The Metacrisis Doctor knew that Rose was right - he really shouldn’t have been hiding the way he had been. Had he been himself, he would have been out the day he had arrived in Lawrence, talking to people and poking at things he shouldn’t and getting involved in everything. But he wasn’t himself anymore; there was too much human in him. Too much of Donna, though he refused to acknowledge it. He had hoped that it would be like regenerating, that he just needed a day or so to get his bearings and figure out where he stood. But that day stretched into a week stretched into a month and then some, and he could not seem to focus.
Being outside the TARDIS just seemed to exacerbate the problem. It was uncomfortable at best, dizzying to the point where he felt nearly ill at worst. It was difficult, trying to try and acclimate himself to not feeling the earth turning under his feet, to feeling time creep by in seconds all around him. He wasn’t sure if it was more the dampened Time Lord senses or the upgraded human senses that were getting confused, but the blend was not settling easily at all.
The TARDIS shielded him from all that, and for a while, he had been content to shut himself away. But the hiding was getting old fast. Time Lord or human, he was used to being on the move - new places, new problems, and new people, all the time. So after Rose called him out on it, he started to really try pushing back the discomfort and get himself involved with the other displaced in Lawrence.
He had taken some shifts at the medbay, and was rather pleased when he was able to cover it without too much difficulty. It felt good to be doing something again, to be helping and being social. He hadn‘t quite realized just how bad he had been until then. It was getting a bit easier now, and he had even started to explore the town a bit, wandering around until his head started to pound and then retreating to the shelter of the TARDIS again.
He was out on one of these jaunts again, wandering around some of the less crowded streets in Lawrence, when he heard someone yelling. The Doctor stopped and backpedaled, peeking back around the corner he’d just turned. A man in leather with bleached blond hair was standing there, shouting up into the air. The Doctor stepped a bit closer. “Hello there! Having some sort of trouble?”