Episode Three
Same As It Ever Was
Written by: onlylyin
The TARDIS was becoming less crowded as Companions left one by one. The Doctor was out saying his goodbyes to Jack and Martha, Donna was chatting on the phone, and Mickey and her mother had their heads together, leaning against one of the coral struts.
The blue-suited Doctor smiled down at her, his eyes all afire. He took half a step towards her and she thought that he might gather her up into a hug.
She stepped back without even thinking. He paused, unsure and Rose smiled up at him. "You're still you," she said, both marveling and questioning.
"Still me."
She gestured behind her with her thumb. "But he's you."
"That he is," said this Doctor, his smile drying up.
"So- I mean, really," said Rose, slightly anxiously. "I'm talking to a hand."
He slid both hands out of his pockets and turned them palm up and down, looking down at them with a frown. "Well," he said, clearing his throat. "I have two now, so there's a bit more to me than one hand. And I suppose you can talk to hands, but unless you're on the planet Fragelein, the conversation's pretty one-sided." He tipped his face and squinted up at her, his brow still creased. "There's more to a man than where he comes from, but you have to agree it's an awfully nice hand. A good hand, at least on its best behavior. You held this hand first- well, second, but that's nitpicking- not that you nitpick, Rose- but one reliable right hand, that's not a bad start for a man," he said, and that peculiar look flickered across his face again, as if he'd tasted something disgusting. "Or Time Lord. What-have-you."
"Not so sure about reliable," said Rose, face straight. "It did get chopped off rather quick."
"Oi, that wasn't the hand's fault," he said. "Could've been a worse start- could've been a left." His eyebrows quirked.
"Yeah, that might've been sinister," said Rose, and when he crinkled his nose at her she crinkled hers back. "And Donna," Rose continued, inclining her head towards the far side of the control room, where Donna seemed to be trying to end her conversation with her mother on the mobile, "she- started you too?"
"'Fraid so," he said, pulling a face across the TARDIS at Donna Noble. Donna, with 904 years of accumulated Time Lord knowledge bubbling in her brain and representing all the intuitive brilliance of human women, stuck her tongue out at him. The Doctor eyed her appraisingly. "Be sure to slap me, if I'm any ruder. It's her fault."
"Ruder and not ginger," said Rose, the words waltzing off her tongue to a pleasantly familiar tune.
He looked at her sidelong, with a closed-mouth smile this time. "You'd think, of all the qualities I could have acquired from Donna Noble, I'd have at least picked up a hint of ginger," he said, sounding discouraged enough that Rose found herself taking a step closer to peer almost playfully at the side of his face. She pointed.
"You've sort of a dash of ginger there, in the left sideburn."
"Really?" he said, tickled, running a hand up from his chin as if he could feel the color. "I could grow a beard, see how it turns out-"
Rose didn't know Time Lords could grow beards, much less would want to, but the picture popping up in her mind of the Doctor was, for once, less than pretty. "No," she said, quickly. "Don't do that." She realized, suddenly, that this Doctor would be around for her to see try to grow a beard or find out if he was ruder.
Her expression must have changed, because his smile waned as he looked down at her. "What?" he asked.
"You're not going to- collapse back into a hand, are you?" she asked tentatively.
"No," he said immediately, adjusting his suit jacket and opening his mouth again.
"It's not that I want you to," Rose said, before he could ask. She only had to be sure. "Just checking."
"No- well- I can see how that might make- matters, well, simpler. Two- let alone sort of three- of me, there's bound to be complications-"
"Speak for yourself, spaceman," said Donna from over Rose's shoulder, shutting her phone with a firm click. She was still beaming, it was even in her voice. "For once everything's looking decidedly uncomplicated from my end."
Rose noticed that even as he grinned, there was something somber rising in his eyes. She wondered if Donna could recognize that, yet.
"Rose," called Mickey, and she looked over to see him with a hand on the door, giving her a nod. He'd really meant it about leaving, then. She glanced once at the blue-suit Doctor, but he seemed embroiled in chatting with Donna now - thick as thieves came to mind with a pang, like he and she used to be (and would be again, she insisted to herself). She strode towards Mickey and threw her arms around him.
Rose was so sick of good-byes.
"The Doctor'll see you right," said Mickey. For a moment, Rose wondered which one he was thinking of. She thought he knew, too. He noticed things, her Mickey. "You know him. And you know where to find me, if he doesn't. Don't forget me, yeah?"
"Never," said Rose. "And Mickey, please. Take care." She pecked his lips softly, like she had for their very first kiss when she was fourteen.
He winked at her, too, and it didn't thrill her the way the Doctor's did but it made her smile, really smile. That was the last look Mickey Smith had of her because he slipped out the doors without looking back once.
Rose didn't tear up, but she turned to her mother, noticing the Doctor in his blue suit watching her as she did though he was still talking with Donna.
"The Doctor'll take us home next, I suppose, sweetheart?" said her mother, adding rather forlornly, "Minus Mickey."
