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“One last day with my beloved,” the Doctor murmurs as he heaves the dematerialization lever down, eyeing the monitor in resignation. “Christmas Day.”
“Could you do it?” Kazran had asked, and his immediate thought had been no, never. History speaks for itself, after all; he never goes back, not when he loses someone the way he lost Rose Tyler.
But one corner of his mind wouldn’t let it go, and he couldn’t stop thinking about them, about Kazran and Abigail, carefree and alive and in love irrespective of the timer ticking down on their time together. Enjoying one last day and accepting, somehow, that every last moment was worth all of the pain.
The good things don't always soften the bad things. And the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant.
How was it different, really, than all of the rest of the time he’d had with her? He’d known, as he always does with human companions, that he would one day lose her. And still he asked her along, still he went back for her twice, still he would never have traded a single moment with her for anything. Still he would’ve traveled with her forever, so long as time had allowed it. Still his mind wanders back to her, wondering where she is, if she’s happy, if she’s alive, if she’s in love.
Nothing will make it hurt less; he’s beginning to think that not even time has that power. But it doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy a good thing, he thinks, and with that in mind steps out the doors and into the frigid London air.
“December 25th, 2003,” he says, closing his eyes momentarily before taking another look around the neighborhood. Several blocks away he can see the rooftop of the Powell Estates, hearts aching when he feels that pang of home hit him even though it’s been years.
After a few moments of shoving down his fear (and possibly also his common sense), he sets off. The chilly winter air bites at his skin, and he idly wonders how he’d missed the landing for a place he’s been dozens of times before. For one painful moment he wonders if it’s a symptom of time passing, of his muscle-memory moving on even if his hearts cannot, but he shakes himself out of it. Even if it were remotely possible that some part of him was forgetting (ha), the TARDIS never would.
Just as he’s pondering how exactly he plans to barge uninvited into her life this time, he collides hard with something (someone? ) solid and suddenly finds himself a lot closer to the icy sidewalk and with a rather sore bum.
“Oh, my head,” a familiar voice moans, and his own aches and pains are instantly forgotten.
“Are you alright?” he asks desperately, flinching at his tone. Luckily, Rose Tyler is too busy rubbing her newly-bruised tailbone and dizzyingly achy head to register the familiarity and tenderness in his tone, and he takes the moment to box away some of his emotions as she turns back to glare at him.
“Oi, mate, look where you’re goin’,” she grinds out, wincing sharply as she tries to get up and nearly hits the pavement again.
“I’m so sorry,” he tells her, voice thick with meaning. “Here, um, let me help you up,” he offers tentatively, and though she continues to glare at him she takes his hand.
It’s stupid, really, to think that you can feel sparks when the love of your life (lives?) touches you. The Doctor may never claim intelligence again.
“Are you alright? Is there… does anything hurt? Can I get you something?” he asks hurriedly, leaning around her to attempt to check for injury only to be thumped rather solidly on the chest for his efforts.
“Pardon?” Rose practically shrieks, twisting to keep him in front of her, and he mentally replays the last few moments of their interaction where he’d been peeking around to look at her--
Oh, he realizes, heat flooding his cheeks.
“No! Oh, no! I mean, um, no, I was just trying to see if you were hurt, I wasn’t--I didn’t--I’m sorry,” he says helplessly, hands flailing about uselessly as he tries to look anywhere but at her. He fails; he is completely incapable of tearing his eyes off of her lovely face for longer than a split second at a time, even when she is burning with fury directed straight at him.
“Yeah, whatever, mate,” she mutters, eyeing him warily, and continues to rub the ice and dirt from her jeans. “S’alright, just… go.”
Go? How can he go? The one person on the entire planet that he was looking for, and she’s asking him to go.
“Could I, erm, buy you a hot chocolate? Just as an apology,” he adds hurriedly, desperately trying not to come across as a creep after the events that have just unfolded. “It’s, well, it’s cold out, and it’s Christmas, and you seem lovely and I accidentally knocked you over, and I really just--”
“Yeah, alright,” Rose interjects dryly, the corners of her mouth quirking up in amusement and halting his rambling and his train of thought in one fell swoop. He beams at her and, before he can help it, grabs her hand again and gently tugs her along, heading towards the diner they’ve been to together dozens of times in his past and never before in hers.
“That’s… well, that’s quite good,” he says, glancing back and hesitating slightly at her surprised expression. Panicked, he drops her hand like a hot potato… and then finds himself blinking back at her in wonder when she swipes it right back up again and squeezes lightly. “I mean, what’s a Christmas without some good hot chocolate?” he continues shakily.
