Chapter Text
Summer 2006
“Oh, I know!” the Doctor exclaimed, dashing around the TARDIS with his usual boundless energy, flicking switches and pressing buttons. “You’ll love this. The natives are three feet tall, bright purple, and their biggest treasure is a diamond the size of a minivan. You thought the Koh-i-Noor was expensive, but this is off the charts!”
The Doctor yanked his white sneaker off the console, bringing his foot to the ground and jogging to the far side of the controls in one smooth motion. He yanked the nearest monitor around so they could both see it, pulling up an image of a glittering green planet, surrounded by what looked like dozens of black moons.
The Doctor laughed, the sound filled with pure, childlike joy. “Oh, would you look at that.”
He threw his arm around Rose’s shoulders and pulled her close, leaning the two of them closer to the screen.
“You see those black spheres?” the Doctor asked, his lips brushing the side of her face.
“They’re moons, yeah?” she asked, a bit breathless.
“Nah, that would be dull!” he crowed, squeezing her shoulder. “They’re sentient beings who’ve lived for thousands of years. Don’t need to eat, don’t need to sleep. They sustain themselves off the excess gases released by the planet’s atmosphere. The natives have split themselves off into factions- some think they’re gods, some think they’re hostile invaders, and some think they’re just plain old rocks.”
“What are they really?” Rose asked.
The Doctor turned toward her, piercing brown eyes boring into hers, their faces mere centimeters apart.
“Dunno,” he breathed, grinning. “You want to find out?”
Rose swallowed reflexively. She didn’t even say anything- that was the thing. She just looked at him. But he must’ve seen something in her face, in her body language. The emotion behind his eyes disappeared, like he’d slammed a door shut. His smile was still there, but it looked fixed.
“Right,” he said, striding away. “Off we go, then.”
And then the TARDIS was shuddering and Rose was holding on for dear life and the moment was gone.
Akhaten
The Doctor was here, standing right in front of her, and he refused to meet her eyes. She reached out for him, almost as a reflex. With a quick step and a flick of his coat, he was out of reach.
“Back to the mainland, I think,” he said, voice filled with cheer. To anyone else, it might not have seemed strained at all. “Nice seeing you. It’s almost time for you to leave.”
“Doctor.”
“Nice design on the, er, dimension cannon, by the way,” he said, gesturing widely at her bag. “Guess you’ve got a few more designs to go to before you hit the right one. You didn’t have that design when you saw me again. You need help setting the coordinates? Not that I haven’t had an absolutely wonderful time, but I’d like to avoid ever doing this again in the future, if you don’t-“
“Doctor!”
The Doctor whirled around, getting right up in her face.
“What?” he snapped. Rose took an involuntary step backwards. His eyes were filled with a cruel rage, mouth curled in a sneer. “The stars are going out, right? The walls between dimensions are collapsing? Have you run into Donna with the great big insect on her back yet?”
Rose stared at him.
The Doctor laughed humorlessly. “It’s not me you need. It’s your Doctor. Skinny. Hair like- like-“ he made a gesture with his hand above his head that was probably more reminiscent of a cockatoo, but it got the point across.
“Not to give you any spoilers,” he continued, wincing for some reason at the last word, “but you’ll find him again. Try Earth, early July, two-thousand eight. It was a Saturday. Love Saturdays. Great big temporal tipping points where anything is-”
Rose grabbed him by his lapels, yanking him forward and making him stumble. She pulled him down ‘til his shoulders hunched, bringing them nearly nose to nose.
“I’m not from two-thousand eight, you bloody idiot! I’m from twenty twelve. I’ve already lived through the Daleks, the twenty-seven planets, the bleeding clone of yourself you abandoned me with that died six hours after you left me again!”
The Doctor stopped.
He stood there, limp, blinking rapidly.
“Well,” he croaked out, “how was I supposed to know that?”
“You could’ve asked me, you great bastard!” she yelled.
“How could you expect me to ask you anything, when the answer could’ve been the wrong one?!”
There he is.
The Doctor realized it too, that his mask had dropped. His gaze dropped, his throat bobbing as he swallowed.
No. She wasn’t letting him brush this off. Not this time.
The Doctor made to pull away, she tightened her grip on his tweed jacket, and somehow-
She could’ve pulled him down, he could’ve pulled her upward, but maybe they had just collided, inevitably, like two asteroids drifting in space until gravity brought them together into an unbreakable embrace. They were kissing, and kissing, and kissing, and her hands had drifted upward to fist themselves in his hair and he was holding onto the sides of her face like he might die if he let go.
Rose broke it off first, breathing heavily.
“Oh,” the Doctor rasped out, taking a step back, fidgeting and fixing his clothes. “Yes. Well.”
“Don’t be an idiot about this,” she whispered. “Not anymore. We’ve been through too much, Doctor. You can’t run forever.”
The Doctor stiffened. “That’s what I’m best at, Rose Tyler. That’s what I’ve always done.”
“But isn’t it better to run with someone else? To…to have a hand to hold?”
The Doctor shot her a look. He looked almost betrayed, like he thought she was trying to underhandedly manipulate him with memories into letting her stay.
The Doctor ran his hands up his face and through his hair. “Listen- come back with me to the TARDIS, I’ll take you home. Or- or wherever you want to go. Back to Pete’s World, or to start a new life in this dimension. Whatever you need, I’ll get it for you.”
She felt a stabbing pain in her chest, like he’d just stuck a tiny, sharp dagger into her heart.
“Don’t you want me to come?” she asked, voice small.