Home made her think of the Doctor, and the TARDIS too. "Dunno," she said, lying, waiting for the TARDIS doors to swing open and her Doctor, in the brown suit she remembered, to bound back inside. Whichever version of him or however many there were, Mickey was right, she knew the Doctor.
She knew what she had to do to keep him from falling.
Quietly, she finished his sentence for him when he told them their next destination. “Bad Wolf Bay,” Rose said, the words a sigh. The blue-suit Doctor turned towards her. Her brown pinstripes Doctor kept his eyes on the TARDIS console and she looked in vain for a blade of grass in his hair from their tea, any last chance to touch him.
She couldn’t find one. Perhaps it was better that way.
Her mother went out first, eager, and then her blue-suit Doctor. She stepped onto the beach, hand still on the wood TARDIS door until it shut behind her. Her blue-suited Doctor turned at the sound, and his eyes brushed over her with something like relief. With a start she realized even this Doctor wasn’t sure, that he thought for a moment he might have been left without her- with her mother, none of them were that cruel- and it was the first moment she knew he was hers.
They came after her, the Doctor and Donna, the perfect duet right now. Rose already felt left behind.
She thought of the other Rose who stood just over there, watching her cry. She wished she could tell that other self that the tears were genuine. It almost surprised her, how easily they came. But she cried in the same way that she did during sad old movies, in anticipation of the pain ahead and resignation towards the ending to come. She went through the movements and she knew she was doing the right thing by letting him let her go. She was letting them both choose, in a way.
Donna spoke, and Rose remembered the trick about spoilers - they never revealed all the details of the story. She should have guessed he was human, could have known, but she hadn’t. Not quite. Her fingers slid inside his coat and her eyes met his as she felt his one heart beat under her palm. She not only knew this was right, she began to believe it. This was a man who wouldn't be broken by loving her. This was a man who knew how to swim.
He told her “I love you. Always have, always will.” His lapels were in her hands and she kissed him; she kissed them both. It is her ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and ‘I love you’ and ‘I know’.
She tasted his ‘Forgive me’ on the tip of his ‘Forever’.
As the TARDIS shimmered out of sight and he wrapped his hand in hers, she felt the ground firmly beneath her feet for the first time since she was nineteen. She squeezed his hand lightly so that he knew she was here, and he squeezed back twice as hard, to keep her steady. She had no tears left, only images of all she had seen fading into washes of colors.
The air felt empty the moment the last humming echo was gone, and the repetitive rush of the waves stretched the silence like a ticking clock.
His lips parted first. Rose knew from the way his eyebrows folded in towards his nose exactly what he was going to say.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pale and squinting in the Norway sun.
In so many ways she was sorry too, to see that wonderful blue box and its Doctor fade away, leaving her stranded again and this new man without all the things she thought of as part of the Doctor.
“Don’t be,” Rose said thickly, instead. Strands of her hair slapped against her eyes, stinging them, and she could have cursed the wind, since she was done with tears and good-byes. “Please. Don’t do that.” She hesitated, worrying her lower lip and glancing down at their joined hands. She mustered her reserves of strength. “My Doctor,” she said, as if that was always meant to be the last note of her request.
He smiled with his eyes, still a brown so deep Rose was sure she could swim in it. “Alright,” he said, taking a deep breath of the salty ocean air. “No apologies. Am I that sort of a man?” he mused, apparently to the sky, before fixing his gaze intently on her. “Do you want me to be that sort of man?” said the Doctor, very quietly.
“I’m not asking you to be anything else,” she said, loosening her fingers from his grip. “Only- you’ve never needed to apologize to me. Never have done… really.” Rose swallowed and found herself gulping air. So many times he could have apologized to her. Any of the times she’d been stranded. Any of the times he’d gotten them in trouble. But sorry spoke of regret and she’d never regretted a single second with the Doctor. She’d rather thought it meant something he didn’t apologize to her. Like he knew he didn’t need to.
Except right before this second regeneration, this delayed one. He said I’m sorry more to her than Donna and Jack but then he didn't change and she was too relieved to remember what for. Rose wondered if he’d known, then, if he’d already been planning to leave her with this second self. She didn’t want to ask.
He reached out with his free hand. She balked, and his left hand only brushed by her face, gently tucking her hair behind her ear and out of her eyes. “Lot of things I never said to you,” he said lowly. “Things I should’ve- ” He looked away, but the movement of his throat gave his feelings away. “Barcelona,” he said with his put-on cheer, looking back to her. “We never did get there, Rose- there was so much to see and I never showed you Barcelona. Oh, I thought about that. I was gonna take you-”
“Barcelona?” said Jackie Tyler, sand crunching under her boots. They turned as one to face her, waiting behind them with her arms folded and her mobile in her hand. “What’re you fussing about Spain for? It’s only Spain, we do still have that here, Doctor. What? ’Scuse me for being worried with the two of you just standing there whispering at each other, but can’t you fret about Spain once we’re out of bloody Norway? Rose, I- What?”