“Not worth celebrating?” Rose guesses, eyebrows raised cheekily as some of her prior discomfort subsides. The sudden touch when he’d first gripped her hand had been rather jarring, but the loss of it had somehow felt like ripping off a coat in the middle of a blizzard--wrong and cold and lonely, and she quickly settles for holding his hand for as long as he apparently wishes.
“That’s right,” he tells her matter-of-factly, relishing the feeling of being able to swing their hands between them and wondering how he’d forgotten such a simple joy, wondering if it felt just as right to her even though this was their very first hand-hold in her timeline.
“I’m Rose, by the way. Rose Tyler. In case you cared about that,” she teases, and he internally flinches at how easy it is to forget that in her mind, they’re strangers.
“Right! Names, names are good. Always forget names, good thing you always remember. Or, erm, you seem to.”
“Right, so what’s yours, then?” she asks with a laugh, prodding him slightly with her free hand.
“Oh! I’m… Rory, Rory Pond,” he fumbles hastily, before shivering slightly at the thought of her calling him by his friend’s name. “But most people just refer to me as ‘Doctor.’”
“You’re a doctor?” she asks, eyes wide, and rolls the word around in her mind: doctor. “Impressive, are ya?”
“Why yes, I rather think I am,” he agrees, hearts twisting at the familiar-yet-not exchange. She laughs at him again and he cherishes the sound as they approach the diner, which is blessedly still open in spite of the holiday; he’d forgotten, in his haste to pull her along, to consider that it might not be. He opens the door for her with a flourish, grinning at her surprised blink and subsequent blush as she heads in first.
His smile falters slightly; surely she’s used to having doors held open for her? After all, it’s 2003, and he knows for a fact Rose has had multiple boyfriends--
Boyfriends.
Boyfriends. Mickey. Her friends. Her mum. He thinks he might be the biggest idiot on the planet, picking Christmas Day as if she won’t have a dozen other people fighting for her attention today.
“So,” he begins uncomfortably as they slide into a booth in the back. He nods awkwardly to the waitress that hurries over to drop a couple of menus in front of them before returning his attention back to Rose, who doesn’t seem to notice his internal turmoil. “I hadn’t exactly thought, but--well, it’s Christmas,” he says, and she chuckles as she opens a menu.
“So you’ve said,” she comments, not really looking up at him and mentally pleading for him to drop it. “Thought that’s the point of the hot chocolate?”
“Well, yes,” he concedes. “It’s just… I just thought. Do you need to, um, let anyone know you’ll be out?” he asks hesitantly, hating himself a bit when she slumps nearly imperceptibly at the words.
“No,” she responds shortly, and doesn’t elaborate. He wracks his brain frantically for everything he knows about Rose’s past, anything at all that could give him a hint as to why she’s alone; he’s met Jackie Tyler, after all, and he knows there’s no way in hell anything could come between that woman and her ability to see her daughter for the holidays--he should know, after all, since even his time-traveling alien lifestyle hadn’t been enough to get him out of celebrating the whole Christmas-to-New Year’s week at the Powell Estate.
“No family to go back to?” he prods carefully when he comes up with nothing and swallows hard when her lips purse. “I’m sorry, I know it’s none of my business, it’s just... I’ve got none myself,” he tells her, hearts skipping when she visibly softens a bit as his words. “So if you wanted to talk about it to someone who’s quite used to spending holidays alone, I would be happy to listen.”
“It’s my own fault,” she shrugs helplessly, tears welling up and nearly shattering him to pieces. I’m sure it’s not, he wants to tell her, wants to hug her and hold her and breathe her in, but he can’t, because she doesn’t know him, not yet, and the waitress is back again and looking at them uncertainly.
“I can come back at a better time,” she offers, and before he can say yes Rose shakes her head.
“S’alright, I think we’re ready?” She glances in his direction and he simply nods in confirmation, gesturing for her to go first. “Just a hot chocolate for me, please.”
“Make it two,” he says, and when the waitress finally leaves he turns right back to Rose.
“I’m sure it’s not,” he gently assures her, figuring that it still counts towards self-restraint if he still manages to stop himself from the hugging and the holding.
“No, it is,” she insists. She gives the waitress a watery smile as she drops the two mugs down in front of them and scurries off, whereas the Doctor simply does his best not to outright scowl at the interruptions. “I, well. I ran away,” she whispers, and oh. Oh, he’s so stupid.
