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“Who said you’re not important?”
Despite the fact that Rose tried very hard to forget their time in 1987 several days ago, and despite the fact that the Doctor had forgiven her, she couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d overheard him saying to Sarah and Stewart.
It had been haunting her ever since.
Not because it was bad, she admitted to herself as she watched the Doctor tinkering under the console, or shocking even particularly surprising, but because it hit so very close to home.
"Who said you’re not important?”
The more she thought about it, the more it baffled her.
The Doctor was a Time Lord, and while she might not know a lot about them, what she did know intimidated her like nobody’s business. This man- alien, she reminded herself, knew something about everything, could speak just about any language there was, knew how to fix almost everything and travelled through time and space in a time machine. It was a pretty safe bet that the Time Lords were a powerful, knowledgeable race, especially when she considered the fact that everybody fell all over themselves as soon as they found out who and what he was.
She frowned.
And yet, for all that, she couldn’t work him out.
Honestly, he didn’t act the way she’d have expected at all. If he were an ordinary bloke, she was certain he’d have been lording it all over everybody. She knew more than enough blokes like that, had seen enough of them at Henrik’s- posh blokes, educated blokes, rich blokes who thought that the ground wasn’t good enough for them to walk on, but the Doctor didn’t act like that at all. And honestly, if anybody had the right to act like they were better than everyone else, it was a nine hundred year old alien who travelled through time and space and saved the universe before breakfast every morning.
But he didn’t.
And that was the part she couldn’t work out. Oh, it wasn’t as though he was perfect, wasn’t as though he weren’t stubborn, because he was. And rude, too. And grumpy. And he always thought he knew best, even when he didn’t.
But for all that, he didn’t act as though the universe were beneath him, as though humans were beneath him. For all his talk of stupid apes, he treated people like they were important. He’d been kind and gentle with the servant girl Gwyneth, had risked his own life to try and save her even though she’d been long gone. He’d been kind to Sarah and Stewart, had made them feel as if their lives, their story and how it ended, mattered.
And her.
He’d come for her countless times, risked himself and the TARDIS to come for her every time. But more than that, he’d treated her as though she mattered, as though she were important. He’d never made her feel as if she were some replaceable nobody from the Estate, even when he’d been angry or rude or jealous. He’d encouraged her to ask questions, to challenge people and authority and even him (much as he might grumble about it). He saw her differently to anyone else.
“I only take the best, and I’ve got Rose.”
She shook her head in bafflement. When had anybody ever called her the best? When had anybody ever acted as though she were valuable, as though she could do great and important things? And what were the odds that the one person who did was the one person who was so far above her, so much more than her that any attempt at comparison was laughable?
She just couldn’t work him out.
“Rose?”
She blinked and and turned her attention back to the Doctor, who’d crawled out from under the console and was now standing in front of her. “Sorry, what?”
The Doctor folded his arms and raised his eyebrows. “I said, where d’you to go next? Translocator’s all done up an’ good as new.”
She bit her lip, remembering the last time she’d chosen and almost ended the world. “I…I dunno. You choose.”
He frowned. “What’s the matter, than?”
“Nothin’! Just can’t think of anythin’. You choose.”
“Now I know somethin’s wrong,” he muttered, stalking closer. “You haven’t chosen a single landin’ for days, Rose.” He squinted at her. “What’s goin’ on?”
She shrugged helplessly, looking at the grating. “Just can’t think of anythin’.”
“Now that I don’t believe.” He slipped a finger under her chin and gently made her look up. “What’s this about?”
She sighed. “I just…’m scared, alright? I don’t…don’t wanna pick somethin’ wrong and almost end the world again. The last time I picked the world nearly ended, yeah? Universe nearly collapsed because of a nobody from East London.”
He frowned. “You’re not a nobody, Rose.”
She waved dismissively. “You know what I mean- ‘because of some person that didn’t matter. Not like, a ruler or some big general or somethin’ who has the power to end the world usually.”
“No such thing as a person who doesn’t matter, Rose, ruler or not. And as for almost endin’ the world…” he fixed her with a look. “You made a mistake, yeah. A big one. An’ I told you- my fault too- I took you back twice, and I knew the rules, you didn’t.”
“Yeah but-”
“But nothin’. You plannin’ on going back and stoppin’ a few more people from dyin’ when they’re supposed to?”
“No!” She cringed.
“Alright, that’s that, then.” He folded his arms. “Where d’you want to go?”
She laughed, shaking her head helplessly. “You’re impossible, you are.”
“Not the first time I’ve been called that, me,” he grinned. “So, where to Rose Tyler?”
She bit her lip, looking at him tentatively. “I….maybe somewhere warm? With a beach? Just a nice stop in between the world-saving?”
“Your wish is my command,” he said deliberately, and saw her flinch at his choice of words. “One warm beach, comin’ up.”
She tilted her head as she watched his mad dance around the console.
“You really mean that, don’t you?” She said a few moments later.
