New Fic: The Visit 1/1

[wendymr]

Story: The Visit
Author: WMR
Characters: Nine, Ten, Rose
Spoilers: Nine's season, perhaps TCI, spoiler for School Reunion.
Rated: G
Summary: It's all about saying goodbye, really. And there might be justification for a tissue warning - this made my BRs cry :(

And, speaking of BRs, much thanks and love to
dark_aegis and
kae_nine for reading, making suggestions and generally giving me their raw reactions, which I really, really appreciated.

ETA: Having now seen School Reunion, I couldn't resist editing and adding to this story. Even if no-one ever notices it's been changed, I had to do it!

The Visit

She was dozing lightly when the knock came at the door. Not the nurse wanting to take her blood pressure yet again, she hoped. What was the point? She was dying; they all knew it. And she didn’t mind that. It’d been a good life. The best. She was ready to go.

Resigned to the interruption, she called, “Come in,” regretting the threadiness of her voice now. It probably wouldn’t be too long. Even with the state of medicine in this time, centuries beyond the era of her own birth.

The door opened. And a man she’d never imagined or even dreamed of seeing again entered.

“Doctor!” And it was. Her Doctor - well, they were all her Doctor now, but this one, this dark, brooding, melancholy man was her first Doctor, would always have a special place in her heart. Even if she’d spent the least time with him.

His smile on seeing her was as wide and delighted as she ever remembered it. He looked just the same as before: close-cropped hair, that over-long nose and the sticking-out ears, the battered leather jacket and, today, the navy-blue jumper.

“Rose.” And his voice, when he said her name, was the same. Still that Northern accent she’d loved, and that particular intonation he’d used sometimes.

“But... how are you here, Doctor?” He was dead. She’d watched him die, seen him go up in flames right in front of her.

He shook his head, giving her a fondly amused smile. “Time-travel, Rose. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten everything I taught you?”

“Course not.” She’d never forgotten a thing about him. “So... this is while...” Abruptly, she broke off. She couldn’t tell him anything about his future. That was one of the many lessons she’d learned from her Doctors over the years.

“While I’m still alive,” he finished for her. “An’ while you’re still travellin’ with me.”

“But then... how did you know...?”

He pulled up a chair and sat by her bed, immediately taking possession of her hand. “Got a message. Think it was from the eleventh me. Told me to come here, and come alone.”

“Oh!” He’d done that for her. So thoughtful. She’d have to thank him when she saw him, later. He’d told her he’d come and see her tonight.

“What’ve you done with me?” she had to ask.

He smiled. “Sent you off with Captain Jack for the afternoon. Somewhere harmless, with plenty of shops and chocolate.”

She remembered that. It hadn’t been long after Jack had joined them, and it had surprised her. The Doctor had still been treating Jack with a mixture of suspicion and amused sarcasm, yet one day he’d just announced that he had something he needed to do and was leaving them to amuse themselves for a while. He’d come back to pick them up later, he’d told them. And had then just left her and Jack alone together.

Now, she smiled at him. “Wondered why you suddenly trusted him alone with me.”

He evaded her gaze, looking awkward. “He’s an idiot conman.”

She squeezed his hand, wishing she had more strength left so that it would feel less as if he was holding a limp dishrag. “He’s not, Doctor, an’ you know it. An’ if you don’t, you’ll find out.”

Immediately, he shook his head. “You can’t tell me, Rose.”

“I know. Wasn’t saying anything you shouldn’t already know.”

“Okay.” With his free hand, he brushed a few stray wisps of white hair away from her face. How changed she must look to him. Mere minutes ago, probably, he’d been with the nineteen-year-old her, all blonde and curvy and wrinkle-free. And now here she was, shrunken and frail, all saggy body and wrinkles, blonde hair long since turned white.

“You still look beautiful to me,” her Doctor said suddenly, and a lump came to her throat.

“How did you...?” She stared up at him.

He grinned. “ ‘S all right, it’s not TARDIS telepathy. Sometimes, Rose Tyler, you’re very expressive.”

Oh, god, it was so painful to see him again, and yet it was just what she’d wanted. Needed. “Doctor.” Her voice cracked on his name.

“Rose.” He traced her face with his finger.

“I always loved you, Doctor.”

