For a second, nobody says anything.
Rose is half turned toward me in the doorway, brow furrowed. The Doctor's eyebrows are trying not to laugh. The TARDIS hums like she's holding hers as well.
"I'm called The Engineer."
The words leave my mouth and hang in the air while I wait for Rose to process them. Back straight, chin up, stupid grin on my face like I've just confidently handed in the wrong answer on my state exam.
Rose blinks.
"You're what now?"
"The Engineer," I repeat, a bit calmer this time. "I'm the same as him." I indicate with my head towards the Doctor. „Long story. I was just... on a holiday, if you would."
The Doctor lets out a short, sharp laugh.
"Oh, that's just brilliant," he says. "The Doctor and the Engineer. That's not going to confuse anyone at all."
"Only if someone breaks something," I say. "Then you fix the people, I fix the ship. Division of labour."
The TARDIS gives a pleased little pulse at that. Of the three of us, I'm the only one who actually flinches.
Rose looks between us, mouth open.
"Right," she says slowly. "Okay. So basically I have two space weirdos for myself. Yeah, why not." She mumbles the last part to herself while looking down.
Then, to my mild surprise, she just sticks her hand out.
"Nice to meet you… Engineer."
"Likewise," I say, shaking it.
"Good," she says. "Shouting 'Oi, Engineer!' across the estate will need some getting used to. But good."
The Doctor claps his hands once.
"Sorted. Names done. Come on then, you two, before I change my mind."
He steps back into the TARDIS. Rose follows, bouncing on her toes, excitement back on her face.
I take one last look at where I spent my last twenty-seven years, even if most of those were just memory—the bricks, the stairwells, the patchy lights, every version of my old life mixed together—and then I step inside.
***
The console room honestly hits me like a punch.
On TV it always looked a little like a dressed set: lots of interesting bits, without much context. Mostly there for the "Eh, it looks cool, I guess" factor.
In my Time Lord memories, however, it was all clean lines and organised chaos.
But this is neither.
The coral-like supports curve up and outward, holding the ceiling like a forest holding up the sky. The floor dips and rises, giving it elevation. Cables dangle. Panels don't match. Half the components look like they've been scavenged from scrapyards scattered across at least three galaxies and one B&Q. The time rotor rises and falls in the centre, its light reflecting off everything.
And underneath all of that, I feel her.
Old. Hurt. Proud. Stubbornly alive.
I don't even realise I've moved until my hand is on the console.
I whisper, more to her than to myself. "I'm not here to gut you. Just looking."
A pulse of warmth runs from the metal into my fingertips. I don't hear words, but I can feel the intent. Trust, offered cautiously.
The Doctor flips a few levers. The central column shudders. The whole room tilts, just a touch.
The way she reacts makes something in my chest clench.
"Careful," I say, before I can stop myself.
He looks up.
"Sorry," I add quickly. "She's running hot on column six. You lean on it like that, you'll rattle the whole drive stack."
He squints at me.
"You can tell that from one little wobble, can you?"
"Yes," I say. "And from the way she's whining at me."
The TARDIS gives another pointed hum.
Rose frowns.
"She's… whining?"
"He hears her more clearly than most," the Doctor says, then, to me: "Fine. Show me."
He steps aside.
I circle the console slowly, hands hovering a centimetre above the panels. I don't touch anything at first; I just feel. Pressure points. Overloaded relays. Places where the dimensional shielding has been patched with whatever was lying around.
"Did you seriously bypass the stabiliser with… is that a bicycle chain?" I ask.
"It was a very good bicycle chain," the Doctor says defensively.
"I'm not judging," I say. "I'm just impressed you survived the first jump."
Assimilate kicks in along with my centuries of experience with TARDISes. Every component I see starts cataloguing itself automatically, slotting into wider systems in my head. Training reflexes kick in, rusty but ready. I pick one small, non-critical dial, twist it half a notch, and flip a toggle.
The faint vibration under my feet smooths out.
Rose grabs the nearest support.
"Is that safe?"
"Safer than it was five seconds ago," I say. "I'm not touching the flight path. Just reducing the amount of screaming in the engines."
The TARDIS answers with a low, pleased hum.
The Doctor's eyes flick to the monitors. Whatever he sees there makes his mouth tighten, then relax.
"Not bad," he says. "For a first poke."
I only respond with a wide smile.
"So you two are like… what, co-workers?" she asks. "From the same place?"
"Something like that," I say. "He ran away. I stayed. Then everything exploded and now we've swapped."
She squints at me, clearly thinking that doesn't answer anything, but instead gives more questions.
