To Have and to Hold 7/9
Author: WMR
Characters: Nine, Ten, Rose, a little of Jack, Jackie, Mickey
Rated: PG
Spoilers: All the way to TCI, and some dialogue from School Reunion.
Summary: Since you have no parents to act on your behalf, I need to ask you: will you accept his hand in marriage?
This story is written in response to
purplerhino's challenge: Write one (pick one) or even all of the episodes for at least season two with the Doctor and Rose married. Many thanks to my wonderful, nitpicky and inspirational BRs, the fabulous
dark_aegis,
ponygirl72 and
nnwest.
Chapter 1: Lewd Conduct
Chapter 2: War Widow
Chapter 3: Staking a Claim
Chapter 4: Cold Comfort
Chapter 5: Letting Go
Chapter 6: Married Life
Chapter 7: So Many Goodbyes
Well, that was one way to break the mood.
Shame, too. He’d been enjoying the mood just as it was. Just the two of them together again, after a couple of days where not only had he barely seen her but he’d been... well, not quite stuck on Earth, but not going anywhere, anyway, and doing mostly human things.
And, whether or not she realised it, she was the main reason they were still here, on Earth, in the Powell Estates. Sure, the TARDIS needed some work, but he could do that anywhere. In the Vortex. On any one of thousands of planets, or locations in the future, where it’d be easier to find some of the replacement components he might need.
No; they were here for her.
But it was just as well her question had broken the mood. He’d been letting things get far too intimate for safety.
Letting? No. He’d been the one driving it. And it was far from sensible. After everything that he’d said to her the other day about why he could never offer her more than friendship, it was bloody insane of him.
Understandable, though, all the same. He’d forgotten what it was like to be alone. For so long, it’d been the two of them in the TARDIS - and, later, Jack, too. Now, that was a piece of unfinished business he had to deal with when the time came.
Over the past few days, he’d rediscovered what it was like to be alone. Not quite as nightmarish as in his previous body, but still not good. Too many memories. Too many things to feel guilt over. Too much history.
Too many times, over the past couple of days, when he’d been working away at something and realised that he’d been frozen, lost in thought, trapped deep in memories. Memories of pain, of loss, that he’d thought he’d left behind along with his last body. He’d thought he’d left the brooding behind, too, but clearly not.
New Doctor, old grief. And he had to do better than this. Clearly, being alone wasn’t good for him. He’d even found himself enjoying Mickey’s company yesterday when the bloke had helped him with the oil, and how crazy was that? How far gone was he when Mickey Smith was better than his own company?
He had missed Rose. Worse, though, had been the nagging thought that she was using the job as a means of avoiding him.
Though, thinking about it now, maybe she was; but she could also be using it as a means of avoiding spending all day with her mum. That made him smile inwardly. Jackie Tyler might not be even half as bad as his last self had pretended, but a little of her still went a long way.
He’d missed Rose. So much that he’d practically abducted her now to get to spend some time alone with her. And the flirting... well, they’d often flirted before, hadn’t they? Maybe he’d just wanted to find out if she’d still play along with him, or if his regeneration was a huge barrier there, too.
It seemed not. He hadn’t missed the way she’d reacted to his proximity. Interesting. And a good sign. It was nice to know that he could draw her back to him, just as he once had before, if she was getting too attached to her Earth-bound life again.
But, again, not sensible. Wasn’t he just sending her mixed signals? That, and the way he was the one now who kept referring to them as married?
Rassilon! Why couldn’t he just bloody decide what he actually wanted and stick to it? Rose. With him. Travelling companion and best friend. Nothing more, because anything more was just... wrong. Dangerous. Everything he’d made up his mind to avoid, especially now that he was the only one left.
She was looking at him. Staring at him, now. Looking worried. He frowned. “Rose...”
“Did I say the wrong thing?” The worried expression intensified. “I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it... I jus’ thought, cause you mentioned it the other day...”
Oh. Right. How had he managed to forget so completely that she’d asked him a question? Had he seen many people he cared about die?
He didn’t want to talk about it. But it was a fair question, given he was the one who’d brought up that subject in the first place, the other morning. And that he’d as good as told her that she could ask him anything.
“Not die, as such,” he said, trying to work out the best way of explaining this. “Mainly...” He hesitated. He already knew that she wasn’t going to like this. “Well... I don’t tend to stay around until it gets to that. Not any more.”
She frowned. “You don’t stay around? What’s that mean?”
He lifted her legs off his lap and stood, busying himself tidying up the basin and towel. “I leave, Rose. Or they leave me. It’s easier that way.”
“They...?” Frown-lines creased her forehead. “Who?”
Keep it light. Easier that way. He gave her a dry look, raising one eyebrow as he spoke. “See, that’s something else I told you that you didn’t pay attention to, did you? I did tell you that I’d travelled with other people. Lots of ‘em.”
“Right.” And she nodded. “I remember that. I set new records for bein’ jeopardy-friendly, right?”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t resist the quick grin. “And you’re still beating your own record, Rose Tyler.”
