"The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blessed-
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."
- William Shakespeare
The Doctor was used to pathetic life forms. In fact, he was almost fond of them. What else could explain the jaunts all over the universe that more often than not ended up on Earth, with its infinite capability for particularly pathetic life forms. The only difference was that humans created these life forms themselves, repressing and pushing each other down.
In all fairness, he had to admit that among the misery bloomed rare glimpses of the extraordinary. Like flowers breaking through concrete, a slow but unstoppable force.
Incredible, really.
Finding something like that in the grey, dilapidated neighborhood he was in now was a vain hope, however. There were people about, certainly. But from the dark skinned woman with the skinny child clinging to her legs, to the blonde, large eyed girl to the ragged man with crutches, they all represented the lowest of humanity. Uneducated, ill-fed (or too large with cheap, fatty foods), bruised, battered and scarred, with no goals or aims. At least on Gallifrey, they tried... The poor weren't wretched and doped up like humans with their inferior brains always ended up.
As the Doctor rounded the same corner he had passed on the way to making his delivery (a small matter for a friend who needed something stored for a few decades), he once again felt large eyes watching him. It took him a while to pinpoint, but it was the blonde girl he had seen before. Sitting on a doorstep in front of a large apartment building, legs curled up in front of her, arms wrapped around them.
He felt a brief surge of irritation with the human race. Surely she had something better to do with herself. Her age was difficult to determine under the dirt and make-up (far too heavy, as was wont in these areas) but he was fairly certain she was older than fifteen but younger than twenty-five. Another wave of annoyance hit him. He wasn't usually this imprecise. And she ought to be in school. Or at work. Doing something, anything, really, except sitting there staring.
The Doctor didn't look back as he went passed the girl and towards the TARDIS, intent on visiting Kepler-22 or the Iiontia System (sufficient far away from Earth) or perhaps he could take a relaxing trip to the Rome, visit a bathhouse or two… He really needed to repair the sonic screwdriver, the switch had felt wonky all day.
She did have interesting eyes though.
DWDWDWDW
Really, the Doctor hadn't intended to come back to the blasted council estate in 21th London. It was entirely by chance. But he felt an urgent need to check in on the delivery he had made, just to check everything was still in order.
Technically, there was no need to go back to the same year as last time. But if there had been trouble, it would surely have occurred in the first few weeks. Right. Decided then.
It was raining, and he could have sworn that not even the penal colonies on Zyrixi had been as miserable as London was today. He ran through the latest history in his head, and decided that with the increased emissions, combined with terrorist attacks in the Middle East and the rising right-wing extremism… Well, perhaps the Great and Bountiful Human Empire had gotten side-tracked. It sure enough looked that way.
Anyway, it was raining and his trainers were getting soaked. And not even the TARDIS would be able to get the stains out of his maroon-with-blue-polka-dots tie.
And the girl was still sitting on that doorstep. He hadn't meant to look for her, but he could hardly miss her now, when she was hunched over like that, in the middle of the steps (in the way of anyone, really). She had brown eyes. Or hazel. Maybe amber. Sort of brown, in any case.
If she meant to keep out of the way and draw no attention to herself, following him with her (fascinating) eyes was a pretty poor way to do it. And didn't the girl own an umbrella or a rain jacket or a pair of wellies? He was cold (not really, but he would have been if he had been a human) so she must be freezing. Damn the British and their awful weather. Why did he insist on coming here time and again?
She really was far too skinny. Gaunt really.
DWDWDWDW
The Doctor was hungry. That was his only reason. If he happened to buy too many chips, well, how could he possibly remember every little detail about every little chip shop in the universe? (though this on Barking Road was exceptionally good). And if he had miscalculated just a teensy-tiny bit and had to walk past the Powell Estates to get to the TARDIS, well it was the sort of thing that could happen to anyone. Even if it was a long walk.
The Girl was sitting in her usual spot, of course.
Best get it over with, then.
