Though the Doctor had been traveling for god knows how long, and he had encountered more creatures and monsters to fill several encylopedias, he rarely was honestly afraid.  He was frequently nervous, or startled, or unsure, or even angry--but never afraid.  Fear was something that, over the years, he had managed to beat down, managed to do away with.  Even though the Doctor didn't know everything, he knew enough to deal with things in a logical--if occasionally emotional--manner.

Now, though, he was afraid.

The Daleks had survived.  It was only one--a single, solitary soldier who had somehow fallen through time, crashing into Earth's past until he had stumbled across to free it.  But they had survived.  He blamed Henry van Statten, the self-absorbed git, for letting it loose.  For perhaps half a second, he blamed Rose for being foolish enough to touch it.  He blamed the soldiers for charging blindly into battle.  He blamed Davros for creating the genocidal monsters.

But mostly--and privately--he blamed himself, for having to play the hero.  If he had never arrived, the Dalek would have eventually died, and van Statten would have tossed it away, perhaps one of his henchmen.  But those people would still be alive, and the Dalek race would have become extinct.

It wasn't just the Dalek that scared him, though.  It was him.  He had a gun in his hand, a Magnashredder from the Andalite homeworld.  He was ready to kill something that had so obviously become something new.  He pleaded with Rose to leave.  He shouted at her to.  He <i>ordered</i> her to leave.

That was two and a half hours ago.  When they entered the TARDIS, he suggested that Rose get some sleep to "get over what just happened."  The poor girl had been through a lot--what with putting up with van Statten's insults, the Dalek trying to repeatedly off her, and the Doctor's darker side.  For the most part, though, he just wanted to be alone.

He mulled around in the TARDIS console for some time, trying to find just the right destination for the next day.  He watched the Time Vortex spin around, the eternal, ever-changing possibilities of what could happen in that very second bloom and wither.  It reminded him too much of home, though, and the War.  Fighting back the urge to scream and break something, he set coordinates to loop in a century-long circle, and drifted off.

The TARDIS certainly had a knack of landing him where he needed to be, and the Doctor found himself in the wadrobe.  A manic sort of look lit up his eyes--he'd always been meaning to tidy up this place sometime.  Now would most certainly work--a nice, mindless distraction to keep his magnificent brain from dwelling on the past.  And so, he set to work.