#gitf fix it

Why the events GitF did not happen within canon (but could’ve happened as a nightmare)

1. Doctor Who canon is very loose as it is. With multiple writers across multiple mediums, things do contradict each other and us as fans get to decide for ourselves what fits with canon and what does not.

2. The Doctor has been clearly shown to be in love with Rose. He is protective of her to the point that if a decision will kill everyone else but give her even a slight chance of survival, he can’t actually make that decision. He almost did in Dalek, but after she didn’t get through the barricade the first time he was incapable of significantly reducing her safety for the good of everyone else. He snapped awake from a regeneration coma just because Rose said “help me”. He freaked out when Cassandra had her body and again in Tooth and Claw when she was in trouble. If you count Stone Rose that almost certainly took place before GitF and he once again, lost his mind over Rose being a statue.

I do understand seeing Sarah Jane age freaked him out. And I could’ve understood him distancing himself from Rose a bit in some way. But his instinct to protect her is so strong he’d never sacrifice her safety to push her away. Leaving her alone with clockwork for an extended period of time while he partied and invented drinks is impossible enough. Let alone the way he believed he’d have no way back to the ship when he went through the time window for the last time. Not only had he just promised she could spend the rest of her life with him, but her and Mickey would’ve likely died alone on that abandoned spaceship.

Simply, it’s just too out of character to happen within the rest of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors’ canon.

3. The horse. I have been a big horse person my entire life. Horses have extremely strong flight instincts. Even the most trusting and well trained horse in the world is never going to jump through reinforced glass. I do realize as Sci Fi fans we have to suspend disbelief for a lot of things. But we are never given an explanation as to why this horse would behave so dramatically differently from another horse. Every bizarre thing we accept in the DW universe is explained to some extent. There is a book where the Doctor tames a horse with psychic paper. But that horse is never asked to violate its instincts. That horse behaves as any other tame horse behaves. That is an example of acceptable DW suspension of belief. There is still a sci fi/alien technical explanation and I can absorb it. I cannot absorb a horse jumping through a firm glass window unless they were running from something even scarier. No matter how well trained a horse is, it’s not jumping through glass just because a humanoid asked them to. Nothing was chasing Arthur and his body language did not suggest any kind of fear to indicate he was running from something even scarier. All the droids were already in the other side of the window as well. It’s simply bizarre and impossible, even in a sci fi snow. Within this very show the Doctor states you can’t hypnotize someone beyond their survival instincts. I believe this applies to horses and a horse’s instincts is to avoid jumping through or into a reinforced barrier.

Next, we are given no explanation as to how this horse jumped through glass unscathed. Glass that was said to be so strong only a truck could break through. Horses are also extremely delicate and many have fatally injured themselves just playing in the paddock. Even for injuries not that extreme, every horse person knows that even small things result in giant vet bills.

Finally, it is once again grossly out of character for the Doctor to take a living animal and make them do something he previously calculated would required a truck.

4. Things are back to normal as if the episode never happened by the Rise of the Cybermen. If the Doctor had really developed feelings for another woman so strong that he would leave Rose for dead, then lost her, would he just be back to being the same old Doctor the very next episode? I doubt it. The Doctor is also a character known for holding on to guilt. Even if Reinette was mechanism to push Rose away, the way he abandoned her would’ve caused enough guilt he wouldn’t just be normal the very next episode. The show carries on as if Reinette never happened because Reinette never happened.

The only reference to that GitF is some clockwork droids in John Smith’s journal. Which could be explained by another encounter with the droids or by the Doctor looking at Rose’s mind to see the nightmare. Which would be an intimate enough moment to imprint on John Smith’s subconscious. The words “a girl in every fireplace” can once again refer to the Doctor seeing Rose’s nightmare or another off screen adventure entirely. There is no reference strong enough to confirm the actual events of GitF ever happened. The show functions exactly the same way without it. Because, it never happened.

5. The events of the show make perfect sense as a nightmare in Rose’s head. Take it from someone with a degree in psychology. Rose has abandonment wounds from Jimmy Stone. She also has abandonment wounds from her father dying when she was too young to understand it. School Reunion, the episode right before GitF triggers her abandonment wounds by making her see the Doctor has previously left companions and did not come back for them. It also makes her wonder if she is special to the Doctor. These doubts combined with her past trauma are a perfect recipe for her to have a bizarre nightmare where she gets abandoned in the most horrific way after the events of School Reunion.

I will leave you all with my fic where this was all a nightmare. Or you can write your own if you prefer. My point is that for those who feel the way I do about this episode, we do not have to accept the events as canon. We do not have to believe the Doctor has ever treated Rose this way except in her worst nightmares.

Update to address Deep Breath:

1. Doctor mentioned seeing clockwork droids before, but we know that the Doctor has many off screen adventures. He could’ve encountered the droids at any other point in his entire life besides GitF.

