Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not mine. In case you were at all curious...

"I could go back and help Rose Tyler with her homework!"

– The Doctor. The Wedding of River Song.

Ever a woman on a mission, Jackie Tyler marched into the living room and stood over her teenage daughter, who was currently ignoring her from a prone position on the couch. Her long blonde hair fell over her shoulder in a messy tangle as her eyes stared sightlessly at the television in front of her, effectively ignoring both the program and her mother.

"Rose. Rose. Rose! Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Rose listlessly lifted her eyes to her mother's face. "What?"

"I got another call from the school just now. D'you know what they said?"

Rose shrugged. "Dunno."

"It was your guidance counselor. She said you're in danger of failing three classes this term. Three classes, Rose! What've you been doing?"

Rose shrugged. "I'm not that smart. That's all."

"Rose!" Jackie chastised. "Don't talk like that."

"It's true, Mum. No use arguing."

Jackie made a soft noise and sat down next to her daughter. "What's gotten into you lately? You've stopped caring about your studies. You never tell me where you're going. Mickey says he barely sees you anymore… "

"It's nothing!" Rose insisted, her voice rising in both volume and pitch. "God!"

"I'm worried about you, love. You know you can talk to me, right?"

"There's nothing to talk about, okay?!" Rose shouted, jumping up off the couch. "Why can't you just leave me alone!"

"Rose!" Jackie called after her, but it was too late. Rose had already left the room, and the flat too, if the sudden burst of cold air and the sound of the door slamming were any indicators.

Jackie continued to sit on the couch, her hand drifting over to the place where her daughter had sat, the cushion still warm. She wasn't sure what was happening to her little girl, and she was sure she didn't know how to fix it. No one had warned her it was going to be like this – having a child. No one ever told you what it was like when they stopped being sweet, little terrors and turned into full-on tantrum-prone teenagers. No one ever described how lonely and confusing it felt to have to do it all on your own.

Alone in an empty flat, Jackie Tyler wept for a daughter she didn't understand.

... ... ...

Rose took a long drag of her cigarette, letting the smoke out slowly, watching it blow away on the breeze. It wasn't that she liked disappointing her mother, or even that she liked this – the cutting class, the smoking fags, the general getting up to no good (as Jackie would call it) – she just liked the change. Truth was, she was bored. She wasn't sure when it had happened, and maybe it had even happened so slowly she wasn't aware of it, but somewhere along the way she had lost sight of the point of it all. Every day was the same – get up, go to class, come home, do homework. It was boring and pointless. Somewhere along the line, she'd also realized that this was all her life was ever going to be. She was a poor kid from a council estate; she was never going to be anyone special. So why waste time trying to be?

"Hey, Rose! What'cha sitting around there for?"

Surprised to hear her name, she looked up to see Shireen waving at her from the passenger seat of a sporty red car that had pulled up along the sidewalk in front of her. She didn't recognize the driver of the car, but Shireen had a lot of friends she didn't know. Friends that more often than not almost got them into trouble, but almost getting caught was different than actually getting caught.

"Come on, slowpoke," she hollered. "Let's go!"

"Hold on!" she took one final drag and stood from the bench, dropping the cigarette to the ground and mashing it beneath the toe of her tennis shoe. She hurried over to the car and slipped in the backseat, ready to be carried away to whatever adventure Shireen had in mind.

Anything to get her away from this place.

... ... ...

"Right, then," Jackie announced, walking into the kitchen the next morning. "I got you a tutor."

"A tutor?" Rose rolled her eyes. "Mum, seriously? I don't need a tutor."

"You need to pass this test," Jackie shot right back. "There'll be no more talk about it, Rose. He'll be here starting this afternoon and you are going to be here and be polite."

"This is ridiculous!" Rose cried, flinging out her hands, nearly spilling her cereal all over the table. "I told you, I…"

"Stop right there, missy, because I don't care what you have to say. I am your mother and I am doing the best I can. You, clearly, are not. Look at yourself," Jackie gestured at her daughter. "Have you even seen a mirror this morning?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied, folding her arms over her chest.

"No? You look like something the cat dragged in. You've not washed your face, your hair's a mess… You didn't come home last night, Rose. At least not until early this morning. Where were you?"

"With friends, I told you."

