Disclaimer: Tragically, I don't own Doctor Who. One line was taken from the episode "Rose" by Russell T. Davies.
Author's note: Thanks for reading to the end! This chapter features a cameo by the Third Doctor. For those unfamiliar with Classic Who, the Third Doctor spent most of his tenure confined to Earth with a disabled TARDIS, as punishment from the Time Lords for the "crime" of interference in the affairs of other planets. That should be all you need to know for the purposes of this story.
He walked out the door, and let out a long-suffering sigh when the light sprinkling of snow swirling through the air and dusting the pavement proved that he wasn't when he had intended to be. And then he stepped back into the shadow of the police box as two young girls came into view.
One, a light-skinned black girl with a smattering of freckles and her hair in long cornrows, rode a blue bicycle in looping circles around the other. And the other…the Doctor smiled wryly at his recalcitrant ship, which had managed to bring him to the right spot if not the right time. Because the other girl, although she was only about twelve years old, although her long hair was a natural brown and her cheeks were round with baby fat, was still unmistakably Rose.
The bike skidded on the snow-slick asphalt, and the rider hopped off and took a few staggering steps to maintain her balance and catch up to her friend. "Maybe not such great weather for riding, yeah? Mum would kill me if I banged up her present the first week I had it."
Rose glided her hand over the shiny blue frame. "I'm so jealous, Shareen. I wish I had one just like it. Only in red, so we could tell them apart. We'd be the bicycle twins of the Powell Estate."
"Christmas is only a couple weeks away. Ask your mum, put it on your list."
"Nah." She scuffed her trainers in the thin coating of snow, leaving long prints behind her as they walked. "She could never afford it. Her latest bloke –"
"Tom?"
"No, he was last month, this one was Gary, remember? Anyway, he cleaned out her bank account before he took off with that tramp from Birmingham. I'll be lucky if she can get me Christmas crackers."
Shareen stared at her for a long moment, then wrapped her arm around her shoulders. "It won't be like this forever, Rose. We're not going to be stuck here on the estate for the rest of our lives. We're going to make it out, go places, do things, see the world."
"Yeah." She didn't sound convinced. "I just wish I had a time machine, you know? Skip over the bad parts, get straight to the good."
They walked on in silence for a couple more minutes before Rose whipped her head around. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
Rose looked around in confusion. "I don't know. There was this weird noise, like…I can't describe it. And I swear I saw something moving, or, like, fading, out of the corner of my eye. But…" She stared at the empty street corner, then shook herself. "Nah, must have been in me head. Mum always says I inherited Dad's overactive imagination."
The Doctor made sure to assess the situation on the monitor before he opened the TARDIS door. With his driving record of late, he didn't quite trust that he had succeeded in landing in Henrik's after closing time, as he had intended. But for once, he saw what he was hoping to see: instead of astonished shoppers, there were only the empty aisles of the Henrik's toy department, dimly lit by the security lighting, seven years pre-Auton.
He walked down the row of bicycles on display until he arrived at a lovely cherry-red model. He couldn't give her all of time and space, but he could give her a red bicycle. And to a twelve-year-old whose whole world was a run-down council estate, maybe that was nearly as good.
He thought of just wheeling the bike into the TARDIS and taking off. But it was high time he got back to the moral code that had been yet another victim of the Time War. And he knew just where he could get the money to obtain the present legally. He checked the price tag on the bike and then jogged back to the TARDIS to set his next destination.
He looked around the UNIT lab that had once been so familiar to him, looked back at the two TARDISes parked side by side, one war-weary and battered, the other with all of that still to come. Hearing voices, he stepped out into the hallway to find his third self in a heated discussion with one Elizabeth Shaw over some computer printout.
"Hiya, Doctor," he interrupted. "Liz, good to see you again, you're looking well. Listen, sorry to barge in, but it's important. I need a few quid." He held out his hand, palm up, expectant.
His younger older eyes stared back at him, puzzled at first, then suddenly comprehending. Liz stayed stuck in the puzzled stage. "Who are you? How did you get in here?"