“Yeah. Gettin’ captured by the Daleks.” She chewed her lip. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t help it.” And, anyway, that hadn’t exactly been foremost on his mind. No companion had ever absorbed the Time Vortex before, and he sincerely hoped no-one would ever do so again.
“So. People who’ve travelled with you before me.” She nodded, as if understanding. “An’ you’ve left them?”
***
Left them.
Was that what he did? Was that what he’d really been warning her about?
Maybe she didn’t have to worry about choosing her own time to leave so that he wouldn’t have to watch her wither and die. He was going to leave her behind long before that happened. That was what he was telling her, wasn’t it?
His expression was bleak again. “Mostly, they’ve left me. But I’ve made it easy for them to do it.”
Why would he do that? “Doctor? Why’s that?”
He shrugged, and after a moment came to sit next to her again. The gap between them on the sofa might only have been a foot or so, but it felt like so much more.
“They had their own lives to go back to, Rose. Lives that don’t include spending their days with a Time Lord who doesn’t always understand them and who they certainly don’t understand, being continually on the move, almost getting killed - you know, just everyday life in the TARDIS.”
Comparing her own everyday life - the life she was back to, mostly, at the moment - with the life she’d lived with the Doctor over the last six months or so, she knew which she’d choose. In a heartbeat.
“They get tired of it,” he added, making her wonder if he’d known what she was thinking. “They want something normal. Routine. A job, marriage, a family, everything else humans take for granted, and that just isn’t the kind of life I lead.”
Would she get tired of it? In two years? Five years? Ten years? More? Easy to say she wouldn’t, but she was almost twenty. That was so young, especially compared to the Doctor, but more realistically compared to, say, her mum. If she stayed with the Doctor for the next twenty years, would she start wanting a different life?
But there was a difference. Wasn’t there? She loved him. And, although he hadn’t said the words aloud, he’d said enough to make clear that he loved her, too.
On the other hand, he’d said people he cared about. And, no matter whether it destroyed any illusions she might have had about the two of them - especially before he changed - she had to know. No point blinding herself to the truth.
“Do you... did you love any of them?” And were any of them like her? Young, female, in love with him?
The look he gave her was one of surprise. “Of course I loved them, Rose. Some more than others, of course, but I loved them all.”
“Loved...?” That hurt. It hurt far more than she’d expected, even though she’d told herself that she was prepared for his answer.
Even though the people he was talking about were in the past - and many of them had to be in the very distant past. After all, he had been around for over nine hundred years.
“Ah.” Now, he was looking amused. And that wasn’t fair of him. “You humans. You complicate things when they’re simple, and when they’re complicated you try to over-simplify them.”
“What do you mean?” Her irritation was showing, but she didn’t care. There were times when he deserved to see how much he was driving her mad, and this was one of them.
“When I say I loved them, I don’t mean in love. I mean the way you love Jack.”
Oh. That made sense. She’d loved Jack dearly. She hadn’t been in love with him, but she’d loved him all the same. Like another best friend.
And tears came to her eyes again at the memory of him. She missed him so much.
God, the Doctor’d had loads of people he cared about the way she loved Jack, and he’d had to say goodbye to all of them. How could he do it? Or did he just forget about them? Out of sight, out of mind? After all, he’d never mentioned any of them to her. Not specifically. Not by name.
On the other hand, that could just as easily be because it hurt too much to mention them.
Jack. Oh, Jack...
“What ‘appened to Jack? He’s dead, isn’t he, Doctor?”
He looked shocked. “No! Is that what you thought? No, he’s not dead, Rose. I told you that, didn’t I? I’m sure I told you.”
If he could call muttering something about Jack being busy telling her that he wasn’t dead!
“Well, yeah... but I didn’t know... I mean, you’d only jus’ changed, an’ you were runnin’ around the TARDIS like - I mean, you said it was all going wrong. I didn’t know what to think.” And she’d thought he hadn’t known what he was saying.
“Ah. So you thought I was making it up?”
“Well, not exactly. More like... well, maybe you didn’t really know.” Jack wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. Oh, god, he wasn’t dead...
The Doctor reached for her hands, holding them tightly, reassuringly. “He’s alive, Rose. I promise you that.”
She clung to him in return. “Then where is he? Why isn’t he with us any more?”
His smile was gentle. “He can’t be. Not now. He has something else to do. We’ll meet up with him again. Just not yet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Something else to do?” He wasn’t making sense. But then that was nothing new when it came to the Doctor - in either body.
“History, Rose. Can’t interfere with history.”
“Never stopped you before.” She’d told him that once before, too. But it wasn’t strictly true. He did tend to talk about stuff that was supposed to happen, and sometimes about things happening that weren’t supposed to happen. And that was when he’d interfere, to put things right.
Put like that, it made sense. After all, he’d saved them all from the Nestene Consciousness. And the Slitheen. And the Sycorax. But he hadn’t gone back in time to save the world from the harm wreaked upon it by Adolf Hitler, and nor had he undone other atrocities committed by humans on humans. Not because he couldn’t, but - now, it finally made sense - because those things were supposed to happen. They had happened. They were historical fact.
