The Doctor was scribbling a criticism in margin of the essay on his desk when the door to his office opened.
He muttered good morning and struck through a sentence when a large book fell onto his desk.
"Look what I found," Bill said excitedly before he could even open his mouth. She started flipping pages of the large tome. "So, I was in the library looking for books on ancient Rome to write my essay-"
"Did I set you an essay on ancient Rome?" the Doctor asked, his brow furrowed.
"Well, no." Bill paused her page turning. "It's for a different class."
"You take… other classes?"
"Well, yeah," Bill said, confused as to why the Doctor didn't get that it should be obvious. "That's part of you enrolling me into the University. I take other classes along with yours."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, making a mental note to find out what other classes Bill was enrolled in and hunt down the professors. He wasn't sure if he was more likely to intimidate them into pushing her harder in class or intimidate them into cutting her more slack. He figured he'd decide on the way.
"Anyways," Bill said, resuming her page flipping. "I was looking through these books and I found…"
She turned the book around and pointed to the photo of an etching of an older man with short curly hair and prominent eyebrows.
"You!" Bill pointed to the book happily. "It's you, isn't it? I mean, I figured having a tutor that's a time traveler means he'd probably going to show up in a book at some point, but I never realized that I'd actually find him in a book. But I did! It's you!"
But her excitement and smile faded as she looked at the Doctor. His brow was furrowed again as he frowned at the etching. His eyes seemed to scan the nearby paragraph as he gathered information.
"What's wrong? It's you, isn't it? It's you in Ancient Rome."
"Uh… no. I don't think it is," he sighed. "I don't think I've been in Rome in this face."
Now it was Bill's turn to frown.
"But… that's you. It has to be," she said, turning the book back around to look at the etching again. "Who else would it be?"
"Probably the bloke that I got this face from."
Bill tensed. Slowly, she looked up at the Doctor, her eyes widening
"The bloke you got this face from," Bill repeated slowly.
"Yes. The bloke I got this face from," the Doctor confirmed.
"You mean…. You got...your face… from someone... else?"
The Doctor nodded and kicked his feet up on his desk. Where he looked the picture of ease, Bill was the picture of dawning horror.
"Do you... take people's faces? Oh my God- is that what 'regeneration' means?" she asked, her voice shaky. "Is that what happens when you 'get a new face'? Are you a face snatcher? Like an alien face snatcher?"
The Doctor frowned. He pulled his feet off the desk and sat forward, raising his hands defensively. Bill responded with a step back, her expression now terrified.
"Bill, Bill, please," the Doctor said in a reassuring tone. "I'm not a face snatcher. I promise. For one thing, I don't look anything like a Slitheen."
The comment, intended to reassure, appeared to have the opposite effect. Her eyes widened even more (if that was possible), and she looked ready to spring and defend herself if need be.
"Bill, please. Sit down and I'll explain everything."
"Are you going to steal my face?" Bill asked, narrowing her eyes. "Kickstart your next 'regeneration'?"
"No. I assure you that's not how it works," the Doctor said, sinking back into his chair and motioning for to her to sit across from him. "Regeneration is more of a burst-into-golden-fire-and-destroy-the-TARDIS sort of thing."
Bill hesitated for a moment, still eyeing him suspiciously. But her curiosity outweighed her panic and she slowly took a seat across from him.
"Now. About this face," the Doctor began. "A long time ago, my friend and I were in Pompeii. The eruption of Vesuvius was a fixed point in time. It had to happen. But it turned out to be a choice that had to be made. Either let Pompeii burn or let the world fall to the Pyroviles. I chose to sacrifice Pompeii."
The Doctor ran a hand across his face. His eyes were closed as he recounted the story, but that didn't hide the fact that the memory was still very clear in his mind.