"I'm him." He nodded towards the silver-haired version of him, eyed the velvet jacket and the ruffled shirtfront with distaste. Had he really enjoyed all that frippery once?
"Which one?" Three asked.
"Does it matter?" He wiggled the fingers on his outstretched hand. "Come on, UNIT's giving you a salary, and you know that I know that you have no idea what to do with it. So you can spare a bit for me."
"Listen, whoever you are, this is a secure facility, and–" Liz began, but Three cut her off.
"And that means you must have got in with a TARDIS, am I right?" His eyes danced with excitement. "You've got a working TARDIS here?" He started for the lab, but the older Doctor stepped in front of him, put a hand on his chest.
"Sorry, mate. You'll fly her again one day, just not today."
"But I will get her back? The Time Lords will pardon me?"
"Yeah, they–" His throat closed off, his eyes filled up. Fortunately, Three was too busy trying to look past him into the lab to notice. You'll be pardoned for what you've done. There is no pardon for what you've yet to do. He cleared his throat. "Don't worry, it won't be too long now. The money?"
"Yes, yes, of course, anything to help me out." Still distracted by the delight hidden in the lab, the younger Doctor waved his hand at Liz without actually looking at her. "Liz, darling, I haven't any cash on me at the moment. Would you be a dear and lend us a bit?"
When Liz looked doubtful, the latest Doctor assured her, "We're good for it. He's got all his paycheques stacked up in the top drawer of the desk; just get him to sign one over to you." With a roll of her eyes, the scientist pulled out her wallet, peeled off a few bills, and then a few more when he kept his hand out.
"Ta. And give my regards to the Brigadier." He let Three follow him into the lab, but made sure to double-lock the TARDIS door behind him so that the other man couldn't trail him into the ship itself. He turned on the monitor, watched Three watching the timeship until she dematerialized.
He remembered being Three, remembered resenting his exile, chafing at his enforced immobility. Now, colored in sepia tones of nostalgia, it seemed such a wonderful time. He had a purpose, made a difference, belonged somewhere, had a connection to someone – several someones.
"That was then, this is now," he told himself sternly. "No point dwelling on it." It was time to forget all this nonsense about belonging and connections, and just deliver to Rose Tyler her gift, a final thank-you for saving his life from the Nestene Consciousness, and then move on and never look back again. When past and future are both equally accessible, one tends to live firmly in the present.
The Doctor shifted his weight from one leg to the other, leaning against the TARDIS, sipping from a thermos of tea that had long since cooled, ignoring the raw winter wind as he waited for Rose to emerge from her flat. His patience was finally rewarded as the young girl stepped through the door, slinging a backpack over her shoulder and zipping her down jacket to the chin before noticing the shiny red bicycle chained to the railing.
Her face lit with delight, and she glanced over her shoulder, as if expecting her mother to be in the doorway watching her reaction. But the door was closed, the curtains drawn, and she frowned in confusion before turning back to take a closer look at the present. Her fingers trailed along the huge pink ribbon tied to the handlebars, courtesy of the Henrik's gift wrapping department, and then found the gift tag. She crouched down to see it.
The Doctor studied her face as she read the note. For Rose: Even a time machine won't let you skip past the bad times. But maybe this will help you ride through them to wherever you want to go, in London or in life. The message was ridiculously twee and not at all his usual style, but he had tried to think back to Susan at that age, and it had struck him as the sort of sentimental codswallop she would have adored. But Rose was from a more jaded era, and perhaps she would think it stupid. He fidgeted uncomfortably as he awaited her reaction.
It wasn't long in coming, but it wasn't what he had expected. He had been hoping for a brilliant smile, had been bracing for a sneer and an eye roll. Instead, she sat down heavily on the concrete walkway, note clutched tightly in her hands, and burst into tears.
