Chapter 2: Faltering
This couldn't be her.
This couldn't possibly be the Rose Tyler who went into his past, risking her life, taking chances, almost sacrificing everything that she was to save him. Who made it clear every step of the way that it was his destiny that was important.
The Rose Tyler whose love for him - the Doctor, whichever incarnation - took his breath away every time he met her.
Sitting there, criticising him, complaining about the TARDIS. Objecting that it got inside her head and he hadn't asked her permission.
How could this possibly be the same Rose who saved his life in his fifth incarnation by communicating with the TARDIS? Using her telepathic circuits as if she and not he were attuned to her?
Of course, she was the same Rose. There was no doubt about that.
All of which told him that he had a lot of work to do. And not a lot of time in which to do it.
It would be so much easier if she'd just shut up and accept him as he was. What did it matter where he was from? Who his people were? What his name was? She barely knew him, and she was expecting him to share all sorts of private, personal information with her. No chance.
This? This irritating, annoying, stupid ape who just wouldn't shut up, the same person who raced with him and Ace across Hutosa?
Yes, he had a lot of work to do. And he could see it wasn't going to be easy. Why did it have to be him?
Bad enough that he was having to cope with a Rose Tyler who clearly was far from ready to be a Time Lord's companion. Bad enough that he was rapidly realising he'd made a crass, stupid mistake in taking her to see the end of her world. Now, everything was going wrong. Someone had sabotaged the space station.
Already, the steward was dead. The sun-filter programme was malfunctioning. And the computer was telling him that there was another sun filter somewhere on the station which was also guaranteed to be going the same way.
He found it - on the observation deck where he'd been earlier. Where Rose Tyler had asked him all those questions. Had refused to shut up, even though he'd made it bloody obvious that he didn't want to answer.
"Anyone in there?" he yelled. No point wasting his time trying to jiggery-poke the control panel if there wasn't. He had to try to get to the bottom of what was causing this. Who those spider-creatures belonged to.
"Let me out!" a familiar, but frightened voice yelled.
He sighed. "Oh, well, it would be you."
Scared. And this was the same person who fearlessly fought vampires with him on Lunatia?
And yet...
Fairness warred with impatience as he fought frantically with the sun-filter programme. She'd only just met him a couple of days ago. She'd run into his TARDIS less than an hour ago. What did she know about other worlds, alien species, the kind of life-threatening danger he faced on a daily basis?
Many humans he knew would be screaming and sobbing by this stage. Rose might be yelling at him to get her out, even cursing him, but she wasn't cowering in terror, wetting her knickers like that stupid boyfriend of hers.
She had a kind of courage that, in a way, he had to admire. She'd shown it, too, when she hadn't allowed his bad temper to intimidate her. When she'd offered the olive branch to end their argument. And when she hadn't allowed Jabe and himself to talk about her as if she wasn't there - and, at the same time, hadn't clung to him even if she was finding all the aliens very alien.
He admired her courage later, too, when instead of clinging to him when he arrived back on the main observation deck after fixing the cooling system she recognised something in his expression and let him walk right past her. He had to break the news of Jabe's death to her people, after all. And then when he returned to Rose - expecting to be greeted with complaints and demands to know what was going on - her first question was "You all right?"
Amazing. She'd been locked in that other observation deck. The way the cooling system had been spiralling out of control, he'd bet the exoglass was shattering where she was. Here, too, by the look of the dead and the smell of burning permeating the place. She must've come close to being fried herself.
Maybe he was under-estimating her.
And that was what made him decide, on their return to Earth - a trip taken to show her that her planet was safe after all, that everything familiar to her still existed - to let her see why he'd reacted the way he had to her questions. To let her understand him, just a little.
After all, if she was going to travel with him she needed to know something of this stuff. Needed to know what subjects to avoid, so as not to trip over painful memories... not to risk incurring his foul moods.
Besides, the Rose of the future, the Rose of his past, knew all this stuff. He was sure of it. She'd never mentioned it - she'd been very careful to avoid mentioning anything of his future - but there'd been times in their past encounters that he'd sensed there was something she wasn't saying. Something important. Something that would change him utterly.
It had been even more apparent when she'd met him in his eighth incarnation. The expression that had crossed her face briefly when he'd mentioned the memory crystals.
He'd known, in that life, the day that Rose had literally dropped into his arms, that trouble was coming. Romana had been sure of it. And, later, Rose had told him that there were two disasters coming. And that she didn't think she could stop either of them.
Rose Tyler, stop the Time War? A bitter laugh almost escaped him as he followed her out of the TARDIS.
That was one of the disasters she'd been referring to. Of course, he still had to encounter the second. That had to be what would make his next incarnation send her on her quest.
Something to do with his death-print.
He'd puzzled over that for a long time, until finally, in the aftermath of the Time War, had concluded that there was no point worrying about trouble until it actually came. Knowing that something bad was coming had made no difference when it came to the destruction of Gallifrey, after all.
Rose had known about the Time War when he'd met her last. And so he told her, briefly, with as little detail as possible, with as little emotion as possible. Not meeting her eyes. He couldn't bear the expression he knew he'd see: curiosity, sympathy, empathy.
He had no wish to satisfy the first, and didn't deserve the latter two. Jabe's sympathy had been more than he could bear, more than he deserved, though he'd managed to thank her for it.
And then he had to offer her the choice. Would she stay with him, or had he frightened her too much?
Why had this become his responsibility? Why had Fate decreed that he should be the one to nurture and train this nineteen-year-old human to be the Time Lord's champion, to save the universe? He wasn't up to the job. He wasn't even capable of looking after himself right now.
He had to ask her. "You've seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?"