2. As for that episode stating the SS Madame De Pompadour existed, that still doesn’t confirm anything. There was a real life ship called the USS Queen of France. This was named for Marie Antoinette. Jackie dated a sailor once and Rose had a friend named Keisha whose brother was a sailor. This means Rose could’ve heard one of them discussing historical naval ships. This how she would imagine a ship named after Madame de Pompadour in the first place. She and the people who built the SS Madame de Pompadour and SS Marie Antoinette would’ve simply drawn inspiration from the same place. Also, there’s the fact that someone named a fictional ship Titan many years before Titanic ever existed.

Update 2: Rose was going to get an A level in French if she hadn’t run off with Jimmy. So she could’ve reasonably been familiar with some aspects of French history and able to imagine all of these things in a dream, even if it wasn’t a historically accurate dream, everyone knows weird things happen in dreams.

The Doctor had been the gentlemanly date, making Rose dinner (serving her wine was a mistake, he’d forgotten how flirty she could get), putting on a film she loved, and sitting obediently through it even though she fell asleep halfway through. Two hours he’d been suffering. Two. Hours. He was about to go mad. He would’ve managed just fine were it not for her intermittent little kisses simmering on his neck, breasts pressed up against his ribs, with her hand rubbing his leg. In the past week their trip to Rome had erased a little line in the sand between them. But there was a huge difference between lucky pants, and well, tenting pants. They hadn’t worked out if they were even going down that road yet, so the Doctor played it as cool as he could, putting on the mask of tranquility while feeling like a lit firework with a short fuse on the inside.

He wasted no time letting his fingers fly to the zip of his trousers to free his throbbing cock. He hissed a swear in his own tongue and coiled his fingers tight around it. In other times blanketed in guilt and the darkness of his secluded bedroom the Doctor had taken his sweet time, slowly climbing up to a peak while imagining his feather-light touches were hers. No time for rebuking his lack of self control and giving in to his baser instincts, the Doctor needed relief right then. Tension had coiled up tightly in his belly and could snap at any moment. Still, with Rose’s scent hanging in the air - no hang on, it’d grown stronger all of a sudden.

“I just -”

The Doctor froze only for a instant, and Rose did too. If he really focused he could just sense her heart racing like a bird’s about to take flight. But she didn’t move. He gave himself a few tentative strokes, pulling in a shaky breath through his nose. Rose was frozen in the doorway, single heart pumping quicker and quicker with each second. She didn’t know he was very aware of her presence behind him. Her jacket was draped over the arm of the couch beneath his head. She must’ve come back to fetch it.

Instead, he brought it to his face to drink in essence of Rose left on it before setting it on the table beside the couch. Did she blush, bring her hand to her face, curl her hair behind her ears? Did she know he wasn’t unlike a human bloke under his trousers? She certainly would now. His pumping hand and the erection it was wrapped around were well within sight of the doorway just as her trembling hot breaths on the coral door pane were within his earshot. Imagining it on his skin did little to calm his pace. Worse - or better, definitely better for this - his epidermal memory was scintillatingly perfect. He remembered how she thawed his slightly prickly neck with little pecks of her soft wine-stained lips. He could think of just where he’d want them if she was willing. That thought alone got his blood flowing faster. Rose’s lips wrapped around his cock, warm tongue gliding along the throbbing length… It was almost too much. 

Rose’s pulse leaped like a rabbit escaping a fox when her name escaped his lips. He thought escaped, when really it was very intentional, aside from the husky gurgle from his throat. The Doctor would’ve loved a taste of the tantalizing cocktail of adrenaline, endorphins, and hormones coursing through her veins. One flick of his tongue on her wrist. Her eyes would flutter shut and her face would flush (if it wasn’t already). Her honeyed moan in his ear was almost real. She was excited, and releasing the most tortuously delicious pheromones into the cool, dusty air. That much was real. It all melted away niggling insecurities and lit a fire in his wrist.

With his free hand the Doctor popped the lower buttons on his shirt to tug out of the way and pushed his trousers down his thighs. He cupped his balls and bucked his hips off the couch, groaning when his bum stuck to the leather. No wonder humans loved sex so much. When the Doctor suspended his respiratory bypass and control of his pulse it sent a rush of blood to his head and his groin. It could only be made better by losing himself with someone, and if he wasn’t such a bloody coward he’d call Rose over. She’d look gorgeous with lust-darkened whiskey eyes, sweat glistening between her pert breasts in the dim lights of his bedroom, lusty sighs of his name into his neck, heels dug into his arse, her soft frame stiffening as she came undone with him.

The Doctor swore in Gallifreyan when the tension finally snapped and he erupted with a high-pitched moan, arching his hips off the couch. His eyes were slammed shut but the way his head rotated off the arm of the couch he would’ve been looking Rose square in the eyes as the knot of tension in his abdomen unraveled. He hissed her name as he emptied himself on his stomach. He released a hot sigh after crashing back down to the cushions and relished in his ears ringing. Going those two hours without relief was damn near painful but made so much more worth it for his audience swallowing hard and practically panting behind him. He was beginning to collect himself and gathering even breaths when she quickly darted out of the room.

He caught her in the galley making breakfast several hours later. She jumped and squeaked when he hummed good morning into her shoulder and snaked his arms around her waist.

“Did you sleep last night Doctor?” Rose prompted without turning around to face him.