Disclaimer: Tragically, I don't own Doctor Who. A couple lines are quoted from the episode "Rose" by Russell T. Davies.
He stepped out the door, looked around for a clue to the time and place. A few feet away on the busy street, a newsboy was hawking an armful of papers by shouting lurid headlines that doubtless bore little resemblance to the printed material. "Here, let me see one of those." He snatched a paper from the boy, found the information he was seeking on the masthead, and gave an inarticulate cry of rage. Southampton, April 9, 1912. His ship had carried him back just six days, to the eve of the ill-fated voyage.
"Hey, that pape ain't free, mister," the newsboy said in a creaky soprano.
The Doctor didn't even hear. He rolled the paper into a tube and shook it at his errant timeship. "What are we doing here? It's a fixed point; you know that as well as I do. What do you want from me? What do you expect me to do?"
Realizing that he still held the purloined newspaper, the Doctor turned to give it back to its vendor, but the child had apparently decided that the price of a paper was not worth dealing with madmen who shouted at wooden boxes, and had melted away in the crowd.
He thrust the paper into the hands of a random passerby in a bowler hat, shoved his fists into his jacket pockets, and wandered down to the quay. The Titanic loomed grand and arrogant over the harbor; stevedores hurried up and down the gangplanks, loading supplies and luggage that would never see the other side of the Atlantic.
Something nudged his foot, and he looked down to see a red, hard rubber ball. He picked it up, rolled it around his palm, looked up for the owner, half-expecting to see a dark-skinned boy in a green plaid sarong. Instead he found a rosy, freckled girl, perhaps ten years old, all blond hair and blue eyes and white woolen coat buttoned over a blue gingham frock.
The girl was watching him shyly from a few paces away, hands behind her back, the toe of one boot pointing straight down and twisting half-moons into the dirt of the street. He smiled at her, bounced the ball in his hand. "This yours, then?" She nodded, and caught the ball deftly when he tossed it to her. "Hello, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?"
"Rose."
He barely stopped himself from seizing her shoulders and peering into her face. "What did you say?"
"Rose. Rose Daniels."
He forced himself to breathe, in slowly, out slowly, feeling ridiculous for the way his hearts had momentarily seized at that name. Because the name was really all the two girls had in common. Rose Tyler had brown eyes, and her blond hair came from a bottle, and she wouldn't even be born for nearly three quarters of a century. Still, his mind wandered to wondering what his Rose – not your Rose, just another Rose – had looked like at this age. Stop it. She said no. She's nothing to you. Let it go.
He realized that the girl had spoken. "What was that?"
"I asked, 'Whose doctor are you?'"
"How do you mean?"
"You said you were the doctor, not a doctor. So I suppose you must be someone in particular. Are you the doctor for the new ship?" She tipped her head towards the behemoth at anchor.
He smiled down at her and thought of another Rose who had made a similarly insightful if erroneous guess. Maybe they had more than just the name in common after all. "Clever girl. No, I'm not the ship's doctor. But yes, I am someone in particular."
"What are you a doctor of, then?" She scrunched her forehead, squeezed her eyes closed as if trying to remember a lesson. "I mean, of what are you a doctor?"
"Me? I'm a doctor of everything and anything." On some wild impulse, he leaned down, whispered conspiratorially, "You know all those stars you can see twinkling at night? I make house calls on them all. Doctor of the universe, I am."
Rose's face creased in a broad smile. "You're funny. I like you."
Something about her easy acceptance of his strange declaration tugged at his heartstrings, and he turned away abruptly, strode to the stone balustrade overlooking the dock, leaned on his elbows whilst he watched the bustle below. But then he felt the little girl beside him once more. "You don't look much like a doctor."
"Don't suppose I do. But looks can be deceiving."
She was quiet a moment, then said, "She's pretty, isn't she?"
He followed her gaze to the ship that had nearly been his grave just a few hours earlier. "The Titanic? Yep. Remember what I just said about looks."
"We're sailing on her tomorrow."
He spun to face her. "You're what?"
"My family. We're moving to New York."
"What do you want to do that for?"
"I don't, not really. Well, not at all. But my dad got a job in America, so we all have to go. It will be an adventure, though, won't it? Have you been to America?"
He just stared down at the child until her hopeful, nervous smile faded. He knew what he had to do now, knew why the TARDIS had brought him here. There was nothing he could do about the sinking of the Titanic. But he could do his best to make sure that this one family was not on the passenger manifest.
"And what kind of job does your dad have, to carry you so far away?"
"He makes arms and legs for people who haven't any. He has all kinds of ideas to make them better, and he says that perhaps in America his new bosses will listen to him."
