- The Runaway Bride -
Life without Rose was surprisingly simple - or perhaps simple wasn't the right word. Maybe numb non-acceptance would be a more apt description.
The Doctor had exactly thirty-six seconds to wallow in silent self-pity before a new glorious, much-needed distraction came in the form of a feisty red-headed human dressed in a long, white wedding dress. She introduced herself as Donna, and even though she asked far too many questions about the Doctor's recent, crushing loss, he was surprised to find that he quite enjoyed her company. Even when she was yelling at him and calling him rude names, it was better than the overwhelming silence that had reigned inside of the Doctor's head for those first agonizing thirty-six seconds.
Having a new partner at his side who looked and acted nothing at all like Rose was a strange new shift, but one that he welcomed nonetheless. The Doctor didn't think he could go back to being alone the way that he had been before Rose - that road was madness. But if he was going to start chaperoning companions again, then he knew that he needed a change - someone who wouldn't constantly be reminding him of the woman who he had loved and lost.
He found that he was being more cautious than ever as he carefully put up every mental shield that he could possibly think of before he took Donna's hand in his and slipped the bio-damper onto her finger in an attempt to keep her safe. He had never before wished so desperately that his species wasn't so telepathically enabled. The Doctor refused to risk even the slightest bit of connection with another sentient being right now - not when his own mind and hearts were still so shattered and aching.
He felt an overwhelming amount of sympathy for the brash, over-confident Donna when she suddenly discovered that her picturesque, idyllic wedding was nothing more than a ruse - an attempt to use her for the nefarious purpose of yet another alien invasion. The Doctor knew that he should have felt more remorse for drowning the Empress of the Racnoss and her children and putting an end to an entire species - however sinister they might have been - but as he stood over the empty ravine left behind by the river Thames, he couldn't quite seem to make himself feel anything more than that same grim, numb purpose that was quickly solidifying around his hearts and erasing all of that gray moral space that he had been operating in for centuries.
He took Donna back home afterwards, but he couldn't force himself to leave without asking first - without at least extending the offer for her to run away from her life and to help keep him distracted for just a little bit longer. She refused, just as she should have, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt twice as much when the Doctor returned back to his empty TARDIS alone.
She offered him Christmas dinner before he left, but the Doctor knew immediately that such a request was completely outside of the question. There were simply too many memories - too many reminders of pink cracker crowns and holding hands in the snow and Christmas dinner with the family that he would never be able to visit again.
So instead, he did the one thing that Donna refused to do - he ran, and he didn't once look back.
- Smith and Jones -
After that, the Doctor's life quickly unraveled into a meaningless, colorless blur. He smiled because it was easier than crying. He made jokes with the individuals who he crossed paths with because it was kinder than yelling at them. He saved innocent people from evil because it was the right thing to do - but all the while he felt nothing but a numb, burning ache in all of the places that he knew that Rose should be occupying.
Thankfully, a new distraction came to him in the form of a young woman named Martha Jones. The Doctor liked her almost immediately - she was kind and clever and kept up with him as easily as though she had been doing it all her life. The two of them fell quickly into an easy rhythm with one another - a fact that both concerned and excited the Doctor.
Martha made him believe that maybe finding a replacement for Rose wouldn't be such a hopeless endeavor after all. She made him think that maybe he didn't have to be alone anymore. She gave him hope that maybe he could finally move on and leave his dreams of pink and yellow behind ...
He could feel Martha's interest in him when he went against his better judgement and kissed her in order to get the genetic transfer that he needed in order to save the innocent lives of all of the people that the judoon had transported to the moon. Even with all of his mental barriers up in an attempt to shield his telepathic abilities as much as possible, her sharp spike of attraction and desire hummed against the sensitive skin of the Doctor's lips and quickly reminded him that there were other options - he didn't have to be heartbroken and alone forever if he didn't want to. There were plenty of other women out there in the universe who were no doubt just as clever and brilliant and beautiful as his Rose.
However, the Doctor didn't want any of those other women - he only wanted the one, and she was trapped away in a universe that he couldn't ever reach.
The Doctor still went back for Martha, though. Even after the world was safe again and she had returned back to her family and her normal life, the Doctor still couldn't leave well enough alone - instead deciding to show off with cheap tricks and slight-of-hand in order to entice her into his old time ship. Unlike with Donna, it was an offer that Martha couldn't refuse, and he knew without her having to tell him that she was coming along.
"Where is everyone?" she asked suspiciously as she finally stepped aboard the TARDIS and glanced around at the expansive console room with wide, shocked eyes.
"Just me," the Doctor stated plainly, already setting their destination for some place that he thought she might enjoy. He didn't give her a choice for her first trip like he had with Rose. He couldn't risk Martha choosing some place that held too many painful memories.
"All on your own?" she insisted curiously.
