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He’s feeling pretty good about the way that trip turned out. She goes off to put her coat away and he potters around and it’s half an hour or more before he starts wondering where she’s ended up. He goes to her room and the door’s open. He doesn’t go in but he doesn’t go away either, because he can feel that she’s not happy.
“You all right?” he asks, like the idiot he is.
She turns and looks at him and he can tell she’s been crying for a while. “I let you down, didn’t I?” she says.
“Oh, don’t be silly.” If anything, it’s the other way around. She came aboard the way they all do, all bubbly and excited and ready for the holiday of a lifetime and so far she’s had mass murder and slavery. Brilliant. It seems to get worse every time he invites someone new. Is it just the randomiser playing up or is his life getting worse? He doesn’t want to think about that.
She’s sitting there with the tears rolling quietly down her cheeks and he’d really like to come in and give her a big hug. She could do with it. But they’ve reached an understanding and he knows where hugs can lead.
He realises, with a sort of clunk as his mind gets into gear, that calling her silly isn’t going to make her feel any better.
“What makes you think that?” he asks.
“I asked to hear the song and then I couldn’t bear it,” she gulped. “I wasn’t good enough.”
“It’s not a test you have to pass,” he reassures her. It must feel like that to her at the moment, though. As if he’s getting all the bad stuff out of the way early in case she isn’t up to it.
“You really have that in your head all the time?” she says, with an expression uncomfortably like sympathy.
He looks down at his feet and scuffs his shoes a bit. “That’s not your problem,” he says.
“You could say that about anything, though, couldn’t you?” she says. “ ‘Not my problem.’ Slaves, rock monsters, kidnapped brides…”
“That was very much my problem at the time,” he says, smiling.
And then she says, “I bet she wouldn’t have asked you to take it away.”
“What?” He swallows in surprise, not wanting to know what she’s getting at.
“Your friend,” she says. “Rose.”
It’s the first time she’s been mentioned by either of them since that brief exchange back in the Adipose building. Oh, there were plenty of times on that planet when he’d have liked nothing better than to mention Rose. More than mention her, to be honest. But he learned his lesson with Martha and he’s being much more careful this time around. Nobody ought to feel overshadowed by their predecessor. Human egos are fragile things.
He doesn’t notice until it’s happened that he’s come right into the room, sat next to her on the bed and started holding her hand. She’s telling the truth, he knows she is. But he’s not sure that makes Rose better than her. Really, he’s not. “You’re probably right,” he admits. “She never stopped to think about whether she could handle something, just jumped right in up to her neck. You could never tell her when something was too much for her.”
Like not letting go of that lever. He could see exactly what was going to happen and there was nothing – nothing – he could do to stop it.
“That’s how I lost her,” he says.
He braces himself for the questions. They have to come some time.
“You must really miss her.” The pressure of his hand in hers is gently returned.
“Yeah,” he says, standing up. He shoves his hands back in his pockets where they belong. He thinks he might suggest a cup of tea but instead he says, “She was so young. I was always trying to protect her, but she wouldn’t let me. I probably shouldn’t be left on my own with somebody like that.”
“Well, you can protect me as much as you want, sunshine,” she says.
“It’s up to you.” He’s looking very intently at her and he hopes that’s okay. “When we were together, I thought all that jumping in was a big laugh. We had so much fun together, even the times when maybe we shouldn’t have. Because it’s not all fun, this life, and you can see that.” He can’t think how to explain the next thing he wants to say, but it’s all about knowing what you can handle and saying so clearly, which is probably easier to do with someone who doesn’t love you to bits. He never asked Rose to love him, but he didn’t exactly complain when she did. Anyway, try stopping her.
But he’s very relieved Donna doesn’t love him. He wouldn’t want to go through that again.
“Do you really want to stay?” he asks. His mouth’s gone dry and his scalp is prickling and he hates himself for caring about her answer as much as he does. “People don’t always,” he goes on. “You wouldn’t be the first one to decide it’s not for you. This life – it’s not for most people. No shame in admitting it.”
“D’you think it’s for you?” she asks. Blimey, she can’t half turn a question on its head, this Donna Noble.
“It’s the only life I’ve got,” he replies. There’s no arguing with that.
“Why?” she asks. “Why can’t you just give up all this travelling and saving people and get a house or something? You don’t seem short of money.”
He hears a little sing-song voice in his head. “You’ll have to get a mortgage.”
“What, me?” he splutters. “Living in a house with carpets and doors? Do I look like the type of bloke who’d do that?”
It’s come out too loudly and he suspects it sounds stupid. Although she’s room to talk, shouty Donna.
“If you found the right person?” she suggests. “Might be all right then. You might enjoy it. Being in someone’s song.”
“I’ve got my own song,” he says. “Well, sort of.” They look at each other, not speaking, and he knows what she’s thinking about.
“You don’t want to go believing every prophecy you hear, you know,” he warns her. “There’s an art to a good prophecy. You don’t exactly lie but you find a way not to tell the truth. Because telling someone what’s going to happen is the cruellest thing you can do to them.”
“What if it’s something good?” she asks.
“Still better not to know,” he says. “That way, you take responsibility. You don’t just sit around waiting for things to happen to you.” He’s got the Beast’s prophecy going round and round in his head now, and he keeps remembering how tempted he’d been to peek at the timelines and see if it was true. The only thing worse than not knowing was knowing and he’s still angry about the way it overshadowed the last few months they had together.
He really wants to talk about Rose. Ever since they saw the first Ood every thought in his mind has been circling back to her. That circle must be broken. Circles go nowhere. You end up like those poor sods in New York x15. Gridlock.
