The Doctor was pleasantly surprised yet again when they landed in the fifty-first century and immediately got to work with uncovering the mystery of the eighteenth century French fireplaces. He, Rose, and Mickey made a surprisingly good team, and the Doctor found his attitude towards Mickey cautiously thawing (he had been right about talking to Rose, after all - maybe he wasn't so useless).

The added passenger also left the Doctor feeling more comfortable about leaving Rose behind as he shifted back and forth between the centuries in an attempt to stop the strange clockwork robots. Normally, he would have been a little bit more hesitant to leave her side with time going all wibbly around them, but knowing that she wouldn't be on her own gave him the confidence that he needed to help save a frightened young girl. But, of course, that frightened young girl regrettably grew up, and the temporal inconsistencies left the Doctor's head spinning.

"I came the quick route," he explained nervously, not at all liking the way that Reinette - now a young woman - so purposefully invaded his personal space. Did all humans have to be like this? Or was it just the young, attractive women who couldn't seem to keep their hands off of him?

The Doctor's hearts nearly stopped as she reached out and laid her palm against his cheek, instantly flooding his mind with her awe and wonder. Every warning light that had ever been instilled in the Doctor's head was screaming a red alert as Reinette examined every detail of his face and quietly murmured, "You seem to be flesh and blood at any rate, but this is absurd. Reason tells me that you cannot be real."

"Oh ... you never want to listen to reason," he quipped as lightly as possible, finally beginning to breathe normally again after she removed her hand from his face.

But the hand really should have been the least of his worries, because in no time at all, Reinette was pushing him up against the fireplace and doing her very best to snog the life out of him. A million thoughts immediately raced through the Doctor's mind, but they were all out of order and coated in the thick layer of desire that Reinette was currently projecting through his skin.

First, he mused over how long it had been since he had done this - kissed a normal, human woman with no impending, life-threatening, mind-altering threat going on around them. Second, he realized with a shock that he didn't particularly hate the sensation - in fact, it was nice. And he really didn't know how to cope with that revelation, so he moved quickly onto the third thought, and realized that it probably shouldn't feel this nice - because he didn't even know Reinette, and he really shouldn't just be going around snogging strangers when the love of his lives was waiting just behind him on a fifty-first century spaceship.

But by the time that the Doctor got to the fourth thought - that he should really work on raising his mental shields and putting some distance between the two of them - his arms were already wrapping reflexively around the strange woman's waist and he was kissing her back. Thankfully (or, at least he was fairly sure that he was thankful), Reinette ended the moment when she rushed off to tend to whatever it was that human women in the eighteenth century had to attend to, and left him dazed and speechless in her wake.

"Oh, here's trouble," Rose greeted him cheekily once he had finally found her and Mickey again. "What you been up to?"

"Oh, this and that ..." the Doctor replied evasively, quite pointedly not telling her about Madame de Pompadour.

The next time that he pushed through one of the time portals to save Reinette's life, the Doctor quickly realized that he was going to have to do the truly unthinkable, and he sent Rose and Mickey back to the fifty-first century to chase after the killer clockwork robots as soon as he could so that he could face the real danger (that is, the mind of a young, human woman) alone.

"Oh dear, Reinette," he sighed as his thoughts aligned with hers and he began sifting through her memories. "You've had some cowboys in here."

The Doctor had connected his mind with many other humans throughout his lifetimes - usually to find or conceal valuable information in a timely way that couldn't be done through simple verbal communication. It was always an uncomfortable experience for him - or, at least, it had been until he had met Rose. Human minds simply weren't wired the way that Time Lords were. Even Rose, when he had first met her, had been awkward and unskilled in lining up her thoughts with his, even when she was putting all of her attention and focus into it.

That had changed ever since the Bad Wolf, though - and the Doctor realized with a start that he had gotten used to the easy familiarity that he had with Rose. He felt a wave of guilt and shame crash over him as he awkwardly stumbled through Reinette's thoughts - realizing that it took him going through another woman's mind to finally make him understand just how valuable his relationship with Rose really was.

"Oh, Doctor," Reinette sighed quietly, immediately breaking him from his thoughts. "So lonely ... So very, very alone."

"What do you mean 'alone'? You've never been alone in your life," the Doctor murmured in confusion. His eyes snapped open and he began to quickly withdrawal his thoughts from hers as he stared down at her in shock. "When did you start calling me 'Doctor'?"

"Such a lonely little boy," Reinette went on, her own eyes still screwed shut in concentration. "Lonely then, and lonelier now." Finally, her eyes opened again and the Doctor felt a wave of panic run through him at all that he saw there. "How can you bear it?"

The Doctor jolted away from her as though she had burned him and quickly assembled every last mental shield that he could think of in an attempt to cover his mind and feel safe and protected inside of his own head again. He realized suddenly that he had grown too lax with Rose - he had let down all of his defenses, and now he was paying the consequences for his lack of foresight with a complete stranger.

Oh, what would the Time Lords think of you now? he mused silently to himself. To be overcome by one, simple human so easily. They would have labeled you a disgrace. They would have laughed you off of Gallifrey.

After that, the Doctor grudgingly let Reinette lead him off to the ball with the king of France because he knew that he needed a distraction, but he absolutely refused to dance with her (no matter how hard she attempted to flirt and beguile him into it). He thought that perhaps she realized that she had overstepped her bounds when she kept flashing him concerned looks throughout the night, but he refused to broach the subject - not with her, not now.

He really wanted nothing more than to run back to the safety of his TARDIS and leave Mickey and Reinette and every century in history behind him so that he could narrow his entire world to just him and Rose. He needed reassurance and warmth and he knew that there was only one woman in the whole universe who could give that to him. And yet, he was still so afraid - so burned by the most recent unwelcome intrusion into his mind that the Doctor knew that he would need some time to regain his composure before he attempted to face Rose again.

Unfortunately for him, time had never exactly been on his side, and when the clockwork robots threatened to take Madame de Pompadour's head, the Doctor did what he always did and sacrificed himself for the greater good. He didn't even get to say goodbye to Rose before he did it, either - and the crushing weight of his own impetuous recklessness threatened to overwhelm him completely as he grudgingly set his feet on the slow path and resigned himself to the life of misery and abandonment that he truly deserved.