Disclaimer: Not mine, not making money off it.
Venom
Even with his eyes closed, he can still see her. The cold northern wind is blowing her hair across her face in a rough and unruly caress. It grabs her words and carries them away over the beach. Maybe it's an act of kindness. He doesn't want to hear what she's saying, not really. But on the other hand, he's destroying a sun for this, cracking open a hole between universes: to listen to her say goodbye.
She tries to smile but, he thinks, it's more of a grimace. He decides not to make the attempt himself. The distance between smiles and tears has grown perilously slim today. She tries—he can see how hard she's trying—to hold back the bitter tears, but in the end, she fails. And in the end, so does he.
He opens his eyes and the TARDIS is there, empty and blurred.
He doesn't bother to wipe away the tears and they eventually dry on his cheeks as he putters around the console room. He sets the coordinates five times, landing and taking off again, but somehow stepping outside the door seems pointless without her hand in his. After the fifth time, he tells himself to snap out of it, pushes the pain away into a dark corner of his mind, and goes back to saving the universe.
He makes it four days before he has to see her again.
The rock jungles of Phaesto seem tame and cold. The Eternal Silver Disk is dull, unable to move him with all its radioactive glory. The great mathematical maze of the Fourier Sect holds all the charm and challenge of a game of noughts and crosses. He can't sleep and he can't stop, so he bounces from world to world, impatient with everything this suddenly hollow universe has to offer.
On the fourth day, he dematerialises the TARDIS on the Powell Estate. He only wants a glimpse, he tells himself, one quick look to remind him that there are things worth caring about. She'll never see him. Or if she does, this isn't the face of the Doctor she'll be meeting soon, anyway.
He's so intent on watching the flat that he doesn't even notice her until she's right beside him.
"Looking for someone?"
He jumps and has to bite his tongue to keep from yelping. His first instinct is to retreat, but then her face captivates him and he's held fast. She's carrying a plastic bag; probably on her way back from the supermarket, he thinks. She's wearing a red jacket and her signature flourish of mascara. He wants to kiss her right then and there, say the words he'd been too slow to say before.
"Ah, no, not as such," he lies, "Bit lost, actually. This isn't Aberdeen, is it?"
She laughs. "Not even close! Must've been one hell of a binge."
"What? Oh, no, no, I got bad directions, got a bit turned around, is all."
"You got turned around walking to Aberdeen?"
He realises that there's no car nearby that he could reasonably claim. Besides, she probably saw him standing there, staring, as she came down the street. He should leave now, part of his mind insists urgently; cut his losses and run before he gets ensnared any more than he already is.
"It seems you've seen through my clever ruse," he says instead.
"Not lost on the way to Aberdeen, then." She grins, swiping a strand of hair out of her eyes. He notices that she's sizing him up carefully, though she's trying to be inconspicuous about it. It makes him nervous. He knows his suit is rumpled and his hair must look a fright. Humans care about those sorts of things and he doesn't want to make a bad impression.
Then he remembers his own mouth saying: You've been looking. You like it. He remembers that he has an attractive body in this regeneration. A body she likes. So he smiles as brilliantly as he can and says:
"Now, if you want to know the truth," he leans in close, conspiratorial, "I'm the last survivor of an incredibly powerful race of time travellers. My people died in an intergalactic war and now I travel the universe in a timeship and rescue innocents from hostile alien invasions. Sometimes I solve mysteries, too."
Her jaw drops and her mouth forms an O of incredulity. "Oh, yeah?" she says, recovering quickly, "Sounds like a bad telly series. What's an incredibly powerful time traveller want on the Powell Estate?"
He sniffs the air, acts nonchalant. "Well," he says, "to be completely honest with you: chips."
After a moment of stunned silence, she barks a laugh. "It's creative, I'll give you that. Aliens coming to Earth just for chips? I'd almost believe it, considerin'." She smiles. "I love chips."
He basks in her amusement. Incredibly, she doesn't seem inclined to leave yet. He babbles on.
"So you're a chip connoisseur, one might say? An expert in the consumption of fried foods? A professional chip taster, maybe."
"Oh, yeah. Gold medal in the Olympic Chip Eating Relay, me."
"Probably know all the best chip shops in London, then."
"Sure. There's a great place just around the corner." She jerks her head back the way she came, down the street.
"Wonderful. Magnificent. Fantastic." He sidles around her in the direction she indicated. "So, can I interest you in… chips?"
