Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. No copyright infringement is intended. I am not making any money from this story.
Inspired by one particular scene in the 50th Anniversary, we go back to the time when the Doctor came up with the number of children on Gallifrey. Set in Series 2, with Ten and Rose. I'd say it's mostly in cannon. I suppose it could take place at any point in Series 2, but in my mind it happens post "Fear Her" and pre "Army of Ghosts." Enjoy.
The Cost of Living
The Doctor was fretting over the console, analyzing scans on the monitor and adjusting knobs, when Rose took hold of the handle that would lead them to their next adventure. By the time he began muttering no-n-n-n-no-No-NO, the left door was already cracked.
"Rose! Don't!"
His warning shout came entirely too late; the TARDIS doors stood fully open.
Instead of a grassy knoll or a perch overlooking a glamorous city; instead of a high-tech hospital in need of a shop or the Roman Forum at its height; instead of someplace serene or flashy or quaint, Rose's eyes met with carnage and smoldering debris - destruction like she had never seen.
It resembled the middle of a war zone, except there was no overt military presence: no tanks, no gunfire, no soldiers. Everything was ash or splinters. Pieces that had escaped catching fire blanketed the treeless landscape like mulch. Rose couldn't make out one building or home that had withstood the decimating blast that had consumed the city and spit out bits of timber and concrete like bones.
There were people - bodies - scattered randomly throughout the debris. Though charred and disfigured, some buried beneath matchstick rubble, she could still identify their outlines. Most were small; even the figures she believed to be adults were slight of frame. These were the remains of children and their mothers, their aunts, their grandparents. . .
Rose clung to the wooden lip of the doorway at the unsettling realization. Her stomach heaved, wanting to purge her system of the stimulus that had made her suddenly ill.
Whatever glitch they'd encountered in the materialization process must have completely reset their course, dropping them in the epicenter of an event so tragic that it was only spoken of in hushed tones by the people of her time, if at all. Though it had taken her mind a moment to match the scene outside to the black and white photos in her old history textbooks, she'd finally recognized where - and when - they were.
Surely he would never bring me here intentionally, the young woman thought, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she attempted to compose herself. Not to this place, this date. He wouldn't do that.
Or would he?
Once, when he had worn a dark leather jacket and harbored a cynical streak as long as the Thames, he'd made her watch the literal end of her world as an almost-invited guest. While she'd passed his test of emotional endurance - or, perhaps, to see how far she was willing to go to escape the life of a shop girl - she'd only been a bystander at the event.
Viewing the planet ignite in flames from hundreds of thousands of miles away, with a plate of thick glass between her and the destruction, wasn't anything compared to the scene outside of the timeship now. Five billion years into the future, she hadn't smelled the fires, or coughed on smoke that was mixed with the ashes of buildings. . .and the ashes of those buildings' occupants. While she'd nearly died along with the Earth that day, the Doctor had managed to save her.
Here - where death perfumed the air and saturated the soil with toxins that would linger for generations to come - at ground zero of the nuclear devastation, there was nothing left to save.
A movement among the piles of wood and concrete distracted her from her sickness. Rose thought she saw the head of one of the smaller victims twist minutely. Everything else in the universe dropped away as she focused on the child's head. Her foot was on the edge of the TARDIS' step, ready to run and investigate, when the Doctor's firm grip on her elbow stayed her action, intervening with her instinctive desire to help.
When had he appeared beside her? More importantly, why wasn't he out there already, searching for survivors?
She glanced up at his clenched jaw and serious expression. "Can't we do something?"
He shook his head once. "The bombing is time-locked." His voice was tight. "We shouldn't be here at all."
Unsatisfied, Rose returned her gaze to the head. It was definitely moving.
"But we are here," she observed softly. Maybe fate or some other cosmic force had led the TARDIS and her wayward travelers here for a reason.
Once again, she attempted to step forward, but the Doctor held tight, not allowing her to set one foot outside of the ship. His grip was almost painful.
How could he stand by and watch a child suffer? Angry and hurt, she opened her mouth to accuse him of being heartless, despite having two, but stopped when she saw that his gaze was fixated on the child as well. Tears glossed his sorrowful, old eyes.
"The radiation levels outside the TARDIS are enough to kickstart my next regeneration," he explained delicately. "It would kill you in a matter of minutes."
"So we're just going to watch? We're not going to do anything?"
"We're leaving," he informed her resolutely.
His tone was much too detached, as though he was capable of shutting out all the suffering and destruction. But Rose knew the Doctor's true emotions ran deeper than expressions and intonation. His forced indifference was a sign of how greatly this tragedy upset him.