“What, that I’d take you somewhere warm? Course I do!” He said indignantly. “If you’re goin’ to harp on about me drivin’ again, that was one time and-”
“No, no,” she cut in, trying to suppress a smile at his touchiness about landing a year late. “I mean…what you said before.”
“What?” He looked baffled.
“About…that no one is a nobody.”
“Oh.” He folded his arms and shrugged. “That. Of course. Why?”
“’S just…” she tried to find the words, not sure she could really express what she was thinking. “You’re a Time Lord, right?”
He nodded.
“An’ Time Lords, they’re…they were….you’re….like, really…clever…” she trailed off helplessly. “Like, you know things, lots of things, right? About history and different people and aliens and languages and science an’ all that. An’ you had machines that could travel in time. An’ people know you, Doctor, they’re respect you, they all act like the Time Lords are…were…somethin’ really important, yeah?”
“Rose-”
“But you don’t act like that!” She cut in, needing to finish. “Like, anyone else would be lordin’ it over everyone else if they were half what you were, but you don’t! You act like…like the little people are important, as if we’re more than…just another number, another face in the crowd.” She exhaled. “Why?”
He blinked at her, obviously surprised by the direction the conversation had taken. “What’s brought this on, then?”
She huffed. “Nothin’. ’S just….I can’t work you out. You saw old man Sneed- he treated Gwyneth like she was his pet, orderin’ her about, not carin’ what happened to her, an’ he was a bleedin’ undertaker! Not like he was a Lord or somethin’. I’ve seen how people treat you, Doctor, when they realise what you are, who you are. You’re really famous, an’ important, but you treated her like she mattered.”
“She did matter,” he said slowly, looking puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“See, that’s the thing! Nobody else saw that.”
“You did,” he said quietly, his eyes burning into her. “You cared. You thought she mattered and you stood up for her, tried to look out for her.”
“Yeah, but I’m like her.” She shrugged. “I’m talkin’ about the important people- they always treat people like us like we’re less, you know? Like they got a whole lot of us on sale and one of us is the same as the next one, yeah?” She fixed him with a plaintiff stare, willing him to understand. “But you don’t. You don’t at all and I want to know why?”
He exhaled. “Know what I love about humans?”
She blinked at his seeming evasion. “What?”
He gave her a gentle smile. “That no matter how much you lot condition yourselves to think that money and status is important, when it comes down to it, it doesn’t get in the way of seein’ your real worth.”
“What-”
“I mean, Rose, that even when you’ve managed to convince yourselves that lumps of metal, or pretend numbers in an electronic bank account or some made up title that lets someone ponce about like he’s the creator of the universe, are what measure your worth, that that is how you’re going to work out how useful or good or worthwhile a person is, you manage to prove how worthless it all is in two seconds flat.”
She shook her head in confusion. “What d’you mean?”
He looked at her, his blue eyes intent on hers. “Who saved the universe, that day?”
“What?”
“In Cardiff, when the Gelth were tryin’ to come after us, who saved us?”
“Well…Charles Dickens saved us, with the thing about the gas…” she said slowly. “And…and Gwyneth saved…everything else. She blew herself up to get rid of ‘em, make sure they couldn’t get out and hurt anyone else.”
“Would you say she was important?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“What made her save us though? What made her sacrifice herself and save a world that had treated her like so much rubbish? Was it money, power, social standin’?”
“No,” she said quietly, understanding where he was going with this. “It was…it was her.”
“Exactly,” he said, his gaze burning her with its intensity. “It’s when you strip away all that unimportant rubbish that you see what a person really is, and no money, no power can ever make up for a rotten person, Rose.”
She swallowed, unable to believe what he was (indirectly) saying.
Seeing that she understood, his gaze gentled, stealing the breath from her lungs. “I’ve been around a long time, me. I’ve seen the best and worst of what a lot of people have to offer, humans included and you know what I’ve found?”
She shook her head wordlessly.
“Everyone, everyone is worth somethin’, and the wisest people are the ones who know that. Power, wealth, even time-travelling geniuses, they’re nothin’, really- they can come and go in the blink of an eye, but what stays, what matters are the choices you make. It’s what people do with whatever they have that matters. It’s how they treat everyone else, especially when there’s nothin’ in it for them. That’s what’s important, Rose and that’s what history is made of. History is full of little people doin’ extraordinary things and all those important people you’re talkin’ about wouldn’t even have their names remembered if it weren’t for the ‘little people’ they built themselves on. Understand?”
Blinking away tears, she nodded.
“Good.” He fixed her with an intent stare. “There’s no such thing as a little person, Rose. There’s just people, and everyone matters, in the end. The actions of the most ordinary person can change history in ways you can’t imagine, and when you doubt that, remember Gwyneth.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I will.”
He gazed at her for a moment, as if making sure she understood. “I meant it you know- I only take the best.”
“An’….an you’ve got me,” she whispered, blinking at her tears desperately at the weight behind his words, at what it meant for him to say that now that she knew, now that she understood.
“I’m so glad I met you.” His eyes burned with blue fire.
In spite of herself, she smiled. “Me too.”
“Fantastic.”
Fin