Disclaimer: I don't own the Doctor, nor Rose, nor their chips. The BBCdoes. I'm just playing with them (oooh that sounds bad). Without permission. And not getting paid.
Distracted
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The Doctor munched despondently on a chip. He had a lot on his mind. Whatever possessed him to show Rose that? To take her so far into her own future that her kind of people were no more. Oh, humanity wasn't extinct, just changed beyond recognition. It could have been far worse, he reminded himself, and thoughts of his own people came, unbidden, into his mind.
What had he hoped to gain by showing her the demise of her world? Sympathy? Understanding? It had seemed like a good idea at the time, he thought bitterly.
He recalled the gleeful way he'd danced around the console, describing the delights of the far future. But the end of her world? Of course she hadn't liked it. Who would?
Naturally she'd wanted to come home immediately after, to surround herself with the familiar and the mundane. Her familiar. Her mundane. To him it was as unfamiliar -- as alien -- as any other place or time. Because his place, his time, was destroyed utterly. How could he have hoped to make her understand his loneliness and isolation when, for her, returning home was as easy as punching up some new coordinates?
Returning home. That's what this is about, isn't it. She'd want to return home to stay. Not this time (he surprised himself at how much relief he felt when she'd agreed to one more trip) but sometime. Sometime soon.
And then he'd be alone again. More alone than she'd ever be, more alone than she could ever comprehend. Then he scolded himself for making assumptions about what she could or could not comprehend. That sort of arrogance was a failing of his kind.
And there it was again. His kind. Haunting his thoughts. Even extinct they persisted in making him miserable. He growled, he bristled, he swore in an extinct language and longed for a distraction.
Rose continued to eat chips, oblivious as usual.
Then something moved at the edge of his vision. Something that shouldn't be there. He lunged at it, heedless of who he bumped into. "Doctor?" Rose blurted out. But the Doctor didn't hear her. He was distracted.
His lunge missed, and he fell sprawling. In an instant he was on his feet again, tearing about like a bull in a china shop in his haste to put a stop to-
"There you are!" On his knees, he groped for the anachronistic device, "Come to papa."
He yelped and snatched his hand back. "Ouch! That's it - no more mister nice guy!" Something skittered away, and the Doctor skittered after it in a spinning darting frenzy.
By the time he'd nabbed his quarry, all the other customers had fled. He held his prize high and looked sternly at his companion. "Are you aware that you had a stowaway?"
"Uh, yeah," she replied. She took the writhing thing from him, dropped it in her bag and closed the top. She opened it again, frowning. "Erm... the other one seems to be missing."
"The other one?" The Doctor silently mouthed as his eyebrows crawled to the top of his head. He began to scan the area for signs of spidery movement.
"C'mon Doctor, they're sooooo cute, and I thought..." She was interrupted by a scream from down the block, and was then nearly knocked off her feet as the Doctor sprinted toward the sound. He didn't stay to hear her explanation.
He was furious; he'd have to have a talk with Rose about what is and isn't allowed in his TARDIS. But deep inside he was smiling too. As long as she traveled with him he would be sure to have plenty of distractions.
