The first contact that this dumpy, little planet had to realize it was making was with the Slitheen family? Brilliant! Of all the races, all the peoples across the universe, Earth would be set on by some mercenary band of money-grubbing criminals. Ahh, just as well they didn't remember that nasty Vogon invasion of the 1970's. That had been a big enough mess, bureaucratic ingrates, but the Slitheen were merely out for fun and profit.

And worst of all, Rose Tyler was caught in the middle of it.

Not that she seemed to notice over much. She slouched in one of the important looking chairs around the large conference table, playing with a strand of fake blonde hair as she chatted with Harriet Jones. The world could possibly be ending at any moment, and there she was chatting up some random MP as if she could do nothing better right now. Which, if he admitted it to himself, there was nothing more she could do in this situation.

"So it's just you and your mother, then?" Harriet had that curious sympathy that humans seemed to employ when they knew a situation was sore subject but very much wanted to know more.

"Yeah, me and Mum." Rose nodded, frowning at the steel covered windows with vague worry. "She's out there right now with Mickey. I hope she gets someplace safe."

"And Mickey is your boyfriend?"

"Yeah…kind of." Rose eyes flickered nervously towards the Doctor as he pretended he hadn't noticed. "I've been gone for most of a year, traveling."

"Gap year," Harriet nodded in understanding."

"Yeah, something like that," Rose's nervous smile shifted as she changed subjects. "And you, have a husband back home wondering what's become of you?"

"Me, no!" She laughed, tight and bright, an old hurt underneath her self-effacing smile. "No, like you, just me and my mother. She's ill now, getting on in years. She's been staying with me the last few, just to have someone to look after her."

This piqued the Doctor's interest somewhat as he tried to glance sidelong at the other woman. He could see the tears just misting in the corner of her eyes, hear the tremor in her voice. "She's out there at home by herself. I hadn't even had a chance to call her to tell her what was going on. She doesn't even know I'm here."

Rose shifted from bored teen to sympathetic listener in the space of half-a-breath, concern and empathy writ across her pretty face as she reached a hand across to the other woman's arm. She had no words. What could one say in the face of likely death? But Harriet Jones seemed to take comfort in it as she patted the girl's hand gratefully.

"The worst part…the most frightening part in all of this isn't so much what will happen to me, but that she will be alone. There is no one else. They only had me, and Dad died years ago, and she's well up there. If I die, there's no one to take care of her."

It was a simple confession, and a very human one, but it still panged the Doctor to his hearts. There was this woman, this regular woman who had her job serving the people in her district, who just came to Downing Street to talk about some political nonsense that was important to her. And now she would die because of the actions of a mercenary bunch of profiteers, and her mother would never know the truth of how her daughter came to her end. That was, of course, if her mother and the rest of this planet lasted that long.

He personally wanted to see that it did.

"If you'd excuse me," Harriet rose preemptively, waiving a hand towards the closet in the corner, "I think there's a loo in here somewhere, I might go see if I can find it."

She didn't stop to reply to the Doctor's quizzical look as she wandered into the closet at the far end of the room.

"The loo's outside," the Doctor murmured after her, but the other woman didn't seem to pay any heed. Instead she marched in firmly and closed the door behind her.

"S'not why she's going in there," Rose replied, staring at him as if he was the daft one walking into closets thinking they were bathrooms.

"Then why would she lock herself in a closet?"

"Because it's the only place in this armored room where she can have a good cry away from two perfect strangers," Rose replied reasonably, frowning sympathetically at the closed door. "I understand it. Wish I could have one of those at the moment."

There she was, just a kid, drug into the insanity of his life. And he had gone along with it. She had angrily demanded that he not leave without her and he'd agreed to it, and now she was caught up in something that might just kill her. He shouldn't have gone back to Powell Estates, and he shouldn't have brought her with him.

As if sensing the line of his thoughts, her eyes narrowed suddenly, cutting at him, brown glitters of irritation shining through the thick make up coating her lashes. "You left me."

"When?" He feigned ignorance as he busied himself with his sonic screwdriver, pretending to do something extremely important.

"Back at the flat, you left me to go find your aliens." She crossed her arms in a clear signal she was preparing to battle with him on this and he really wished she wouldn't.

"Yep," he shrugged, trying to look supremely distant and impressive with his sonic and knowing he was somehow failing.

"What, after you promised and swore to me that you wouldn't just take off and leave me?"

"What, I popped in, popped back, simple as that. Besides you were busy with your…domestics."

"Domestics?" A dark eyebrow arched upwards, and he had the distinct impression of remembered pain across his cheek. She looked disturbingly like her mother when she did that.

"Yeah, well you had to deal with Mickey the Idiot, didn't you?"

Rose's eyes rolled as she snorted. "That doesn't mean you can swan off like that and just leave me behind."

"I don't know, you nearly got a man imprisoned for your death, I think he needs an explanation."

"I did no such thing," she seethed, throwing herself forward to lean against the table, inches from his face. "You are the great git that can't tell twelve hours from twelve months."

She did have a point there. "A years a long time to carry a murder suspicion, besides, you didn't miss much. Just a pig in a suit."

"That's not the point," she hissed, slamming back into her chair again, glaring moodily at the closet where Harriet Jones was currently crying in the dark. "The point is that you promised not to just leave without me. Now, be honest, if you knew what was going to happen here, what we were facing, would you have taken me with you?"

Taken here anywhere near this madness? No! Well…maybe. He glowered at her jutted jaw. "Is this really how you want to die then, locked up in a room, like Harriet, without the chance of seeing your mum one last time?"

"I'd rather do that than hide at home and wonder where the hell you are and why you didn't come for me."

That stung, and he didn't like it. "And what if I couldn't save you?"

Didn't he have enough blood on his hands? He didn't want her blood there as well.

"What did I tell you on the TARDIS when you tried to chuck me? After Gwyneth? I said I'm sticking around." Rose uttered this with all the false bravado a girl of nineteen who had never experienced death and dying would have. "And besides, not everything in this world is safe. If Mum has to cotton on to that eventually, so do you."

He wanted to believe her, this impossible girl, who thought she was indestructible. He wanted to think that indeed, she was indestructible as she thought she was, and that he wouldn't stand there and watch her die because of something he did. More than anything, he realized in that moment, he wanted to keep this strange girl safe. Perhaps it was for her mother, or her boyfriend, but really, he wanted to keep her safe for him. And he didn't quite understand what that meant yet or why.

Instead, he decided to change the subject.

"You think she'll come out of the closet sometime soon?"

"I hope so," Rose murmured softly, glancing at the still closed door. "You know, I told Mickey you'd come back."

"What?"

"When you left, Mickey told me, and I told him you'd come back."

"You were just yelling at me for leaving you," he protested indignantly.

"Yeah, well," she shrugged, looking mildly abashed. "Didn't mean that I didn't think you wouldn't come back. Cause you promised you wouldn't leave me."

Honestly, all this fuss, just to prove a point. "Is this what traveling with you will always be like, you whinging on something just to prove a point?"

"If we live, maybe you'll find out."

There was that if. She was by far not the first of his companions who had been in danger. But just like with all the others, he very much hoped that "if" would end up on the positive column for him today and that fate would be kind to him once again.