Work Text:
It feels like we always go backwards baby
Every part of me says go ahead
It had been a day.
When Rose was young, she'd sometimes arrive home from school and find Jackie on the sofa, eyes closed against a droning television. Her moods were never quite discernible in those moments but Rose, growing up as the child of a widow and a single mother, was sensitive to them all. So she'd put on her happiest face, thrust her shoulders back, skip over to her mother and greet her with the brightest and happiest "Hi mum!" she could muster. And though the smile would twitch at the corner of Jackie's mouth, and though her eyes would sparkle with the exhausted affection only parents feel for their children, she'd wave her gently off and say:
"Oh, love, give me a mo'. It's been a day."
Rose hadn't known what that meant, not really. A good day? A bad day? A busy day? Or something entirely else? But now, taking the long meander back to her room from Mickey's, it's all she can hear in her head, her mother's voice weighed down by the world in a way her youthful ear was never attuned to, saying with the very last of her good cheer, Oh love. It's been a day.
Her clothes still stink of strange stalking spaceships and 18th century fireplaces, and at the edges of her mind's eye Mickey's snide and smug rebukes of the Doctor's behavior battles with the Doctor's own devastated expression. She's actually aching from bruises inflicted by murderous clockwork robots, but no one's bothered to even ask after her. With a frown and a firm clench of her stomach, she tamps down the self-pity and opens the door to her room.
The last thing she expects to find inside is a lanky, sort of brown alien sprawled on her bed, shoes and all. He's got his hands tucked up beneath his head and his ankles crossed, staring at his ceiling like he belongs there. It's an arresting, intoxicating image; she will never get tired of him in her bed, and she doesn't want him to leave but at this moment she finds she doesn't exactly want him to stay. She wishes she had a shell to retreat into, just for a little while.
He opens his mouth to speak and she cuts him off the only way she knows how.
"Oh Doctor, give me a mo'," she says, flopping onto her vanity bench, not wanting to sit on the bed next to him, to be that close to him, not just yet. "It's been a day."
He freezes, mouth open, and his eyebrows furrow. She's stunned him, cutting him off before he can speak, blocking him off just as he starts to reach out. Her words create a wall around the parts of her rubbed raw by this last adventure. She feels protected in this little bubble, safe, and she is struck with a moment of understanding for her mother so powerful it would bring her to her knees if she weren't already sitting down.
And then a second thought: This is love.
The way she's sat down tweaks a muscle and she winces, twitching a little as her spine shifts without her consent. She really wants a shower. The longest, hottest shower she can muster. Or a shower-bath. All the feeling of a shower pounding down on sore muscles, but with all the heated immersion of soaking in the hottest bath you can draw. She should ask the Doctor about that, when she feels like speaking to him again. He probably knows where to find one, or a planet that fits the bill. Spa planet. She could get behind a trip like that.
"Are you all right?" He flies up into a sit, reaching for her as if he can snatch her out of the hands of some danger instead of relieve her muscle spasm.
"Bit sore," she allows. His shoulders are high and hard; tension seems to come off him in waves. It makes her back tighter in response.
"Are you hurt?" It comes out high and tight, and then just after, murmured like he means to keep it inside his head, "I never checked."
"No, I don't think so," she answers. "I need a hot shower, though."
It might be a flash of hurt across his face, or she could be imagining things. Either way, he drops his hand to his lap and looks down at it, then the door, then her again.
Instead of answering, she gets up, grabs her towel and digs pajamas out of her drawer before going for the bathroom. She doesn't hear her door open or close before she turns the water on.
The heat from the shower is brilliant but it's not until she's under the spray that she realizes exactly how tired she is. It's in her legs and the bottoms of her feet, and especially in the center of her back, between and just below her shoulder blades. It's not an unusual sensation; with all the adrenaline pumping through her veins after their wild adventures, she often doesn't realize just how much she's put her body through until her post-running-for-their-lives shower. Sometimes she's discovered deep bruises and cuts she never noticed bleeding, and other times she's found burns and scrapes and thorns buried deep in skin, and each time a visit to the med bay had set her to rights. This is different; this adventure was different. A lot less running for her life, a lot more sitting, waiting, reviewing all the emergency TARDIS flying procedures she'd been taught and wondering if she knew enough, by now, to pilot them directly to France. Probably not. Or, at least not without the TARDIS translating all the controls into English.
She'd thought she was different. She'd thought they were different. She had been so sure, so sure it wasn't just wishful thinking and projection. She'd felt it. And he'd said it, hadn't he? You can spend the rest of your life with me. Wasn't that an admission? An invitation?
Rose Tyler has always prided herself on being a sharp girl. Could she have gotten it so wrong?
