Chapter Text
The last of the Time Lords had managed to escape the great Time War in his lonely blue box doomed to wander the universe alone. After what he’d done he didn’t even deserve to be alive, and he certainly didn’t have the right to call himself the Doctor anymore. Doctors were supposed to heal people and he had committed genocide of not one but two races…and that was just counting the ones directly involved. He’d yet to see the full consequences of his actions, the likes of which had surely reverberated through all of time and space.
Yet somehow he had lived. Never in his life had he been more prepared to die, needing it even, but his stubborn body had managed to hold out long enough to regenerate. And now he was more alone than he had ever been and he supposed that was his penance for what had happened. Death would have been too merciful. He knew he would eventually have to face what he had done. The universe needed someone to put it back together, and as broken as he was, he was the only one equipped to do so. He wasn’t quite ready for that though, so he decided to set the TARDIS down on Earth. He had always held a fondness for this planet full of apes and all their cleverness. With Gallifrey now gone, he supposed it was the closest thing he had left to a homeworld.
He planned on laying low for a while and letting himself start to mend before attempting to save anyone else, but as was typical for him it just wasn’t in the cards. Not two days after he landed he found himself in a fancy shop chasing down Autons. He just about finished laying his trap when the sound of a young worried voice broke through his concentration.
A second or third shout of “Wilson!”, he wasn’t quite sure which, rang through the air, this time sounding a bit more frantic. He turned back to the device he'd been building, giving it one last good sonic before slipping his faithful screwdriver back into the pocket of his leather coat. He rushed over to see how his disruptive interloper was fairing and made it just in time to see a blonde girl in a pink hoodie being backed into the corner by a horde of animated shop dummies. As their apparent leader raised a plastic hand threateningly above her head the Doctor sprung into action. He could see the surprise and relief in her eyes when he grabbed her wrist and told her to run.
The next day, as he stood there holding her hand in his and explaining how he could feel the turn of the Earth, hope began to blossom in his chest.