I’m rewatching season 2 now and I’m still so furious over GITF and cannot believe he would even do that to her. Especially when ten’s entire personality is loving rose tyler!! Phew I wish I had a better way to contextualize it other than moffat being moffat. I’ve seen meta saying it was him pushing Rose away after school reunion/ how close they’ve been since he regenerated. What do you think?
Let me sooth that anger with a gif of Ten’s actual face when he looks at Rose Tyler. Yo. This is canon. This is the face of a man who actually forgets to mf breathe when he looks at her. Home boy has two hearts how does that even. Let me share with you an overly long-story-short version of the thousands of words I could use to describe how, even in the events of SR and GitF, his love for her still burns deep within his veins.
I always think of early season 2 Ten being fascinated by an aspect of human nature he’s never really experienced first hand - flirting. And he’s pleasantly surprised by how much he likes it, but even more by how much Rose likes it.
And oh how it’s so easy between them now! He spent so long loving her from a distance, knowing it was one sided. Unrequited, at least in the way he wanted it to be. Because how could a 19 year old human even look twice at a 900 year old alien? One so broken and wounded and healing from war and genocide. He resigned himself to watching her link arms with her boyfriend or flirt with a handsome American stranger knowing that she would never see him the same way. And then she absorbs the time vortex just to save him because she wants him safe and he feels overwhelmed by how much he loves her in that moment. So when he regenerates, it's from a moment where he is so utterly enamoured by her and completely devoted to her that he becomes someone who could be worthy of her. Someone who could give her more of what she wants, someone to return her cheeky smiles and playful roasting, give her extended hugs and physical contact that sends shivers down her spine.
But he gets carried away with it in true Ten style - by being self absorbed. Not at first. At first, he’s testing the waters, enjoying the freedom to be relaxed around her, the feel of her looking at him in that way. He restrains himself though, as he allows her time to readjust to this new him, to fully accept that he’s the same man. He’s so madly in love with her, but can’t give in to it fully until he knows she truly believes he’s the very same man she cultivated that relationship and that bond with. In New Earth, he’s flirty with her but still has that clear distinction between his species and hers. The line is still there, although how much longer he intends to keep behind it he doesn’t know.
By the time we get to Tooth and Claw, he kind of loses himself in their new relationship so much that he forgets they aren’t the same. He’s loosened and they’ve found their rhythm, and this is what he was hoping for. They’re so aligned, with mannerisms that compliment each other and a matching aesthetic.
But then he runs into Sarah Jane and he’s so thrilled and excited to see her that he forgets about Rose. Not in a casting-her-aside sort of way, but like when you’re out one ordinary day with your best mate and you see an old dear friend on the other side of the street and you forget where you are, who you’re with for a moment. Someone you haven’t seen in years, a blast from the past. And the way Ten goes through his emotions in School Reunion is so real and so human. I never felt like he was pushing Rose away, I just felt like this completely blindsided him and he had to face the awful reality that, having lost Sarah Jane, having lost all of his people, having always lost everyone he’s ever loved every single time, he’s going to lose Rose too. Not that he might, but he will. There’s no avoiding it, there’s no saving her in any way, there’s absolutely no stopping it. This is the one thing Rose can’t save him from. And that is a hard thing to be reminded of. And he’s so angry about it. He’s furious because it's just so unfair. He just doesn’t want to face it, or talk about it, because as soon as he does then it’s real. He’s had no time to prepare for it and he doesn’t get time to prepare for it, because she’s barely given it an hour before she’s confronting him with it. And she’s confronting him in anger, so he responds in anger because he just isn’t ready to do this to her yet.
“How many of us has there been travelling with you?”
“Yeah, it does, if I’m just the latest in a long line.”
They’ve never spoken about their relationship before this. They both felt it, and it was there for sure. But neither of them has brought it up yet, neither has acknowledged it. So he’s confronting this for the first time as well. And if he didn’t want to do this already, then he certainly doesn’t want to do it here, unrehearsed, rushed, angry, in this shitty dingy street with her ex boyfriend and his unresolved past only a few metres away. The fact that he asks “as opposed to what?” gets me every damn time. Why on Earth would you ask that question, why would you even entertain the opportunity for someone to admit their feelings towards you if you didn’t feel the same way? I don’t even think he meant to ask her, he just did. Again, he acted on impulse. He wants her to say it, because he’ll be damned if he says it first but he needs to know she feels it too. He knows she couldn’t possibly believe she’s just the latest in a long line, she’s trying to get a rise out of him because she's hurting. But it works, because he can’t stand to see her hurting, to let her believe for even a moment she’s not important to him. And now he’s somehow made it even worse by asking her to admit that she has feelings for him. Right now, when she’s doubting them, when she’s vulnerable and feeling so insignificant. In all the ways this could have played out, this is by far the least optimal. But it’s happening, he can’t change it or ask her to drop it, so he has to fucking suck it up. And you can see it as he sighs and looks away when she says she thought they were something more. Because can you imagine telling someone for the first time that you are something more and you want to be something more, but not because you want to tell them or because you need that person to know, but because something out of your control has forced you to? And I think he just accepts it, at some point, after she asks if he’s just going to forget her. He accepts that he’s going to have to tell the woman who’s just told him she wants to be something more that they never can be. It just keeps getting fucking worse.