Pulling her fully inside the ship, the Doctor shut the TARDIS doors and locked them with the sonic for extra assurance his companion wouldn't try wandering off. Once secured, he turned without giving Rose half a glance and strode back to the console to enter new coordinates. His fingers punched at the keys. With a roar, he threw up the main throttle lever, sending the TARDIS up into the atmosphere. The ship creaked and groaned as it pushed through Earth's troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and finally rocketed into space.
Silence fell over the both of them. Unable to process the shock of all she had seen, Rose soundlessly slouched against the closed doors at her back, wiping private, unobserved tears on the cuff of her track jacket. Black smudges from her mascara marred the pink fabric and made her rub more earnestly underneath her eyes to conceal the evidence.
Of all the mis-landings they'd survived during their travels - the kind where they ended up miles or centuries away from their intended destination - this was the most heartbreaking. It was one thing to land in the middle of a battle or step out of the blue box just in time to foil a scheme to end the human race; it was a different thing entirely to show up after the action had happened, when it was too late to do anything but watch the dancing flames.
The Doctor didn't do aftermath. Hopelessness and desolation and damage were things he avoided.
Rose stood unsteadily, leaning against the wooden doors behind her for support, then shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans. Even sandwiched between fabric, she could feel them tremble. More tears welled in her eyes, but she sniffed them back.
Over the rumbling engines, she tried to verbalize the horrific detail that gnawed at her view of humanity. War was one thing, but the scene outside had been nothing short of the undue slaughter of innocents.
"All those children. . ." she whispered, "dead."
The Doctor visibly flinched, but carried on with his furious piloting, as if in a desperate rush to escape the topic.
Had she been a little more collected, Rose may not have continued to press the subject; however, in her current state of distress she sought a way to digest one of the biggest travesties in history. She turned to the one man who usually had the answers.
"How could someone do this, Doctor, knowing the lives they were taking?"
Her question seemed to be ignored, blocked out by the deafening rage that exuded from his tense shoulders and stiff stance. It was as though he'd slipped inside himself, fighting a battle within his mind - a penchant of his previous incarnation that reminded Rose she was only viewing one side of a single decagon. Regardless of the face he wore, the Doctor internalized his griefs and anger in the same way.
The obliterated Japanese city had struck them both to the core, though the Doctor's reaction went beyond Rose's initial shock and following disgust. Something had been triggered inside him: something dark, something secret. A fierce, almost inhuman scowl burrowed within the creased lines on his forehead and around his lips. He seemed primed to strike out at the smallest disturbance. Rose had to turn away, feeling that she was - at least in part - responsible for his foul mood.
When the engines thrummed a steady, tenor cadence, she knew they were in orbit around the planet. Only then did Rose dare to turn back. Though she expected to see him bent over the main console, brooding and moody, the Doctor was no longer at the controls. He'd managed to slip away unseen and unheard.
Then, below the central deck, came a storm of sound. His shouts were mostly incoherent noise, but they weren't pointless; the Doctor was yelling phrases in another language, one the ship wouldn't translate into English for her benefit: Gallifreyan. After a moment, Rose realized the verbal beratement was directed at the unseen, yet ever present, conscience of the TARDIS.
"Why today?" he asked in English while throwing metal bits and bobs around to punctuate his frustrated cries.
Rose didn't have a clue why today held such significance to him. Perhaps it was an anniversary of something unpleasant, though she'd always thought - being a Time Lord and all - things like specific dates would get somewhat jumbled. When she'd worked at the shop, she'd lost track of days of the week; there were only 'on' days and 'off' days. Of course, the Doctor was the Doctor. If she ever bothered to ask him for the time, he'd be able to rattle it off down to the millisecond.
"Isn't two hundred years long enough to watch me suffer?"
Two hundred years since. . .? Oh. Rose slowly closed hers eyes as everything clicked. How didn't I realize before?
It wasn't the TARDIS' fault that he was teetering along the brink between fury and despair; it was hers. She'd reacted without thinking and let unfiltered thoughts slip past her tongue to strike him. She knew about the Time War and the Doctor's actions on that fateful day, that he had sacrificed his own people in order to defeat the Daleks to keep countless other races across the universe from falling. There had to have been children on Gallifrey - thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands.
All those children. . .dead. In her detestation of those responsible for the murder of an entire city, she'd vilified him as well. How could I have said such a terrible thing?
Rose inched closer to the stairs while he continued to curse the ship unjustly. When he ran out of stray objects to toss about, he took hold of his hair with both hands and pulled in opposite directions as though yanking a painful memory from his thoughts.
She couldn't let this go on any longer. She cared for him too much to watch him wallow in the pain of his past, to let what he'd done lifetimes ago drag him back to the darker days by making him relive the end of the War. There had to be some way to bring him back into the light.
From the top of the landing, she called down to him, "It's not the same."