"Hmpf." He realized that he hadn't answered her earlier question. "Been there a few times, me. America is…" In search of an appropriate adjective, he reviewed his American experiences – dodging bullets at the OK Corral, fleeing Daleks atop the Empire State Building, dodging bullets again (not so successfully this time) in a gangland shootout. "Adventurous, yeah."
The little girl looked as if she didn't quite know what to make of this assessment, but her response was cut off by a woman's voice calling, "Rose? Rose! There you are!"
The Doctor turned to see a tall woman in a long brown dress, holding a toddler on her hip and the hand of a small boy who in turn was holding the hand of a girl only slightly bigger than him. "You frightened me nearly to death, Rose. No running off like that; it's a dangerous place to get lost!"
Rose held out her rubber ball by way of explanation and apology. "The ball rolled away. I had to go after it. But I wasn't lost; my friend kept me company. He's a doctor, but I don't know yet of what."
Rose's mother met the Doctor's eyes, her expression vacillating between gratitude and wariness. In an undertone that still carried clearly to Gallifreyan ears, she said, "You misunderstood, Rose. Clearly he is not a doctor. Perhaps he said he was a dock worker." The Doctor glanced down at his outfit, glanced at the various classes of people hurrying past, and admitted grudgingly to himself that he might have to break his rule about period dress if he hoped to succeed in his nascent scheme to save the Daniels family.
"No, he said that–" Rose began, but the Doctor cut her off.
"Mrs. Daniels, I presume." He clasped his hands behind his back, gave her a smile that he hoped was more reassuring than manic. "You have quite a charming daughter." He was rewarded by seeing her posture relax. Compliments about a child never failed to soften a parent, and the fact that he sincerely meant this one could only help his cause. "She tells me that you are leaving tomorrow for America."
"Yes, we are all quite looking forward to it." The tightness around her eyes belied her words and her smile.
"I imagine it's hard to leave family and friends behind, though."
"Yes." The way she clipped out the single syllable told him all he needed to know; she would be an ally when the time came.
"I understand. I'm sort of far from home myself. But you don't need to worry about the little ones, at least. Adaptable, children are. I'm sure Rose here will have no trouble making friends anywhere she goes."
"No, I'm quite sure she will adapt much more easily than I." The child in her arms began to fuss, and she let go of the little boy's hand to shift the toddler to her other hip. "Rose, hold onto James and Christine. We still have several more errands to run before we meet your father for lunch at the Mandarin Tea Garden."
The Doctor had been about to extend the conversation, but this last statement told him all he needed to know for the moment. "Well, don't let me hold you up any longer. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Daniels, Rose." And then he was gone before Mrs. Daniels could realize that she hadn't gotten his name.
A couple of hours later, the Doctor was in front of the Mandarin Tea Garden. Decked out in frock coat, high starched collar, and purple cravat, he looked every inch the respectable, successful Edwardian businessman – and he hated it. This outfit reminded him far too sharply of his first incarnation, of the him who had been a member of Time Lord society, of the him who had first cut himself off from them. Oh, the Time Lords. He loved them and he hated them, and he wished he had never left Gallifrey and he wished he had left sooner, and he missed them achingly and he was glad to be free of them, and he pitied them for what they had suffered in the Time War and he resented them for what they had driven him to do, and he loathed himself for not finding another way to save the universe and he knew there was no other way to save the universe. The swirl of emotions was enough to make him dizzy, but he clamped down on it with the iron will of the Oncoming Storm and entered the restaurant.
He spotted them immediately, the whole family seated at a round table on the left side of the restaurant, the parents still perusing menus.
"One, sir?" the maitre d' asked. "Very good, sir, if you will please follow me." He gestured to the right, but the Doctor didn't move.
"Actually, I was thinking I'd like that table over there." He tipped his head to the left, towards an empty table just past the Daniels family. The maitre d' looked slightly miffed by this act of rebellion, but pasted on a smile and led him in the indicated direction.
Rose and her mother were facing him as he walked through the restaurant. He watched from the corner of his eye as the little girl caught sight of him, as her face lit with recognition, as she spoke to her mother while pointing at him, as the woman looked up to see him. Only then did he appear to notice them.
"Well, if it isn't the Daniels family! Good to see you again. This is a small world."
Mrs. Daniels blinked in confusion for a moment before her face cleared. "Ah, forgive me, I didn't recognize you at first, Mister…"
"Doctor, actually. Doctor John Smith. Yes, I'm afraid I wasn't quite as presentable this morning. I was overseeing the loading of one of my export shipments. Had to dress for the occasion, you understand."
He suppressed a smile as Rose stage-whispered, "I told you he was a doctor, Mummy."