"You mean that thirty second phone call last night?" Jackie shot her a look. "Doesn't count. And which friends? Do I know them?"

"Shireen. A few others. I dunno," Rose shrugged. "What does it matter?"

"It matters," Jackie said emphatically, "because you are sixteen years old. You are not an adult yet. You are my daughter and you need to tell me where you are so I know if you are safe. You need to start thinking about things, Rose. Things like your future. Things like school."

"I don't care about any of that," Rose shook her head, inspecting her fingernails.

"Which is exactly why I got you a tutor. And you need to take this seriously. It wasn't easy for me to find someone, especially one that we can afford. Tutors aren't cheap, you know," Jackie cleared her throat, gathering herself a bit before continuing. "That being said, you will be here this afternoon right after school, got it?"

Rose didn't answer, just continued to stare at her fingers.

"I said, you will come home right after school – understand me?"

"Yes! Fine! God!" Rose groaned and stormed out of the kitchen. Jackie wondered if there ever might be a time when they finished a conversation like normal people. She wasn't hopeful.

... ... ...

"About time you showed up."

Rose jumped and whipped around to find her mother standing behind her in the entryway, arms folded across her chest. "Jeez… give me a heart attack, would ya?"

"Where've you been?" she questioned her. "I told you to come home right after school. You remember our conversation this morning, don't you?"

"Sorry," Rose shrugged, looking down at her scuffed trainers. "I had a thing after school."

"I'm sure you did," she said, making it quite clear that she believed nothing of the sort. "Doesn't matter. What is important is that, right now, you have someone waiting for you."

Jackie turned and headed for the kitchen and Rose sullenly followed behind her. On a list of all the things she would choose to be doing, sitting with a tutor, being taught like she was some sort of stupid little kid, was not one of them. She had sort of hoped that her Mum was bluffing about hiring a tutor. Turned out she was serious, judging by the scholarly-looking man sitting at their kitchen table.

"Here we are then!" Jackie smiled for the sake of their guest. Rose recognized the sharp, forced pitch of her voice and winced. "Told you she'd show up sooner or later. This is my daughter, Rose. Rose, this is Doctor... uh…"

"Smith!" the man supplied, standing up. "Dr. Smith – world-class tutor, me."

Rose looked him over. "Hey," she mumbled noncommittally.

"Hello," he beamed at her. Rose thought it was a bit odd, the way he looked at her, but then he looked a bit odd. And not odd in a bad way, just… different. He looked like a professor, with his tweed jacket and bow tie and suspenders, but he seemed much too young. He couldn't have been older than thirty, but then again, there was something about him, something about the deep-set weariness in his eyes that made him seem much, much older.

"He's got recommendations from the best schools," Jackie continued. "Should be just what you need to help you bring your grades up. And he's offered to help – pro bono! Isn't that lovely, Rose?"

Rose rolled her eyes and shrugged. "Let's get this over with," she sighed as she slid into a chair, dumping her knapsack on the floor beside her.

Jackie shot her a look behind the tutor's head. Be nice, she mouthed. Rose was about to open her mouth to say something particularly nasty when the tutor drummed his fingers on the table and looked at her eagerly.

"So! What sort of homework are we going to tackle today, Rose Tyler?" his eyes lit up when he looked at her, as if she were the most fascinating person in the world.

"She needs help with her maths," Jackie butted in. "I've been getting notes from her teacher for weeks now, saying that she needs to bring up her grades or else…"

"Mum!" Rose looked at her with frustration and a touch of embarrassment. As if the situation could be any more uncomfortable than it already was, her mum had to keep prattling on.

"Mrs. Tyler," the tutor said softly, "it might be best if you let Rose and I handle this on our own." He smiled at her and Jackie, thankfully, seemed to take the hint.

"Oh… If that's what you think's best," she picked up her own mug of tea and cocked her head towards the living room. "I'll just be in here. Watching telly. Let me know there's anything I can do…"

"We will," the tutor smiled again. "We'll holler if we get into trouble."

"All right then." Jackie headed off, but not before giving Rose one more stern look. Rose sighed and slumped over the table, resting her head on her folded arms. This was not going well. Not at all.

"Forgive me for being perceptive, or perhaps a bit rude," he said gently, dropping his eyes in an attempt to meet hers, "but you don't seem to be to terribly enthusiastic about this arrangement."