The Sycorax invasion hadn’t been historical fact. Or maybe it had been, and he’d always known that he would stop it. Though it certainly didn’t always work like that: he hadn’t known about the Slitheens and the fake spaceship crash before it’d happened. History changing, timelines being rewritten, all around them.
Yes, she thought she was beginning to understand.
“So, Jack’s doin’ something that you know about? Something important to history?”
He nodded, smiling. “Exactly! And he has to finish doing it, but once he has we can go and find him. See what he wants to do next.”
“He’ll want to come back, won’t he? Travel with us again?”
But the Doctor shook his head, releasing her hands at the same time. “Not necessarily. I told you, Rose. People leave. They move on. They get on with their lives.”
“Not Jack... He’ll want to be with us again. Won’t he?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You have to remember he’s not going to be the same person when we meet him again.”
“Not the same... Oh. Because it’ll be later, for him? How much later?”
“Not so much that. More... Well, you remember what he was like when we met him. Pretending that the conman was all there was to him. Course, it wasn’t, and we saw that soon enough. But he didn’t believe it himself. By the time we see him again, Rose, he’ll be a hero many times over. Starting with Satellite Five, but many more times since then.”
That was no surprise. But then she’d always thought Jack was a hero. He’d saved her life the very first time they’d met, after all. And then he’d stuck around when he could have got himself out of danger. He’d saved the two of them, and then he’d almost sacrificed his own life to take the bomb away.
“So, he’ll be different, yeah? But that sounds good different.”
“Good for him, yeah. Absolutely. The thing is, when we met him he was running away - from himself, and from those lost memories of his. Travelling with us gave him an excuse not to confront that. When we see him again, he’ll know that whatever he might have done in his past he is a hero. Even if he never gets those two years back he’ll know that. So he’s going to be ready to decide what he wants to do with the rest of his life. To find a purpose again.”
Put like that... yeah, she could see that maybe he wouldn’t want to go back to the way things were. She sighed.
“We’ll see him, I promise,” the Doctor said. “We’ll find out what his plans are. Maybe all he’ll want from us is a lift back to the future somewhere.”
Right. He was from the fifty-first century, after all. Though she had no idea when in time they’d find him. The Doctor was giving nothing away.
And now she saw, once again, why he’d told her he didn’t get involved. Because, once again, he was losing a travelling companion - a friend. “He’s going to leave you. Leave us.”
The way he looked at her told her he knew she was getting it. “Yeah. If not when we see him again, then sooner or later.” His gaze slid past her. “You will, too, Rose. Sooner or later, you’ll leave me as well.”
She wanted to deny it. Longed to tell him that she’d stay with him as long as he let her. But it would be a lie. She’d already acknowledged that she’d have to leave him one day, while she could still do it voluntarily.
And, even if she didn’t walk away from him, she’d leave him anyway - because she was human. Because she would age and die.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
***
At least she hadn’t lied to him. Or tried to pretend.
A few days ago, she would have. Not just to him, but to herself, too.
But then so would he - the previous him. He’d done nothing but pretend to her, and to himself. Pretend that he was all right, when he wasn’t. Pretend that he could keep her safe. Pretend that they’d be together as long as they wanted to be. Pretend that he wasn’t going to send her away if the danger got to be too much. Pretend that there was no such thing as regeneration and that he wasn’t going to change, one day...
For all that, in some ways, he’d treated her as an equal, in other ways it’d been nothing of the kind. He’d treated her like a child, for all that he’d let her understand of him, his life, the ways in which he, as a Gallifreyan and a Time Lord, was different from her and from her experience. He’d kept reminding her that he wasn’t human, but had rarely given her any inkling of what that meant.
He wasn’t pretending any more. Not now. And nor was she.
And she’d apologised for the fact that, one day, she’d leave him. Just as everyone else had, and everyone else would continue to.
He raised his hand to her face, touching her cheek with his fingertips. “Don’t be. That’s the way it is. I understand, really, I do.”
“Doctor...”
He heard the tiny choke in her voice. Instead of letting her finish whatever she’d intended to say, he tugged her into his arms. “Shh. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now, and that’s what matters. Leave the future where it belongs.”
Live for the present. It was all he could do. All he had been doing, especially since the Time War.
This is who I am, right here, right now. All right? All that counts is here and now, and this is me!
Live for the present. Right here, right now. And right here, right now, he had Rose. Even if they both knew she’d leave him one day, for now she was here.
***
“Come on.” He shook her slightly. “You’re falling asleep. Time you went to bed.”
She was, too. His arms were still around her, and she’d just sagged against his chest. Her eyes were heavy.
With an effort, she dragged herself away from him and pushed up from the sofa. Her feet didn’t hurt so much now - his massage had really helped. But, yeah, a good night’s sleep would help. And she was very glad that she didn’t have to walk back up to the flat.