The father of the family, a slim, bespectacled man with a bushy moustache, turned, half-rose from his seat to meet the newcomer, and the Doctor shook his hand enthusiastically. "Pleased to meet you. I had the pleasure of making your family's acquaintance today on the quay."
"Ah, so you must be the mysterious stranger our Rose has been going on about. My name is Paul Daniels."
"I understand that congratulations are in order on your new job."
"Thank you." He looked much more pleased with the prospect than did the rest of the family. "It is a big change, but, you know, fresh starts and all, what?"
"You make artificial limbs, Rose told me. Bit of a coincidence, that. I own a medical supply company myself." He pulled out the psychic paper, handed it to the other man. "Perhaps you've heard of us?"
Daniels flushed slightly as he gave it back. "I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I have not."
The Doctor waved that away. "Don't worry, you will. We're still a young company, but we're growing by leaps and bounds." He pulled a chair over from the table behind him and settled himself at the Daniels' table, ignoring the long-suffering sigh from the maitre d' as he threw his hands up and walked away. "And we just recently entered the prosthetic limb business. So as you can imagine, it's a subject I know a fair bit about."
It was a subject he knew almost nothing about. And what little he did know more involved advanced bionics than early 20th century Earth technology. But if there was one thing he had learned in 900 years, it was how to bluff his way through a conversation. Before he knew it, the meal was over and he was pushing back from the table as he sipped his tea.
"You have some innovative ideas, Mister Daniels." Also not lost on him was how much Britain was unfortunately going to need those innovations in just a couple of years – not that he could reveal that to the present company.
"Yes, well, I wish my previous employers agreed with you. They were never interested in hearing about improvements. It's why I took the job in New York, in the hopes that I can be more than just a glorified laborer."
"But it would be a shame to let talent like that move across the pond. How would you feel about coming to work for me instead?"
Daniels' teacup clattered in its saucer. "Are you…are you offering me a job?"
"I am. Assistant Manager of our Prosthetics division, right here in Southampton."
"But…but I have a job waiting for me in New York."
"They can't be expecting you for another two weeks at least. That's plenty of notice. You can cable your regrets."
"But we booked passage on the new ship. It's already paid for. We leave tomorrow."
The Doctor shrugged. "I'm sure we can work out an equitable arrangement to compensate you for your troubles." He paused, then added, "And whatever salary the Americans are offering you, I'll beat it by 25 percent."
Daniels looked at his wife in an agony of indecision. She said in reply, "If you accept his offer, if we stay, the children will get to grow up near their grandparents, with their cousins, with their friends."
"I won't have to change schools!" Rose said.
He looked a bit hurt. "I thought you were in agreement with this move, Kathleen."
Mrs. Daniels stretched her hand across the table. "I was. I am. I still will be, if you decide it best. I wanted you to have this opportunity. But if you can have the same opportunity, or perhaps a better one, without such…disruption…"
He turned back to the Doctor. "You are actually serious about this?"
"Deadly." The Time Lord looked around the table, saw all the eyes beaming with hope and excitement, and felt a pang of conscience that he was deceiving a decent man, a man with mouths to feed, into throwing over a perfectly good job for one that didn't even exist. Then he remembered that without this deception, Daniels would likely never reach this job, would likely be dead a few days hence, his family (if they survived at all) arriving in a strange land without protector or provider; and the pang passed. "Assistant Manager, better pay, the chance to have your ideas heard seriously, and all with the comforts of home."
Daniels hesitated a moment longer, searching for an answer in the faces of his family, then relaxed, nodded, held out his hand. "You are a very persuasive man, Doctor. I accept with pleasure."
The Doctor beamed, pumped the other man's hand. "Fantastic! I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship. We'll deal with all the paperwork tomorrow. Here's the location." He flipped the wallet containing the psychic paper at Daniels, let it show him whatever address he wanted to see. Judging by the way his eyebrows rose, it was a rather posh one. "Be there at…" He hesitated. It wouldn't do for Daniels to show up too early, and then still have time to make it to the boat after he realized he had been duped. "You know, I'm tied up in meetings all morning. Let's say you'll be there at one o'clock."
It was a jovial group that spilled out of the tea garden onto the quayside. And perhaps it was those high spirits that attracted the man who now approached them.
"Pardon, folks, just a few minutes of your time. Tom Wyeth is my name; I'm a reporter for the Southampton Gazette. I'm doing a piece on the launch of the new ship Titanic, and looking for comments from the townsfolk. Got any thoughts you'd care to share about this historic occasion?"