"Yeah, well, this wasn't exactly my idea, if you know what I mean," she glanced up at him.

"I do," he nodded. "Believe it or not, school wasn't my thing either. I was always getting in trouble, talking back to the teacher, that sort of thing. Wasn't until much, much later that I started really valuing education, the excitement of learning."

"Fascinating," Rose intoned, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand. "Is that why you became a tutor?"

"I'm not a tutor. Well, not exactly. I mean, a do tutor a bit when the occasion calls for it – actually, I do a lot of things when the occasion calls for it, but… now I am rambling, aren't I?"

Rose nodded with a tight-lipped smile. "So if you're not a tutor, then what are you?"

"I'm a doctor," he grinned again, seemingly proud of the fact.

"Really?" she scoffed. "A doctor of what? There's no way you're a proper doctor."

His face fell a bit at that and she realized that she might have actually hurt his feelings. That hadn't been her intention. While she didn't like the fact that he was here, it was her mum she was truly angry with, not the bloke who sat in front of her. It wasn't his fault that he'd been dragged into this. He was as much a victim as she was, she reasoned, and therefore decided to ease up on him.

"I meant like a medical doctor," she amended. "I meant like in hospital. If you were a regular doctor you'd be working in A&E or something, rather than sitting in my kitchen."

"Well, erm, not that sort of doctor," he explained, still a bit flustered, but recovering.

"Well, then… what sort? Like a professor?"

"Sort of. Closer anyway."

"So you teach then?" she frowned, still trying to understand.

"No, no. Not quite."

"Well then how would you describe yourself?"

"As an… er… A collector of knowledge!" he said, nodding at her as if that settled everything. He seemed pleased with the description he had chosen for himself.

"Right. A collector," Rose repeated. "Of what sort of knowledge?"

"Oh, all kinds!" he beamed at her. "About history and astronomy and languages and science and maths and literature."

Rose shook her head at him, unable to contain a smile at his infectious enthusiasm. "You're completely mad, you know that right?"

"So I've been told, Miss Tyler," he winked at her. "Shall we get started on your mathematics now?"

"Guess so," Rose shrugged, heaving her knapsack up and into her lap. She rifled through it and pulled out a folder and notebook, spreading them before her on the table. "I'm not sure this is going to do any good."

He cocked his head at her. "What makes you say that?"

"I don't understand anything that's happening in the class and the teacher's a right monster."

"Oh, I doubt that… and that's what I'm here for. To help you make sense of what you're learning in class."

"Yeah, well, it's a waste of your time, mate," she grumbled, flipping open her notebook and pulling out her notes. "I'm never going to be able to get it."

"Of course you will," he assured her, taking a look at the assignment. "Blimey. Trigonometry. All those formulas and the Pythagorean Theorem."

"What?" Rose looked at him as if he were speaking an alien language, a language that she had heard her teacher speak a few times, come to think of it. Maybe all teachers were aliens.

"The area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs," he explained, noting her furrowed brow and subsequently bewildered expression. "In a right angle, of course."

"I am never going to get this," Rose moaned. "I'm so stupid."

"You're not stupid," the tutor said gently. "You just haven't learned this yet."

"No, I'm stupid!" she insisted, tears filling her eyes. "This is a huge waste of time! I'm not going to pass this test or this class! I'm never going to get my A-levels or…!"

"Stop!" the tutor said sharply, surprising her into silence. "You are the furthest thing from stupid. You are brilliant."

Rose shook her head. "I…"

"Don't you dare say that you're not because you are. And you want to know how I know? Because only those who are exceptionally clever have to work so hard to convince themselves that they're stupid. And you, Rose Tyler, are not fooling anyone. I don't know who's told you that you're not good enough, but you are. You are. You are smart and beautiful and brilliant. You have a whole life ahead of you and you are too good to waste all your cleverness on trying to prove to people how dull you are. Because you want to know what I think?" his voice dropped to a whisper and Rose held her breath, waiting on his words. "I think you're radiant."

She blinked at him. Some part of her felt that she should be uncomfortable with his blatant praise, but then again, she felt at ease around him… like she'd known him for years instead of minutes. But that didn't make any sense. No sense at all.

Rose shook her head. "How can you say that? You don't even know me."