They might have been slightly hysterical, but they were laughing. Rose finally let go of the Doctor’s hand to bring her hands towards her stomach as she half-doubled over, tears finally falling down her cheeks as he laughed. His shoulder bumped hers and out of the corner of her eye she could see a real grin on his face again. His grin didn’t do anything to stop the wild fluttering in her stomach. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Good to know there’s still Spain,” said the Doctor, half-gasping. “I’d miss the rain and its plain and all- I can’t see why there wouldn’t have been a Spain-”
“There isn’t a Portugal,” said Rose, rubbing at the water in her eyes and catching her breath. “Spain’s a bit bigger, here.”
“Oh, but I like Portugal,” said the Doctor, frowning. “They do the best fandango in Portugal- no Portugal, that’s weird.”
“It’s a parallel universe,” said Rose. “It’s all a bit weird- not for Dad, of course, but it’s still new for us. New’s always a little weird.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Good weird or bad weird?”
“Different-weird,” said Rose, lifting her chin. “I can get used to different, you know. Got some practice.”
“Yeah,” said the Doctor, grinning. “Me too.” He stepped a little closer.
Jackie cleared her throat. “Practice whatever you like-”
“Mum!” said Rose, glancing over her shoulder. Getting that from her Mum was much worse than from Jack.
“- can we see about getting ourselves home first? My mobile’s shorted out, sweetheart- give me yours a minute, will you?” Jackie, not-so-subtly, was scanning her daughter’s face with concern, making sure she was alright even as she held out her hand.
Rose reached into her jacket pocket easily. Her hand brushed her dimension hopper, paused there upon finding it still instead of vibrating almost imperceptibly. She felt that the walls had shut as surely as she had with her cheek pressed up against a white wall, so long ago.
She steadied herself, grabbing the cell phone and flicking it open, the iridescent blue glow reflecting on her thumbnail. “No worries, Mum,” she said, with a steady look that told her I’m fine, we’re fine. “You’ll be able to get through Dad fine on this. Still hasn’t ever lost its charge,” she said to the Doctor.
“Superphone,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.
“Exactly,” said Rose.
“Pete?” said Jackie, walking away with the phone to her ear and talking over the waves. “We’re home! … No, in Norway … yes, Rose too, she’s fine- what’re you doing at Control, you’re supposed to be with Tony- Peter Alan Tyler, my baby had better not be at that Hub… I don’t care if-”
Rose looked at the Doctor, who was looking over at Jackie as well. “They’re really happy,” she said, and even trying to be funny she couldn’t make it sound ironic.
“I believe that,” he said, nodding, and looked off to the horizon line where the water and sky bled into each other in an indistinguishable foggy blue.
“She’ll probably be on the phone awhile,” said Rose, tracing her foot through the sand and thinking of tracing the happenings of so many universes. She felt his eyes on her and looked up. “Knowing my mum,” she said, managing a slight smile.
“This is all rather embarrassing,” he muttered.
“What?” she said, too sharply, and followed immediately with a gentler, “What do you mean?”
“Calling for your dad to come pick us up- like some schoolboy without a license. I’ll have to get a car,” he said suddenly. “Had cars, once. Even built one. Not exactly my preferred mode of travel, obviously, slow-going, only two directions unless something’s gone interestingly, but they’re not bad, for human travel,” said the Doctor.
“Travel,” Rose repeated, watching him carefully.
“Weellll,” he said, pulling his hands out of his pockets and jamming them back in, leaving his thumbs twiddling against the blue suit. “I suppose you wouldn’t- we probably should-”
“What?” said Rose, stepping to his side and looking up at him.
“Go places,” he blurted out. “If you want,” he added. “Barcelona, for one. I wonder if the planet’s still out there here- if we suppose they’re different too, depending on what changed, where this universe splintered off from our own- but even so, the city’s nice. Spain-and-Portugal, that could be- nice,” said the Doctor, looking at her sidelong.
“Could be,” said Rose noncommittally. “And you know, there’s Pompeii.”
He looked at her. “You mean the ashes?” he said, brow furrowed. “I know it gets a lot of tourists, Rose, but I’d really rather-”
“It’s not in ashes,” said Rose, drawing out the words and watching for his reaction. “When I left, the Arsenal were playing Pompeii. They’ve got quite the football team. Took the European Cup last year. Supposed to be beautiful there.
“No,” he said, eyes wide.
“Yes,” she countered. “I was going to ask you about that- I’d sort of think a volcano meant to erupt would erupt, even if different decisions led to different things or whatever makes a parallel universe- parallel.”
The Doctor rubbed at his left ear. “Ahh, well, it’s hard to say with parallel universe- which is sort of a misnomer really,” he said, “since they’re not so much running alongside as breaking off the fluxing but primarily linear progression of time, I suppose more properly they’re tangent universes- and you never know what can end up changing, since all those little wavy strands leftover from big, matter-ish… stuff, they reach farther than you’d - What?”
She bumped her shoulder against his. “Something I should know?”