"We were leaving. The two of us, we were leaving in the TARDIS. But my friend, she was upset. Distraught. And I... I was angry. But she, Donna... she convinced me to go back and save someone. That even if I couldn't save all of them, I could still save someone. So, I did." The Doctor opened his eyes and leaned forward in his chair. He pointed at the etching of the man in the book. "I saved him. Lobus Caecilius. And his wife and his daughter and his son.
"Later, Bowtie, the face after Pompeii and before me, he fought in a war. Nine hundred years or so, just defending one planet. It was supposed to be the end, but a thing happened, and we were given more regenerations. And when I changed into this face, I knew that I had seen it before. But I couldn't remember where.
"And then it happened again. Somebody died- somebody who had been helping me, that I was responsible for. And- and... I remembered. I remembered Donna and Sandshoes and I realized it was a message. This face, this face was a message."
"What was the message?" Bill asked quietly, her fear having been replaced by captivation as she listened to his story. "Like… what did it mean?"
"It was a message from me to me." The Doctor sighed and gave Bill a small, sad smile. "There is always someone to save. There is always an opportunity to be kind."
Bill smiled gently. She looked back down at the man in the etching, wondering if this man ever knew how important he was to the man who saved him and his family. How his chance meeting with the Doctor shaped the rest of both of their lives, not just his own.
"I like that. 'There is always an opportunity to be kind.'" Bill looked from the man in the book to the man in the chair. "Kind of fits you."
The Doctor heaved a large sigh as if he didn't agree with her. She watched him stare at the wall deep in thought for a moment before he shrugged and looked back to her.
"I try," he said quietly. "I'm not always good at it… But I try."
Silence fell around them for a good long while as they both contemplated the Doctor's message to himself. Bill studied him closely as if trying to see if the effects of all those tries were written in the lines of his face.
Finally, the Doctor sighed again and sat up in his chair. He rested his elbows on the desk and gave her his typical intense gaze. She immediately sat up, brow raised.
"What?"
"I just remembered," the Doctor said. "Google 'John Frobisher'."
"What? Like, right now?"
The Doctor nodded, urging her on. Confused, Bill pulled out her phone and searched the name as instructed. When the photo of the man in question came up, she stared,mouth agape.
She looked back and forth, first at the photo and then to the man sitting across from her. In other words, the same man.
Again.
"How-" she began before she lost her words. "Who is… Did you know him too?"
The Doctor chuckled and shook his head.
"No. Learned about him later."
Bill made the conscious decision to close her mouth and then looked back to the Wikipedia page.
"He's from Glasgow and lived in Cardiff. Died there too, looks like," Bill said scanning the top of the page. "Guess it's a good thing we didn't run into his family or anything while we were there."
She looked up at the Doctor, ready for some kind of quip. Instead, she found him looking grim. His fingers were interlaced, his index fingers resting against his mouth.
"Read further and you'll realize why."
Bill frowned and turned her attention back to the page. She scrolled down. With every swipe of her thumb, her expression grew more horrified.
"Oh my God," she muttered, scrolling. "Oh my God. Oh my God."
The Doctor hummed in agreement. When Bill finally looked up at him, her expression was one of pain as well as horror.
"If… if you didn't know about him, how did you learn?" she asked quietly, still in shock.
"Ran into Jack Harkness and got roped into dinner. He knew Frobisher, so he was really confused when he saw me. I realize now I could have used that to my advantage," the Doctor muttered, shaking his head in hindsight. "1949 had been such a good year up until that point."
He allowed Bill a few minutes to take in what she had just read. He watched as every so often her eyes would flit briefly back to the article or up at him.
"Okay," she said slowly. She shook head a bit, eyes still wide. "I've heard there's supposed to be like seven doppelgängers out there in the world that look like them, but you have like... exact copies. Two of them."
"Technically speaking, I think I'm Caecilius' doppelgänger, " the Doctor thought aloud. Bill cocked her head slightly in question, leading the Doctor to shrug. "It was his face first."
Bill chuckled and shook her head again. She paused, eyeing him suspiciously as a mischievous grin spread across his face.
