They told him he'd get used to it, staying in one place. He didn't hate the idea, but he couldn't stand the reality. His experience of domestic life lasted about a week, and Rose was the one bright spot in the torture.
Because he couldn't, he just couldn't bear it.
One morning, he got up, put on some slippers, shuffled into the clean, sleek kitchen that he had already memorized down to the last detail. Read the mail, looked out the window, chewed his bagel slowly. (Like every day. Staying alive. So boring. Just … staying…) The beat of his one heart was the only sound. Except for the rain. The rain went "one, two, three, four" against the glass, and he could look past it to see the river and the iron clouds.
He stuck a post-it note - fragile pale yellow - to the cupboard. "Back in a bit," it said.
.
And so he bought himself an airline ticket or two. He climbed steep, lush hills in China, relishing the physical effort. He biked through barren Arizona deserts, drinking in the wind blasting across the dusty roads. Money was never hard to come by, seeing as he was a genius. Solving impossible problems for a stack of bills and then moving on, he circled the globe. After a handful of months, he'd covered an incredible amount of ground, never staying in one place for more than twenty-four hours.
It was then that Rose had called. Asked him if he was coming home.
And he knew he had left her too long. That she was scared, that she was doubting him.
So he came home. He meant to stay, to show her he still loved her. That he still cared. And he tried, he tried so hard. But he ended up drifting off again, camping all over the English countryside in a tent that was bigger on the inside.
But it wasn't enough. He didn't know what he was doing wrong. There was a space inside that he couldn't fill, no matter what he did. The place the other heart should have been. So he came back, lived in London next to the Tylers, and opted for loneliness, talking as little as possible, because he was confused and it hurt and he never ever knew what to think around people. Especially Rose.
He knew who he was - or, he forgot who he was supposed to be - when he was lost in books in a library or a Waterstone's buried in a corner of the city. When he was riding a bus, alone. When he met strangers. When he walked around getting lost and not finding himself for as long as possible. Walking beside canals. Walking beside castles.
Seriously, there was an outrageous amount of walking involved.
But he wasn't going fast enough, and soon, life caught up, and he had to face Rose. And she just said, "Hey, I'd like to keep in touch," like he was a stranger.
And so here he was, doing something so normal. Joining in a 21st century fad. Getting a Facebook account.
It was a problem solving maze - what name should he put down? Of course, in the end, it was just the Doctor, like it had always been. Because he wasn't anyone like… John Smith. As for birthday, he couldn't remember. And year of birth? How was he supposed to keep track of something like that?
He got it done, though, and it asked him one last question.
"Are you human?" It said, presenting him with a squiggly, distorted word that he was supposed to type out.
Are you human?
.
And he was. And that was all he needed. Because he was not a Time Lord from Gallifrey. He was a Metacrisis from a TARDIS. It wasn't even his own TARDIS: his own TARDIS was peeking out of the soil in a flowerpot on the porch. And the London rain was feeding her, and maybe it would be time to shatter fry the plasmic shell, in a few years, when she was big enough.
And his date of birth was the day the Earth was stolen. And his name was the Doctor, but maybe some sort of last name would be good.
Because Rose couldn't stay "Tyler" forever, now could she?
He smiled.
And he went across the hall to the flat where she lived. And said "I'm back."
~The Beginning~
[Inspired by Zoe Alice Latimer]