He stared at her for a moment. “I might have had something to do with Vesuvius erupting.” His throat bobbed. “Had to- it was Pompeii or the world.”
Rose let her hand drift back down to hang alongside the Doctor’s. “Anything to worry about here?” she asked softly.
“Suppose not,” he said. The backs of their hands touched and they both kept them there. “Pyrovillia was one of the twenty-seven planets, the Pyroviles- humanoids, but not the cuddly kind- fell to Earth when it was taken. It must have never been taken from this universe- only the one we’ve just left… so I suppose no Pyroviles ever troubled Pompeii.”
“And no Doctor would’ve been there to stop them,” said Rose.
“Now there’s a thought,” he said, his expression absent and his eyes suddenly distant. “No me. I’ve run all around this planet- well, not this planet exactly, that’s the point- but I have gotten slightly involved in your history. As you know.”
“Oh I gathered,” said Rose. “Queen Victoria got possessed by the wolf here, by the way, without you and me. They had to have a coup. No Empire of the Wolf- no more Empire. The British Republic. I’ve missed the queen and country bit. No royal family at all. But we’ve still got Harriet Jones.”
“Good egg, that Harriet Jones,” said the Doctor warmly. “Considering her successor… well, if there’s anyone I owe an apology to, it’s the other Harriet- our Harriet Jones.”
“She died,” said Rose, and he looked at her sharply. “Opening the subwave network. I told him, the other Doctor… I forgot for a moment-”
“That you didn’t tell me too,” he finished quietly, moving his shoulder closer to hers. The Doctor exhaled through his teeth, working his jaw.
“I could- catch you up on those hours,” said Rose, watching a flat hard look slide into his eyes. It softened as he turned them back to her. She brushed her fingers against his. “Got time for catching up, you and me."
“I’m glad,” he said, and the way he looked at her she wanted to kiss him again. From the look in his eye she thought he might kiss her.
“Alright,” called Jackie, walking back towards them, phone still tucked between her ear and shoulder. The Doctor moved a few inches out of Rose’s personal space, but kept his eyes on hers.
“Are we?” the Doctor asked Rose, quietly.
She smiled, close-lipped. “Don’t think that was a question,” she whispered back.
“Your father’s sent a car for us from Bergen, he says it’s a fast car but it’s still another hour and a half ’fore it even gets here,” Jackie shouted as she trudged back towards them. She didn’t really need to shout across the short distance and closing.
“I’m asking you, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said into her hair, his lips brushing her ear. Rose shivered. “Besides that we’re facing several hours unable to escape your mother. We alright?”
“I think we’re best off finding a nice log or flat rock and having a sit, what do you think, Rose? Doctor?” said Jackie, and then into the phone, “Yes, I told you, Pete, it’s him, or she wouldn’t still be here, now would she?”
“We’ll be better than alright,” said Rose, and turned her head to press her lips against his cheek. She left her lips pushed into his skin for a moment because he smelled the same, as fresh and steadying as crisp air in the middle of night. Only the Doctor could leave her and stay with her forever in the same second.
“Brilliant,” said the Doctor, louder and brightly, and it might have been to Rose or to Jackie. Rose silently agreed.
Jackie finished making a kissing noise into the phone and clicked it off. “It really is good to have you here, Doctor,” she said, with a pleased sigh.
The Doctor looked at Rose, and she at him. “Isn’t it just,” he said, smiling, and then he nodded at something over Rose’s shoulder. “I see logs,” he told Jackie, pointing. “Bit down the beach. Something lump-shaped, anyways. Let’s take a look, Rose,” he said, and his face came alive. “We can share one, if you like.”
Stuck with you, that’s not so bad.
Yeah?
“Not you, though, Jackie,” the Doctor added quickly. “You’ll have to get your own log.”
“Rude,” warned Rose, ducking her chin to hide her half-smile in her hair.
“I think I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t,” said Jackie, shaking her head and not quite smiling. Her eyes, though, were all relief. “Go on, then,” she said. “I’ll try and keep up.”
The Doctor took a step, and she stepped with him, expectantly, but he didn’t step again. He seemed to be waiting.
For a moment, Rose thought she could almost feel the timelines they way he could, all at her fingertips again as if she could pluck them like harp strings. It was all arching before her, a life here with this man, this Doctor, with a world to champion and a brother she should really be getting around to reading a bedtime story, and so many places to see, together. He’d given her the stars and she always had, always would, follow him wherever or whenever he lead.
But for the first time, Rose Tyler knew this Doctor would follow her anywhere.
Somewhere, a lonely god was sighing.
But not here. Save for the memories, she let him go, stowed the full Time Lord and his magical box to one last corner of her heart, and reached out an arms-length to hold out her hand to him.
He eyed it for a moment in surprise and it was enough time for her to wriggle her fingers at him, her tongue poking out through her teeth as she smiled.
He took her hand and she met his eyes, all again.
“Run!” said Rose, as if it was obvious, and he grinned wolfishly and took to his heels, yanking her after.
Together, they ran.