“Better see you get to your room safely.” He grinned at her and held out his hand. “Otherwise I’ll just end up tripping over you in a corridor somewhere. You’re asleep on your feet.”
She let him lead her through the familiar TARDIS passageways to her bedroom - the room that had become hers all those months ago and that she’d slept in every night until just four days ago. It was so good to be back here.
It felt like home.
A little piece of home. Better than nothin’.
A lump was suddenly in her throat as she remembered that moment. Remembered him - him as he’d been then - standing next to the TARDIS, his hand on the wall. So aware of being the only survivor of his people, his planet. And so achingly alone in that moment.
The TARDIS; all he’d had. All he still had.
She’d reminded him that he had her, and he’d actually accepted her attempt at comfort. Now, she could see that he should have laughed at her. How could she, Rose Tyler, even begin to imagine that she could make up for an entire planet and people? Especially given what she understood now. That, however long she stayed, she’d be with him for about a blink of an eye relative to his lifetime.
The TARDIS was the only thing he could count on.
Oh, god...
“Doctor... I never realised...”
“What?” He looked down at her, an enquiring smile on his lips.
“When you sent me away, on Satellite Five, I was so furious with you - but it never occurred to me.”
“What didn’t?”
“The TARDIS. ‘S all you have, Doctor. All you got left of your world. Your people. An’ you jus’ sent me away in it an’ told me to let it die. You... you were losing everything you had when you sent me away. How could you do that to yourself?”
“Ah.” He stopped walking and turned to face her, though his gaze slid past her again to rest on some part of the wall behind her. “Well... it wasn’t really like that. I didn’t think I was going to survive, after all. Told you that. I said I was dying, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but... regeneration,” she pointed out.
He shook his head, and now he met her gaze. “If I’d been exterminated, I wouldn’t have regenerated. If I’d set off the Delta wave... well, I’ve never actually tried it before, so I don’t know if I could regenerate if my brain got fried. Probably not, actually. It’s not something I’m all that keen on experimenting with just to find out. And I really didn’t want to risk the Daleks getting their hands on the TARDIS.”
Maybe. But he’d still given up the TARDIS, the one thing he cherished most, just like that, to save her life. And that... that was just so beyond her comprehension.
She shook her head. “Still can’t fool me, Doctor. Even if it is a new you. I know what you did.”
He didn’t argue with her this time. “To save your life, Rose? It was worth it. And I’d do it again if I had to.” Fleetingly, his hand touched her shoulder. “Now, off to bed. I’ll see you in the morning with that cuppa I promised.”
***
A very sleepy “Wha’?” was the response to his knock the next morning. Yup, still so not a morning person.
“Your tea, as promised,” he announced as he went into her bedroom. And he had to stifle a grin at the tangled mass of her hair on the pillow and the very sleepy eyes that stared resentfully up at him.
“Did you have to wake me?”
“Well, yeah.” He set the mug down on her bedside cabinet. “You humans, you’d sleep the whole day away if you could.” Light touch-paper and retire. He smothered another grin.
One arm appeared from beneath the covers. And then she was suddenly very awake and looking horrified. “It can’t be almost eleven! I’m s’posed to be in work by twelve! Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”
“I thought you were complaining that I woke you at all.” Now he didn’t bother to hide the grin. “You slept the clock round, Rose Tyler.” Which troubled him. She’d been far more tired after her extra-long shift than she’d ever been after any of the exhausting adventures he’d put her through.
“Anyway,” he added, heading for the door, “it’s all right. I took us back in time a couple of hours. Out there - ” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the outside world. “ - it’s still only nine in the morning. You’ve got plenty of time.”
She sat up abruptly, and suddenly a pillow came flying in his direction.
“What was that for?” He caught it, indignant, and threw it back to her.
“If you did that, you could’ve let me sleep another hour!”
***
He kissed her cheek as she was leaving for work. And told her to come back here - to the TARDIS - when she got home.
Could he be any more obvious about wanting to be with her? Or send her any greater mixed signals about what their relationship was?
He was behaving exactly as if they were an old married couple. Yet she had to admit that they’d already behaved like that before he’d changed, too. They’d finished each other’s sentences. They’d looked at each other and just known what each other was thinking. They’d anticipated each other’s gestures, reaching out for hands or moving into hugs simultaneously.
He was still the same man - same Time Lord. So it wasn’t surprising that he was behaving exactly the same. If it wasn’t for the wedding thing, she probably wouldn’t see his behaviour as any different from normal.
Okay. Maybe the best thing was just not to worry about trying to define what they were to each other. Some things were just beyond definition, weren’t they?
They were best friends. Companions. He’d said that himself.
She loved him. She was pretty sure that he loved her, even if he’d never say so.
His hand in hers - still, now, with his new body - made her feel as if she’d found the place to belong that she’d been looking for all her life.
Did she really need any more than that?
She glanced back and saw his warm, boyish smile as he watched her walk across the courtyard.
No. She didn’t. She had his friendship and his love, and that was enough. No labels were necessary.
