Rose,
Shields.
Shields are a very important thing. I cannot stress this enough.
Because you know that rebuilding the TARDIS is sort of my default setting when there's nothing else going on, nothing to run around for or whatever, and shields, Rose, are incredibly important. They must be down to rebuild, but they must, absolutely must be up again while in the vortex, because if they're not, any number of things can happen.
Like…for instance…hypothetically…the TARDIS merging with itself in a temporal collision that could cause an explosion in the space time continuum exactly the size of Belgium and create a black hole with enough force to suck in the entire universe…for example.
On the other hand, not every day you get to see the back of your own head.
Of course, all sorted…fancy flying to create a supernova and black hole at the same time to cancel out the force, hello happy universe. Put up my shields, piloted away to Barcelona, where the dogs have no noses…
Never did get there, did we?
No, the shields didn't go up…and I managed to collide again…with the Titanic. Not the same one, obviously…space cruise ship.
Unlucky name. And I'm burning my tuxedo.
Megalomaniac profiteers, dying captains and murdering angels do not make a good combination, Rose.
I met a girl. Astrid. She wanted to see the universe, and ended up waiting tables on the worst possible space cruise.
She's with the stars now.
She sacrificed herself for a handful of people on a plummeting ship, and a few billion people on an unsuspecting planet.
I couldn't stop her. And I couldn't save her.
Seems to be a pattern.
But there's a very rich man on earth who wouldn't be alive if it weren't for her.
And oh! The brilliant shipmate that helped me keep the whole thing from killing everyone, his name is Alonzo. I was finally able to say it! Allons-y, Alonzo!
But that was after they were gone. All the people who died when the meteors struck. The people who were murdered by the angelic host. The couple who won the trip, the brave little cyborg with a hatred for nicknames, and the girl who's dancing with the stars.
Roderick made it, though. That figures.
Pretty sure you would have wanted to deck him. Pretty sure I would have let you.
Shields, though. That's the thing. If you let your shields down, any number of terrible things are likely to happen. Keep your shields up, keep yourself safe, keep yourself protected. That's how they work, that's what they're for. And I've got some pretty strong shields.
Sometimes, though…sometimes, you let your shields down, and you end up exactly where you need to be, being exactly who you need to be. Sometimes, you lower your shields and the thing that gets in is exactly what you never knew you needed.
For all the pain, for all the tragedy, I will never regret the day you got past my shields, Rose.