The next morning Rose decided to visit the Tower. She thought hard about avoiding the place until the big day, but for some reason she felt inexplicably drawn to it. After the Doctor's illuminating bee analogy, Rose felt a bubbling uncertainty grow inside her. Like an acidic reflux, it rose from her stomach and burned in her throat. She couldn't place it, but knew she wanted, no, craved to see Doctor Two again. She knew that seeing him would make her feel at ease. So she drove.
Her car crept through the quiet streets, humming in the morning dew as it approached its wanted destination. Stepping outside, the icy air kissed her cheeks and she strolled waywardly towards the tower's base, the TARDIS, mostly staring at her feet. She was kicking the gravel when she bumped into Doctor Two's back. "Ow!" She said more out of awkwardness than pain, stumbling backwards slightly as she looked up at him.
He gave her a displaced sideways grin, turning quickly back to observe his massive creation once more. "Beautiful, isn't it?" He asked in a rhetorical fashion.
Rose could almost feel his swell of self pride radiate off him. She didn't want to add to his egotism. In stead, she gazed up at the monstrosity with all due repulsion. She thought suddenly that it looked as wrong as she felt. As wrong as Doctor Two said she was. Beautiful? She thought. It wasn't beautiful at all.
The Doctor turned to her with an odd expression on his face. "Chips!" He stated abruptly. "I have a huge craving for chips."
With wide eyes of surprise and a bit of a grin, Rose followed Doctor Two's magnificent stride towards the chip shop on the corner.
"Ah, here comes my one true faithful customer!" The well rounded shop owner exclaimed as Doctor Two and Rose walked in. "I've already started cooking them, you're right on time! Take a seat." He pulled out a chair for Doctor Two, who humbly nodded in his wake and then pulled out a chair for Rose. "Who's the pretty girl then? I think I've seen you round hereabouts miss."
"Yes, you probably have." Rose trailed after a long moment of silence where she tried to judge as to whether he was the kind of shop owner that was actually interested in conversation or if he was simply being polite. This shop owner practically pulled up a chair for all the interest he was taking.
"Ah Johnny, those chips smell lovely, just lovely. Business doing well?" Rose was taken aback at Doctor Two's candor. He was actually being friendly, to a human.
"Oh you know, the occasional passer by. Been picking up a bit lately. Not as many wolves around here these days, seems they're spreading to the countryside instead. Must prefer the fresh air, and the cows, no doubt." John chuckled and returned to his work behind the counter. He served them up four paper satchels of chips with a bottle of vinegar on the side. "Bon appetite!" He bowed gracefully as Doctor Two smiled graciously back, and tucked in.
Rose simply looked at him. "Made friends, have we?"
Doctor Two looked up from his gorging, "Oh, Johnny? Him and I go back, way back, all the way to 1979. Best chips in the universe. Never eat them anywhere else."
"Hang on…" A sudden thought occurred to Rose. "I've been here before…the night I met you, I got chips from here."
"Yup!" Doctor Two talked through a mouth full of chips. "That's where I spotted you. Blonde thing eating chips, looking wrong and all that."
"So you followed me?" Rose grabbed a chip and remembered how divine they were.
"Yes well, couldn't just let you roam the streets, looking out of place."
"Always have to fix things, can't let sleeping dogs lie." Rose smiled coyly.
"Well you were hardly sleeping." Doctor Two winked cheekily and went back to his chips.
Rose feigned offence but then gave him a big smile and proceeded to stuff her face. "Can I ask you something?"
Doctor Two kept eating, licking his fingers and pouring vinegar on the next bag of chips.
Rose didn't wait for an answer. "I, well, you see, I'm not going to be around soon, and you know how you're always so quiet about your past and all that. I respect that. I just wanted to know…" she paused. Rose doubted he would open up now, after two years of nothing, but she felt she needed to at the very least try once more. "I just wanted to know why you've never had a companion."
Doctor Two looked up from his food. His expression was dire. Sad. Thoughtful. He studied Rose's face with his big brown eyes and dropped a chip from his hand before dusting his hands off and running them through his hair.
Rose stared him down. "I'm only here for 3 more days…less. I feel like after everything, I kind of deserve…to know something about you."
"I had one. Once. A long time ago. Human. Young. She…" Doctor Two faltered. He stared hard at his chips.
"She died?" Rose didn't hesitate. She felt she knew this even before she asked.
"What? No." Doctor Two stirred from his trance. "No, she left. She saw me for who I truly was…am, and she left."
"Who you truly are?" Rose sat up slightly in her chair, moving unconsciously towards him.
Doctor Two was lost in thought. He didn't respond to the question or to the gesture. He continued on his own tangent, looking past Rose's shoulder through the glass windowed door. He described his youth, his time on Gallifrey, his very first journey to Earth. The little detail he gave said so much. "It was the first planet I travelled to on my own, in my own TARDIS. I stepped onto the green marshland, the rain poured down and the grass squelched beneath my feet." He looked up with a small smile. "England, 1884. She was…she was…" He trailed off, stuffing his face suddenly with a handful of fat chips. "She was fantastic." His words spat at Rose, muffled in his mushy mouth.
Rose sat for a while in quiet contemplation. She'd forgotten about the chips in front of her and simply gazed at Doctor Two's hands grabbing for them in silent gluttony. As the food supply depleted it finally occurred to her that she really didn't know the Doctor at all. Not just Doctor Two, but her Doctor. The man she loved. She knew who he was to her, but she had absolutely no idea who he was, or who he is now. She'd seen him once transform his appearance in front of her eyes. But it wasn't simply his appearance that had changed. It was as if the entire idea of the Doctor had transformed into something else. Both incarnations were incredible. Absolutely incredible. But so different.
She thought of all that history he must have. All the stories he never told her. All the people he had known. She'd never ever stopped to think. She ran with it, and now she felt choked by it- choked by the Doctors past. "I'm such an idiot!" She whispered fervently under her breath.
"Nah…just human." Doctor Two cocked his eyebrow as he glanced up at her, a bit of glee crossing his face. It was as if he could read her mind.
Rose allowed her forehead to weigh down her arm, thinking hard about her past, and her future. "What am I going to do?" She said more to her knees than to the sudden stranger sitting opposite.
Doctor Two didn't answer. Rose heard him slap something down on the table and scuffle his feet as he strolled towards the door. Then there was a pause and Rose looked up to see Doctor Two watching her. "Are you coming?" He asked, and with that he walked out the door.