So he goes all out. He hits hard. He rips through that conversation because if he’s going to have it then he’s going to be fucking honest. And he stops himself before he gets too honest and says the thing he doesn’t want to say here and now and like this. Don’t tell her you love her for the first time out of anger. Not when you’re making her feel awful for being human. Not when you can see her heart breaking because of what you’re saying to her. Those words aren’t going to heal her right now, they’re just going to hurt so much more. So instead, he finally answers the question she hasn’t been able to ask yet. That she can stay with him, for the rest of her life, if she wants to. This wasn’t just a quick trip, a year or two away and he’ll drop her off or leave her behind like he did Sarah Jane. She can stay with him for as long as she wants. And he wants her to. But he has to remind her that he can’t stay with her as long as he wants to. That he will have a life after her, and long after she’s gone. This can never be an experience they share together and only together. This would be all consuming for her, all she’ll ever know, but it won’t be for him. And fuck, what a fucking awful thing to have to say to someone. To the woman you love.
And then, notice that he looks at Rose when Mickey asks if he can come along? And notice how she specifically mouths to him “don’t”? And he still says yes. This is the Doctor! He would never have said yes to Mickey joining. And it’s not because he’s trying to push her away, but I always thought it’s because he’s trying to hold on to her. He knows he’s hurt her, and he’s potentially the last person she wants to be around right now. She needs someone else, anybody else that’s not him. So he goes against her will, and tells Mickey he can come. Because honestly, he can’t face anymore. If Sarah Jane left, and Mickey went shortly after her, there would be the deafening silence between him and Rose and sooner rather than later the thrill of adventure wouldn’t be enough to keep her here, not when it’s with someone who’s just shattered her and her hopes into pieces. She needs someone with her who she trusts and she loves, who won’t hurt her and gives her a reason to love the travelling again. Because he’ll bring even Mickey aboard if it means she won’t leave him.
And then they accidentally land on a spaceship in the 51st century and he meets this beautiful French woman who’s looking at him in the same way Rose looks at him, only this is someone he hasn’t broken yet. There’s no going back with Rose now. Whatever they had before they’ve lost after he so harshly put a stop to it. I honestly don’t think he does it deliberately, to push Rose away or to pair up with someone after he “let [her] keep Mickey”. I think it’s just one of Ten’s (admittedly massive, if we’re all assuming GitF is still canon) character flaws, that he’s reckless and doesn’t think of the consequences. He just acts on impulse, whatever he fancies doing. He’s lost a fair bit of resistance in adopting a slightly more human mentality. This stunning French aristocrat starts snogging him out of nowhere. So he snogs her back. And who cares, because right now it feels good. Right now, he needs it. Maybe it’s the release of unresolved sexual tension between him and Rose, or maybe it’s a sweet relief from the awful situation he’s put them both in. Rose isn’t talking to him much, he can tell she’s distancing herself from him and them and he doesn’t blame her. The damage is done, there’s no going back to before. He’s lost her.
As much as I hate GitF, as does everybody else… I actually think it fits. Ignoring the horrific portrayal of characters, specifically Rose/the women, it’s one of those weird filler episodes where it’s a break between SR and RotC that ties everything up, a speeded up version of his relationship with Rose and where it’s heading. A break in between episodes that seems fun and pretty on the outside but is actually just a glimpse into the harsher reality of what’s happening on either side of it. He has his fun, he flirts around with Reinette and gives her these fake promises that at the time he really meant and she ends up dying waiting for him to stay true to them. He’s reading that letter, and he’s hurting because he did on some level have feelings for Reinette. Fleeting, and nothing as strong and deep and pure as his love for Rose, but they were there and they still hurt. And she’s shown him exactly what he was afraid of in the last episode.
They always die. Always. And he’s going to lose Rose one way or another. But his promises to her will never be made in vain. He will always stay true to them. So he sobers up. He gets his act together. He knows the kind of man he is now because he knows the kind of man he doesn’t want to be. No more flirting or self indulgence for the hell of it. No more recklessness, especially not when it comes to Rose. And the first place he has to start is with an apology. After that, he devotes all his time and efforts and love to her. School Reunion and Girl in the Fireplace were needed for him to move from the initial excitement of flirting and exploring a new kind of relationship with the woman he loves to becoming the man he became for her. The one that is worthy of her.
God. You only asked for SR and GitF. This is only the start man, only the start of season two. This is the part of season 2 I don’t have as much to say. Honestly I could keep this meta going and head straight for Doomsday, but it’s probably best for all of us that I don’t.
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