A Helping Hand

Disclaimer: Obviously, nothing belongs to me.

It's London, 3am, the 13th of May. Neither of them know the year. Jackie has held an incredibly belated birthday party as the Doctor and Rose landed too late to catch her actual birthday. However, she hasn't exactly been forthcoming with regards to which birthday she is celebrating and the TARDIS happens to have chosen this particular day to take Jackie's side and be coy with the date, too.

The Doctor and Rose have just succeeded in seeing off the last of far too many party guests and putting an incredibly drunk Jackie to bed (the Doctor very happily delegated that particular task). Finally, a relative sort of peace reigns over the flat. After an entire evening of being questioned over the imminence of wedding bells and pattering feet, to say that the two time travellers were relieved to be able to drop their overly cheery, jaw-cracking smiles and flop exhaustedly onto the sofa would be an understatement.

Trying to pretend that the whole room isn't bursting with streamers, popped balloons and disgusting specimens of half-eaten food she has no wish to identify, Rose fishes for the control down the side of the cushion and lazily flicks the television on. Finding nothing but flickering cartoons and drab news reports, she throws the control back down and drops her head to the Doctor's pinstriped shoulder with a sigh.

"If you even think about falling asleep on me, Rose Tyler…" he threatens good-naturedly, leaning over her to snatch the control and unmute the TV, settling for a BBC news programme.

"It's weird to think there's stuff worth putting on the news at 3 in the mornin'," Rose says idly, going on to explain herself when he frowns down at her in confusion. "It's just so quiet here. Feels like the whole world's asleep."

"Remind me to take you to Barcelona at 3am. We'll soon rid you of that notion."

"The planet that never sleeps," quips Rose, settling down to watch the news for a few minutes before she's forced to get up again in order to sort out their beds. Or, rather, settling down to watch the Doctor, who is eyeballing the singing canary on BBC News at Ten with both of his eyebrows raised.

"Sorry about mum's friends," Rose begins awkwardly, wondering if she should bring this up at all. The Doctor looks steadily at the screen, but his eyebrows fall a little. "They ask that stuff to everyone. Doesn't mean they think we're…"

But she can't finish the sentence, because maybe her mother's friends should think they are – what? In love? A couple? She wonders how true it is, sometimes. They might not have a conventional relationship, but she knows what they feel for each other is often above and beyond what even the most devoted lovers ever get the chance to experience.

"It doesn't matter."

Rose looks down at her hands, wondering why she's ever so slightly disappointed. "Yeah," she agrees quietly. "Let 'em talk, right? Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of us."

"No," the Doctor says, finally turning to look at her, "It doesn't matter. Look at the screen."

Rose frowns and turns her eyes to the television, gasping slightly at the sight before her. A hand-held camera in a helicopter is scanning over a completely flattened and devastated landscape. Even over the noise of the engines, the sound of falling buildings and wailing people can just about be heard. "Is that – are we still watchin' the news?"

A news reader appears on the screen, confirming it before the Doctor has to, telling them that hundreds of people are feared to be dead or at least fatally injured.

"What happened?" Rose whispers, as much to the news reader as to the Doctor.

"It's 2008," he tells her solemnly, feeling her stiffen beside him as images of bleeding and crying children being pulled from the ruins of a primary school cross the screen. "Today is the 13th of May. What you're seeing is the result of an earthquake in China yesterday morning. Nevermind hundreds; the death toll will reach almost a hundred thousand before they uncover all the bodies."

Rose's already hushed next words are muffled further by the hand pressed over her mouth in shock. "But it's not fair. How can one earthquake kill all those people?"

The Doctor is silent, frowning at the reports of disease and famine attacking the areas that aid is finding it hard to reach. Guilty as he may feel about exposing her to the darker corners of the universe, he cannot hide her away from real life, and Rose's slightly romanticised view of the world finds this level of stark reality hard to take.

"I hate watching the news," she says quietly, more to herself than as a remark he's supposed to respond to. "Everything's just such a mess. Floods and people starvin' and wars and global warming, and no-one's doing anything. People'll're gonna look back on us in a hundred years time and what are they gonna remember? Not a…a new brand of mobile phone or the discovery of this amazin' medicine to cure cancer or something, but the way we all just stood back and let the planet fall apart. How bad has it gotta get before we go out there and do something?"

She turns to him, now wide awake and with the slightest glimmer in her eyes that could have been tears or hope or both. "Tell me we sort it out, Doctor. Tell me we don't let it get any worse."

The Doctor looks at her in silence for a long moment, cogs whirring behind his eyes. He cannot let Rose, of all people, lose faith in the human race. A moment passes before he stands and extends a hand to her, more than a polite gesture or way of helping her up. She takes it, accepting his invitation wordlessly.

"Come with me."

--

"I'm not going to lie to you, Rose," he tells her as they stand with their backs to the TARDIS doors, a whole new landscape stretched before them and her eyes closed at his instruction. "Your government promised that they would stop global warming, eradicate poverty and introduce warning systems for disasters like this in all third world countries by a date that will pass in just a few months and they still haven't even come close to managing it. There will always be those in the world who have too much while other people have absolutely nothing. But it does get better."

Her eyes screw tighter shut against the temptation of opening them to assess how earnest he is, whether or not he's just saying all this to make her feel better. "D'you promise?"

"Open your eyes."

