mourned… the stars echoed with her cries of pain as her thief-but-not paid voice to the very things her thief hated about himself. Pink-yellow-gold-Rose shook the other out of it (in this timeline), but the TARDIS still screamed, still enraged, still mourning, still shouting "It wasn't fair!" Not to him, her, pink-yellow-gold-Rose or red-purple-silver-Martha, the Daleks, or the Gallifreyans, even if the Daleks and Time Lords deserved it. (But if you decided who lived and who died, that would make you a monster.)
Why us? The TARDIS thought. But she already knew the answer. His name. His chosen name. The one that meant healer, wise man, leader. But also the one who made the hard decisions, the bearer of bad news.
(Call it; time of death…
I'm sorry, but they passed…
It's up to you, but they're already gone…
I'd say they have about a month to live…
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.)
The one who delivers the news you don't want to hear. Did her thief ever tell you? He's the reason the saying "don't shoot the messenger" came about. Who wants to tell the somber news? So he akes the responsibility upon himself, and with it, the guilt.
But John Smith was her thief but not… he only got parts. And since he was human (so wonderfully, dreadfully human) he only saw what he was prepared to see. So he knew about the self-hatred and even voiced it, but not the love. Not the love the TARDIS would suddenly shove in his mind while he ate breakfast, more often than not causing him to swallow wrong, not the love in the looks Rose gave him when she thought he couldn't see (he did), not the love that Martha gave him, just by telling him she had ears whenever he needed a pair to listen to him in a way that mattered (without using so many words). Not the love that he shoved back at the TARDIS while he cleaned up from his spit take or repairs, grinning as his ship purred in delight and basked in the warmth of their relationship, or the looks he returned to Rose when he thought she wasn't looking (oh she knows), or the stories he gives to both girls when he finally decides to take Martha up on her offer (because he talks so much but never says anything).
No. Thief-but-not only remembered the pain, the sorrow, the self-hatred, and the plain hate that had been given to her thief (it wasn't his fault, he couldn't save them, he couldn't save any of them!).
Oh how very him he was.
(He's his own judge, jury, and executioner. You're filling that role pretty well, don't you think?)
A/N: So thanks to Winters-Dawn1221 for accidently inspiring this piece. It's one of the few writings I've done that I'm actually fond of, so thank you!
This sort of stems from "TARDIS Says No" because Rose is still there, but again, you didn't have to read it for this to make sense.
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.