***
tbc
Characters: Nine, Ten, Rose, a little of Jack, Jackie, Mickey
Rated: PG
Spoilers: All the way to TCI, and some dialogue from School Reunion.
Summary: Since you have no parents to act on your behalf, I need to ask you: will you accept his hand in marriage?
This story is written in response to
purplerhino's challenge: Write one (pick one) or even all of the episodes for at least season two with the Doctor and Rose married. Many thanks to my wonderful, nitpicky and inspirational BRs, the fabulous
dark_aegis,
ponygirl72 and
nnwest.
Chapter 1: Lewd Conduct
Chapter 2: War Widow
Chapter 3: Staking a Claim
Chapter 4: Cold Comfort
Chapter 5: Letting Go
Chapter 6: Married Life
Chapter 7: So Many Goodbyes
Well, that was one way to break the mood.
Shame, too. He’d been enjoying the mood just as it was. Just the two of them together again, after a couple of days where not only had he barely seen her but he’d been... well, not quite stuck on Earth, but not going anywhere, anyway, and doing mostly human things.
And, whether or not she realised it, she was the main reason they were still here, on Earth, in the Powell Estates. Sure, the TARDIS needed some work, but he could do that anywhere. In the Vortex. On any one of thousands of planets, or locations in the future, where it’d be easier to find some of the replacement components he might need.
No; they were here for her.
But it was just as well her question had broken the mood. He’d been letting things get far too intimate for safety.
Letting? No. He’d been the one driving it. And it was far from sensible. After everything that he’d said to her the other day about why he could never offer her more than friendship, it was bloody insane of him.
Understandable, though, all the same. He’d forgotten what it was like to be alone. For so long, it’d been the two of them in the TARDIS - and, later, Jack, too. Now, that was a piece of unfinished business he had to deal with when the time came.
Over the past few days, he’d rediscovered what it was like to be alone. Not quite as nightmarish as in his previous body, but still not good. Too many memories. Too many things to feel guilt over. Too much history.
Too many times, over the past couple of days, when he’d been working away at something and realised that he’d been frozen, lost in thought, trapped deep in memories. Memories of pain, of loss, that he’d thought he’d left behind along with his last body. He’d thought he’d left the brooding behind, too, but clearly not.
New Doctor, old grief. And he had to do better than this. Clearly, being alone wasn’t good for him. He’d even found himself enjoying Mickey’s company yesterday when the bloke had helped him with the oil, and how crazy was that? How far gone was he when Mickey Smith was better than his own company?
He had missed Rose. Worse, though, had been the nagging thought that she was using the job as a means of avoiding him.
Though, thinking about it now, maybe she was; but she could also be using it as a means of avoiding spending all day with her mum. That made him smile inwardly. Jackie Tyler might not be even half as bad as his last self had pretended, but a little of her still went a long way.
He’d missed Rose. So much that he’d practically abducted her now to get to spend some time alone with her. And the flirting... well, they’d often flirted before, hadn’t they? Maybe he’d just wanted to find out if she’d still play along with him, or if his regeneration was a huge barrier there, too.
It seemed not. He hadn’t missed the way she’d reacted to his proximity. Interesting. And a good sign. It was nice to know that he could draw her back to him, just as he once had before, if she was getting too attached to her Earth-bound life again.
But, again, not sensible. Wasn’t he just sending her mixed signals? That, and the way he was the one now who kept referring to them as married?
Rassilon! Why couldn’t he just bloody decide what he actually wanted and stick to it? Rose. With him. Travelling companion and best friend. Nothing more, because anything more was just... wrong. Dangerous. Everything he’d made up his mind to avoid, especially now that he was the only one left.
She was looking at him. Staring at him, now. Looking worried. He frowned. “Rose...”
“Did I say the wrong thing?” The worried expression intensified. “I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it... I jus’ thought, cause you mentioned it the other day...”
Oh. Right. How had he managed to forget so completely that she’d asked him a question? Had he seen many people he cared about die?
He didn’t want to talk about it. But it was a fair question, given he was the one who’d brought up that subject in the first place, the other morning. And that he’d as good as told her that she could ask him anything.
“Not die, as such,” he said, trying to work out the best way of explaining this. “Mainly...” He hesitated. He already knew that she wasn’t going to like this. “Well... I don’t tend to stay around until it gets to that. Not any more.”
She frowned. “You don’t stay around? What’s that mean?”
He lifted her legs off his lap and stood, busying himself tidying up the basin and towel. “I leave, Rose. Or they leave me. It’s easier that way.”
“They...?” Frown-lines creased her forehead. “Who?”
Keep it light. Easier that way. He gave her a dry look, raising one eyebrow as he spoke. “See, that’s something else I told you that you didn’t pay attention to, did you? I did tell you that I’d travelled with other people. Lots of ‘em.”
“Right.” And she nodded. “I remember that. I set new records for bein’ jeopardy-friendly, right?”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t resist the quick grin. “And you’re still beating your own record, Rose Tyler.”
