I Wanted to Come Back

My dearest Rose,

I am writing to you again tonight. I have made a new friend, and she reminds me so much of you. Her name is Lily, why is it always the flowers? She said something today, as soon as I met her, and I could almost feel you there with me. Though she thinks I'm a madman with a blue box that's bigger on the inside, but is she really wrong? I am a madman, a madman still in love with a woman I can never see again. A madman married to a half Time Lord who's never here. A lonely madman. I wish that Jack were here, for once, even though his existence repulses me. He's unnatural, he is what shouldn't be. Because of you Rose Tyler, because of you. But I don't blame you, you love so much, you just couldn't let him die. There was a man, Rory his name was, he was unnatural too. I never said it, but he unsettled me too. He was a plastic man made whole. He waited two thousand years for the woman he loved. In the end he lived a very human life, and died a very human way. If you call being sent back in time by Weeping Angels 'very human'. Oh! Weeping Angels! You never met the Weeping Angels! Hopefully you never will, my love. But if you do, do not blink, do not look away. And never look at an image of one, an image of an Angel, becomes an Angel.

There are so many things to say to you Rose, and I just can't say them. Not that it's impossible, just that I can't put them into words. My head, you know, it's so big, I can think so much in so many different ways. You remember, don't you? When you took the TARDIS inside your mind and saved everyone? That's how it is for me, all the time. I can feel the planets shifting, I can see it. Everything Rose, it's all up there in my daft old head. I guess that makes me a daft old man then. I am old, truly old. Over a thousand years Rose. I'll die soon though, without Gallifrey. I miss it, I wish you could have seen it my dear! Beautiful, swaying mountains, two suns. You would have loved it there, you would never age. You could have been mine forever. But that's all gone now, Time Locked, can't get to it, even if I wanted to. Couldn't get to you either. I should have saved you when I had the chance, but the other me, the clone, was in the way. How can you get rid of your own clone? It's better off this way though. You'll grow old together, you'll be human together. You wouldn't be able to have that with me. As I once told you so long ago, you can chose to grow old with me, but I can never grow old with you. Oh Rose, it hurts so much. It's hard being me, it's hard living as long as I do, seeing what I do. I want it to end sometimes Rose. I really do. Then I think of you humans, always getting into trouble. Always in need of saving.

I wish you could read these letters Rose, I wish I could bring myself to send them to you. I could do that you know, I could send you messages, but I wont. I can't. I can't ruin what you have with him, it wouldn't be right. I gave him to you so you would be okay, so you could make it there in the Parallel without the real me. Do you think of it Rose? Do you think of the TARDIS? I know you must miss it terribly, I know I would. How do you take it? Never being able to travel again? What am I saying? You and him probably travel all the time, everywhere on that planet of yours. I wonder what you call him? Do you still call him Doctor, or do you have a name for him now? I can't imagine anything other than John Smith, you know. Oh Rose. My daft old head, there is so much. So, so much.

Daleks though, they seem to always survive, I hate that it was Lily's first encounter with me. I hate that Daleks are even here. I failed Rose, you know that don't you? Your hero is only a mask that I wear. I'm really just a monster. I killed my entire race to save them from the Daleks, and the Daleks survived. The Daleks always survive. They don't know who I am though. There was this girl, they turned her into one of them, but she believed so much in her humanity that she made a sort of reality for herself, she truly believed she was a human girl trapped in a Dalek prison. She helped me and she erased me from their minds. You have no idea what it's like to hear them say Doctor who? Oh my sweet Rose, I don't sleep much these nights. I would write to you for hours if I could bring myself to do it.

Oh Rose, I will love you until the end of my days.

---

I followed that crazy man though, that crazy, crazy man. If you asked me why, I couldn't tell you. I just did. It seemed right, to listen to him, to follow him. I just didn't know how terribly dangerous that was of me.

We didn't speak as we walked down the busy city street, sliding between the rushing people of a typical New York day. He turned abruptly down an alley and stopped before a big blue box. A big blue police box. He pulled out a little silver key and unlocked the door, stepping inside. The door slammed closed behind him and I stood there, did he expect me to go inside of his tiny little box?

