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“Why are you still here?”
He glanced up from the top of his book to look at her, eyebrow raised. “Bit rude.”
“No, I mean —” she closed her own book and paused, pushing herself up the sofa “ — I mean here here. Now. At all.”
He blinked. “Why am I here with you, you mean?”
“Well, yeah.”
She crossed her legs and began pulling absentmindedly at a loose thread on her socks. It had been a couple of weeks since they’d found themselves back on the parallel world together. He was exactly the same; there was no doubt in her mind that on paper he was exactly the same man. Well, besides the one heart and a seemingly endless need for sleep he still hadn’t quite adjusted to yet. “I just don’t understand it.”
He lowered his book but otherwise remained still. “Well, why wouldn’t I be here with you?”
She picked too hard at the thread and it unravelled itself from her sock, leaving a hole in its wake. She sighed frustratingly. “Because we both know I’m not going to get past it. That it doesn’t feel the same. Why are you sticking around somebody who can’t make her mind up?” she said, hearing it come out a lot sharper than she’d wanted it to.
A pause. “Do you want me to go?”
She didn’t answer. It was an awful question because having him here made her feel guilty. If she was being deeply honest with herself, and it was a secret for only the darkest corners of her mind, she didn’t love him quite as much as the other him. She was so angry at the other him for leaving her, just plopping her back in this world after she’d fought and clawed her way back to him and handing her a project to fix. God, as soon as she’d even thought the words she felt sick with remorse. And that’s what she hated! This inner turmoil that came from trying to love somebody so wonderful, but wasn’t quite the person you wanted them to be.
But then she would look at him and see her best friend in the whole universe — two universes, in fact. The man she’d fallen in love with every day since she met him, and he’s right there falling in love with her every day too. He’d smile at her in ways that made her feel utterly dizzy, the way her name sounded when he spoke it would promote goosebumps on the back of her neck. He was her anchor, somebody who would never hurt her. He wasn’t there to make her feel guilt or remorse, nor was he there to be just her project to fix.
He sighed and put his book down, swinging himself round to face her properly from across the room. “I’m here because I want to be. I’ve never done this before — well, I’ve never been human..ish? before — so this is all very new to me, too. And, quite selfishly I suppose, the only person who can really help me navigate through it all — the only person I want to help me navigate it and can centre me — is you.”
She scratched her cheek nervously. “But, you do want to be with me?”
He tilted his head and looked at her. “You know how I feel about that, but this isn’t about me.”
“You promised, remember? New new new Doctor. You promised you’d be honest with me.”
He nodded, defeated. “Okay, you’re right. I did promise.” This him was a lot easier to read; she could see him grow nervous and try to steady himself. He drew an uneven breath and continued. “I love you. And I’ve wanted nothing more than to be able to love you since you stepped foot in the TARDIS. I really am quite selfish, in that respect, because I do want to be with you, too. I’ve always wanted to be with you. I will always want to be with you. And you not knowing why, or not feeling the same isn’t going to change that for me. I promise.”
The words reached her ears, even went deeper than that. But they didn’t quite reach her heart.
“Why are you still here?”
He closed his eyes and groaned. “This again?”
“Yes, “this again”!” she snapped. He’d managed to locate her, sitting on one of the benches outside the city hall. Freezing, he noticed, as she was wearing only her dress, so he draped his jacket over her shoulders and, for some reason, she became ever more irritated by it.
"We’re a lot further down the line now. And I’m still not sure. All those people in there, asking me about our relationship and when I'm gonna get married and will it be to you and am I going to have children and all of it and I’m still not sure about my feelings towards you! How are you ok with that?! It doesn’t make sense to me, it stresses me out. And there comes a point, Doctor, where you should start cutting your losses and get on with your life.”
“Right,” he huffed, beginning to get irritated himself. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Well, why not? Why do I have to be open and honest with you, but you don’t have to be open and honest with me?”
“Because! Because then you’ll listen to me tell you that sometimes I’m just tired. I’m tired of having the same argument in my head, putting all that pressure on myself because you must be mad with it by now and it's just not fair to you! And now I’ve got everyone else asking me the same — “what’s going on between you two?” and “is it serious?” — and I just don’t get why you sit back and watch me get flustered and not know how to respond! Get annoyed with me and not get annoyed! Get frustrated with me and all of this and just admit that this isn’t what you wanted!”
He exhaled. She was shouting but she looked so helpless, like she was saying the words to him but the anger was directed at herself. He moved to sit down next to her, leaning forwards and wringing his hands together. “Are there times when you’re not tired?”
She crossed her legs, finally pulling his jacket tighter around her. “Well, yes. Of course. Sometimes of course it’s easy with you. But then I think, what the hell are you doing? I think about how you have one soddin’ life with one soddin’ heart and this is how you’re stuck spending it and I don’t know why you’ve not just had enough by now. Spending it with someone who only sometimes knows for sure that she wants to be with you, and the rest of the time she still can’t make her mind up. I just wanna say to you “get out there!”, just go and live your one life with your one heart with someone who treats you a hell of a lot better than I do, please!”