There are strange smells on her skin, not just her clothes; the scent of burnt and rotting flesh, of heavy royal perfumes and mechanical grease. She scrubs at every nook and cranny, trying not to think of Reinette and failing. That perfect face and perfect hair, waist cinched impossibly small by corsets, and yet still running and fighting in yards and yards of heavy satin -- the real thing, not what they make those flimsy dressing gowns her mum favors out of. The smell of Reinette's perfume on the Doctor's collar, mixed with wine and candle wax and the residue of ashes in a fireplace. Did Reinette wait at the fireplace all her life for the Doctor to appear again? She'd heard his invitation; surely she waited at the fireplace that night. Did she wait the night after? Or the night after that? Did she pack a bag, and when did she unpack it?
Rose had waited five and a half hours, faith unshakeable even as her stomach turned knots. Was it hours for Reinette? Was it years?
Her stomach twists, drops. It's a horrible thing to contemplate. The ache in her back magnifies. She rolls her shoulders, arches her back, but it doesn't help. Now the words are rising up in her, trying to break out and be asked to the empty room, but the empty room won't have answers for her. The man in her bed might, if he's still in his bed. She finishes washing, shuts off the water, and towels off. The pajamas are waiting for her but it feels like too much at the moment, so she just puts on her fluffy pink robe, ties it tight, and runs her fingers through her damp hair as she walks back out into her bedroom.
The Doctor is still in her bed, still staring at the ceiling, but he's shed his suit coat and kicked off his shoes. There is a hole forming at the big toe of one sock. She stares at it for a moment before walking over and sitting carefully beside him on the bed. He doesn't take his eyes off the ceiling.
"Feel better?"
"No," she sighs softly. "My back hurts."
"From the robots?"
"Nah. Fighting the bad guys, that's easy. I've got practice with that. It was the waiting. I didn't want to move. I just knew the second I got up to do… anything would be the moment you'd come back and you wouldn’t find me, so you'd just leave again."
He looks at her then, his eyes dark and flashing with hurt again.
"You think I'd do that to you? Just leave because you weren't right there waiting?"
She shrugs. She wants to say no. A few days ago she would have said no in a heartbeat, but it's not a few days ago. Things have changed. Time marches stubbornly on, forcing inevitable change onto everything and everyone. A few days ago she didn't have a clue, not really, about how many secrets the Doctor kept from her, how many people had come before and how easily one could come since. He'd jumped through that mirror without a second thought and while he had to, of course he had to, he hadn't even looked back.
Would he be so inclined to look for her if she wasn't just on hand?
"Rose," he says and his voice is so hoarse, deep and gravelly with emotion, "I wouldn't. I wouldn't, not ever. I thought you trusted me."
"I do," she says. "And I knew you'd come back, I just didn't know if you'd stay."
"Where else would I go?"
He is confused, face contorted with a profound sort of confusion that makes him look very young. She can't help herself, reaches out and combs her fingers through the wildest thicket of hair over his forehead, smoothing it back. One hand slips out from under his head and cups hers as it comes to rest on his temple.
They stare at each other for a long moment, just breathing.
"Five and a half hours," he finally says. "I'm sorry. I didn't say that earlier – I'm sorry."
She shakes her head a little. "You had to. She was in danger, of course you had to."
"Still. Not my best plan."
"No," she allows, accepting the small apology buried in that simple statement, "but not your worst."
He extends his arm along her pillow and she lies down beside him, head resting in the crook of his shoulder. She turns on her side, slides one of her hands onto his stomach and her knee on top of his. He strokes her shoulder lightly as he returns his gaze to the ceiling; she stares at the buttons on his shirt.
"How long was it for you?" she asks. She can't believe she hasn't asked yet, since the time window was so unstable in the past.
"An evening," he shrugs. "You know, crash a party – literally –, save the royal court from clockwork robots, celebrate with champagne, contemplate the pace of human existence, find a way home, and, well, you were there for the rest. Six hours, maybe? Eight?"
"You're usually more precise."
"I was a bit distracted," he admits. She frowns furiously inside and ruthlessly squashes the jealousy that rises up.
"Not much longer than us, then," she says instead.
"Lucky," he murmurs. "Very lucky. It could have been… Still. I practically used to vacation in that time, I'd have been able to hitch a ride with myself sooner rather than later. It would never have been long for you. I wouldn't."
"I believe you."
They lapse into silence and Rose is glad. Her chest aches dully just talking this way. This is no excited recap, no personal greatest hits album. This has left both of them raw. And his wound is gaping, palpable in the air between them as she feels his chest expand and collapse with each breath. She's never been much good about leaving things unsaid.
"She waited for you."
"Rose—"
"She did, though."
He swallows hard; so close to his throat, she hears it.
"Yes."
"How long do you think she waited?"
"I don't—I don't want to know." He swallows again. "I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop imagining."