He stilled abruptly, as though just realizing he had an audience. Dropping his hands from his hair - a grown man guilty of throwing a fit and getting caught - he peered up at her through the grating. Two people stared back at her: one, a lost and lonely young boy, the second, a stubborn and unforgiving old man.
"Yes," he said. "It is."
Extracting her hands from her pockets, Rose gripped the banister in front of her instead, attempting to focus her nervousness into the cold metal. To go head to head with the last of the Time Lords would take all her courage.
"I wasn't making a comparison," she insisted. "I didn't mean it that way."
Slackjawed, he ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth once, testing the taste of her statement. He didn't like it. "Doesn't matter. Still holds true."
"You saved the universe," she stressed. Does that count for nothing in his mind?
"At too great a cost," he rebutted morosely.
She descended the stairs to level her eyes with his. Maybe he would be able to glimpse the truth through her point of view. "You had no choice."
The Doctor held her gaze for a few seconds, then tore himself away. "I chose to ignore them: the children I sacrificed in the name of peace. I made their deaths unimportant; turned them into collateral."
"I don't believe that." Rose was vehement in her denial, though her voice was soft. "Not for a minute."
"I never counted. I didn't want to know." Collecting himself with a shredded breath, he continued in a stronger voice: "I'm no better than the refuse who planned and executed the attack outside. I'm worse."
"No, you're - "
He cut her off with a frustrated growl: "How thick are you? The reality of what I did is staring you in the face, yet you still deny it!"
Rose did her best to hide the stricken look that flashed red on both cheeks - his hurtful words stemmed from self-hatred, not from her refusal to see him in the monstrous light he was attempting to cast upon himself. Even so, she couldn't bounce back from his comment rapidly enough, and he slunk further away from her, deflated from his hasty insult, yet stoically unapologetic. His silence suggested she keep her distance.
But Rose would not surrender to his glowers and contempt. She was going to prove to the Doctor that, regardless of his past decisions, he was still the savior of worlds and the peoples' champion. He was the hero of children's stories, not the villain.
She approached him with caution and spoke to him as though talking to a wounded soldier. Her tone was firm, yet understanding. "You're wrong, Doctor," she told him, watching him closely. "You know how many children were on Gallifrey that day."
"I don't," he insisted.
She bristled over his continued denial. "Stop lying."
He did that at times: lied. It was what he did to hide a painful truth or to protect others from learning information that would put them in danger. But, in this case, he wasn't only lying to her; he was deceiving himself.
"Rose, I -"
It was her turn to cut him off. There wasn't any stopping her now. "The number is in your head, Doctor. You're not the sort to make decisions without understanding the consequences. You wouldn't have ended the Time War the way you did unless you knew what it would cost."
He braced himself against the stem supporting the console platform and shut his eyes over her words. For a long moment he remained silent. The only sign of his struggle to rein in the pain and anguish seeping from him was a long tendon stretched taut along the column of his throat. When he finally spoke, his words were drenched in the cold sweat of self-disgust.
"They had faces," he began, his voice heated, yet his tone icy. "They had hopes and dreams and disappointments. They had lives to look forward to, and I stole them. I stole them all from existence."
"And you saved the rest of us," she pointed out once again, steadfast in her belief. "Without you, endless species across the universe would have been exterminated or never had the chance to begin. Think about it: without you, I wouldn't exist. Mum. Mickey. None of us. We're here because of you."
"That doesn't excuse my ignorance."
"Or your bullheadedness," Rose mumbled, adding, "Maybe you pushed the tally from your thoughts to cope with what happened, but when you chose to save the universe, you knew that number. And, somewhere in that brilliant mind of yours, you still do."
Rose held his gaze, challenging him to argue with her again. Eventually - after much huffing and frowning - he gave into her will.
He closed his eyes and laid two fingers against his left temple. It looked as though he was trying to concentrate on a memory - one buried deep in the catacombs of his mind, where he'd tried to keep it hidden, but it lurked about, waiting for the chance to resurface. His breathing became labored over the task, but Rose stayed absolutely still, her eyes never blinking.
Finally, a number: "Two. . .point four seven bil-billion."
Staggered by the figure, she could only nod at first. She'd expected a high number, but she never imagined it would equate to over a third of the Earth's total population by comparison. "Say that again?"
He swallowed the lump in his throat and locked his gaze on hers again. "Two point four seven billion," he repeated without stumbling. "That's how many children were on Gallifrey the day I set it ablaze."
Motionless - her mind trying to digest the magnitude of the what he'd done to end the Time War - she didn't know what to say. What could she say?
The Doctor crossed the lower deck to the stairs, sinking down under a weary weight that would never be fully lifted from his shoulders. He threaded his fingers through the hopeless disarray of hair standing in all directions and reiterated his exhausted point: "I'm no better than the men responsible for this bombing. Do you see that now?"
