He knew once the chaos had settled and calm had returned to the manor that he had made a terrible mistake.
Smashing through the time window in order to save the life of Madame De Pompadour (and the lives of all the other important French royalties who were present) had certainly seemed like the only option at the time, and perhaps it was. Perhaps he was in a horribly crushing situation where tragedy would ensue either way. Still, standing here in the elegant 18th century French room suddenly felt so very, very wrong, and the realization that he had no way of righting this blunder broke his hearts in ways he had not anticipated. He stood at the large window and looked out at the sky, his humanoid eyes straining to taking all the vastness the night sky held, and knew that he should be observing this view from a different vantage point entirely. He was supposed to be on that ship with Rose.
He admitted to himself that he was somewhat smitten with Reinette, and it was perhaps this hope for a beautiful love story—the love story he had never allowed himself to have—that influenced the rash decision to leap aboard Arthur and ride to a heroic rescue. Yet here he was, the dust had settled, he had a whole life ahead of him on the slow path with Reinette…and he felt sick to his stomach. He didn't love her, not at all. He perhaps wished he loved her, because loving Reinette would be so much easier than the truth.
Because the truth had revealed itself to him in full force that night at the school with Sarah Jane and Rose and Mickey, when Rose had confronted him about Sarah Jane. She had shouted at him, clearly afraid he would someday just drop her off and forget her like he did all his other companions, and he had tried to explain to her the curse he carried as a Time Lord. Then, as he stared into her big, beautifully bright chocolate brown eyes, and saw the hurt there, and thought about how heart-shatteringly painful it was going to be to say goodbye to his pink-and-yellow human for the final time… he nearly let that fatal word slip. Love.
And what does the Doctor do when he can't bear all his terrible feelings?
He runs.
