The Doctor stood at the top of the famous cathedral of Plontoosh, glaring at the unsuspecting passers-by down below, going about their tiny, insignificant existences with barely a care in the world. He was angry; not a new emotion for this regeneration which seemed to have been born with rage in his blood, but the intensity certainly was. His mind twisted and seethed with it. He wanted to scream his fury at the selfish, uncaring universe that just kept on taking, taking, taking from him until there was nothing left but the angry fizzing in his veins.
He'd come here to forget, but it hadn't worked. If anything, the peaceful zen-like atmosphere for which Plontoosh was famed just made him remember all the more; his memories crowding in at him until he felt suffocated.
He wanted peace. Needed peace. Needed something after the atrocious week he'd had, but, as usual, the universe wasn't keen on paying up. Here he was on what was widely considered the most peaceful planet in the galaxy and yet peace was the last thing he felt. He should demand his money back. Well, if he'd paid to be here, which he hadn't. But the point still stood; he'd been promised peace and Plontoosh had failed to deliver.
He was brooding… that's what Clara would say. Not that Time Lords brood, because they don't. Brooding was for vampires and anti-heroes in horrible Hollywood teen films. He was just standing there at the top of a very tall building… contemplating. Yes, contemplating. He was contemplating the shitness of the universe, which was definitely not the same thing as brooding.
Not for the first time recently his thoughts turned to the past. His mistakes, the errors of judgement he'd made, what he'd turned into; the person he'd become. An emotionally distant, angry old man who lied and twisted and used emotions as weapons to control those around him.
He was a meddling, mendacious, manipulative misanthrope.
A mad man in a box who caused death and destruction wherever he went.
Who'd have thought the Daleks would finally be right about something, but they'd been spot on about him all those years ago. The Ka Faraq Gatri, they'd called him: the bringer of darkness and destroyer of worlds.
Names he'd always rejected and yet had never been so appropriate – especially after his last stop.
He'd come here straight from Darillium and the singing towers; from sending River off to die in his past.
It was a period he tried hard not to remember, as a general rule, as it just made him think of Donna… and Rose. Two of his greatest regrets. Brilliant Donna and her non-nonsense approach. His best friend. And Rose, the woman he'd spent two regenerations trying to forget.
Part of him wondered, and not for the first time, whether Rose could have accepted, could have loved the man he'd become.
He doubted it.
The man he was now, what he'd become after losing her a second time; the angry, closed off, practically amoral man who routinely left ruin in his wake…he doubted even Rose could have loved that.
Round and round his increasingly despondent thoughts twisted, encircling and squeezing him like a giant boa constrictor. Memories that he'd carefully packed away were forcing their way to the front of his mind, clamouring to be heard; faces he'd hoped he'd finally succeeded in forgetting tormented him. The faces of those he'd failed. The faces of those he'd hurt. The faces of those he'd betrayed.
SusanKatrinaSarajamieAdricSarahJaynePeriJackMarthaAstridDonnaAdelaideBrookeRiverAmyRoryClara, RoseRoseRose
So many names. So many people. So many losses. Some had left on their own. Some he had left behind. And then there were those who'd been taken from him, who'd been killed. It was a lesson he'd learnt early on - never look back, never stop running.
It was his time sense that finally knocked him out of his morbid thoughts, alerting him to the fact that something had changed; something big.
Something that definitely didn't belong on Plontoosh, the most peaceful planet in the Rose Nebula.
Buoyed by the promise of a mystery to distract him, the Doctor promptly abandoned his morose musings and set off; trotting down the nine-hundred and ninety-nine steps that led to the ground floor at considerable speed in what he thought was an impressive display of agility, motor coordination and stamina.
Given the condition of the staircase, and the speed he'd been going, he was fortunate he'd made it out of the cathedral in one piece and without any broken bones. That, however, was where his luck seemed to end.
His time sense was still tingling, so whatever it was hadn't left, or stopped; but as far as he could see nothing had changed in his immediate surroundings. Nothing. Nadda. Zip.
He spun around. Nope, still nothing caught his attention. Until, that is, he saw her. She was just standing there by the central fountain as if she hadn't a care in the world. Even if every other sense of his had been shut off in that moment he'd have known who it was.