But listening to him going on about Rose isn’t what Donna’s here for. In fact, she’s not here for anything. She’s just here. And that’s good.
It’s so good, there’s a bit of him wants to beg her, “Please don’t go home.”
“I had this friend,” he says, “and the Beast – the Devil, if you like - told her she’d die in battle.”
“Was it true?”
“It was sort of true. She ended up on the lists of the dead. So many people died that day and there she was – her and her mum – two little names among thousands.”
“So it was true?” She’s a bit of a Rottweiler, is Donna, like that bloke on the BBC who does interviews with politicians. John Humphreys, that’s his name. He wonders if he ever did one with Harold Saxon.
He’s miles away.
“Was it true?” Donna repeats.
“No,” he says. “She’s in a parallel world. I can never see her again.” He gulps down a deep breath. He’s not looking at Donna right now. Can’t. “She’s with her family. She’s fine. Got a good job, her mum’s back with her dad, they’re having a baby.”
“How do you know?” she asks, “if you can’t ever see her again?”
“I managed to say goodbye,” he explains. “She told me. She’s fine. Well, bit upset that we can’t see each other again but she’ll get over it. She’ll move on. Probably already has moved on.”
“Did she love you?” asks Donna.
“Stop it,” he warns her.
“What was she like?”
“Told you. Young. Always jumping into things. Fun. Brave. Happy.”
He has to believe that. What’s the point in anything, really, if it isn’t true? If he can’t get Rose’s life right, after all they’d been to one another, he shouldn’t be travelling with anybody.
That’s what Martha would tell him. That’s why he hasn’t asked anyone since. Donna doesn’t count. She asked him. Best thing that’s happened for a long while.
“But what did she look like?” Donna persists.
There’s only one way to get a Rottweiler to leave you alone. You toss it a bone.
He takes a photograph from his pocket. He carries it everywhere and she probably realises that, from the state it’s in. It’s an unusual picture because when it was taken he happened to catch her in a thoughtful mood, almost frowning a little. He keeps that one because it hurts too much to look at the ones where they’re laughing.
“There,” he tells her. “That’s what she looks like. As far as I know,” he adds, quickly.
Donna takes the photo and her eyes widen – quite why he isn’t sure. After all, it’s only a human shopgirl with her hair dyed blonde, wearing a blue denim jacket. Nothing hugely significant in the great scheme of things.
“I’ve seen her,” Donna gasps.
“Yeah, you might have done. She used to work in Henricks – you probably bought a jumper there once. You must have a good memory for faces. Would have been years ago.”
“It wasn’t,” she says. “It was only the day before yesterday. I asked her to look after the car keys for Mum. She didn’t say anything. But it was her. I’d swear on my dad’s grave it was.”
“That’s impossible,” he snaps, snatching the photograph out of her hand. He never should have started this.
“I don’t believe in impossible any more,” says Donna.
****
She’s like a dog with a bone and she won’t let it go. Nothing is going to change her mind – clever arguments, sullen silences, mockery, frank disbelief. In the end, they’ve agreed to differ and he’s left her alone in the kitchen getting herself a meal.
Agreed to differ. At least that’s Donna’s version of it.
But he’s been in her head now. Only for a minute or two, but that’s long enough for him to know she wasn’t lying. That woman she saw was Rose. Impossible, but true.
He’s not admitting that she’s right – for a very good reason, one that has nothing to do with one-upmanship or stubbornness. He needs to think about this and that’s what he’s doing here in the control room now.
Because what Donna can’t possibly understand is that there’s no way this could be good news. Quite the opposite. He refuses to brood on the Ood (ooh, brood on the Ood – he rolls the words around the walls of the control room and tries not to indulge himself with the memory of amused brown eyes and a laughing voice turning his verbal dexterity into a game). No, he knows how to deal with these prophets of doom. Doesn’t need them. This is quite bad enough without the Ood sticking their tentacled noses into it.
He knows Rose well enough to understand one thing, at least. She’d never break open a gap between worlds just to get back to him. She knows that would make a mockery of everything they’d given up. Working for Torchwood, with their resources at her command, she could probably find a way to do it if she wanted to, just as he could (no, he’s not going there). But she wouldn’t. He trusts her.
If Rose has slipped back into this universe, whatever her reasons and however briefly she appeared, there already is a hole. Someone is messing about. The nightmare’s beginning again and he can’t – just can’t – get swept away by his own wishes and longings and turn a blind eye to that.
Was there more to the Adipose business than he’d supposed? Some bigger power behind the scenes? Lost planets – he’s heard about two this week and, just as he said to the Supernanny, lost planets don’t just happen.
He doesn’t want this. He’s battle-scarred from the last round – the last two or three rounds – with his enemies, and every time it gets harder to bounce back with his old enthusiasm. One day his mind won’t be sharp enough to stay the necessary number of steps ahead. One day he won’t care enough and they’ll win. He’s been trying not to think about that, but that won’t stop it.
If only someone else could handle it for a change. It’s always him, the only one left.
He wonders whether to warn somebody. UNIT? Torchwood? Of course, with Torchwood his thoughts lead to Jack, who’s made it so obvious that there’s no place in his busy life for him any more. No, he’ll do a bit of quiet investigating from the safety of the TARDIS first. He’s not going to charge off back to Earth on a wild goose chase. It’d only frighten Donna, make her decide she needs to be back home with her mother or something in case the sky falls in.
No need for that.
It has nothing to do with Rose. Nothing.
It has everything to do with her.
His phone rings. It’s Martha. He can’t believe how disappointed he is, can’t ignore the way his hearts leapt at the sound, how soon he’s begun to imagine that the impossible might not be.