When she can't bring herself to do it, he reaches out to her side and slips his hand through hers, squeezing her fingers reassuringly. She puts her trust him and opens her eyes, blinking in the sudden sunlight.

"This is China in 2012."

Rose gasps ever so slightly as she realises exactly what she's seeing. "Where we just – "

"The very same," the Doctor confirms, nodding solemnly. "Of course, they're still grieving. There are so many people here who will never truly recover. But they survive, Rose. The human race. You always survive."

She can't help but feel proud to belong to the very species she was so frustrated with only minutes before when he talks about them with such amazement in his voice. They are standing in the shade of a young but strong tree. In the distance, parents wait for their children – so many fewer than two years ago – as they skip happily across the school playground to greet them. A trio of teenagers sit drinking cans of cola in the morning sun. Nearby, a young couple shelter under the same tree, the man's hand resting delightedly on his pregnant wife's stomach. Building work continues on the horizon. All around them, life is carrying on.

"It's not perfect," the Doctor continues. "It's nowhere near good enough and it's not even approaching fair. But at least everyone here knows where their next meal is coming from, can go to bed with a full stomach and in the happy knowledge that their children have a future worth fighting for – one that won't be destroyed in one disastrous, avoidable swoop. At least all their buildings are safe. They're prepared for when it happens again. This country will never see another disaster like the last one. The rest of the world won't let them."

When he glances over to his companion, it's to see her struggling not to cry. He tugs on her hand and looks down at her earnestly.

"You do this, Rose," he tells her, nudging her with his shoulder. "You and your people. Oh, you take your time about it, and you whine and fuss and make big political gestures that don't really mean anything, but you get there in the end. This is the beginning of a whole new life for these people, and it's all thanks to wonderful, brilliant, magnificent humans like you standing up and saying, this isn't right. Something needs to be done."

"And then going out there and doing it," Rose adds, her fingers tight through his.

He smiles. "Exactly."

--

"See?" he says, as they step out of the doors into the same place in an entirely different time. "Even now, there are people fighting to build that better world."

There's a pause while Rose takes in her surroundings. He's taken her to see the going out there and the doing it. "We can't interfere," he reminds her softly as she pushes her fingers through his and grips tight. "This is their battle to fight. But I thought you might like to see it."

At their feet is the battered beginning of that very same tree, but today no-one has the time to sit under it. A single truck shifts debris, but what is left of the community has come together to help, lifting beams and rocks by hand. A few streets away, temporary shelters are holding lessons – maths for the few children, evacuation strategies for the adults – continually disturbed by the noise of construction work nearby. Two new buildings are going up where the ground has been cleared, slowly but safely breaking the terrible, flat horizon.

It gives Rose the tiniest glimmer of pride to realise that every single human being she can see stretched out across to the horizon, building and teaching and living, is making a difference, unknowing that they will all accomplish and keep that future they are so desperate for.

But for every piece of hope, there's a still street full of devastation. "Is it true, what everyone always says?" she asks, looking up at the Doctor and putting her other hand on his arm. "That all this is 'cause of global warming and stuff. Is it our fault?"

"Not this time," he tells her carefully, not looking her in the eye. "But sometimes… yes, yes it is."

Aid workers are scattered all over the village, all dressed in bibs of different colours with identities printed in varying languages across their backs. Just days before on the news, they had been sitting atop piles of rubble with their heads in their hands, despairing, but something has given them hope and Rose wants more than anything right now to be a part of that. They'd never be noticed, and these people need all the help they can get. This trip cannot just be for her peace of mind.

Rose gestures to a group of workers in dusty blue bibs putting up a hospital marquee for minor medical emergencies. Voice a little higher than usual, she puts forward her request, silently begging him not to say no because they can't change history. She doesn't care about history. This is about the future. "Can we – ?"

"Help?"

"Yeah." She nods, holding her breath without realising it. The Doctor wipes a stray tear from her cheek, watching her carefully, silently, as though he's considering her request. They both know, though, that she's already made up his mind for him – he'd do anything she asked of him, if only she'd open her mouth and say it.

"Rose Tyler," he begins, like she doesn't know her own name, but she doesn't really mind because there's something in the way he says it that makes her think maybe, just this once, he'll let them interfere after all. If she can make a difference to him then she can certainly help these people carving out a new life right before her eyes. "You never cease to surprise me. But then perhaps I should expect that by now."

He smiles lightly at her expectant expression and tugs on her hand. "Come on!"

--

Rose falls asleep under his coat that night, exhausted but happy on the library sofa. She'd come in and marvelled at the television, the shower, the cupboards full of food, but he knows this new-found appreciation for everything she'd previously taken for granted will soon wear off. Complacency is the easiest of sins.

She'd done something wonderful today, turning a trip he only instigated for her peace of mind into a day spent working for the relief effort. He never thought she'd ask after he'd reminded her that they couldn't get involved. He'd underestimated her, feels like he should know her better by now, but their time apart has made him forget.

He supposes he could do this every day, flit from crisis to crisis lending a hand and disappearing before anyone starts asking questions, but it's not his place to meddle and even he knows he can't save everyone. It was only while he was sonic screwdrivering a wooden beam into place, watching Rose comfort a child with a missing mother out of the corner of his eye, that he realised he's never actually done this before.

Perhaps he hasn't seen all the universe has to offer, as he'd wearily begun to think before he met Rose. Maybe, just maybe, he considers as he watches her sleep, he can learn as much from this London shop girl as she's ever learnt from him.