The sheer amount of lives lost was tragic, yet the fact that the Doctor had acted alone and was the sole survivor of his race was even more heartbreaking. Rose decided to refocus her energies to helping him move on from the mental rut into which he'd fallen. She lowered herself down next to him and released a small sigh.
"Maybe not," she allowed, though her tone lacked the barest hint of conviction. "But, what you did doesn't change the way I see you, Doctor."
Rose felt his body shift, turning toward her. Before he could start in again on how he was a child murderer, she shot him a sharp look through her lashes and said, "I can forgive you."
The honest statement appeared to derail his formulating speech. His mouth hung slightly ajar. Rose took the opportunity to give him what she thought he really needed. Snaking first one arm across the broad span of his back, then wrapping the other around his front, she tugged until they were pressed together. From where her head rested awkwardly against his chest - given their side-by-side position on the stairs - she could feel his shock slowly release and dissipate.
For a few moments all Rose could hear was the drumming of his hearts. The Doctor didn't move, but Rose was not discouraged by his unresponsiveness. It made her hold on to him even tighter. She wouldn't let go until he pulled away. Her mother - though not the most openly affectionate parental figure - had once imparted some solid wisdom: when you hug somebody you love, you should never be the first to let go.
So, Rose clung to the Doctor with all the strength she had.
"I do forgive you, Doctor," she whispered underneath his chin, "but only if you promise to never forget the children of Gallifrey."
His hands inched up her back until they were cupping her shoulder blades. Then he squeezed, and Rose felt like crying all over again with relief. She'd finally gotten through to him.
"I promise," he vowed softly, embracing her a few moments longer. When he pulled back, he did not disengage entirely. His hands gripped her forearms, thumbs rubbing circles into the fabric of her jacket. He looked at her with shining eyes. "What do I do now, Rose? How do I live with myself?"
Much to her surprise, the words rolled off her tongue as easily as if they were ingrained in her DNA. "S'pose you have to do what the rest of us do: carry on. Day after day, year after year. You carry on and keep living. And remember, Doctor."
His response was a slight nod and a quiet admission. "You're too good to me."
Then, in another heartbeat, he jumped to his feet and started scaling the stairs back to the main console two at a time, a smile lighting up his whole face.
It was a most bizarre, drastic mood shift, even for the Doctor. Rose struggled to change gears in order to keep pace with him. Eventually, she chased him up the stairs and stood on the opposite side of the TARDIS console. He glanced up from the switchboard and smiled a genuine smile that caught Rose off guard more than anything else. If he intended to disregard the last half hour and return to his normal, wonderful self, she supposed it was best to follow his lead.
Sometimes it was almost too easy to slip back into the happy, adventure-awaits-mindset with him.
"Of course I'm too good for you. Which is why you won't say 'no' when I ask you for a favor," she added with a characteristic cheeky grin.
"Anything. Name it. Just so long as it's not -"
Rose raised one of her dark eyebrows, as if to ask, Didn't you just say anything? Her mind was already set on what she wanted, and she had a feeling that the Doctor knew what it was as well.
It must have been an expression he was used to, because he exclaimed, "Must we? We just dropped in on her!"
"Weeks ago!" Rose countered in mock exasperation. "I need clean clothes. All these spare rooms and no place for laundry. How do you expect a girl to get by like that?"
He gave in with a dramatic sigh. "Fine. But I'm not staying for supper." After a moment of typing coordinates and time-ordinates into the TARDIS, he added in a more solemn voice that gave her more comfort than the phony exchange about going to see her mum: "I'm so sorry, Rose. I never wanted you to see this."
She wasn't sure if, by 'this,' he meant the carnage outside, or his ensuing meltdown. Either way, she had seen. "I'm glad I was here," she told him in the same soft, reverent tone. "You shouldn't be alone to face a day like today."
His answering smile was appreciative, yet sad - real. Now she began to wonder if all his previous smirks and laughter weren't just covering up the guilt and hurt he'd suffered all these years. Rose longed to hug him again, but there wasn't time.
"I don't know what I'll do without you, Rose Tyler."
His mumbled words were almost lost in the open space between them, but it never failed to register with her that the Doctor avoided responding to her sentiments of being his companion forever.
"Well," she corrected gently, "you'll never have to find out."
A brief flash of something - a stinging look that branded her as human and perishable - glimmered in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced with his usual mischievous grin. With a flip of a yellow switch, the TARDIS jerked to life and began her materialization cycle. They both gripped the edges of the main counsel as the Doctor called out, "Jackie Tyler, here we come!"
A/N: I hope you enjoyed my efforts. Positive and constructive comments are loved!