“I don’t do this,” he said firmly. “Not anymore. Never again.”
Oh, no. Rose had known this would happen. He’d hardened himself again, walled himself off from all heartbreak and sorrow by running away from any love, any friendship, anything at all that mattered.
“You never answered my question, Doctor. How long has it been for you?”
The Doctor grimaced. “Almost three hundred years.”
Rose’s breath hitched. “Have- have you been alone this whole time?”
“No,” he answered, eyes on the ground, jaw working. “No, I had- I had friends. Really, really good friends. Gone now, of course.”
“You moved on,” Rose said. As she said it, Rose wasn’t sure if she meant from me or from your other friends, but he seemed to understand, either way.
His steady green eyes met hers, deadly serious. “Never.”
“Then why won’t you take me back?” she asked, shrinking into herself as she realized how petulant and whiny it sounded. “It’s just, I never thought I’d get here, Doctor. But I did. It worked. Can’t you let yourself be happy?”
His eyes bored into hers. And wasn’t that sick? Wasn’t it terrible that the moment when she saw him, really recognized him, was when he was angry and depressed beyond belief?
“If you travel with me, you will die. Soon. Or you’ll leave, like you should, to have a real life, a human life. The kind of life I can never live.”
But this Doctor, he was different from hers. He had tells. His fingers tapped against his trousers, his eyes darted around her face, and his lips pursed into a slight frown.
“You don’t even believe that,” she realized. “Do you?”
The Doctor’s eyes widened, flabbergasted. “What?”
“Sure,” she began, “I could die tomorrow, but so could you. Neither of us know what’s going to happen. Life is about moments, and you know that better than anyone. That’s why you keep bringing humans along with you. You know that being happy for a little while is tons better than anything else. So why are you still using that as a talking point?
“Because it’s true?” he said, sounding more like he was asking himself.
Rose tilted her head in cool consideration. “You’re hiding. You think you don’t deserve to be happy, and you’re trying to pass it off as some kind of ‘concern for my wellbeing.’”
The look in his eyes spoke volumes.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think, over these years. I’ve met a lot of people, heard a lot of stories. And I’ve realized a few things. I know what you’ve done, Doctor. I know all the mistakes you’ve made, and all the people you think you could’ve saved if you were just faster, or smarter, or luckier. I’m sure I don’t know everything, but I know quite a bit. And I forgive you.”
“You?” he snarled. “You forgive me? You think you’ve earned that right? You really think you’re important enough to just do that?”
He was like a kitten. An injured, abandoned kitten hissing and showing its claws, convinced that it was the most intimidating beast of them all. And to the Daleks, maybe. But not to her. Then again, if the Daleks had ever seen the Doctor eat banana pancakes, she wondered if they would be quite so scared.
Rose knew he was expecting her to cry, to flinch away at his barbed words. But instead, partially just to get a reaction out of him, she smiled.
“You can’t scare me off, Doctor. I know you too well. I’m not going anywhere.”
The Doctor took a step back.
“You can’t be here,” he whispered. “You can’t really be here.”
Her smile widened. “It’s me. I’m here, Doctor.”
“You don’t understand,” he rasped, voice hoarse like he’d been screaming for hours. “I don’t get to…"
“What?”
“I don’t get to keep anyone.”
Rose forced her bravado up to the surface. “Well, tough. Because I’m keeping you. Forever, this time. I’m not going anywhere.”
Before she could blink, the Doctor’s arms were around her. He was shaking, almost violently. She hugged him back, just as fiercely.
A hitching breath in her ear made her jump. Was the Doctor…crying?
Poor, wonderful, insufferable man.
He pulled back, wiping at his eyes, embarrassed.
“Don’t cry, Doctor,” she whispered. “Your eyes’re too nice to be all scrunched up and watery. Your eyebrows are going red, too.”
He jumped up, like she’d reminded him of something. He blinked rapidly, eyes wide as saucers.
“Eyes- oh, I didn’t- I forgot, they aren’t- I’m not- I’m him, of course, but I’m not- do you mind that I look like-“
“Don’t be daft,” said Rose, cupping his face in her hands. “I love you, Doctor. I loved you when you looked twice my age, and I loved you when you were being a git, and I loved you when you were kind. I loved you when you were working on the TARDIS at three o’clock in the morning, and when you tried to get me to leave you behind, and even when you couldn’t tell me you loved me back.”
“I loved you from the moment I met you,” he blurted out.
For the first time today, Rose genuinely wondered if she was dreaming.
She swallowed down her shock and smiled, shakily.
“Let’s go back to the TARDIS. Have a cuppa. You can fill in all the gaps in the stories I’ve heard. Tell me about your adventures.”
When the Doctor just kept staring at her like she was about to evaporate, Rose started to fidget.
“I mean, if you want,” she added. “I just- I came all this way to see you again, I thought you would want me to-“
“Rose,” he interrupted. “There is no universe where I would not want you with me always.”
If he kept that up, Rose was going to melt right into her shoes.
“Oh,” she squeaked, succinctly.
The Doctor reached out, wiggling his fingers invitingly, and Rose’s heart ached, for a second, for the Doctor she’d never get to see again. But that didn’t last for long. She’d always love that Doctor, just as she’d always love her first. But they hadn’t gone anywhere. They were here, standing in front of her after so long, looking at her like she hung the very stars he loved above all else.
She laced her fingers through his, and his smiled widened.
They started walking toward the TARDIS, and the Doctor began his story.
“It all started when I crash-landed into a little girl’s garden…”