"It's not your fault."
"But it is."
"No," she says and pushes herself up on one elbow so she can look him in the eye. "It was an unstable window, and it's awful, it's tragic even, but it's not your fault."
"I gave her hope," he says, turning his head to look away. "I had no right to do that."
A flash of anger clears the haze of sorrow and self-pity that's been following her around since he took Arthur and jumped through the mirror. She sits up fully.
"Well, that's a load of selfish shit."
Her words, her tone, they turn his attention back to her, eyebrows raised to the very top of his forehead.
"Pardon?"
"I said, that's a load of selfish, self-centered shit. You've been on this… this… this ego trip for days now. What was it, Sarah Jane? Proof that life goes on without you and the simple fact of your physical absence doesn't erase your presence in our lives? That the friends you've made, the companions you've had, we miss you when you're gone? You've draped that over your shoulders like you're Sisyphus and you've just invented a new way to haul your eternal boulder, but it's just a load of selfish crap. You don't get to decide how we feel about you, or what you and this ship and this whole adventure means to us. This is my life, Doctor, and I make the decisions. You will never be one of my regrets."
If he was confused earlier he is positively gobsmacked now, gaping at her as she tries to catch her breath and tone down the burning in her cheeks. She's probably bright pink, but she doesn't care. No one, not even the crazy time traveling alien who appears to be the love of her life--especially not the crazy time traveling alien who appears to be the love of her life--is going to tell her how to think, how to feel, how to live.
He looks awed and cowed at the same time. It's a strange look, one she hasn't seen on him often but she thinks she has before, through golden light and such beautiful singing. She softens a little, takes his hand from where it rests limply between her knee and his thigh.
She barely has time to register the additional pressure on her hand as he pulls himself up and then he is kissing her.
His lips are dry and warm, warmer than the rest of him, and fit neatly between his. It is not a long kiss, barely long enough for her eyes to close, but it is warm and forceful and absolutely intentional. When he pulls back she braces for him to run, squeeze her eyes tight as if blocking it out will make it less real, and so she is caught entirely by surprise when he ducks down and kisses her again.
This time it's long and deep and wet, tongues touching, then stroking, then swirling in her mouth and then his. His grip on her shoulder slips and her robe slips with it, exposing skin and almost one breast. The blast of cool air and the cool skin that follows makes her shudder, his fingers grazing her shoulder, her arm, her collarbone and then further. He cups her breast through terrycloth and her entire world tips.
She's not sure what she said to bring it on, and she wishes he'd tell her so she can say it again in the future.
When they pull apart she is panting and dazed and his hand is still on her chest.
"I—" he tries, stops, licks his lips and her vision tunnels in on his mouth, red and a little swollen. "Rose."
"Doctor."
Slowly, finger by finger, he removes his hand from her breast and places it in his lap. This is the wall they keep running into, now more than ever. She feels like they're on the cusp of something so important but here they are, frozen. Her mouth tingles, her whole body does, and she doesn't want to let it go.
"I don't want to tame you," he says when he has gathered himself enough to speak. "And I can't lose you. I will never have the time with you that you can have with me and to think of it—I can't. I can't keep you, not if I'm just going to lose you."
"First of all, I am not a thing you get to keep," she snaps. "If you don't want me to stay, if you want me to go, that is one thing. And if that's what you mean, then you need to say it. But I don't want to go back. Not to Earth, or Mum, or Mickey. I don't want to leave you, or this place, or this life. But I can't do this."
"This what?"
"This," she gestures to the space between them, to his swollen mouth and mussed hair. "Is this all in my head, Doctor? Because it doesn't feel, it doesn't taste, like something I'm just imagining."
"No," he says hoarsely. "It's not in your head."
"Then I want to go forward. Every part of me wants to go forward. I can't stay still anymore."
His eyes are dark like the night sky, like the velvet universe spread before them, like time itself – unknowable and untameable. So long ago he stood on a street corner in a leather jacket and eyes as bright blue as any ocean, and stared at her with the same bottomless gaze and it had set her nervous system aflame. As he told her about the turn of the Earth her system flooded with adrenaline, heart pounding and brain screaming at her to run, away from him and towards him and with him. She hadn't been sure, back then, but she'd been hypnotized; now, with brown eyes locked on hers instead of blue, she just wants to fall.
Whatever he is searching he finds and then his lips are on hers again, both his hands cradling her face as he kisses her deeply, rising on his knees until she has no choice but to tip backwards and soon he is full on top of her, hands braced on either side of her pillow as she wraps her arms around his neck. One of his thighs slides between her legs, grinds against her as she arches up into him.
"Rose Tyler," he growls, moving from mouth to jaw to ear with long scrapes of his teeth and every nerve in her body is aflame. "Run."