"What's Gallifrey like?"
Orange sky. Silver trees. Towers and domes and arguing idiots in fancy collars. Children playing in courtyards that would later become target maps.
"Complicated," I say. "I'll tell you about it when I've worked out how much of it isn't just… ghosts."
The Doctor's shoulders twitch, just once. He doesn't look up from the console.
"Right!" he says loudly. "Rose Tyler. Where do you want to go?"
She jumps.
"What, now?"
"Yes, now," he says. "Forward or backward? What do you think?"
She bites her lip.
"Forward," she says. "All the way."
Of course she does, I think.
"Far future it is then," the Doctor says, grinning.
He starts working the controls properly now. The time rotor picks up speed. The hum beneath us rises.
I step back, giving him room, but I stay close enough to reach a couple of stabilisers when they start to complain. He gives me a look once or twice when I adjust something. He doesn't tell me to stop.
Rose clings to a rail, laughing, hair whipping around her face as the room shudders, then settles.
"Where are we going?" she shouts over the noise.
"End of the world!" he shouts back. "Hold on!"
The End of the World. Cassandra. The Forest of Cheem. Platform One. The sun swallowing the Earth.
I'm still focusing on the console. I don't even know how much I want to interfere, or if I should even interfere at all. For now, one thing at a time.
The TARDIS lurches once, then glides. The sound of the engines shifts from raw grinding to a smoother, more confident rhythm. She likes having someone on the other side of the controls who speaks her language.
So does he, if the way his hands start falling into an easier pattern is anything to go by.
A few minutes later, the time rotor slows. The rising and falling light steadies.
"We're here," the Doctor says, more quietly now.
He flips a lever. The main doors click.
"Year five point five slash apple slash twenty-six," he says, looking way too pleased with himself. "Five billion years in your future. Give or take a couple of weeks."
Rose stares at him.
"What?"
"End of the world," he says again. "You wanted 'all the way'. That's all the way."
She looks at the doors, then at him, then at me.
"Is he serious?"
"Annoyingly," I say. "Yes."
"Come on," the Doctor says, already heading for the doors. "Last day of Earth. You'll love it."
He throws the doors open. Warm light floods in.
I feel the TARDIS nudge me in the back, as if to say, Well?
"Yeah, yeah," I mutter. "I'm coming."
He steps out first. Rose hesitates, then follows.
I put my hand briefly on the console.
"We'll do a proper service later," I tell her under my breath. "Full work-up. Promise."
She answers with a soft, contented hum that settles my hearts.
Then I follow them out, into the future.
***
The air on Platform One tastes filtered and too clean, like air that's been edited.
Rose stops dead as soon as she sees the viewing window. Earth hangs below us, blue and white and small, suspended in black. It's wrong, seeing it from above when I grew up under that sky. It's wrong and it's beautiful.
"That's… that's home," she whispers.
"Yeah," I say quietly.
Behind us, machinery hums. Doors slide. Alien voices murmur. The Doctor bounces on his heels like a child at Christmas.
"Welcome to Platform One," he says. "Host of the greatest show in the galaxy. The day the sun expands and swallows the Earth. And we've got front-row tickets."
Rose turns slowly, taking in the room. Blue-clad staff. Heat shields. Big red "DO NOT TOUCH" panels. The whole thing looks exactly like the episode did—and also more real, more detailed, more alive.
I can feel the heat in the distance, like a low drumbeat. I can also feel a lot of systems on this station that would not pass Gallifreyan safety checks.
"Right," I say under my breath, scanning the room. "Note to self: try not to get killed by a cheap thermostat."
"What was that?" Rose asks.
"Nothing," I say. "Just engineer paranoia."
The Doctor is already walking toward the steward. Introductions start, papers flash, psychic credit cards swipe. I let him handle the talking.
My job is different.
I lean casually on a railing.
Bad things are coming later. Spiders in vents, sabotage, Cassandra's stunt. I know all of that.
The question is not whether I remember. It's what I intend to do about it.
I watch Rose press her palm to the glass, Earth reflecting in her eyes. I watch the Doctor watch her, something complicated flickering across his face.
I feel the TARDIS at my back, far behind us, anchored and listening.
I came here to be a mechanic, not a protagonist. To fix the ship, not hijack the story.
But I'm here now.
"Okay," I think, mostly to myself. "End of the world. Let's see how much I can save without breaking anything that's meant to happen."
Assimilate purrs, picking up new details—alien technology, heat patterns, security systems, familiar faces from a TV episode turned real.
The Engineer gets to work.