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When he first heard his name, he imagined it to only be a whisper on the wind, nothing more. Just him, hearing things that weren’t there.
But then it grew louder, insistent — demanding he acknowledge what he was trying to avoid.
It was her voice, he knew right away. He could tell her voice apart from all he had ever heard, even as the places and names and times and faces began to run together. Without opening his eyes, he turned in the direction it had come from, and remained still, listening intently. Above the noise of the wind and distant nighttime sounds, he heard his name again. Noticing that he was alone in his bed, he sought the light, and his glasses, throwing back the covers to see where she had gone. She wasn’t in the bathroom, and the hallway was dark too. He decided to look for her — she hadn’t done this in a long time. The last time she had done it, she had been angry with him, and they were fine as of now. It wasn’t like her to just up and leave their room in the middle of the night without a reason.
He searched high and low, and even the TARDIS confirmed it had not seen her, letting out a concerned hum as he paced the console room in his pajamas and slippers.
She must have left the TARDIS, then. But where had she gone?
He dressed in his suit, running a hand through his disheveled hair. Had it been someone else, he would have taken the time to comb it out; if it were someone he really disliked, he would have washed it and used several products to make it look perfect. But Rose wasn’t just anyone.
Stepping outside, he noted the cold, snowy winter night. The last time they had landed, it must have been…November? How long they must have stayed, letting time pass, until the seasons changed. It was strange for him, but nothing new. Rose was always an exception.
He walked out, noting the back alley where the TARDIS was parked (he really should move it, it was dimly lit and a bad area to be in) and continued out to the main street. To the left, he knew, was a convenience store, open all night, and to the right stood a handful of small businesses. Across the street were several crowded apartment buildings, and just out of eyesight was the little church whose bells often woke him in the mornings. He decided that if she had needed something, she would have gone to the store, so he turned left.
He entered the store, a small establishment owned by a family that had immigrated to England decades ago. It sold candy that he and Rose treated themselves to occasionally, fresh food that they sometimes bought for lunch, and groceries they lugged back to the TARDIS when she was out of the essentials. He wandered from aisle to aisle, looking for a familiar blonde head. Seeing no other patrons, he turned to go, until his attention was caught by the candy display. He picked up a few candies for the pair of them, and made small talk with the owner’s son as he paid for them and let them fall to the bottom of his pocket.
Back out in the cold night, he moved faster now, seeking Rose. If she wasn’t in the store, he had no clue as to where she’d be. He began to walk around the block, crossing the street and turning right, in front of the apartments and towards church. He looked up at the apartments, wondering if Rose had found her way into one of them. Perhaps there were monsters or aliens she had found, who had taken her? But he heard nothing, and not a single light was on. Rather than wake the inhabitants, many with children or elderly relatives, he walked on.
During this time, he had not passed a single person, and only very rarely did a car turn down the street and speed on, tires screeching in the night. It was one such car whose headlights cut through the winter darkness, showing the front of the church and the small parcel of land to the side. He frowned, noting that the gate was unlatched in the split second he saw it. He walked over, peering through its black iron bars and trying to discern the shapes he saw inside.
Doctor?
His own name, in her voice, came to him then, and he pushed the ice-cold gate open, wincing as it shuddered and groaned. His sneakers were soaked when he stepped inside — the grass there had allowed the snow to accumulate, rather than melt into the dirty grey slush that lined the sidewalks and roads. Satisfied by the crunch, he began to look around. The largest shapes were trees, branches waving like arms to greet him. The smaller shapes — he stepped closer, illuminating them with his sonic — were gravestones. He doubted very much that Rose had come into the cemetery so late at night, but snow beneath him had another set of footprints in it.
He chose to follow them, although they seemed bigger than Rose’s, because he had no better leads. They meandered through the cemetery, through the areas reserved for children and for veterans and for the unknown. He decided that this other person must have been searching for someone, as no grave was not passed. It felt like ages before the footprints began to lead anywhere — they suddenly moved with urgency, in large, quick strides across the snow, towards the back of the cemetery. Until this point, the Doctor had entertained himself by studying the tombstone of each grave he passed, looking at the names and dates, but the abrupt change spurred him on. He followed the trail through the ankle—deep snow, now biting at his toes, running and running. And then —
It stopped. It was impossible, that his best lead could just disappear. Perhaps one of these statues been a wayward Weeping Angel, or aliens had abducted the unknown footprint-maker from where he stood. Stranger things had happened.
He scanned around with his sonic, hoping to see something in the dark. And there, several graves to his left, there was a huge patch where the snow had been disturbed. He walked over, looking around, and seeing no one, crouched closer to the patch. It looked like it had to have been made by a person — an animal was not so large and would have left tracks — but there appeared to be no reason.
And then he turned to look at the tombstone.
–
“Doctor. Doctor, wake up! Doctor!”
He was awoken by a cacophony of voices around him, and as he regained feeling in his body, he felt like an icicle. Had he been human, he would have surely diagnosed himself with frostbite, and lost several appendages. But the most important thing right now was the bright light shining directly at his face.
“Blimey, this is the fourth time he’s done it this week!”
“There’s not much we can do for him. We can’t very well tie him down and stop him from wandering.”
“Doctor, can you hear us?”
The voices began to differentiate themselves, and the light was guided away from his eyes. He opened them, and squinting, made out Martha and Donna. Mickey held the light (just like him to nearly blind his poor eyes), and Jack stood behind him, looking at the gravestone.
“Will you give us a minute?” he asked, looking towards his three friends. Mickey handed over the light, and they kindly walked away, a few rows over.
Jack knelt down, looking at the Doctor, with snow melting in his hair and several blankets on his shoulders.
“I know it’s hard — believe me, it was hard on all of us — but do you think she’d want this for you? She cared for you so much, she’d want you to keep caring for yourself too, don’t you think? Even in the end?”
The Doctor looked at him, face blank.
“Come on Doctor, can you seriously not remember that?”
“Repressed memories!” Martha coughed from the small huddle in the distance, leading Jack to cease his questioning. They walked back to them, and Mickey and Donna helped the Doctor to his feet.
“Come on, we’re going to warm you up, spaceman. You’re skin and bones as it is, you don’t need to be out here, freezing to death. Just come back inside, please?”
The Doctor let his friends guide his path with the flashlights and their hands on his shoulders, leaning on them in his state of shock and exhaustion, as the powdery snowflakes began falling once more, dusting their hair and clothes.
Behind him, the grave of Rose Marion Tyler began to disappear again under the cascading waves of snow.