Jump to Episode Four
Written by: onlylyin
The TARDIS was becoming less crowded as Companions left one by one. The Doctor was out saying his goodbyes to Jack and Martha, Donna was chatting on the phone, and Mickey and her mother had their heads together, leaning against one of the coral struts.
The blue-suited Doctor smiled down at her, his eyes all afire. He took half a step towards her and she thought that he might gather her up into a hug.
She stepped back without even thinking. He paused, unsure and Rose smiled up at him. "You're still you," she said, both marveling and questioning.
"Still me."
She gestured behind her with her thumb. "But he's you."
"That he is," said this Doctor, his smile drying up.
"So- I mean, really," said Rose, slightly anxiously. "I'm talking to a hand."
He slid both hands out of his pockets and turned them palm up and down, looking down at them with a frown. "Well," he said, clearing his throat. "I have two now, so there's a bit more to me than one hand. And I suppose you can talk to hands, but unless you're on the planet Fragelein, the conversation's pretty one-sided." He tipped his face and squinted up at her, his brow still creased. "There's more to a man than where he comes from, but you have to agree it's an awfully nice hand. A good hand, at least on its best behavior. You held this hand first- well, second, but that's nitpicking- not that you nitpick, Rose- but one reliable right hand, that's not a bad start for a man," he said, and that peculiar look flickered across his face again, as if he'd tasted something disgusting. "Or Time Lord. What-have-you."
"Not so sure about reliable," said Rose, face straight. "It did get chopped off rather quick."
"Oi, that wasn't the hand's fault," he said. "Could've been a worse start- could've been a left." His eyebrows quirked.
"Yeah, that might've been sinister," said Rose, and when he crinkled his nose at her she crinkled hers back. "And Donna," Rose continued, inclining her head towards the far side of the control room, where Donna seemed to be trying to end her conversation with her mother on the mobile, "she- started you too?"
"'Fraid so," he said, pulling a face across the TARDIS at Donna Noble. Donna, with 904 years of accumulated Time Lord knowledge bubbling in her brain and representing all the intuitive brilliance of human women, stuck her tongue out at him. The Doctor eyed her appraisingly. "Be sure to slap me, if I'm any ruder. It's her fault."
"Ruder and not ginger," said Rose, the words waltzing off her tongue to a pleasantly familiar tune.
He looked at her sidelong, with a closed-mouth smile this time. "You'd think, of all the qualities I could have acquired from Donna Noble, I'd have at least picked up a hint of ginger," he said, sounding discouraged enough that Rose found herself taking a step closer to peer almost playfully at the side of his face. She pointed.
"You've sort of a dash of ginger there, in the left sideburn."
"Really?" he said, tickled, running a hand up from his chin as if he could feel the color. "I could grow a beard, see how it turns out-"
Rose didn't know Time Lords could grow beards, much less would want to, but the picture popping up in her mind of the Doctor was, for once, less than pretty. "No," she said, quickly. "Don't do that." She realized, suddenly, that this Doctor would be around for her to see try to grow a beard or find out if he was ruder.
Her expression must have changed, because his smile waned as he looked down at her. "What?" he asked.
"You're not going to- collapse back into a hand, are you?" she asked tentatively.
"No," he said immediately, adjusting his suit jacket and opening his mouth again.
"It's not that I want you to," Rose said, before he could ask. She only had to be sure. "Just checking."
"No- well- I can see how that might make- matters, well, simpler. Two- let alone sort of three- of me, there's bound to be complications-"
"Speak for yourself, spaceman," said Donna from over Rose's shoulder, shutting her phone with a firm click. She was still beaming, it was even in her voice. "For once everything's looking decidedly uncomplicated from my end."
Rose noticed that even as he grinned, there was something somber rising in his eyes. She wondered if Donna could recognize that, yet.
"Rose," called Mickey, and she looked over to see him with a hand on the door, giving her a nod. He'd really meant it about leaving, then. She glanced once at the blue-suit Doctor, but he seemed embroiled in chatting with Donna now - thick as thieves came to mind with a pang, like he and she used to be (and would be again, she insisted to herself). She strode towards Mickey and threw her arms around him.
Rose was so sick of good-byes.
"The Doctor'll see you right," said Mickey. For a moment, Rose wondered which one he was thinking of. She thought he knew, too. He noticed things, her Mickey. "You know him. And you know where to find me, if he doesn't. Don't forget me, yeah?"
"Never," said Rose. "And Mickey, please. Take care." She pecked his lips softly, like she had for their very first kiss when she was fourteen.
He winked at her, too, and it didn't thrill her the way the Doctor's did but it made her smile, really smile. That was the last look Mickey Smith had of her because he slipped out the doors without looking back once.
Rose didn't tear up, but she turned to her mother, noticing the Doctor in his blue suit watching her as she did though he was still talking with Donna.
"The Doctor'll take us home next, I suppose, sweetheart?" said her mother, adding rather forlornly, "Minus Mickey."
