"Funny old business, time; it delights in frustrating your plans." - The Seventh Doctor


The Doctor never warns them that it's going to happen. He doesn't think about it. "It" doesn't exist as far as he's concerned. He's put "it" in a box inside his head and locked it away, the same box that holds orange planets and pepper-pot like creatures and pompous old Time Lords in funny hats. Oh, the box can't be locked up all of the time — every once in a while, something falls out, sneaks in through the key hole. Like a plastic creature, crying out for vengeance when its food supply disappeared — never existed, really. Like when a young girl can't help but think of her planet destroyed. Like when creatures from another world have lost their planet as well, their planet and bodies, and could use his little box for their own purposes.

Like when the pepper pot showed up in the middle of nowhere where it was never supposed to be.

But most of the time the box is locked away. There to be ignored.

So when he looks at Rose in that weird smile, points out the readings from the Tardis are weird and walks outside, he's unprepared to see the grey landscape he knows so well already. The grey landscape that is soon to be filled with blue boxes, identical to his own.

And now he knows. He never thought of it before, but now he knows. It wasn't about playing a role and making sure time moves the same way it always does. Not at all. And after he smiles a bitter smile — because even in pain, he can't help but appreciate a good irony - he rushes back inside and closes the door behind him.

He can hear Rose's voice, but refuses to turn around — he doesn't want her to see him like that. He can hear her voice outside now. She's learning about regenerations, meeting his older selves, and one newer self whose eyes are no longer frightening — because now, at last, he truly understands them. She's meeting his old friends, and had he not already been there and known her reaction he would have thought it'd end badly, but it goes alright. And besides, it doesn't matter, because she'll forget it all again in three hours, twenty-four minutes and fifty-three seconds, and it would be as if this place and this time had never existed. Only he will remain with his nine memories of nine different lifetimes in this place, always taking the exact amount of three hours, thirty-eight minutes and forty-one seconds.

He wonders whether he told himself the truth all those years ago — and not yet. Whether he really is going to come out because of the part he has to play and not because his future self would know what to say.

Rose certainly doesn't know what to say. She tries to tell him they need him outside, that all his old friends are there and doesn't he want to meet them again, but he still refuses to turn back towards her and tells her he'd rather stay in the box. She says the others said he'll come out eventually and he says maybe, so she asks him why drag it any longer and besides, he's acting like a spoiled brat. He does laugh a bit, but he's not very amused and she knows it. She tries a bit more and he can hear in her voice she's upset because she thought she can always cheer him up, and in three hours, eleven minutes and forty nine seconds she'd start thinking this again. But right now she's not so sure so she walks out of the Tardis and back to the other Doctors. He remembers his future self telling his past one that Ace liked him better when he was someone else, and the Doctor knows that for a couple of minutes now Rose is going to like some of his past regenerations better, but he doesn't mind, because she cares about him and he knows it, even when she's angry.

He also remembers the other sentence, you can't be prepared for everything. Oh, what a fool he was. To think he could stop that.

Two hours, Forty-five minutes and thirteen seconds, and Tegan walks in, right on cue. She tells him off, of course. She always used to tell him off. He does turn to look at her, a fond smile on his face, and he tells her he missed her, and so she tells him off again for acting that way. But still he won't come out. And she, of course, isn't going to give up, his mouth-on-legs.

But eventually she does give up, and he knows exactly the moment. Two hours, thirty-one minutes, fifty four seconds. And yes, just as he knows will happen, she sighs and tells him he's impossible and that she's never going to tell her own Doctor off again because at least he's reasonable and friendly and walks away. He admires her a bit. Even though he knows she's going to tell him off again, so, so soon.

And then he walks in. The Doctor doesn't want to look at him. He remembers his first impression of the man, this future regeneration — and second and third, and fourth and fifth, and on and on. He knows the horrible thing in his eyes and he knows the reason he never saw it in his own eyes is because he was already sulking, so they — he — took it for granted. But he knows they both have the same thing hidden away, deep inside their eyes.

But then he does turn around, impatient at this aloof stranger, leaning at the entrance of his Tardis and looking at him with this annoying, superior smile, and starts wondering whether those eyes have seen even more disasters than those he can remember.

Well, he asks, unfriendly and impatiently. Or am I just supposed to go outside because this will have always happened. Now that would be uninspired.

This is your last chance, comes the answer, and the Doctor is surprised at how sincere it is. You won't get another, you know it. And what you feel now will change, but I know you will never be able to forgive yourself if you miss it.

And that's himself talking to him from the entrance of the Tardis so the Doctor can't even pretend to be outraged, he knows he's right. And he opens the door, wearing his biggest, most cheerful smile together with the leather jacket and the big ears and the attitude and walks outside — and yes, here she is. Sitting together with another dead friend, solving the problems and helping such a younger, innocent version of him complete the calculation. His granddaughter.

Rose smiles when she sees him stepping out. Tegan makes a sound of approval from her place near the Mad Hatter. His younger selves are unappreciative, of course, but then he's been rather foolish when he was younger. And he walks towards Susan and Adric and asks them to let him help, do some calculation and help connect the wiring to two versions of the Tardis that are not physically there because this is a demanding task at the best of times. And after a while they start laughing and making jokes and then Ace blows something up again, albeit on a smaller scale, and gets quite a different reaction from the one she expected and they laugh again. And all is well.

He tries to catch his older self's gaze, to tell him he knows he was right and to say thank you, even though he knows that version was him once and he knows all these things. He notices, of course, his future self avoiding his eyes, quite clearly, and he knows that that man has hardly said a word to Susan. Or to Rose, who was kept, by some lucky charm, as far away as possible from him and hasn't quite figured out who he is.

But he doesn't ask why.

Some things, he's better off not knowing.

He can see it in his eyes, too.

They wave them all goodbye, each in their turn, he hugs his old friends and she hugs his older selves. Rose presses his hand, holds it tight. Never lets go. And the both of them walk then together to the last Tardis, only one man left watching over them and never saying a word. She starts to ask where is his Tardis, but the Doctor shuts the door on the future he doesn't want to hear and presses the button and then they're gone, and Rose is none the wiser.

The Doctor knows Rose can't remember a thing from that experience, but he can't help but wonder whether something managed to bleed through after all when she next comes to him and asks to meet her dad, to just see him, just once. And he, the fool that he is, does remember that meeting with his dead granddaughter and can't say no. Even though he knows it's a mistake.