It was Rose. His Rose. His impossible girl who couldn't be here, and yet was.
For a moment he remained frozen. How could she be here. It was impossible. It had to be a trick of his stupid brain – a hallucination caused by his recent thoughts. Yet…
Instinct took over then, and without conscious thought, he found himself hurtling towards her, desperation driving his stupidly impulsive actions.
Her name was a gasp when he finally reached the fountain, breathless and hearts-sore. It was her. Truly her. She was real and really here. His Rose. His eyes fell the device strapped to her wrist; Rose during her dimension hopping days before he did the unthinkable and lost her again.
In a distant part of his brain, his mind screamed at him to say something, do something, anything rather than stand there looking like a gobsmacked space idiot.
"Doctor?" She asked, her uncertain tone at odds with the confident spark of recognition he could see in her eyes.
"Rose," he whispered, his voice finally working again, and then she was in his arms, and they were hugging.
"You've found me too late, precious girl," he babbled, stepping back slightly so he could see her, drinking her in like a man dying of thirst. "I'm not the Doctor you're looking for." And didn't that admission just break his hearts all over again.
Rose tilted her head back to stare at him sadly, her fingers tracing the angry lines around his eyes. "I know," she said softly. "You're so much older than my Doctor, so much more angry. You've lost so much, I can see it."
Her assessment hit home with all the force of a Zilotian exploding arrow, and with just as much devastation.
"I'm still your Doctor," he half demanded, half pleaded: because it was true, he'd always been her Doctor, every one of him, and suddenly it was essential that she understood that. Despite what was coming in her timeline - or perhaps because of it - he needed her to know just how much he lov-cared about her. Needed it like he needed his next breath, like an addict needed their next fix.
"I should go," Rose said instead, eyes troubled. "It's dangerous me being here. Future knowledge and all that."
The Doctor closed his eyes, squeezing them shut against the onslaught of pain that rushed through him at the thought of her leaving him. She was right, this sort of meeting was dangerous, and yet he didn't care. He'd given enough for the universe, surely it owed him this: one more day with the woman he…
"Time Lord me," he said, dodging her point, determined not to think of the risks. "Think I might know a thing or two about maintaining the timelines."
Speaking of which, he suddenly realised that something strange was going on with his time sense. It was singing, for lack of a better word. A joyous melody that confused him. He'd only felt this once before, millennia ago when he stood in front of the Untempered Schism. He frowned, prodding at the misbehaving sense, but it continued its strange dance.
Something was happening, something odd, something big; and he was buggered if he knew what. It was a mystery. A huge, potentially world ending mystery, and yet for once he had no desire to stick his nose in.
What he wanted, all he wanted in that moment, was to steal as much time as he could with his Rose before he inevitably had to send her back on her quest to find his stupid hedgehog self. His stupidest incarnation yet - and that was saying something considering the competition from some of his previous selves.
"Okay," Rose agreed reluctantly, clearly torn between doing what she thought she ought to do and doing what she wanted. It was a dilemma he knew only too well, but beneath the indecision he could see her desire to stay, to be with him, knew that she felt the same pull he did. They were like magnets, he and Rose, hopelessly drawn to one another by forces too great to resist.
It's what he gambled on when he offered her his hand.
There was a second when he feared she'd refuse, but then she moved, and for the first time in two regenerations he felt Rose Tyler's hand in his. It was still a perfect fit. He suspected it always would be.
She checked the dimension canon strapped to her wrist. "I've got a couple of hours before the automatic recall triggers and takes me back. You can buy me a drink," the grin she aimed at him was bright, cheeky, and stopped his hearts for three whole seconds.
He gripped her hand tighter in response, a manic smile flashing across his face. "Run."
A/N This is my first foray into the Doctor Who fandom, which is ironic given this it's the one which got me into fanfiction all those years ago. This is the first of a series of four fics I have planned out which I've been tinkering with since lockdown when I started rewatching Doctor Who and remembered all the reasons why I'm an unapologetic Rose/Doctor shipper. Next chapter should be up in a couple of days.