Her hesitation alarmed him far more than it should have. After all, if she said yes then he had time. Time to try to rebuild his shattered life. To learn to live again. To understand how to live with himself, before he tried to share his TARDIS with someone else.
And to get some mileage out of this ninth life - because there was one thing he knew for sure about Rose Tyler. Her appearance in his life foreshadowed his death.
Her complete non sequitur about chips took him by surprise, as did his sudden realisation that he fancied chips, too. And when she told him that he would be getting her back inside the TARDIS he actually felt relieved. Happy.
The teasing grin on her face, the way she grabbed at his arm, brought back memories, too. The pain vanished, to be replaced by warmth. Joy. And the recollection of the way he'd come to feel about this woman through her appearances in his lives.
She was dear to him. Very dear. Even though she wasn't yet the woman he had met in his past lives, she would become her. Now, he could see that. Even if she had some way to go before she'd be capable of such a task, such a level of understanding, this was Rose. And he wasn't alone any more.
Arm in arm, grins stretched across both their faces, they walked off to find chips.
He'd sent her to bed, dealing with her amazement at the sheer size of the TARDIS and all the rooms it possessed as he showed her to a bedroom. Of course, she'd been to the wardrobe earlier, but somehow in her excitement at the prospect of seeing the past she hadn't seemed to wonder at the interior.
Another trip, another near-disaster.
And another stumble across the Time War.
It could so easily have been true. The War had caused so many ripples, so many disturbances. So many dead, so many left crippled, destitute, their homelands devastated. So many orphans, widows, homeless, maimed. So many left alone.
And he, the most alone of all. He, the one who most deserved it.
The Gelth. A species he'd never heard of before, though he certainly intended to find out more about them now.
Their story had been so plausible. Their planet destroyed, their bodies injured beyond repair. Seeing homes, seeking permanent bodies which would let them live, instead of a half-existence in gaseous form.
The story probably was true, at least in part. They could well be victims of the Time War. For it to be otherwise, they'd have to have known who he was and why mention of the Time War would instantly gain his sympathy. He might be well-known across some of the universe, but that was a notoriety he'd never sought and tried to play down. No reason why the Gelth should know of him. Even if they did, no reason why they should associate him with the Time War.
The Time Lords were dead. Those who knew they were dead did not know that there was a survivor. One solitary remaining Time Lord.
Even some of those who knew of the Doctor didn't know that he was a Time Lord.
So, survivors of the Time War, possibly. Innocents? Probably not. They'd meant to do harm. They'd meant to invade. To usurp. To kill.
And, once again, he'd so nearly got Rose killed.
This time, only Charles Dickens' intervention had saved them. As he'd always thought, the writer had one of the greatest minds of his time. The solution had been simplicity itself, and effective. He should have thought of it himself. He, the most intelligent being in the universe, the sole surviving Time Lord, the Oncoming Storm, the Doctor. He'd been a quivering wreck in a dungeon, clinging to the hand of a nineteen-year-old human as if she were the only thing separating him from painful death.
She'd been far braver than he.
Yet more proof that she was his Rose, his saviour, his future.
And that made him think of something else. The Rose of his past - this Rose's future - knew this had happened. She'd known, when she met all of his previous incarnations, that his actions, his gullibility, his reckless arrogance had almost got her killed.
She'd never said a word.
Of course, she'd known only too well not to talk about his future; she'd shown that in her conversations with his last incarnation. But it wasn't even that failure to say anything. It was the fact that she seemed to bear no grudges at all. As if it had never happened.
He'd got companions into trouble before. Endangered their lives before. Some of them had left him because of it, escaping before they actually did end up dead. Others hadn't let him forget it, hadn't trusted him again afterwards.
Rose... Rose had behaved as if she trusted him - any of him, all of him - implicitly. And yet as if she saw it as her role to steady him, to caution him, to help him, to save him.
And then he saw it. Saw what was different. What was unique about Rose as a companion.
She and her Doctor were a team. Wherever they were, whenever they were, whoever he was, she and he were a team. Equals. Sometimes he leading and she following, but sometimes she leading and he following. Sometimes he teaching and she learning, but equally sometimes she was the teacher and he the student.
As he should have been today. He should have listened to her caution instead of hectoring her about different moralities and threatening to take her home. Yet, even when it had all gone wrong, she hadn't blamed him. She'd been the one to tell him that it wasn't his fault. She'd been the one to give him courage when he'd fallen apart.
He'd taken her on as a companion so conscious of the need to teach her, to train her for what was to come. He'd actually resented that fact. Had been convinced that she had so much to learn - too much - before she could take on the task that lay ahead of her, and been unconvinced that she could do it.
Who was the one who had much to learn? Who was teaching who?
He shook his head at such folly. He was the Time Lord, after all. He was the centuries-old scholar and scientist and meddler and soldier... and fool. She was a mere child, a baby.
But with a brave heart, a generous soul and a compassionate spirit. And more good sense than he'd given her credit for.
Rose Tyler, the Time Lord's champion; yes, he could see it.
But, first and foremost, she was a human teenager, a young woman barely out of childhood and one who'd had a baptism of fire into this world of time and space travel, of righting wrongs and saving the universe. And he hadn't even brought her home in time for tea.
So, perhaps that should be the next stop. Home. Rose's home. Not to leave her - at least, he hoped she wouldn't want to leave - but to give her a breathing space. Allow her time to catch her breath, to think, to reflect on it all, before he swept her off again. More adventures, more journeys, more discovery - and more education in what it meant to be a Time Lord and what it meant to be the defender of a Time Lord.
To help her prepare for her future and his past... and to give him reason to live again.
To be continued...