"I know that no one as young as you with such a bright and wonderful future ahead of them could possibly be stupid. Or even dull." He smiled at her and there was something in his face and his voice that made Rose believe that maybe, just maybe, he was right. Maybe there was something bigger and better out there for her that she had yet to find.

"You really think so?" she asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

"I know so," he smiled at her. "Now… maths?"

... ... ...

"Mum! Mum!"

Jackie looked up in a panic. It had been years since Rose had come home from school like this, bursting through the door and shouting her name. She could only hope that everything was all right. "Rose? What is it? What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter!" Rose exclaimed, a wide smile lighting her face. "You'll never believe it, Mum! I did it! I got an A on my exam!" Rose hastily dug through her schoolbag and pulled out a slightly rumpled paper. "Look! Look!"

Jackie took the proffered paper and read it quickly. Sure enough, the test was marked with a solid red A at the top. "Oh, sweetheart!" she pulled Rose in for a hug, blinking back the hot rush of tears that pricked her eyes. "I'm so proud of you."

"Where's Dr. Smith? I have to tell him. He'll be so pleased! He here yet…?" Rose pulled back and glanced around the flat, eyes alight with excitement Jackie hadn't seen there in far too long.

"Rose… He's not coming today."

"What…?" she froze, turning to face her mother. "What do you mean he's not coming? He always comes on Tuesdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Has for weeks."

"I know but… he stopped by a bit ago and said that he had to go away. Something unexpected…. He left this for you, though." Jackie picked up the small white envelope he'd given to her earlier (once she'd finished letting him know in no uncertain terms exactly how she felt about him abandoning Rose without any proper notice) and passed it to her daughter. "He said he was sorry he couldn't say goodbye in person."

Rose took the letter, flipping it front and back. "That's it…? He's gone. Just like that?"

"I know you're upset, love. It's so strange…"

"But how can he just…?" Rose muttered, shaking her head. "He was helping me, Mum. He can't just leave when I need him."

"I know, sweetheart. But he would be so proud of you. You've done so well these past few weeks."

"Yeah," she agreed with a shrug, disappointment visible in her face and posture.

Jackie's heart broke for her daughter. She was disappointed herself with the way things had worked out, Smith's sudden disappearance and all. He had been making Rose better, helping her to believe in herself again. Under his tutelage, she'd started taking interest in school again, attending classes and spending more time on her homework. Now that he was gone, Jackie feared Rose might revert to how she had been before their tutoring sessions.

"The important thing is to remember all he taught you. Not to give up."

"Why not?" Rose lifted her chin defiantly. "He obviously did."

"Rose… that's not fair."

"What he did wasn't fair either!" Rose shouted, giving vent to her anger. "To just leave like that… He can't do that!"

"Sweetheart…" Jackie reached out for her but Rose backed away, intentionally stepping out of arm's length.

"Just leave me alone, Mum," she said, brushing past her towards her room, Dr. Smith's envelope clutched tightly in her hand.

For once, Jackie didn't follow her. Some things a mother just couldn't fix. Those were the things that scared her the most.

... ... ...

Rose sniffed and took a deep breath, willing herself to stop crying. Her head was throbbing and her cheeks were sticky from tears. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. Just like everyone else, he had given up on her too. She felt stupid now that she had thought he was different, that she had allowed his strange and clever ways to convince her that she was worth so much more than she had ever dared to dream. She had believed him, foolishly believed him and now he was gone, vanished without a trace.

The envelope he'd left for her lay on the floor where she'd dropped it when she'd come into her room, slamming the door and throwing herself onto her bed for a cry. She rose up on an elbow and leaned over, picking up to inspect it once more. She traced a finger over the fancy script of her name, this last memento he'd left for her in lieu of a proper explanation. Anger welled up inside of her again, threatening to spill out over her cheeks in fresh tears when she suddenly tore the envelope in two. Then again. And again and again and again until she was left with nothing except little white pieces of confetti.

She sat there, staring at the mess she'd made, and part of her instantly regretted what she'd just done. Obviously, he had intended her to read his last explanation of what happened and now she will never know. Perhaps it's better that way. After all, he'd never really done anything for her anyway, she thought coldly, nothing except make her believe that she was actually worth something only to prove to her that she wasn't, not at all.

She wasn't special. She wasn't smart. She wasn't radiant.

She was nothing and would always be nothing.

And that hurt more than anything else.