"What?"
"Well, you said everyone's supposed to have seven doppelgängers out there in the world. We've already found two." He motioned to the book and then to the phone in Bill's hand and smiled. "That means there have to be five of me still out there, yes?"
Bill's eyes widened ever so slightly. The tiny bit of fear behind her eyes at the thought of there being more of him was exactly what he was hoping for. He chuckled.
At his chuckle, Bill rolled her eyes and sat back in her own chair. When he kicked his feet back up on the desk, she followed suit.
She glanced down at the still-open book on the desk and smirked.
"I guess you really know how to pick them, don't you?"
"What... faces?"
"No. Friends," Bill smiled. "Like that friend who told you you could always save someone. I'm guessing you probably don't come across people like that every day."
The image of Donna Noble passed through the Doctor's mind and he smiled sadly.
"No, I don't."
Bill paused, considering, and then pulled her feet down from the desk. She turned towards the desk, resting her elbows on it as she leaned forward.
"So... how do you choose? Is there a test?" she asked, eyes narrowed as she wondered. Then she sat up straight. "Did I pass? Not that it matters… but did I?"
The Doctor smiled gently.
"There is not a test, but if there was, yes, you would pass ," he said as he too pulled his feet down from the desk. At her sigh of relief, he smirked, adding, "not that it matters."
She rolled her eyes, but it was clear that she really was relieved.
"But really," she added, leaning on the desk again. "How do you choose? Why do you choose some of us and not others?"
The Doctor chuckled. But as he did so, he realized he had been forgetting something .
Not traveling in the TARDIS as often with Bill as he did with the others had made him forget. Perhaps, he was losing it in his old age. Though, to lose it now, he had to assume he had had it before.
"I never know why," he said softly, pulling a small golden key from a pocket in his coat and holding it up to Bill. "I only know who."
She looked from him to the key and then back to him. He nodded and handed it to her. Slowly, she raised a hand and took it from him.
"For- for me?"
"For you. Your very own key to the TARDIS. Yours forever. Unless, of course, you betray me, but I doubt that will happen," the Doctor smiled. "Usually, I'd've done it sooner, but seeing as we don't get out much..."
Bill turned the key over and over in her hand. It seemed to buzz with energy. The same kind of energy she felt when she stepped into the TARDIS.
"No matter what happens," the Doctor continued. "As long as you have that, you'll always have a way home."
"Are you ready to go?"
Bill looked from the window of the spaceship to Heather. Her loving girlfriend had already settled into the pilot's chair and was just waiting on her to take a seat before they lifted off.
Smiling, she made her way to her own seat, pausing only to kiss Heather on the cheek before she did so.
As the engines ignited and the ground beneath them seemed to disappear, Bill's attention slowly drifted back to the vast expanse of space beyond the window.
She could have sworn she saw… something. A streak of blue, a very specific blue. She couldn't be sure how long it had been, what with time no longer having any effect on her. But she would recognize that blue anywhere.
Bill's hand rose to her left breast pocket, almost exactly over her heart. Beneath the denim of her jacket, she could feel it still there.
With Heather, she didn't need a way home because she was already home, wherever they happened to be. But she still held on to it because that wasn't the only thing it ensured.
No, she held onto the TARDIS key because there was one thing she was absolutely sure of. She had been sure of it with her Doctor and she was sure she could guarantee it with any Doctor that followed.
She was safe inside those doors, and she always would be.
Okay, I'll come clean... I've never watched Torchwood. But I did look it up on the TARDIS Doctor Who wiki and Bill's reaction to learning about John Frobisher (also played by Peter Capaldi) was my reaction. It's pretty crazy and really sad. That's all I'm gonna say in case any of you are going to watch it or at least look it up.
Anyways, that's all I have to say. Thank you all for your comments and kudos! I've been getting a lot of inspiration the past couple days and I look forward to writing them up.