He was walking down the street when he felt someone's eyes on him; he'd had enough training and experience to sense it right away. He surreptitiously turned, pretending that something in a shop window had caught his attention, and tried to spot the watcher to determine if they were a threat. What he saw reflected in the glass didn't surprise him. This wasn't the first time a woman had shown an interest in him and certainly wouldn't be the last. But then he realized that there was something in the way she was looking at him that was unusual. The appraisal was not about how he looked, but rather about who he was.
And that was not a good thing.
His mind was racing, trying to think of all reasons why someone he didn't know might recognize him, but he couldn't come up with a single one that wouldn't result in an unavoidable confrontation that would end badly, and probably spectacularly so. And it would be a confrontation. They always were. People didn't just stare at him like than and then let him walk away.
It was a trifle odd, though: she was so obvious in her surveillance. Too obvious. Maybe he was making the wrong assumption about this? She did look familiar. Vaguely. He watched her reflection as she moved closer to him, one uncertain step at a time. When she hesitated he decided he'd had enough of this game and he spun around. "Can I help you?" He asked, keeping a courteous tone to his voice.
She looked flustered and tongue-tied. "I thought, it's just that," she began before losing her nerve, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bother you." She continued to stare at him, even as she turned to walk away.
"Was there something you wanted to ask me?" He couldn't let her leave, not until he figured out why she was so interested in him.
"You look like someone I met once, awhile back." She looked barely into her thirties, how long ago could he have met her? Before he could ask she continued, "But you look the same. Exactly the same." Her surprise at this suggested she wasn't a Time Agent. And her confusion implied she couldn't be an employee of one of the alphabet soup of Earth bound agencies that monitored aliens and their technology.
"I do?" He asked when she didn't begin to speak again. It was a simple question, with the dual purpose of keeping the conversation going while fishing for information at the same time.
"It was during the war." Well, that didn't narrow it down any; he'd spent an inordinate number of years in England during World War II. "You were with them." Them who? He was hard pressed to think of anyone he'd spent time with that could leave that kind of awed respect in someone's voice. Unless...
Suddenly his stomach felt sour and cold. "The railway station." His face fell as realization rushed in.
"Yes." She smiled warmly.
Oh god, no wonder she looked familiar. She'd been there that night, when his stupidity and pigheadedness almost ended the world. How could she be here now, smiling at him?
"You know," she continued, as if she didn't notice his look of despair, "when I first met Rose I thought she was crazy. She told me about time travel and alien ambulances and that the war'd end and we would win, but it all seemed so impossible." She tilted her head back so she could see straight into his eyes. "But those nano-things healed Jamie. The ambulance exploded in a ball of blue fire. The war ended, and we won. Germany was defeated. And now, here you are, looking exactly the same as you did that night you saved us."
He had to take a deep breath before he could even respond. "I didn't save anyone." His voice was barely above a whisper.
"No? That bomb would have landed, but you scooped it with your ship. If it hadn't been for you we all would have died."
"If it hadn't been for me, no one would have been in that railway station in the first place." Shuffling his feet he stared at a spot on the sidewalk, desperate to end this conversation. He wanted to take off running and never stop and never have to face what he'd done ever again. "The ambulance wouldn't have been there in the first place if it weren't for me."
She grabbed his sleeve. "Jamie died. He died the night during the air raid before that ambulance fell. The nano-things brought him back to life. That's what the Doctor told Rose. If it weren't for that ambulance Jamie wouldn't be here today. He's studying to be a doctor, did you know that? My Jamie, a doctor." She smiled again, her eyes bright. "You saved him." She pulled herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you," she whispered in his ear before she walked away and was swallowed by the crowd.
He stayed there frozen and lost in thought, standing where she'd left him, and didn't move for a long, long time.