She could see the pain on his face, an expression she remembered so well. “Always loved you, too, Rose. An’ if I never told you that, I should’ve.”

He hadn’t. But then, she’d never told him either. “Didn’t matter,” she told him, and it was the truth. “You showed me, an’ that’s what counts.”

“I’m glad.” He bent towards her and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

There was so much she wanted to tell him. That it would get better - that the pain and grief that had haunted him for the whole of his short life would pass and leave him whole again. That he always kept her safe, even at the cost of his own life. That he never lost her, even though he’d always been afraid that he would. That she was the one who lost him.

In the end, she just said, “I’m glad you came, Doctor.”

And a warm, breathtaking smile she’d seen on his face before was her reward. “Me too.”

***

She must have fallen asleep, because she blinked and opened her eyes later to see him watching her, her hand still in his. “I have to go, Rose,” he told her, regret in his tone.

She didn’t want him to leave. Not yet. “No...”

“I have to.” His thumb stroked across the back of her hand. “There’s someone else outside waiting to see you.”

“Who?” Whoever it was could wait. She wanted him to stay with her. Just a few more precious minutes of her first Doctor...

“Me.” He grinned briefly. “My next self. So, Rose Tyler, you saw me through a regeneration.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Scary as hell, that’d been. And how she’d mourned him - the old him. Especially as she hadn’t had a clue what was going on.

She wanted to tell him off for that - for never warning her, never even hinting that something like that could happen. Wanted to make him promise that he’d tell her - the younger her who was still with him - what could happen.

But she couldn’t. That was the rule, and she understood it.

“I’m glad you stayed with me.” He stood them and laid a hand against her cheek. “I have to go, Rose. But before I go, I just want to tell you...”

She knew what was coming. She’d heard it from him before; remembered those last words of his so clearly. And the lump was back in her throat.

“I just want to tell you you were fantastic,” he finished softly.

She clutched at his hand. “An’ so were you, Doctor. Always were. Always will be.”

“You can’t tell me what,” he said abruptly. “But whatever you did with your life, Rose, promise me it was good. That it was worthwhile.”

Of course, he had absolutely no idea. “It was the best, Doctor. An’ I promise that’s the truth.”

He bent, lifted her up and held her, very gently, in his arms; one final hug. “Goodbye, Rose,” he told her, his voice gentle, as he laid her back on the bed. Before he straightened, he pressed one very brief kiss to her lips.

And then, before she could find her voice to say goodbye to him, he was gone.

***

The door opened again almost immediately. “All right if I come in?”

It was the Doctor. The tenth one, this time. Her pin-striped Doctor, the one she’d been with for more years than she could count. The second Doctor she’d lost.

The tears flowed for real at the sight of him. “God... Doctor!”

“Rose.” And in moments he was by her bed, her hand in his, his brown eyes holding her gaze.

“ ‘S so good to see you. Missed you.”

“Yeah.” He took the chair he’d so recently vacated, and leaned forward to brush away her tears. “Worked out I must’ve died somewhere along the way.”

Not for a long time. A very long time. Well, not long in terms of a Time Lord’s life, but nothing like as short as the previous him.

She’d been with him, travelling and saving the universe with him, for almost forty years. For a long time, it’d been three of them; they’d stumbled upon Jack again about six months after losing him on Satellite Five and, although he’d been reluctant to rejoin them at first, citing other responsibilities, a few months later he’d contacted them and asked if he could change his mind. The three of them against the bad guys of the universe, Jack had always said. The bad guys never stood a chance.

They’d lost Jack first. He’d died a hero twenty-five years later, saving the Doctor’s life and saving a planet from extinction. Almost exactly as he’d done back on Satellite Five, only that time there was no Bad Wolf to save him. They’d buried him, not on Earth as he had no family there, but on the Doctor’s favourite planet, which had become theirs: the Eye of Orion. She still missed him, and she knew the Doctor did, too.

The Doctor took her to visit Jack’s grave every year on the anniversary of his death, even after she’d stopped travelling with him.

Finally, she’d had to admit that she wasn’t up to the job of Time Lord’s companion any more. It wasn’t so much the danger or the near-death experiences; she’d never minded those and had always accepted them as part of the risks of the job. It was that she’d become a liability. She wasn’t as fit as she’d once been. She couldn’t run as fast or get around as agilely as she used to, even despite her gymnastics training or the cocktail of nutrients the Doctor made her take to keep herself healthy.