“Yeah. Gettin’ captured by the Daleks.” She chewed her lip. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t help it.” And, anyway, that hadn’t exactly been foremost on his mind. No companion had ever absorbed the Time Vortex before, and he sincerely hoped no-one would ever do so again.
“So. People who’ve travelled with you before me.” She nodded, as if understanding. “An’ you’ve left them?”
***
Left them.
Was that what he did? Was that what he’d really been warning her about?
Maybe she didn’t have to worry about choosing her own time to leave so that he wouldn’t have to watch her wither and die. He was going to leave her behind long before that happened. That was what he was telling her, wasn’t it?
His expression was bleak again. “Mostly, they’ve left me. But I’ve made it easy for them to do it.”
Why would he do that? “Doctor? Why’s that?”
He shrugged, and after a moment came to sit next to her again. The gap between them on the sofa might only have been a foot or so, but it felt like so much more.
“They had their own lives to go back to, Rose. Lives that don’t include spending their days with a Time Lord who doesn’t always understand them and who they certainly don’t understand, being continually on the move, almost getting killed - you know, just everyday life in the TARDIS.”
Comparing her own everyday life - the life she was back to, mostly, at the moment - with the life she’d lived with the Doctor over the last six months or so, she knew which she’d choose. In a heartbeat.
“They get tired of it,” he added, making her wonder if he’d known what she was thinking. “They want something normal. Routine. A job, marriage, a family, everything else humans take for granted, and that just isn’t the kind of life I lead.”
Would she get tired of it? In two years? Five years? Ten years? More? Easy to say she wouldn’t, but she was almost twenty. That was so young, especially compared to the Doctor, but more realistically compared to, say, her mum. If she stayed with the Doctor for the next twenty years, would she start wanting a different life?
But there was a difference. Wasn’t there? She loved him. And, although he hadn’t said the words aloud, he’d said enough to make clear that he loved her, too.
On the other hand, he’d said people he cared about. And, no matter whether it destroyed any illusions she might have had about the two of them - especially before he changed - she had to know. No point blinding herself to the truth.
“Do you... did you love any of them?” And were any of them like her? Young, female, in love with him?
The look he gave her was one of surprise. “Of course I loved them, Rose. Some more than others, of course, but I loved them all.”
“Loved...?” That hurt. It hurt far more than she’d expected, even though she’d told herself that she was prepared for his answer.
Even though the people he was talking about were in the past - and many of them had to be in the very distant past. After all, he had been around for over nine hundred years.
“Ah.” Now, he was looking amused. And that wasn’t fair of him. “You humans. You complicate things when they’re simple, and when they’re complicated you try to over-simplify them.”
“What do you mean?” Her irritation was showing, but she didn’t care. There were times when he deserved to see how much he was driving her mad, and this was one of them.
“When I say I loved them, I don’t mean in love. I mean the way you love Jack.”
Oh. That made sense. She’d loved Jack dearly. She hadn’t been in love with him, but she’d loved him all the same. Like another best friend.
And tears came to her eyes again at the memory of him. She missed him so much.
God, the Doctor’d had loads of people he cared about the way she loved Jack, and he’d had to say goodbye to all of them. How could he do it? Or did he just forget about them? Out of sight, out of mind? After all, he’d never mentioned any of them to her. Not specifically. Not by name.
On the other hand, that could just as easily be because it hurt too much to mention them.
Jack. Oh, Jack...
“What ‘appened to Jack? He’s dead, isn’t he, Doctor?”
He looked shocked. “No! Is that what you thought? No, he’s not dead, Rose. I told you that, didn’t I? I’m sure I told you.”
If he could call muttering something about Jack being busy telling her that he wasn’t dead!
“Well, yeah... but I didn’t know... I mean, you’d only jus’ changed, an’ you were runnin’ around the TARDIS like - I mean, you said it was all going wrong. I didn’t know what to think.” And she’d thought he hadn’t known what he was saying.
“Ah. So you thought I was making it up?”
“Well, not exactly. More like... well, maybe you didn’t really know.” Jack wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. Oh, god, he wasn’t dead...
The Doctor reached for her hands, holding them tightly, reassuringly. “He’s alive, Rose. I promise you that.”
She clung to him in return. “Then where is he? Why isn’t he with us any more?”
His smile was gentle. “He can’t be. Not now. He has something else to do. We’ll meet up with him again. Just not yet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Something else to do?” He wasn’t making sense. But then that was nothing new when it came to the Doctor - in either body.
“History, Rose. Can’t interfere with history.”
“Never stopped you before.” She’d told him that once before, too. But it wasn’t strictly true. He did tend to talk about stuff that was supposed to happen, and sometimes about things happening that weren’t supposed to happen. And that was when he’d interfere, to put things right.
Put like that, it made sense. After all, he’d saved them all from the Nestene Consciousness. And the Slitheen. And the Sycorax. But he hadn’t gone back in time to save the world from the harm wreaked upon it by Adolf Hitler, and nor had he undone other atrocities committed by humans on humans. Not because he couldn’t, but - now, it finally made sense - because those things were supposed to happen. They had happened. They were historical fact.