Home made her think of the Doctor, and the TARDIS too. "Dunno," she said, lying, waiting for the TARDIS doors to swing open and her Doctor, in the brown suit she remembered, to bound back inside. Whichever version of him or however many there were, Mickey was right, she knew the Doctor.
She knew what she had to do to keep him from falling.
Quietly, she finished his sentence for him when he told them their next destination. “Bad Wolf Bay,” Rose said, the words a sigh. The blue-suit Doctor turned towards her. Her brown pinstripes Doctor kept his eyes on the TARDIS console and she looked in vain for a blade of grass in his hair from their tea, any last chance to touch him.
She couldn’t find one. Perhaps it was better that way.
Her mother went out first, eager, and then her blue-suit Doctor. She stepped onto the beach, hand still on the wood TARDIS door until it shut behind her. Her blue-suited Doctor turned at the sound, and his eyes brushed over her with something like relief. With a start she realized even this Doctor wasn’t sure, that he thought for a moment he might have been left without her- with her mother, none of them were that cruel- and it was the first moment she knew he was hers.
They came after her, the Doctor and Donna, the perfect duet right now. Rose already felt left behind.
She thought of the other Rose who stood just over there, watching her cry. She wished she could tell that other self that the tears were genuine. It almost surprised her, how easily they came. But she cried in the same way that she did during sad old movies, in anticipation of the pain ahead and resignation towards the ending to come. She went through the movements and she knew she was doing the right thing by letting him let her go. She was letting them both choose, in a way.
Donna spoke, and Rose remembered the trick about spoilers - they never revealed all the details of the story. She should have guessed he was human, could have known, but she hadn’t. Not quite. Her fingers slid inside his coat and her eyes met his as she felt his one heart beat under her palm. She not only knew this was right, she began to believe it. This was a man who wouldn't be broken by loving her. This was a man who knew how to swim.
He told her “I love you. Always have, always will.” His lapels were in her hands and she kissed him; she kissed them both. It is her ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and ‘I love you’ and ‘I know’.
She tasted his ‘Forgive me’ on the tip of his ‘Forever’.
As the TARDIS shimmered out of sight and he wrapped his hand in hers, she felt the ground firmly beneath her feet for the first time since she was nineteen. She squeezed his hand lightly so that he knew she was here, and he squeezed back twice as hard, to keep her steady. She had no tears left, only images of all she had seen fading into washes of colors.
The air felt empty the moment the last humming echo was gone, and the repetitive rush of the waves stretched the silence like a ticking clock.
His lips parted first. Rose knew from the way his eyebrows folded in towards his nose exactly what he was going to say.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pale and squinting in the Norway sun.
In so many ways she was sorry too, to see that wonderful blue box and its Doctor fade away, leaving her stranded again and this new man without all the things she thought of as part of the Doctor.
“Don’t be,” Rose said thickly, instead. Strands of her hair slapped against her eyes, stinging them, and she could have cursed the wind, since she was done with tears and good-byes. “Please. Don’t do that.” She hesitated, worrying her lower lip and glancing down at their joined hands. She mustered her reserves of strength. “My Doctor,” she said, as if that was always meant to be the last note of her request.
He smiled with his eyes, still a brown so deep Rose was sure she could swim in it. “Alright,” he said, taking a deep breath of the salty ocean air. “No apologies. Am I that sort of a man?” he mused, apparently to the sky, before fixing his gaze intently on her. “Do you want me to be that sort of man?” said the Doctor, very quietly.
“I’m not asking you to be anything else,” she said, loosening her fingers from his grip. “Only- you’ve never needed to apologize to me. Never have done… really.” Rose swallowed and found herself gulping air. So many times he could have apologized to her. Any of the times she’d been stranded. Any of the times he’d gotten them in trouble. But sorry spoke of regret and she’d never regretted a single second with the Doctor. She’d rather thought it meant something he didn’t apologize to her. Like he knew he didn’t need to.
Except right before this second regeneration, this delayed one. He said I’m sorry more to her than Donna and Jack but then he didn't change and she was too relieved to remember what for. Rose wondered if he’d known, then, if he’d already been planning to leave her with this second self. She didn’t want to ask.
He reached out with his free hand. She balked, and his left hand only brushed by her face, gently tucking her hair behind her ear and out of her eyes. “Lot of things I never said to you,” he said lowly. “Things I should’ve- ” He looked away, but the movement of his throat gave his feelings away. “Barcelona,” he said with his put-on cheer, looking back to her. “We never did get there, Rose- there was so much to see and I never showed you Barcelona. Oh, I thought about that. I was gonna take you-”
“Barcelona?” said Jackie Tyler, sand crunching under her boots. They turned as one to face her, waiting behind them with her arms folded and her mobile in her hand. “What’re you fussing about Spain for? It’s only Spain, we do still have that here, Doctor. What? ’Scuse me for being worried with the two of you just standing there whispering at each other, but can’t you fret about Spain once we’re out of bloody Norway? Rose, I- What?”