"Well, sometimes I have ... guests - I mean, some friends, traveling alongside me," he explained haltingly, hating the way that his mouth still seemed to have a tendency to run away without his conscious permission. "I had ... It was recently ... a friend of mine. Rose, her name was - Rose. And ... we were together ..." Her name on his lips after so long without her was like a balm to his wounded hearts that both stung and soothed him at the same time.
"Where is she now?" Martha asked quietly, her dark eyes seeming to see straight through him.
"With her family, happy. She's fine," the Doctor muttered dismissively, forcing himself to meet her gaze so that he could prove to her (and, more importantly, to himself) that he wasn't lying. "Not that you're replacing her!" he added quickly, pointing a condemning finger in the young woman's face instead of directing the blame at himself where it really belonged.
"Never said I was," Martha replied with a small, teasing smile.
"Just one trip, to say thanks!" the Doctor continued insistently. "You get one trip, then back home! I'd rather be on my own."
Martha's smile faded as she watched him, and the Doctor suspected that he wasn't fooling either of them with his bitter, desperate lie. Thankfully, all of time and space was at their disposal, and he was able to dodge the rest of her flirtatious banter as he always did by busying himself with the TARDIS controls.
Still, the Doctor couldn't seem to shake the feeling that he was making a very big mistake in bringing Martha aboard - but he also couldn't deny the fact that he was tired of being alone, and he ran headlong into the bad decision anyway. He simply had to trust that he would be able to find some way to work everything out before it all fell apart around him.
- The Shakespeare Code -
Meeting Shakespeare was a laugh, and even running into the carrionites was exciting, but spending the night in a medieval inn with Martha ended up being the most dangerous part of their first trip out in the TARDIS. The bed that they had to share was small, and the Doctor turned towards her to stare deep into Martha's eyes as though he could somehow will her into being the blonde-haired, brown-eyed face that he most longed to see. He barely dared to blink as he stared hard at Martha's features in fear that if he closed his eyes for even a second, his own imagination and traitorous hearts would take over and convince him that the longing that he felt burning against his skin was coming from a different woman.
Later on, the Doctor was forced to lower his mental shields so that he could communicate telepathically with the architect of the Globe Theatre in order to find answers about what was going on, but that left him weak and vulnerable when one of the carrionite sisters suddenly descended upon them and began to use her words to devastating effect.
"The naming won't work on me," the Doctor warned the woman dangerously as she smirked down at him with an air of cool confidence.
"But your heart grows cold," she murmured in mock sympathy. "The north wind blows and carries down the distant ... Rose."
The name stung, just as the carrionite had intended it to, but instead of further wounding the Doctor, it only managed to fill him with a deep, burning rage.
He ended up being as merciless with the carrionites as he had been with the racnoss - sending them all back into their strange crystal ball where they could scream and rage into eternity with no hope of ever being released. The Doctor had once described himself as a man of "no second chances". He found that without Rose there to hold him to a better standard, he was certainly living up to the description.
- Gridlock -
They went to New Earth next because the Doctor was an old, weak fool and he thought that maybe he just might be able to hold on to Rose by visiting the places where they had traveled to before. He was wrong, of course - not only did he and Martha end up landing in the middle of a planet-wide bio-disaster, but when they finally did manage to make it up to the city, the clear sky and the smell of apple grass did nothing but sting the Doctor's already bruised and battered hearts.
Martha made him explain, of course, once it was all said and done. She was good at that - making him answer for himself. The Doctor thought that it was probably a good thing, but at the moment, he was too hurt to acknowledge the healing process.
"But what did he mean, the Face of Boe - 'you're not alone'?" Martha asked quietly.
The Doctor tried to dodge the question, but Martha really was too clever for her own good. "I lied to you," he finally admitted quietly, hating the way that his empty tone rang off of the dirty walls of the surrounding slums, "because I liked it. I could pretend. Just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive, underneath a burnt orange sky. I'm not just a Time Lord - I'm the last of the Time Lords. The Face of Boe was wrong, there's no one else."
Rose had asked him once if he was sure. Martha only wanted to know what had happened. The Doctor forced himself to tell her - to relive the memories, both good and bad - in grim repentance of all that he had done. The old images of Gallifrey in his mind still burned like they always did, but there was a new empty ache in the place where his people were meant to be - an ache that only the presence of a bondmate could ever soothe. The Doctor didn't tell Martha about that part, though - he just let it sit and fester for another day. After all, it was the least of what he deserved.
- Daleks in Manhattan & Evolution of the Daleks -
He took her to New York next - the proper, Earth one this time, though the TARDIS happened to land them a few decades shy of the present. The longer he carted Martha around, the harder it was getting for the Doctor to ignore the blatant way that she looked at him, and for the first time in his many lives, he was almost ironically grateful for the distraction of a dalek invasion that wedged its way between them.