The Sycorax invasion hadn’t been historical fact. Or maybe it had been, and he’d always known that he would stop it. Though it certainly didn’t always work like that: he hadn’t known about the Slitheens and the fake spaceship crash before it’d happened. History changing, timelines being rewritten, all around them.
Yes, she thought she was beginning to understand.
“So, Jack’s doin’ something that you know about? Something important to history?”
He nodded, smiling. “Exactly! And he has to finish doing it, but once he has we can go and find him. See what he wants to do next.”
“He’ll want to come back, won’t he? Travel with us again?”
But the Doctor shook his head, releasing her hands at the same time. “Not necessarily. I told you, Rose. People leave. They move on. They get on with their lives.”
“Not Jack... He’ll want to be with us again. Won’t he?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You have to remember he’s not going to be the same person when we meet him again.”
“Not the same... Oh. Because it’ll be later, for him? How much later?”
“Not so much that. More... Well, you remember what he was like when we met him. Pretending that the conman was all there was to him. Course, it wasn’t, and we saw that soon enough. But he didn’t believe it himself. By the time we see him again, Rose, he’ll be a hero many times over. Starting with Satellite Five, but many more times since then.”
That was no surprise. But then she’d always thought Jack was a hero. He’d saved her life the very first time they’d met, after all. And then he’d stuck around when he could have got himself out of danger. He’d saved the two of them, and then he’d almost sacrificed his own life to take the bomb away.
“So, he’ll be different, yeah? But that sounds good different.”
“Good for him, yeah. Absolutely. The thing is, when we met him he was running away - from himself, and from those lost memories of his. Travelling with us gave him an excuse not to confront that. When we see him again, he’ll know that whatever he might have done in his past he is a hero. Even if he never gets those two years back he’ll know that. So he’s going to be ready to decide what he wants to do with the rest of his life. To find a purpose again.”
Put like that... yeah, she could see that maybe he wouldn’t want to go back to the way things were. She sighed.
“We’ll see him, I promise,” the Doctor said. “We’ll find out what his plans are. Maybe all he’ll want from us is a lift back to the future somewhere.”
Right. He was from the fifty-first century, after all. Though she had no idea when in time they’d find him. The Doctor was giving nothing away.
And now she saw, once again, why he’d told her he didn’t get involved. Because, once again, he was losing a travelling companion - a friend. “He’s going to leave you. Leave us.”
The way he looked at her told her he knew she was getting it. “Yeah. If not when we see him again, then sooner or later.” His gaze slid past her. “You will, too, Rose. Sooner or later, you’ll leave me as well.”
She wanted to deny it. Longed to tell him that she’d stay with him as long as he let her. But it would be a lie. She’d already acknowledged that she’d have to leave him one day, while she could still do it voluntarily.
And, even if she didn’t walk away from him, she’d leave him anyway - because she was human. Because she would age and die.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
***
At least she hadn’t lied to him. Or tried to pretend.
A few days ago, she would have. Not just to him, but to herself, too.
But then so would he - the previous him. He’d done nothing but pretend to her, and to himself. Pretend that he was all right, when he wasn’t. Pretend that he could keep her safe. Pretend that they’d be together as long as they wanted to be. Pretend that he wasn’t going to send her away if the danger got to be too much. Pretend that there was no such thing as regeneration and that he wasn’t going to change, one day...
For all that, in some ways, he’d treated her as an equal, in other ways it’d been nothing of the kind. He’d treated her like a child, for all that he’d let her understand of him, his life, the ways in which he, as a Gallifreyan and a Time Lord, was different from her and from her experience. He’d kept reminding her that he wasn’t human, but had rarely given her any inkling of what that meant.
He wasn’t pretending any more. Not now. And nor was she.
And she’d apologised for the fact that, one day, she’d leave him. Just as everyone else had, and everyone else would continue to.
He raised his hand to her face, touching her cheek with his fingertips. “Don’t be. That’s the way it is. I understand, really, I do.”
“Doctor...”
He heard the tiny choke in her voice. Instead of letting her finish whatever she’d intended to say, he tugged her into his arms. “Shh. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now, and that’s what matters. Leave the future where it belongs.”
Live for the present. It was all he could do. All he had been doing, especially since the Time War.
This is who I am, right here, right now. All right? All that counts is here and now, and this is me!
Live for the present. Right here, right now. And right here, right now, he had Rose. Even if they both knew she’d leave him one day, for now she was here.
***
“Come on.” He shook her slightly. “You’re falling asleep. Time you went to bed.”
She was, too. His arms were still around her, and she’d just sagged against his chest. Her eyes were heavy.
With an effort, she dragged herself away from him and pushed up from the sofa. Her feet didn’t hurt so much now - his massage had really helped. But, yeah, a good night’s sleep would help. And she was very glad that she didn’t have to walk back up to the flat.