"Here." He thrust the bag at her, shifted his weight from the balls of his feet to his heels… One hand dragged at his hair, the other suspended in front of him with the bag.
And still she didn't take it.
She just looked at him with her large, suspicious, sort of brown eyes.
He made a thrust the bag at her once more, and when she still didn't move, quick as a flash, he put it down at her feet and turned around.
"Oi!"
Walk away, walk away.
"Oi, Mister!"
Walk away. Walk
"What, me?"
"Of course you, you see anyone else around? Whyda give me this for?" She held the bag up defiantly.
The Doctor just shrugged and tried once more to leave.
"What do I have to do?"
"I beg your…"
"What do I have to do? For this?"
Do… Do what? She honestly believed he wanted her to… That he would ask…
Stupid humans. Simian to 96%. That she would even consider the possibility that he would, even in his wildest nightmares, ask something in exchange for those stupid, cold, soggy old chips…
He was still gesturing and murmuring to himself when he unlocked the TARDIS' door and slammed it shut behind him. The reproachful hum only bothered him a tiny bit.
DWDWDWDW
And now she was smiling at him.
He had no excuses now, for why he came past the Estate almost everyday (he'd tried to take side-trips but almost ended up in a black hole because he set the coordinates wrong.).
The Doctor refused to speak to her. Not when she'd just insult him with her assumptions.
He'd just find himself around her street and her building with some food around lunchtime. Or dinnertime. Or teatime. And sometimes he took a second breakfast.
And when the Girl saw him, she would smile a most brilliant smile, making her face look not-so-gaunt and her eyes not-so-old. And the Doctor had to bite his tongue so he didn't start to babble about other worlds or how external factors could affect eye-colors and did she know that pink was an excellent color on her?
One day, he sat down next to her and ate with her. It washis food, after all, so if she wanted some, she could damn well eat it with him.
She stiffened at first and that surge of annoyance he had felt far too often lately brushed up to the surface again. But then she smiled and the world was right again.
DWDWDWDW
Her face was bruised.
The entire left side of her face was one massive bruise; or rather a mass of small bruises melding into one big; blue, black, purple, red, yellow…
She wasn't sitting up as much as she was leaning heavily against the wall. Even from a distance he could see she favored the right side of her body, and her breaths were (terrifyingly, frighteningly) shallow. Red marks showed around her throat (someone with big hands must've…) and her blonde hair was mussed, matted with sweat…
And the smell… She didn't smell like herself (not that he'd noticed how she smelled before) but of something else. Someone else. Several someones.
There was no blood on her person, but he could see the cuts on her arms and face and knew it hadn't been long since the blood coagulated.
But when she saw him, she stilled smiled an echo of that brilliant smile, the one that would develop into a cheeky grin if carefully nurtured (loved!).
The Doctor knelt in front of the Girl and wrapped his hand around hers.
And she whispered:
"Run!"
But he couldn't, not without her.
When he looked back at the memories, even with his perfect recall, he was not sure how he made it back to the TARDIS with her in tow.
He opened the door and shoved her in (no time of gentleness, not now) and she looked around ,astonished.
"It's bigger in the inside."
"Yes."
And she smiled her wide, brilliant, cheeky grin and said:
"I'm Rose."
Notes:
The plot was pretty shamelessly inspired (copied?) from the excellent X-Men fic The Girl by rosesumner (available on )
Kepler-22 is a star that possibly has a habitable, earthlike planet orbiting it.
The Doctor Who shop in London is on Barking Road, where the Doctor goes for chips.
The London the Doctor is in, and that Rose lives in, is not our London, but a bleak-future one. The comments about recent history that the Doctor makes are, as most will know, all problems that we have now, but that we still have time to do something about.
And the Doctor's description of Rose's eyes as sort of brown is, naturally, an echo of Rose's description of his hair in the Christmas Invasion.
The quote is from the Merchant of Venice. It's a line of Portia's during the trial.
My Doctor is an arrogant bastard, at least some of the time.