The Doctor watched, dismayed. His granddaughter had had a similar distressing propensity for waterworks, and he hadn't understood it any better then than he did now. Part of him wanted to rush up the stairs and comfort the little girl; part of him wanted to rush into the TARDIS and set a course for the Andromeda galaxy.
He forced himself to stay still, to sip his tea calmly and watch her sob and ponder what her life would be. Rose had so much heart, so much potential. But she didn't see that, didn't see much of a future for herself; he had heard that much in her self-deprecating speech disguised as a pep talk when she attacked his Auton captors. She needed someone to challenge her, to show her what she was capable of. She needed him.
That thought hit him like an electric shock. He had spent the last few days thinking – or, more precisely, trying his best not to think – that he needed her. But now it occurred to him that they needed each other: he needed her to fill the void, to connect him to the world; she needed him to reveal the potential around her and within her, to believe in her until she learned to believe in herself.
Rose sniffed away the last of her tears, wiped her eyes roughly with the cuffs of her jacket. She folded the Doctor's note carefully, almost reverentially, this message that seemed to hint at a better future that she couldn't quite put faith in, and tucked it into her pocket. She studied the bike for a moment, tracing its frame with gloved fingers. Then the Doctor finally got the huge smile he had been waiting for, as she jumped to her feet, unchained the bike from the rail, and carried it down the stairs as fast as her feet would go, yelling, "Shareen! Hey, Shareen! Come out and see this!"
The Doctor slid back into the TARDIS, leaned against the doors and pondered his new insight. "Maybe this is what she needs. But it's not what she wants. I offered, she said no. What else can I do? It's not like I can force her to come along." Give her another chance. She didn't know what she was saying no to. She didn't understand. "She did understand. I laid it out for her: She could spend her life eating, sleeping, watching telly, or she could go anywhere in the universe." You said anywhere. Not anywhen. A slow smile spread across his face. "Right. She wants a time machine, I can give her a time machine."
The Doctor pulled the maroon jumper over his head. If he was going to show up just a few seconds after he had left, he wanted to look the part, in the same outfit she had last seen him in. It wouldn't do to let her know how long in coming this return was; it might go to her head.
A wave of self-doubt rolled over him as he shrugged his leather jacket back on. Could he really do this, take on a new companion, guide her to her potential, not destroy her in the process? You did it with Ace. "That was different. I was different. I was a whole different man then."
Three had asked his identity. He had brushed off the question because he hadn't known how to respond. Who was he now, since…everything? He studied his reflection in the wardrobe mirror, the grim expression, the prominent features. He was reminded of an old fairy tale from Earth. What big ears you have! The better to hear you with. What a big nose you have! The better to smell you with. "Is that me now, the Big Bad Wolf?" he asked the man in the mirror. But no, some tug on a thread of time told him that the comparison didn't quite fit him, although it would become important someday, somehow. What he wanted was to be who he always had been. "I am the Doctor. I am still the Doctor. I am the Tenth–No." No, that wasn't right either. His previous go-round was his ninth incarnation, true, but he didn't count, couldn't count as a Doctor. Not after the battles he had fought, the blood he had shed, the great atrocity that had brought him to the end of his life. A doctor was a healer, a helper, one who made others better. The warrior that he had been was no more a doctor than were the 19th century quacks hawking snake-oil panaceas. He squared his shoulders, asserted his identity. "I am the Ninth Doctor." There. That was better. Nine – one word wiping out a whole regeneration's worth of pain and anguish, of suffering both caused and received. This was him now, and nothing before could matter. He knew, of course, that it wouldn't be quite so easy to forget his recent past, but for now, he could feel the hard ball of ice deep within him begin to soften and melt at the edges.
He strode back to the console room with a spring in his step, set his course, flipped on the monitor as the TARDIS materialized. There she was, Rose Tyler, almost exactly where he had left her and only – he checked some gauges – about 35 seconds older, standing, waiting, as if she knew exactly what was going to happen next.
He stuck his head out the door, saw the expectant look on her face, said, "Did I mention it also travels in time?" And then he stepped back and watched her run into his life.
The End