The Lost Time Lord (A Doctor Who/Tenth Doctor Fanfiction)

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Thought It Was Over

"She sympathizes, that's all," The Doctor told her, "I do too." 

"The Isolus has caused a lot of pain for these people." 

"Its a child," The Doctor argued, blowing into the scanner, "That's why it went to Chloe, two lonely mixed-up kids." 

"Feels to me like a temper tantrum 'cause it can't get its own way." 

"Yes, well it might seem that way from the outside," I replied, tightening one of the screws through the Doctor's fingers, "But sometimes, when you have to focus on making sure you're ok, you aren't afforded the luxury of thinking about others." 

"Its scared," The Doctor concluded, "Come on, you were a kid once. Binary dot."

She held out her finger to hand it to him. 

"Yes." She agreed. "And I know what kids can be like. Right little...terrors."

"Gum." The Doctor held out his hand and Rose spit her chewing gum into it. 

"I've got cousins. Kids can't have it all their own way, that's part of being a family."  She continued.

"And what about trying to understand them?" The Doctor asked, grabbing my hand and pressing it against the mechanism to hold it in place.

"Easy for you to say, you don't have kids." Rose argued, turning back toward the console. 

"I was a dad once." He said, his eyes focused on the device in his hands. 

"What did you say?" She questioned, turning to face him again. 

"I think we're there!" The Doctor stood up, walking up to the console beside me and ignoring the question all together, "Fear, Loneliness. They're the big ones, girls. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them.  We're not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy."

Rose and I shared a look, both of us still stuck on the heavier parts of the conversation while the Doctor tried to move on and get back to business. 

"There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe, Warp drive, wormhole refractors." I held out my hand, offering to hold the device while the Doctor twisted the valve on the console. "The only thing you need, most of all, you need a hand to hold."

The Doctor looked down at my gesturing hand, smiling and slapping his hand down in mine. 

"No, I was trying to hold..." Rose and I laughed as the monitor began to beep. The Doctor and I stepped over to look at the readings, and he adjusted his grip on my hand, intertwining our fingers. 

"Its the pod! It is in the street!" He exclaimed, leaning his face close to me. "Everything's coming up Doctor."

I smiled as he let go of my hand, running out the TARDIS doors. 

"You alright?" I asked, seeing as Rose didn't seem to have recovered from the whole 'Doctor being a dad' bombshell. 

"Yeah, it just...its easy for me to forget sometimes," She said with a slight shrug, "He had a whole life out there before I came along. Before I existed even...a whole history that I'll never know or understand." 

"Understanding the past is good," I admitted, "But the thing about history is, its just that. History. You're here with him now, and I'm sure he wouldn't have it any other way." 

"No, I wasn't- Its not a bad thing, really," She said, shaking her head, "I'm just...I'm glad that he has someone now that knows where he came from. Someone that's like him. You can be there for him in a way that I can't, you can...hold his hand."