He ran his hands through his hair, growling as the frustration began to rise once more. “Bloody hell, Rose, nothing about this is me being stuck, I’m choosing this! I hate arguing with you, good god I hate it and no, it’s not how I envisioned spending my life if I ever somehow were to become human. And sometimes it really is bloody awful! I don’t want to keep fighting back against you when you try to push me away, but I’d rather have that than not get to have fights with you at all! I hate fighting with you about who’s gonna drive or what you’ve done with my phone or whoever forgot to bring the washing in before it rained but my god I’d actively seek out a fight with you about whether to have pasta or rice for dinner if it meant I could just get to have dinner with you at all!”
She was quiet for a moment, fiddling with her tights and unable to look at him.
“Thank you for the jacket,” she eventually mumbled awkwardly.
It took him a few seconds to interpret what she’d said, before he broke into a laugh when she looked up at him sheepishly and with a thin smile. He held out his hand, which she took after a moment's pause. She impatiently wiped at a rogue tear and he could tell she was becoming flooded by her own embarrassment.
He squeezed her hand in response. “Listen. I’m here, and I’m staying. I know this is hard for you, and I know that having members of the public poke and prod you about your personal life must be making it so much worse. But you’re doing amazing, and contrary to what you believe: you don’t love me only sometimes. You love me all the time, but some days that scares you a little more than it does the other days.”
She searched his eyes, wanting to believe him. “How are you so sure? How’d you know that?”
He smiled back at her and she watched him carefully. “Because I’m the same,” he said. “It’s scary, Rose. I’m scared sometimes. But I trust you with anything, and that includes my heart— don’t!” he added when he saw her smile and look at him teasingly. “Even on the days I’m most afraid. And I know you feel the same way about me.”
She shook her head; how did he do that? She’s there getting angry at him, and he reassures her that it’s ok. He sees straight through her, even manages to remind her that getting angry with him doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love him, and of course he’s right. He always is when it comes to the two of them, the little git. “Presumptuous.”
He laughed. “Accurate,” he corrected, and she leaned her head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Never apologise to me about your feelings,” he spoke softly, rubbing his thumb on the back of her hand. “Even when you think they might hurt me.”
She paused, watching his thumb’s movements, letting it soothe her. “And you know it’s always you who loses your phone, I never move it,” she teased.
He chuckled. “I know, but please don’t tell me pride that."
“Why are you still here?”
It was a whimper, almost lost to the sounds of the rain tapping on the window in the darkness of the night except it was her whimper, the most agonising sound that pierced through his every vain that he was alerted to it whenever she made it.
Her face was turned away from him, but he could tell by her dampened sniffs that she was either already crying or had recently been. He was being pulled into lucidity in the worst possible way. His arm was draped over her waist, her hand loosely holding onto his and he realised she was nervous. This time she wasn’t asking out of curiosity, and she wasn’t asking out of frustration. She was asking out of fear.
“We haven’t done this in a while. What’s going on?”
She was silent. Perhaps she was thinking something, or perhaps she’d regretted what she'd already said. Either way, he tilted his head so that he could kiss her shoulder, encouraging her to be honest once more. She moved, turning around to face him and it pained him to see her look so sad, so empty somehow. She looked exactly as he did when they’d lie together back when he had two hearts, like there was an inner torment eating away at her and he was near powerless to stop it himself. But whatever it was, he would stop at nothing until he'd extinguished it entirely.
She was watching him, searching for something in the way he looked at her. He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and she closed her eyes, swallowing thickly. She grabbed onto his hand before he could bring it back and it was desperately so, for fear of losing him if she let go of him at all.
“I just don’t know why you stay with me,” she said, her voice riddled with sorrow and torment. “What is it about me that makes you want to stay?”
His brow furrowed. “I stay with you because I’d never want to not stay with you.”
“But why?”
He studied her. It was something deeper than whatever she was showing him now. She knew why he loved her, and she knew that it was unexplainable. So much so, that she’d never asked him this before. He could reel off a list of all the things he adored about her; the sound of her laugh when he’d forget words in English; the way she’d pick at her eyebrows when she read something she didn’t understand at work; the way she’d stroke his hair after he woke from a nightmare but end up falling asleep before him, her hand resting on his head amongst the sound of her light snores. But she’d never asked him to tell her all the reasons why, so why was she asking now?
“This isn’t about me, is it?”
She looked down, chewing her lip. She took a deep breath, and then closed her eyes.
“He left me,” she whispered shakily, and he tried not to be too audible in his anguish. “I don’t know, sometimes it feels like he didn’t want me, in the end. And sometimes…” she sighed, trying to find the courage to continue. “Sometimes I worry that you feel the same way. That maybe you had moved on, and I came back and now you’re stuck with me, all because I just wouldn't let it go.”
“You’re having me on,” he scoffed. “Me? Move on from you? Rose Tyler? Come off it.”