They might have been slightly hysterical, but they were laughing. Rose finally let go of the Doctor’s hand to bring her hands towards her stomach as she half-doubled over, tears finally falling down her cheeks as he laughed. His shoulder bumped hers and out of the corner of her eye she could see a real grin on his face again. His grin didn’t do anything to stop the wild fluttering in her stomach. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Good to know there’s still Spain,” said the Doctor, half-gasping. “I’d miss the rain and its plain and all- I can’t see why there wouldn’t have been a Spain-”
“There isn’t a Portugal,” said Rose, rubbing at the water in her eyes and catching her breath. “Spain’s a bit bigger, here.”
“Oh, but I like Portugal,” said the Doctor, frowning. “They do the best fandango in Portugal- no Portugal, that’s weird.”
“It’s a parallel universe,” said Rose. “It’s all a bit weird- not for Dad, of course, but it’s still new for us. New’s always a little weird.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Good weird or bad weird?”
“Different-weird,” said Rose, lifting her chin. “I can get used to different, you know. Got some practice.”
“Yeah,” said the Doctor, grinning. “Me too.” He stepped a little closer.
Jackie cleared her throat. “Practice whatever you like-”
“Mum!” said Rose, glancing over her shoulder. Getting that from her Mum was much worse than from Jack.
“- can we see about getting ourselves home first? My mobile’s shorted out, sweetheart- give me yours a minute, will you?” Jackie, not-so-subtly, was scanning her daughter’s face with concern, making sure she was alright even as she held out her hand.
Rose reached into her jacket pocket easily. Her hand brushed her dimension hopper, paused there upon finding it still instead of vibrating almost imperceptibly. She felt that the walls had shut as surely as she had with her cheek pressed up against a white wall, so long ago.
She steadied herself, grabbing the cell phone and flicking it open, the iridescent blue glow reflecting on her thumbnail. “No worries, Mum,” she said, with a steady look that told her I’m fine, we’re fine. “You’ll be able to get through Dad fine on this. Still hasn’t ever lost its charge,” she said to the Doctor.
“Superphone,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.
“Exactly,” said Rose.
“Pete?” said Jackie, walking away with the phone to her ear and talking over the waves. “We’re home! … No, in Norway … yes, Rose too, she’s fine- what’re you doing at Control, you’re supposed to be with Tony- Peter Alan Tyler, my baby had better not be at that Hub… I don’t care if-”
Rose looked at the Doctor, who was looking over at Jackie as well. “They’re really happy,” she said, and even trying to be funny she couldn’t make it sound ironic.
“I believe that,” he said, nodding, and looked off to the horizon line where the water and sky bled into each other in an indistinguishable foggy blue.
“She’ll probably be on the phone awhile,” said Rose, tracing her foot through the sand and thinking of tracing the happenings of so many universes. She felt his eyes on her and looked up. “Knowing my mum,” she said, managing a slight smile.
“This is all rather embarrassing,” he muttered.
“What?” she said, too sharply, and followed immediately with a gentler, “What do you mean?”
“Calling for your dad to come pick us up- like some schoolboy without a license. I’ll have to get a car,” he said suddenly. “Had cars, once. Even built one. Not exactly my preferred mode of travel, obviously, slow-going, only two directions unless something’s gone interestingly, but they’re not bad, for human travel,” said the Doctor.
“Travel,” Rose repeated, watching him carefully.
“Weellll,” he said, pulling his hands out of his pockets and jamming them back in, leaving his thumbs twiddling against the blue suit. “I suppose you wouldn’t- we probably should-”
“What?” said Rose, stepping to his side and looking up at him.
“Go places,” he blurted out. “If you want,” he added. “Barcelona, for one. I wonder if the planet’s still out there here- if we suppose they’re different too, depending on what changed, where this universe splintered off from our own- but even so, the city’s nice. Spain-and-Portugal, that could be- nice,” said the Doctor, looking at her sidelong.
“Could be,” said Rose noncommittally. “And you know, there’s Pompeii.”
He looked at her. “You mean the ashes?” he said, brow furrowed. “I know it gets a lot of tourists, Rose, but I’d really rather-”
“It’s not in ashes,” said Rose, drawing out the words and watching for his reaction. “When I left, the Arsenal were playing Pompeii. They’ve got quite the football team. Took the European Cup last year. Supposed to be beautiful there.
“No,” he said, eyes wide.
“Yes,” she countered. “I was going to ask you about that- I’d sort of think a volcano meant to erupt would erupt, even if different decisions led to different things or whatever makes a parallel universe- parallel.”
The Doctor rubbed at his left ear. “Ahh, well, it’s hard to say with parallel universe- which is sort of a misnomer really,” he said, “since they’re not so much running alongside as breaking off the fluxing but primarily linear progression of time, I suppose more properly they’re tangent universes- and you never know what can end up changing, since all those little wavy strands leftover from big, matter-ish… stuff, they reach farther than you’d - What?”
She bumped her shoulder against his. “Something I should know?”