After the third time she’d been captured too easily and he’d had to rescue her, she’d told him - this Doctor now sitting beside her, holding her hand - that she had to leave him. Very reluctantly, he’d agreed, though she’d seen in his eyes that he’d already come to the same conclusion.

So he’d taken her back to Earth. Her time, at first, though they’d both quickly come to the realisation that there was nothing there for her any more. Her mum had died a few years before; they’d both gone to the funeral and the Doctor had stayed to help her afterwards, before taking her off with him again. She still had some friends there in her time, but they’d all long ago moved on with their own lives.

He’d taken her into the future then, to a period she’d visited with him several times and liked. She’d had a good life there, writing novels about space and time-travel and even becoming a little bit famous for a while. Another reason he’d chosen that time, the Doctor had told her, was because of medical advances; she’d be better looked after, health-wise, than in her own time. Though he’d always be available if she needed anything. And he had been; he’d visited her every few weeks and also programmed her phone so she could contact the TARDIS any time she needed.

And then he’d died. Out of the blue, a man she’d never seen before, yet who was strangely familiar, had come to see her. This time, accepting that he was the Doctor had been easier, but still hard because she’d lost the man she’d known and loved for almost fifty years by then. But she managed, because once again he was still the Doctor.

Still the Doctor now, too, though she’d met his twelfth and thirteenth selves. Once they’d found out that she probably had a couple of months to live, she’d asked him if it was possible. He’d said that his later selves would remember the conversation and so he expected they’d come to see her - and they had. Twice each over the past couple of months.

So now, during her long - to her, but short to a Time Lord - life she’d known five Doctors.

And this one, her second Doctor, the one she’d known best and longest. “Yeah.” She curled her fingers around his. “You did.”

“Sorry.” He smiled at her, and she read apology in his expression too. He remembered that time, as well, those difficult hours and days immediately after his regeneration.

“ ‘S okay. Wasn’t as if it was the first time you did that to me. An’ at least I knew about regeneration then.”

“S’pose you did. Still, I’m sorry. Sorry that I’ll leave you again.”

“How long have I been with you? In your time, I mean.” It was so hard to tell. He aged so slowly. When he’d first regenerated, she’d been almost twenty and he’d looked like he was in his early thirties, despite being over nine hundred years old. By the time she’d left him, she’d been close to sixty. He’d looked about forty-five at most. Here, now, he looked like he was in his late thirties. Not all that different from when she’d first known him.

“ ‘Bout twenty years by now.” He smiled, that same joyful grin he’d always given her if they’d been apart for a while and they’d met up again. That grin had always lit up her world.

“So, where’ve you stashed me, then?”

“You’re visiting your mum. Told you I was going to see a former companion who’s sick in hospital. True, of course. I just didn’t say which companion.” And he grinned at her.

She was the one who’d convinced him that he should keep in touch with companions if possible. It was after they’d met Sarah-Jane - she still cringed when she thought of her initial reaction to Sarah, the stupid, childish jealousy she’d felt. Sarah’d been so happy to see the Doctor again, and so sad to leave him. And it’d struck her that that could be her in ten years’ time. And that she’d hate it if the Doctor just left and she never saw him again.

He’d taken her advice and paid occasional visits to old companions, even taking her with him sometimes. He’d gone to funerals, too, though that wasn’t new; she remembered him going to the funeral of a former companion only a few months after his regeneration. She’d met his ninth self there, too, so obviously it was something he was used to doing.

“ ‘S good to see you again, Doctor... I missed you...”

He bent and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’m glad I could be here.”

The eleventh Doctor again, she assumed. The current Doctor, who’d be along to see her later.

The Doctor who was now going to have to live on without another close friend - without someone else he loved.

I don’t age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone that you -

That conversation - painful for both of them - was as clear in her mind now as the evening it’d happened. She, all naïve and jealous having realised that the man she’d thought of as her Doctor had loved other people before her. She’d never stopped to think of what it was like for him.

He’d lived more than nine hundred years before meeting her. Of course there’d been others. Of course he’d cared about them, too. She’d never asked how many friends - loved ones - he’d had to lose before she came along. She’d never dared. Not remembering the anguish on his face as he’d spelt it out to her.