‘No, but I mean it!” The sound of the sob caught in her throat made her stop, taking a moment to regain herself while she played anxiously with his fingers. “I dunno. I never thought he’d — you — ugh, you know — would ever look at me that way, would ever just choose to leave me behind. He always said he wouldn’t, and then he did. And now you’re telling me you never will… but I’ve watched you do it already.”
It caused an ache in his heart so painful, but seeing her as she lay opposite him, her eyes flooded with despair, he only wanted to make her smile. So he chuckled softly. “Well, I think it's safe to say the other one’s a knob head.”
The corners of her mouth twitched, and that smile being now closer to reach encouraged him to continue.
“And he didn’t leave you behind, he loved you far too much to do that. Dunno why you think he did, though, ‘cause you’re still with him.” He levelled his head with hers, and she looked at him shyly. “I’m the man you said “I love you” to on that beach, just in the same way the other me you keep banging on about was the man with the big ears you said yes to right at the very start. We’re all the same. That’s quite a lot of us you’ve got now.”
She laughed, and he breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he’d finally teased it out of her. “God, when you say it like that, I’m really dropping the ball with the number of mes I’m offering you.”
He pulled back. “Actually, yeah! You need to step up, you’ve only ever offered me one of you.”
She kissed his hand before tucking it tightly under her chin. She sighed woefully. “Sorry. You must be so sick of this by now. The indecisiveness of me jumping from one thing to the next — all this anger followed by love followed by sex followed by crying.”
“Don’t ever say “sex followed by crying” when describing our relationship again,” he groaned and she giggled, again, an honest laugh. And goodness was it a wonderful sound. “And I think you forget — I knew Rose Tyler when she was a teenager so I’m used to the hormones by now.”
She tutted in protest. “You knew me for one year as a teenager, don’t play that game with me.”
“Alright, fine. I knew Rose Tyler when she knew me, so we’re both used to indecisiveness by now.”
“Yeah actually, you’re right. Whatever I’m going through now is nothing compared to the push and pull of being the object of desire of a time lord who's afraid of commitment.” She prodded his chest.
“Ah, so this is payback, then?”
“Exactly! You’re lucky you still have me.”
He looked at her earnestly, until he was sure she’d believe him when he next spoke. “Oh, believe me, I know.”
“Why are you still here?”
He was the one to ask this time.
“I ask myself that same question every day,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose and fighting against the urge to laugh. He’d somehow managed to drop the beautiful multi-levelled Smarties-filled Victoria sponge birthday cake she’d been crafting by hand for Jackie’s party when he’d tried transporting it from the counter to the dining table. Raspberry jam everywhere, Smarties under every appliance, clotted cream splattered up on the walls. “You know, some days I think “Ah, yes. He’s nine hundred years old, I’ll let him off.” And then some days I look at you and think “How has this man survived for nine hundred years?””
“I think we both know you never think the first one and you only ever ask yourself the second one,” he sighed, looking at the floor like he hoped it might clean itself. She rolled her eyes and handed him the mop.
“Well, the good news is Dad’s coming here now to pick up the decorations so we won’t need to leave until 6.“
“Ok. Ok, we can work with that. We’ve got like, what, an hour, tops? I can nip to Tesco and see what I can find." He handed the mop back to her. "What’s the bad news?”
She snapped her fingers at him. “No way. You’re not getting another knock-off Colin the Caterpillar cake for mum’s birthday.”
“Why not! If it’s good enough for Tony then it’s good enough for your mother.”
“Peddle race cars are good enough for Tony, doesn’t make them a good fit for mum.”
“Are you sure? Sounds like a laugh to me. Let’s get her one of those instead of a caterpillar cake.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled despite herself, watching him unhook his jacket from the door and pick up his keys and be so wonderfully and utterly mundane.
“Be back in a min,” he said, closing the door behind him and she watched him make his way to the car. She opened the door and called out to him.
“Hey, you! Come back here.”
He groaned, turning back. “God, what now?”.
She grinned right up until he reached her, when she tugged on the lapels of his coat to bring him down for a kiss. He kissed her back, just as he always does, with his lips curled upwards in a small smile.
“I love you,” she whispered when they broke apart.
He chuckled. “Mmm. Remember that, as you’re mopping up the jam I spilt while I’m picking up a couple of cakes.”
“One cake. You can’t buy one cake for mum’s birthday and buy yourself one too.”
“Disagree,” he said, putting his finger to her lips to shush her. When she began to protest, he tilted her head to capture her lips once more. “I love you.”
“Quite right, too.”
He rolled his eyes and turned back around. “You’ll never let me live that one down, will you?”
“Never,” she laughed. “And while you’re out, try not drain the biscuit aisle.”
“Remind me why I’m still with you, again?”
“You said you’d never leave me, so this is your own doing.”
“That it is,” he woefully called out to her with a grin and winked. “But you’re staying, so who’s the real loser here?”