He stared at her for a moment. “I might have had something to do with Vesuvius erupting.” His throat bobbed. “Had to- it was Pompeii or the world.”
Rose let her hand drift back down to hang alongside the Doctor’s. “Anything to worry about here?” she asked softly.
“Suppose not,” he said. The backs of their hands touched and they both kept them there. “Pyrovillia was one of the twenty-seven planets, the Pyroviles- humanoids, but not the cuddly kind- fell to Earth when it was taken. It must have never been taken from this universe- only the one we’ve just left… so I suppose no Pyroviles ever troubled Pompeii.”
“And no Doctor would’ve been there to stop them,” said Rose.
“Now there’s a thought,” he said, his expression absent and his eyes suddenly distant. “No me. I’ve run all around this planet- well, not this planet exactly, that’s the point- but I have gotten slightly involved in your history. As you know.”
“Oh I gathered,” said Rose. “Queen Victoria got possessed by the wolf here, by the way, without you and me. They had to have a coup. No Empire of the Wolf- no more Empire. The British Republic. I’ve missed the queen and country bit. No royal family at all. But we’ve still got Harriet Jones.”
“Good egg, that Harriet Jones,” said the Doctor warmly. “Considering her successor… well, if there’s anyone I owe an apology to, it’s the other Harriet- our Harriet Jones.”
“She died,” said Rose, and he looked at her sharply. “Opening the subwave network. I told him, the other Doctor… I forgot for a moment-”
“That you didn’t tell me too,” he finished quietly, moving his shoulder closer to hers. The Doctor exhaled through his teeth, working his jaw.
“I could- catch you up on those hours,” said Rose, watching a flat hard look slide into his eyes. It softened as he turned them back to her. She brushed her fingers against his. “Got time for catching up, you and me."
“I’m glad,” he said, and the way he looked at her she wanted to kiss him again. From the look in his eye she thought he might kiss her.
“Alright,” called Jackie, walking back towards them, phone still tucked between her ear and shoulder. The Doctor moved a few inches out of Rose’s personal space, but kept his eyes on hers.
“Are we?” the Doctor asked Rose, quietly.
She smiled, close-lipped. “Don’t think that was a question,” she whispered back.
“Your father’s sent a car for us from Bergen, he says it’s a fast car but it’s still another hour and a half ’fore it even gets here,” Jackie shouted as she trudged back towards them. She didn’t really need to shout across the short distance and closing.
“I’m asking you, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said into her hair, his lips brushing her ear. Rose shivered. “Besides that we’re facing several hours unable to escape your mother. We alright?”
“I think we’re best off finding a nice log or flat rock and having a sit, what do you think, Rose? Doctor?” said Jackie, and then into the phone, “Yes, I told you, Pete, it’s him, or she wouldn’t still be here, now would she?”
“We’ll be better than alright,” said Rose, and turned her head to press her lips against his cheek. She left her lips pushed into his skin for a moment because he smelled the same, as fresh and steadying as crisp air in the middle of night. Only the Doctor could leave her and stay with her forever in the same second.
“Brilliant,” said the Doctor, louder and brightly, and it might have been to Rose or to Jackie. Rose silently agreed.
Jackie finished making a kissing noise into the phone and clicked it off. “It really is good to have you here, Doctor,” she said, with a pleased sigh.
The Doctor looked at Rose, and she at him. “Isn’t it just,” he said, smiling, and then he nodded at something over Rose’s shoulder. “I see logs,” he told Jackie, pointing. “Bit down the beach. Something lump-shaped, anyways. Let’s take a look, Rose,” he said, and his face came alive. “We can share one, if you like.”
Stuck with you, that’s not so bad.
Yeah?
“Not you, though, Jackie,” the Doctor added quickly. “You’ll have to get your own log.”
“Rude,” warned Rose, ducking her chin to hide her half-smile in her hair.
“I think I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t,” said Jackie, shaking her head and not quite smiling. Her eyes, though, were all relief. “Go on, then,” she said. “I’ll try and keep up.”
The Doctor took a step, and she stepped with him, expectantly, but he didn’t step again. He seemed to be waiting.
For a moment, Rose thought she could almost feel the timelines they way he could, all at her fingertips again as if she could pluck them like harp strings. It was all arching before her, a life here with this man, this Doctor, with a world to champion and a brother she should really be getting around to reading a bedtime story, and so many places to see, together. He’d given her the stars and she always had, always would, follow him wherever or whenever he lead.
But for the first time, Rose Tyler knew this Doctor would follow her anywhere.
Somewhere, a lonely god was sighing.
But not here. Save for the memories, she let him go, stowed the full Time Lord and his magical box to one last corner of her heart, and reached out an arms-length to hold out her hand to him.
He eyed it for a moment in surprise and it was enough time for her to wriggle her fingers at him, her tongue poking out through her teeth as she smiled.
He took her hand and she met his eyes, all again.
“Run!” said Rose, as if it was obvious, and he grinned wolfishly and took to his heels, yanking her after.
Together, they ran.
Jump to Episode Four