The Girl Who Grew Up In The TARDIS (Wattys2014)

"Run for your life!"

And then when I was allowed to see the Doctor again he had regenerated, even after all these years, it's still a shock even when it is long overdue and this time the Doctor had changed in so many ways. And it wasn't just because he had turned into a northerner, everything about this version of the Doctor was different from what had gone before, his appearance was toned down to the point of obscurity from his short, cropped hair to his plain black clothes, he always looked ready for battle in his leather jacket and combats, he really was a no frills and no nonsense kind of man. The Doctor was incredibly tough (to the extent that he was the Doctor most likely to win in a scrap) and straight talking verging on spikey bluntness, he really didn't care what you thought of him. And this Doctor definitely didn't suffer fools, which again meant most the population of Earth. The Doctor came across as harsh and unfeeling, he tried to hide it but underneath it all I knew he still cared. The Doctor may have been reborn into a younger man but he could not leave behind all the things he had seen and done in the Time War, it was etched into his face and hidden in his eyes if he cared to gaze at you long enough. And the loneliness was never far away, the constant knowledge of being the sole survivor and the last one of your race inevitably meant guilt and it invaded every part of the Doctor. I guessed he hadn't been knocking around too long as this version because his grief came across as being so raw, in the early days there was anger and glimpses of his vengeful rage. But it always came back to the guilt and so I was left with this one constant thought going around in my head, had the Doctor been the one to end the Time War? Well the Doctor was hardly going to speak to me and the TARDIS was eerily silent on the subject, inside she had changed so much, in the control room there was a dark beauty, the console controls were patched up and looked like they had been put together during a war, there was a thrown together organic look as coral struts fused with machinery, she had never seemed so alive, I could actually hear her breathing and yet during this time the TARDIS was so distant and she was keeping so much from me, though I wasn't entirely convinced that she knew how the war had ended. But as I have said before, the TARDIS only lets me see what she thinks I need to see... It was just a feeling I got sometimes that all was not as it seemed with events leading to the ending of the Time War but I had to let these thoughts go because the Doctor was still alive even if the TARDIS and I were left with a version of the Doctor that was a haunted man, roaming recklessly through the Universe, painfully indifferent to whether he lived or died. And again I couldn't bear to watch him and not be able to do something to help.

Of course I wanted to be the one to save the Doctor, I'd be lying if I said otherwise, after all I had some idea of what he had been through, no other human knew the Doctor like me but with my age I was growing pragmatic, learning to put my emotions aside, well some of the time! The Universe needed the Doctor and if I couldn't be there for him then it had to be someone else and fast. For the Doctor needed help, someone to stop him sometimes and someone who could eventually heal him, so putting my selfish feelings aside I was mightily relieved when the Doctor found a new companion

Thank God for Rose Tyler, she saved the Doctor, gradually a tentative joy returned to him as the Doctor remembered how to live and see the Universe anew through Rose's eyes. And they ran for their lives, leaving me breathless in their wake and I had never felt so alive. Autons, the end of the Earth, Charles Dickens and gaseous creatures inhabiting the Victorian dead, Slitheen's (Green, towering, savage baby faced aliens who disguised themselves by wearing the skin of their murdered humans gruesome huh?) at 10 Downing street, a lone Dalek and like the Doctor the last of its kind who had survived the Time War. Looking back it was naïve but I honestly thought we had seen the last of the Daleks...I wished I could have joined the Doctor and his companion, though I'm pretty certain I would have faded into insignificance alongside Rose because the girl who was barely a year older than me had come along at the right moment and no one in the whole Universe meant so much to the Doctor, it had been such a long time since he had felt that way about anyone. Rose was without a doubt one of the bravest, fiercely loyal and compassionate of companions, the Doctor would have been lost without her, she gave the last of the Time Lords his humanity back but she made mistakes, she could be possessive and jealous, callous towards her "boyfriend" and mum. Ah Mickey and Jackie...Never before had a companion's home life bled so much into the Doctor's world. And try as he might to escape all ties and responsibilities the Doctor had to regularly face the wrath of Jackie Tyler, the fiery lioness with the biggest heart, I would have given anything to have a mum like that, so instead of UNIT, the Doctor had the most unconventional family to protect and return to on Earth. And I didn't realise it at the time but I found myself smiling whenever I saw Mickey Smith, he was kind, funny, brave, very fit (see I was picking up 21st century lingo) and looked out for Jackie even when she had accused him of murdering Rose who had disappeared for a year, yeah not one of the Doctor's finest hours... (So I guess Mickey was my second crush but I had to wait a long time for it!) I could see his potential, even before the Doctor but Rose never got Mickey Smith, she kept him hanging on for a long time. It seemed to me that Rose wanted everything but something has to give and people will get hurt when you travel with the Doctor. I suppose I had never seen the impact before now.