However, it was the first time that the Doctor had seen the elusive Cult of Skaro since the Battle of Canary Wharf, and their sudden reappearance now did nothing to ease his troubled mind.
Leaving Tallulah and Lazlow behind in a turbulent time and place where even half-human hybrids could live out their lives and go largely unnoticed did spark something in the Doctor, though ... It was an idea, as crazy and impossible as the strange couple themselves.
He wondered curiously if they really could do it - could they live a life of contentment together despite their many trials and differences? Could they really make a happily ever after out of the strange cards that the universe had dealt them?
The love that the Doctor saw in their eyes gave him a surprising amount of hope - another thing that he hadn't encountered since Canary Wharf - and when he and Martha eventually stepped back onto the TARDIS again, he continued his current trend and didn't give her any input at all as he determinedly set their destination towards modern-day London to take her home.
- The Lazarus Experiment -
"Where are we?" Martha asked as soon as they'd landed, glancing up at him with that eager, expectant look that he had come to recognize from many of his companions over the centuries.
"The end of the line," the Doctor answered cryptically, giving her nothing more than a pointed look as he waited for her to take the initiative to open the doors and see for herself.
Martha, unsurprisingly, wasn't pleased to see that he had brought her back home, just about twelve hours after they had left (he was certain that he had gotten the timing right this time - one good slap from Jackie Tyler had gone a long way in teaching the Doctor his lesson, it seemed). However, he spared very little sympathy for the shocked, hurt look in Martha's eyes as he let the TARDIS doors fall closed between them and prepared to carry out his plan to leave her to her normal, human life back on Earth.
The Doctor had more than fulfilled his promise of "one trip", after all, and he knew that the longer that Martha stayed on the TARDIS, the more awkward things would become when he inevitably had to turn down her increasingly bold flirtations. However, the strange and impossible Professor Lazarus had caught the Doctor's attention quite against his will, and Martha had a direct family connection to him, so it only seemed prudent to bring her along while he did a little bit of investigating.
The Doctor realized his mistake as soon as Martha announced that the event that they would be attending was "black tie required", which all but guaranteed that she would be watching him appraisingly out of the corner of her eye for the entirety of the night while she, herself, wore a dress that exposed far more skin than normal.
However, eyeing Martha's knee-length flowing skirt and heels only served to remind the Doctor of what a fool he had been when he had forced Rose into a maid's uniform back in Pete's World instead of allowing her to dress up as she had desired. Over nine-hundred-years-old and he was still just a daft old idiot who never knew how good he had it until the opportunity was gone and lost forever.
The Doctor made a pointed effort to keep his hands tucked firmly into his pockets throughout the entirety of the event - becoming even more cautious after he was introduced to Martha's family and her eagle-eyed, suspicious mother. However, when Lazarus's experiment eventually went wrong, as it was always going to do, the Doctor suddenly found himself crammed into a tiny capsule that didn't really allow for much modesty between him and Martha at all. Every single one of his telepathic abilities was crying out against the forced closeness, and it took all of the Doctor's (admittedly limited) self-control to keep himself from fleeing from the capsule and running straight into the jaws of the monster waiting for them outside.
However, when it came down to it, the Doctor was still nothing more than a weak, old fool, and when the night was over, he still asked Martha back for one more trip on the TARDIS. He was shocked into dumbfounded silence when she quietly refused him - he was certain of the lingering glances that she had been passing him all night, and he knew that he hadn't misinterpreted her anger when he had tried to leave her behind earlier.
"I can't go on like this - 'one more trip', it's not fair!" Martha clarified heatedly.
"What are you talking about?" the Doctor asked in confusion.
"Well, I don't want to be just a passenger anymore - someone you take along for a treat!" she insisted desperately. "If that's how you still see me, I'd rather stay here."
The Doctor felt a twinge of guilt as he stared at Martha's back and silently cursed himself for being such a useless, sentimental old man. He knew that he should leave her behind - he really, really should - but he just couldn't. He needed the company, he needed Martha's lingering glances and adoring looks, he needed to feel as though he meant something to someone, somewhere. And so he relented, just as he always knew that he would.
"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Martha cried excitedly as she ran up to him and eagerly threw her arms around his neck in gratitude. The Doctor held his breath as he willingly hugged her back, craving the physical affection she so easily offered, but knowing that he would only be disappointed when he was met with a smell that was not Rose's familiar shampoo.
"Well, you were never really just a passenger, were you?" he muttered as he graciously allowed Martha to step into the TARDIS before him.
She flashed him a wide, hopeful grin over her shoulder as she skipped eagerly into the console room and the Doctor just knew that the mouth on this body was going to get him into trouble in one way or another. He could only hope that Martha truly was as clever as she appeared - maybe she would be able to see through his brash, confident exterior to the wounded, ugly thing that lay beneath. Maybe then she would stop looking at him with such adoration in her eyes and finally run away from him as she should.