“Better see you get to your room safely.” He grinned at her and held out his hand. “Otherwise I’ll just end up tripping over you in a corridor somewhere. You’re asleep on your feet.”
She let him lead her through the familiar TARDIS passageways to her bedroom - the room that had become hers all those months ago and that she’d slept in every night until just four days ago. It was so good to be back here.
It felt like home.
A little piece of home. Better than nothin’.
A lump was suddenly in her throat as she remembered that moment. Remembered him - him as he’d been then - standing next to the TARDIS, his hand on the wall. So aware of being the only survivor of his people, his planet. And so achingly alone in that moment.
The TARDIS; all he’d had. All he still had.
She’d reminded him that he had her, and he’d actually accepted her attempt at comfort. Now, she could see that he should have laughed at her. How could she, Rose Tyler, even begin to imagine that she could make up for an entire planet and people? Especially given what she understood now. That, however long she stayed, she’d be with him for about a blink of an eye relative to his lifetime.
The TARDIS was the only thing he could count on.
Oh, god...
“Doctor... I never realised...”
“What?” He looked down at her, an enquiring smile on his lips.
“When you sent me away, on Satellite Five, I was so furious with you - but it never occurred to me.”
“What didn’t?”
“The TARDIS. ‘S all you have, Doctor. All you got left of your world. Your people. An’ you jus’ sent me away in it an’ told me to let it die. You... you were losing everything you had when you sent me away. How could you do that to yourself?”
“Ah.” He stopped walking and turned to face her, though his gaze slid past her again to rest on some part of the wall behind her. “Well... it wasn’t really like that. I didn’t think I was going to survive, after all. Told you that. I said I was dying, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but... regeneration,” she pointed out.
He shook his head, and now he met her gaze. “If I’d been exterminated, I wouldn’t have regenerated. If I’d set off the Delta wave... well, I’ve never actually tried it before, so I don’t know if I could regenerate if my brain got fried. Probably not, actually. It’s not something I’m all that keen on experimenting with just to find out. And I really didn’t want to risk the Daleks getting their hands on the TARDIS.”
Maybe. But he’d still given up the TARDIS, the one thing he cherished most, just like that, to save her life. And that... that was just so beyond her comprehension.
She shook her head. “Still can’t fool me, Doctor. Even if it is a new you. I know what you did.”
He didn’t argue with her this time. “To save your life, Rose? It was worth it. And I’d do it again if I had to.” Fleetingly, his hand touched her shoulder. “Now, off to bed. I’ll see you in the morning with that cuppa I promised.”
***
A very sleepy “Wha’?” was the response to his knock the next morning. Yup, still so not a morning person.
“Your tea, as promised,” he announced as he went into her bedroom. And he had to stifle a grin at the tangled mass of her hair on the pillow and the very sleepy eyes that stared resentfully up at him.
“Did you have to wake me?”
“Well, yeah.” He set the mug down on her bedside cabinet. “You humans, you’d sleep the whole day away if you could.” Light touch-paper and retire. He smothered another grin.
One arm appeared from beneath the covers. And then she was suddenly very awake and looking horrified. “It can’t be almost eleven! I’m s’posed to be in work by twelve! Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”
“I thought you were complaining that I woke you at all.” Now he didn’t bother to hide the grin. “You slept the clock round, Rose Tyler.” Which troubled him. She’d been far more tired after her extra-long shift than she’d ever been after any of the exhausting adventures he’d put her through.
“Anyway,” he added, heading for the door, “it’s all right. I took us back in time a couple of hours. Out there - ” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the outside world. “ - it’s still only nine in the morning. You’ve got plenty of time.”
She sat up abruptly, and suddenly a pillow came flying in his direction.
“What was that for?” He caught it, indignant, and threw it back to her.
“If you did that, you could’ve let me sleep another hour!”
***
He kissed her cheek as she was leaving for work. And told her to come back here - to the TARDIS - when she got home.
Could he be any more obvious about wanting to be with her? Or send her any greater mixed signals about what their relationship was?
He was behaving exactly as if they were an old married couple. Yet she had to admit that they’d already behaved like that before he’d changed, too. They’d finished each other’s sentences. They’d looked at each other and just known what each other was thinking. They’d anticipated each other’s gestures, reaching out for hands or moving into hugs simultaneously.
He was still the same man - same Time Lord. So it wasn’t surprising that he was behaving exactly the same. If it wasn’t for the wedding thing, she probably wouldn’t see his behaviour as any different from normal.
Okay. Maybe the best thing was just not to worry about trying to define what they were to each other. Some things were just beyond definition, weren’t they?
They were best friends. Companions. He’d said that himself.
She loved him. She was pretty sure that he loved her, even if he’d never say so.
His hand in hers - still, now, with his new body - made her feel as if she’d found the place to belong that she’d been looking for all her life.
Did she really need any more than that?
She glanced back and saw his warm, boyish smile as he watched her walk across the courtyard.
No. She didn’t. She had his friendship and his love, and that was enough. No labels were necessary.
***
tbc