It was Rose who spoke up, her excitement over the change in fortune too great to be contained. "We were supposed to sail on her tomorrow. But the Doctor here has convinced Daddy to change his plans, so now I get to stay here with all my friends."
"Hush, Rose, it's not your place," said Mrs. Daniels, but the reporter was delighted.
"Last minute cancellation of such a momentous voyage? Fascinating! Mind if I ask you a few questions? Oh, and a photo, I'd love to get a photograph of your family, if I may. Fred!" He waved to a man a few yards away who was taking pictures of the Titanic. Fred folded up his tripod and hurried over.
The Doctor figured that this was an opportune moment to escape. "Right, I'll leave you to it, then. Until tomorrow, Mister Daniels."
But Rose clutched at his sleeve. "No, you can't go just yet, Doctor. You have to at least stay and be part of our picture."
He stared down at the innocent, open face, and couldn't find it in his hearts to refuse her. And so he stood, stiff and unsmiling, an awkward addition to the domestic scene, as the photographer captured the Daniels family for posterity.
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor headed straight for the wardrobe, shedding items of Edwardian clothing in the hallways as he went. Feeling much more comfortable safely cocooned in his normal jumper and leather, he returned to the console room, giving the time rotor casing an affectionate stroke before leaning back in the jump chair and propping his feet up on the console.
"You did well, old girl. I'll admit, I doubted you at first, but you brought me to the right place after all." He folded his hands behind his head and smiled up at the ceiling. He hadn't felt this…well, happy might be a stretch…this contented since – actually, he realized, the last time he had felt like this was just a day or so ago. Before that, he couldn't quite remember how long it had been. But he had this same feeling of satisfaction as he piloted Rose Tyler and her idiot boyfriend away from the exploding Nestene Consciousness.
And with that thought, the good mood abruptly vanished. He pushed himself to his feet and stalked around the console, playing with the controls. He glowered at his reflection in the rotor, angry at…well, he wasn't sure who he was angry at. He supposed there was no point in blaming himself for feeling stung by Rose's rejection. He was only Gallifreyan, after all – it was natural that his pride would be wounded by her turning up her nose at such a grand offer. All of time and space, and the stupid ape was too small-minded to see what an opportunity he was handing her. But then, there was no point in being angry with her, either – she couldn't help being born with such a tiny brain, being so insensible to the wonders of the universe.
So he supposed he could understand her reaction to his invitation, he could understand his own pique – the one thing he couldn't understand was what had possessed him to invite her in the first place. It wasn't his normal style. Most of his companions stumbled onto his ship more or less by accident. A memorable couple he had kidnapped. But actual invitations were few and far between. So why now? And why her? And why was he still perseverating about it? She was just a London shop girl, scarcely more than a child. And so cheeky. He remembered clearly her self-assured teasing just after her downright cocky stride out of the TARDIS, as her practically-plastic boyfriend clung to her knees: "You were useless in there. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."
But in a sudden moment of clarity, he knew that that was exactly why he had invited her. Not the cheekiness itself, per se, but what it meant: That she wasn't afraid of him. That she took his alienness in stride. That she accepted him.
He remembered another young woman from more than a lifetime ago, a pilot during the Time War, who had been so afraid of him, of his race, that she had preferred certain death in a crashing spaceship to accepting his help.
But then there was Rose. She now knew a grand total of two aliens, half of whom had done its level best to kill her on several occasions. And yet when the Doctor identified himself as the other fifty percent of her alien acquaintance, she just nodded, said it was all right, and then immediately turned her thoughts to other matters. She challenged him, she teased him, she wasn't afraid to argue with him. She treated him like a regular bloke.
His homeworld was gone. There was not a single place left in the universe where he was not an alien. But Rose's easy acceptance had given him a spark of hope that he might find some way to belong in the world, some sense of home, that someday the echoing void in his head might mellow to a companionable silence. She gave him that hope, and then dashed it to pieces with just two words: "I can't."
"I never belonged on Gallifrey anyway," he insisted to the empty room. "And I've gone centuries at a stretch without setting foot there. I don't need a home. And I certainly don't need Rose Tyler."
With that, he resolved never to think of the matter again. Instead, he turned his thoughts to the Daniels, wondering how they had dealt with the disappointment of the phantom job, wondering if they had eventually made it to the United States on a less disaster-bound ship. He remembered the little girl's look of hope and trepidation when she asked him about America, and he wished he had a better answer to give her. Maybe it was time for another trip there, an attempt to make some better memories.
"How about the sixties?" he said as he set the controls. "Peace and love and flowers and all that? I'll give that a go." He patted the console as the ship began its familiar song of dematerialization. "Show me a good time, old girl."
To be continued in Chapter 4: Motorcade