"Only if you promise not to abduct me," she says teasingly.
"Wouldn't dream of it. Never crossed my mind. Completely against the rules."
"Well, in that case, count me in," she says, and the two of them begin to amble towards the faint scent of grease and salt. "So, what's your name, Mr. Alien?"
"My name," he says, "is lost in the mists of time. People call me the Doctor."
"The Doctor? Not much of a name for a superhero."
"Well, it's better than John Smith, isn't it?"
"Is it? Honestly, I'm not so sure. I'm Rose, by the way," she says, "Rose Tyler."
"Rose Tyler," he repeats, recalling the last time he said her name. "Very pleased to meet you, Rose Tyler."
They eat chips and he talks heedlessly, telling stories about places he's been, people he's met. She plays along as if it's all a game, letting him ramble about multi-coloured ion storms and space stations and Cybermen. Sometimes she interjects, adding some made-up detail to the fantasy world she thinks they're building, and both of them laugh. He knows he shouldn't be doing this, but it's so easy. Old habits creep up on him. He knows her, knows what makes her laugh and what holds her interest. He weaves a net of words, charming her, reeling her in.
She never mentions Mickey, not that he cares. He finds he doesn't care at all that her mum might be missing her, that she has a boyfriend here. Her ties to Earth don't matter, not when he needs her so much more than they do. And he does need her: hearing her voice, watching her laugh, it makes him feel almost alive again. She's always had that effect on him. The parts of him that died in the War don't ache so much in her presence.
When they walk back to the Powell Estate, he can't quite bear to let her go. So instead he throws caution to the winds and shows her the TARDIS. She doesn't say it's bigger on the inside, not this time, but he sees the thought in her eyes, the same fear and disbelief and dawning excitement he remembers.
"Oh my God, it's all true," she says, "You weren't kidding. You're an alien, an actual alien. I had chips with an alien!"
She looks at him with awe instead of amusement and he doesn't care about that, either. At least she's still looking at him. He doesn't want it to end, so he breaks his promise and abducts her after all. If there's a hint of disapproval in the sound of the TARDIS' engines, well, he's the Time Lord, she's the ship, and this is definitely not a democracy.
He takes Rose to the rock jungles and she clings to him a little, overwhelmed by the enormity of an alien planet. She adapts quickly, though, and soon they're climbing the silicon-based flora of Phaesto, searching for the fabled and rare jade orchid, whose pollen is rumoured to induce prophetic dreaming. The jungles are wild and exhilarating again, positively magical now that he can see them through her eyes. He never wants it to end, wants to keep her with him forever, but he knows the resulting paradox would be deadly to them both.
When he brings her back to Earth, he lands the TARDIS a mere sixty seconds after they left. It's only been a minute, not long enough for anyone to notice her absence—except Rose herself, of course. He has to preserve the timeline, so he takes her memories of Phaesto and of him. He sucks them out of her mind using psychic techniques he's never put to use since he first learned them at the Academy. He'd always loathed that part of his education in the past, especially after the Time Lords erased the memories of two of his companions, but he'll put this tool to use, too, now that he needs it.
He watches to make sure she makes it back to the flat safely, hand pressed against her temple in confused disorientation. Then he folds the TARDIS back into the vortex.
In the ensuing silence, he begins to calculate. Sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes in a year. He can't take them all; that would wreak havoc on her timeline. But he can take a lot. Even if he only steals one minute from each day, it's still three hundred and sixty five trips per year. And he can take more than one: maybe ten or fifteen, even. His mindwiping technique isn't that good and he doesn't dare try to take more than a day's worth of memories, so he'll have to keep it short. Day trips. He smiles.
He thinks of ways he can seduce her, entice her away with him. She has a weakness for pretty boys and he intends to exploit it. She likes chips. She laughs easily. His mind whirrs like clockwork, planning out a hundred scenarios. He runs through a list of places he wants to take her, scattered around the Web of Time. The universe seems much more warm and welcoming now, and the prospect of a few more centuries of space-time tourism is suddenly inviting. Not that he can allow her to remember any of it—he'll just have to do the remembering for both of them. It's better than nothing, he tells himself, better than loneliness.
Humming to himself, he sets the coordinates to the previous day in Rose's timeline. He's only taking one minute; she'll never miss it. The TARDIS mutters at him and he ignores her. It doesn't matter, after all, if this isn't exactly by the book. There's no one to stop him.