You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can’t spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That’s the curse of the Time Lords.

She had spent the rest of her life with him - with this him and his next self. But now he would have to live on without her.

And how stupidly childish she’d been, too, looking for declarations from him then. Wanting - needing - him to tell her that she was special. That she meant more than others had. Than Sarah had. That he wouldn’t leave her behind.

He’d told her that he wouldn’t leave her behind. Even, obliquely, offered her the chance to stay with him for as long as she wanted. Which she had.

Now, it was obvious that she’d never needed those reassurances. All she’d needed to do was look back at the way he’d always treated her. She was special. But so had everyone else been. And that was the way it should be.

“I’m sorry.” The words just escaped her.

“For what?” Oh, the look on his face; his expression open, friendly, affectionate - loving, as it had been most of the time for her.

“Cause I’m leavin’ you. You have to go on alone again.”

The brief flicker in his eyes betrayed his memory of the conversation. He looked away. “You can’t help it.” She saw him swallow, then he added, “You’re human. I’m a Time Lord. That’s just the way it is.”

And they’d always known that. Had confronted it again, too, when she’d finally left him.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t wish you didn’t ‘ave to be alone.”

“I know.” His gaze met hers again. And his fingers squeezed hers. “Anyway, don’t worry about me.” His smile was warm once more. “Like I said, I’ve still got you. Got you stashed back in London. Jack, too.”

Oh, Jack... She couldn’t tell him - wouldn’t tell him - what was in store there.

But he was right; this Doctor would have her for the whole of his life. It was the regenerated him who’d lose her. Not that it made any difference. Same man. Same Doctor. Same pain from losing someone he cared about. Even if he did now have new companions, people who mattered to him every bit as much as companions from the past.

A little bit of him still died every time one of them left him. And it was worse if something happened and he had to do the leaving.

All these years, and she’d never truly understood the truth about the Doctor. She’d known he was the last of his race, but she’d always thought - pretended - that it didn’t matter so much, because he had people who cared about him. He had her.

He was alone. Always alone. And always would be, until he finally came to the end of his long life.

“ ‘M so sorry, Doctor...”

He didn’t ask why this time. He just bent down and, very lightly, kissed her. “You gave me so many good years, Rose. I’ll always remember that.”

They had been good. The best. She’d been lucky. The best life in the universe, and when she had left him it’d been her choice. On her terms, and with his agreement and help.

Weariness overcame her all of a sudden. “ ‘M so tired...”

“I know, Rose.” His voice was incredibly gentle, all of a sudden. “Sleep now. Rest. I’ll be here.”

“Love... you... Doctor...”

“Love you, too, Rose.”

“Love you.”

“I love you.”

Echoes in her head... different voices, different accents, but all the Doctor. All her Doctor. She loved him. All of him...

It was all foggy, her brain. Clouding, fading, but for one thing. The Doctor. He was there. Her Doctor, there for her...

“Goodbye, Rose...”

***

“You all right, Doctor?”

She reached for his hand as he came over to her side, to where he’d told her to wait for him. His expression was solemn, sad. But he threw a quick smile her way as his fingers closed around hers.

“Yeah. I will be.”

“Sure?” It wasn’t often that this Doctor was sad. Not like his previous self, torn apart and tortured by grief.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He squeezed her hand. “ ‘S all right, Rose.”

“So, where’d you go? Why are we here?” Here being the Eye of Orion. The second time she’d been here, but this time the Doctor hadn’t been in the mood to explore. Instead, he’d just asked her to wait for him while he’d wandered off somewhere.

“A funeral,” he said, turning his head to stare back in the direction he’d come. “An old friend. Someone I loved very much.”

“Someone who travelled with you?” she guessed, even as she tried to stifle the pang of envy - not jealousy, it wasn’t jealousy; she refused to be jealous again - of this person the Doctor had loved.

And now she could understand his mood. It was only a couple of weeks, after all, since, in response to her rather childish fit of jealousy, he’d told her what it was really like to be him. To see people he cared about grow old and die right in front of him. To have to live on alone, not aging, just regenerating, while everyone he’d come to know, come to love, left him.

It had been a wake-up call for her, in so many ways. It had made her think so much more carefully about their relationship but, even more important, it had helped her to understand him better. And to love him even more, if that were possible. Even if it would just mean that her loss would be as painful, if not more so, as Sarah-Jane’s when they eventually did part.