The door opened, "Well, are you coming or not?"

"In there? That's just a tiny little box!" I exclaimed.

He shrugged and closed the door again. After a moment I stamped my foot and went up to the door. I took a deep breath and opened it. What I saw took my breath away. I froze, staring at the huge room inside the tiny blue box. There was a huge round thing in the middle, and the crazy man stood before it, hooking wires and plugs to the Dalek scrap. I turned and went back outside. That was madness. There couldn't be a room that big in a box that small. It wasn't possible. I walked around the box, it was just a box. A tiny little box.

I went back inside, closing the door behind me.

"It's.. It's bigger on the inside," I whisperd.

He smiled, "Yes, yes it is. Lily, do you want to go on an adventure with me?"

Go on an adventure? With a madman and his little blue box that's bigger on the inside?

"Where?" I asked, crossing my arms.

His smile grew wider, "Anywhere in the universe, any time you want. And I really do mean any time."

Anywhere in the universe? Was that even possible? What did he mean, any time I wanted? You know what though? I would still give him the same answer that I did today, if I were given the chance.

"What about the Daleks? The missing people in the office?" I asked, walking up the steps to him.

"After the Daleks, then we can go anywhere you want. Any planet, you want," he said.

The oddest part? I believed him.

"Fine. We'll fix whatever it is that's wrong, then I want you to take me to the end of the world."

He froze, the sonic slipped between his fingers and clattered to the floor.

"You okay?" I asked picking up the screwdriver and handing it to him.

"Okay. Fine. I'm fine, just spaced out a moment. Everything is perfectly perfect. Now, if I can just-" he waved the sonic and sparks erupted from the Dalek panel. "YES! Now, let's see here.. Right then."

He looked over at me, his face and eyes soft, "Do you trust me?"

Ten minutes with the man and he was asking for my trust. Should I give it to him? What would happen if I did?

"Trust is a hard thing to gain Doctor. And as much as I don't like half the people that are supposed to be in that office, we have to get them back. Wherever they are, we have to get them back. You're..... You're a good man, I think. In time, I can learn to trust you."

He nodded, "You're very wise dear Lily, very wise indeed for a human."

The way he said it, human, like he wasn't one. What else could he be? What could this box be?

"You say it, human, like you aren't one. You said you looked like one, aren't you like us?" I asked, trailing my fingers across the different gadgets and button as I walked around the circle.

He was busy typing away furiously on a keyboard, looking intently at the screen before him.

"Yes, and no. You look like me, rather. I'm not of this world Lily, not of this world at all," he didn't take his eyes away from the screen.

He wasn't of this world, then where was he from?

"Where are you from then? Mars? Venus?" I said, a smile plastered on my face.

A madman with a blue box that's bigger on the inside that comes from a different planet. Somehow, it seemed like I'd been waiting for this man my entire life. He promised adventure, he promised the un-explainable. He promised what I always wanted and could never have. I wanted so badly to stay in that box forever, I think we all did. Every companion wanted to pick a room in that great big ship and stay forever, stay with the Doctor. See, he thought he was a monster, a monster wearing a hero's mask. For me though, he became a hero, and I think that's what he fears most. Becoming a humans hero. That's why he leaves us in the end.

"No, no, no! Why does everyone always think I'm a martian? I do not look like those... things! No, I'm from a planet that no longer exists. I'm Gallifreyan. A Time Lord, the last of my kind. Now, if I can just reroute I can find out exactly where your friends have gone."

Gallifreyan? No longer exists? Alone? It started to make sense then, he was a very lonely man. That's why he was always talking, always moving.

"You save people a lot don't you?" I asked.

He looked at me, "I do, I save you beautiful humans every day. You silly, happy crying humans."

The way he said it, the way he always said it, like we were the best and worst things imaginable. The Doctor didn't know it yet, he wouldn't know it for a while, but I would be leaving him sooner than he'd have expected. I wouldn't be gone forever though, not in the future anyways. I had a past to live through.