He nodded again. “Yeah, she did.”

She dropped his hand, reaching up to hug him. “ ‘M sorry.”

But he smiled, hugging her back. “It’s all right. This funeral... well, it hasn’t actually happened yet. But I didn’t want to miss it.”

Hadn’t actually happened yet...?

So, someone who was still alive in her timeline. In his, too, presumably. So someone he could see again if he wanted to. “Doctor... If you want to go and see her, y’know, I don’t mind.”

She got a soft laugh for that. “I might just do that.”

A movement in the periphery of her vision attracted her attention. Someone else - she hadn’t known there was anyone else here. “You weren’t alone, then?” she asked as she tried to look discreetly.

“Nah. Five of us.” He released her, his hand sliding down to take hers.

And then she froze. She recognised the man in the black leather jacket. “Doctor...” His name escaped her in a whisper. Her Doctor. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been dying. Dying for her.

“Yeah,” the Doctor holding her hand said. “Five of me.” And he smiled at her. “Go on. It’s okay. Go and say hello.”

“I... can?” Barely able to believe it, she stared at him. “It won’t... I dunno, mess up time or anythin’?”

He shook his head. “No. He didn’t bring you with him, so there’s no problem as long as you don’t tell him anything about his - my - future.”

“How do you...” She trailed off as she realised. Of course he knew. Because he remembered this. Which meant she must’ve gone to talk to him here.

She dropped his hand and ran over. The Doctor turned as she approached and held out his arms to her. She ran into them and felt him hug her again, an embrace she’d thought she’d never feel again. Her Doctor, the one she’d loved first. The one she’d never forget.

“Hey.” His thumb brushed her cheeks. “No need for tears, Rose.” His voice, so familiar, still present sometimes in her dreams, sent a pang through her.

“But... you died...”

Something flickered over his face, some unreadable emotion, but it was gone in a flash. “Remember what I told you, Rose. Everything has its time. Everything dies.” He gestured to the Doctor, the Doctor she was with now, standing watching the two of them, hands buried deep in his pockets. “But I’m still here. You know that.”

She nodded. She’d accepted that now. He was still the Doctor, no matter what he looked like. But she’d still missed him, this Doctor; missed his voice, and the way he smiled at her, and the way he looked at her sometimes as if she was the most important thing in the universe for him.

She couldn’t tell him anything about the future. Anything about why he’d died, or what she’d done for him. And she didn’t want to tell him how much she missed him, either, because she thought he knew that anyway.

“So, you’re here for the funeral, too?”

“Yes.” Letting her go, he glanced behind him, towards a hill and an outcrop of rocks.

“Funny place for a funeral.”

He shrugged faintly. “Not a traditional funeral - not the way you’d understand it. But she wanted to be buried here. Someone else is here, too - another old friend of mine, apparently.”

“You don’t know who?”

He smiled slightly. “Not yet. Probably someone I haven’t met yet.” He gestured with his head towards the other Doctor. “Maybe he’s not met ‘im yet, either. Though she knew ‘im.”

“She? The... friend who died?”

He nodded. “C’mon. You’d best get back. Can’t muck about with the timeline too much.”

Taking her hand, he led her back to the Doctor. The older, but newer, Doctor. The two men - the same man, she had to remind herself - gave each other a long look. And then the Doctor in the leather jacket lifted her hand and gave it to the pin-striped Doctor. “Look after her, okay?”

The Doctor nodded, taking her hand. “Always.”

“Good.” Familiar fingers touched her cheek briefly. “Bye, Rose.” And, with a brief nod at his future self, her first Doctor turned and walked away.

“Bye,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper; her second farewell to this, her first Doctor. The Doctor she’d loved so much.

Warm fingers tightened around hers, and understanding brown eyes met hers as she turned to look at the man beside her. The Doctor was still here, still with her. And she still loved him.

“Time to go.” Her Doctor, her second Doctor, led her back to the TARDIS.

As he closed the door behind them, she wanted to ask, whose funeral was it? Who had he - five of him, he’d said, including him and her first Doctor - loved so much that they’d wanted to come and say goodbye?

But, somehow, she knew he wouldn’t tell her. That was okay, though. Because something told her that he’d do the same for her.

END