“I ran away for a boy, and my mum--we had a huge fight about it, and I ran away anyways, and it turns out she was right,” she shrugs, and though her motions are nonchalant he can see just how much this is tearing her up from the inside. He knows her too well, knows the twitch of her lower lip and the tension around her eyes and the way that she’s holding herself a little too stiffly, as if breathing has suddenly become a voluntary action and she has to consciously keep it going.
“He left me,” she finishes and this time her voice does break a little, and he can’t help but reach across the table to grip her hand firmly.
“I’m sorry,” he says firmly, unable to keep his emotions from fully penetrating his tone. “He doesn’t deserve you,” he insists, frustration bubbling up when she simply looks away. He knows he can’t say the name of that idiot piece of scum unless she says it first, but the words he’s restricted to can only form the most pathetic of understatements. “He really doesn’t, and he never will.”
“You barely know me,” she scoffs, and he squeezes her hand the tiniest bit tighter.
“Well, I know that you’re a beautiful and charming young woman who does not deserve to be spending Christmas alone,” he says gently, and under her tears a slight blush rises to her cheeks. “And, well, I was a parent once,” he muses, and hurries to correct himself when she eyes him disbelievingly. Rassilon, centuries in and he’s still not used to looking so young. “Or, well, I had a… a rather parental role, at one point. And I’m sure--I’m absolutely certain--that nothing would make your mum happier than seeing you again, no matter how badly you fought.”
“She was right, though,” Rose says, dabbing her face with her free hand. “Everything she said about Jimmy, she was right. And now I’m alone.” The name tastes foul in her mouth, and she hates that she’d let him ruin her so thoroughly.
“I think you’ll find you’re not, not at the moment,” he says with a smile, and after a moment she returns it shakily. “And, well. People don’t always like to be right,” he tells her painfully, thinking of all of those moments where he would’ve given anything, absolutely anything, to be proven wrong.
“But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you…”
“Never say never ever.”
“A storm’s approaching…”
“Am I ever going to see you again?” “You can’t…”
“She’s gone. I lost her.”
“But you've got to. Because we saved the universe, but at a cost. And the cost is him… He needs you. That’s very me.”
“Does it need saying?”
“Well, you don’t know mum,” Rose says, bitterness mingling with her sad tone. “She loves being right.”
“She loves you more,” he says, and her breath hitches. “Tell you what, though. If… if you’re not ready, that’s okay. Just think about it, alright? Because no matter how mad she was, I’m sure she’d forgive you if she got to see you again,” he repeats gently, and he waits patiently for Rose to manage the briefest of nods.
“Right, good, that’s one thing. The other thing,” he begins recklessly, and she looks at him curiously. “Is that if you are going to wait, well. You still shouldn’t spend Christmas alone,” he says, trying to tamp down the hope and the nerves and just willing himself to soldier onwards. “So, I thought. Well. You’re alone, and I’m alone, and, well, I know you’ve just met me, and it’s not perfect,” he lies, already picturing just how absolutely perfect it would be. “But I thought… we could spend it together, you and me.”
She’s silent for a long moment, and he has to forcibly restrain himself from ploughing onward. He knows he’s taken a gamble, knows he needs to give her time to consider it, but as each second ticks by he swears he’s another step closer to going into double-cardiac arrest.
“Last time I ran off with a boy, it didn’t exactly work out,” she says. Her tone, while full of a healthy amount of caution and suspicion, isn’t exactly disagreeable, and the Doctor desperately latches onto that tiny wisp of hope.
“You’ll get hurt on adventures, sometimes,” he tells her seriously, and part of him--a large part of him--wishes he could take her pain away, both past and future. These months with Jimmy Stone, those terrifying moments with a Slitheen claw around her neck, that awful day where she lost her face. But he can’t, and he shouldn’t--he’d never want to erase any of the moments that helped to define her, could never take away the fire that forged her. “But that doesn’t mean you should stop adventuring. And you’ll get hurt falling in love, sometimes, but it doesn’t mean you should never love again.”
“Speaking from experience?” she asks pointedly, and he flushes a bit.
“Oh, well,” he chuckles uncomfortably. “Bit older than I look, so I know what it’s like to… well.” He clears his throat nervously, avoiding her gaze. “Anyway, I’m not asking you to run off with me.” Not yet, he adds mentally, with a hollow internal laugh. “Just proposing that we spend the day together. You know, Christmas spirit and all that.”
She looks at him speculatively before shrugging at last. It’s a gamble and she knows it, and she truly hadn’t expected to be making another leap of faith quite so soon--especially on another pretty boy who appeared from thin air and waltzed right into her life--but at this point, it feels like she’s got nothing left to lose. And this man, Rory, or doctor, or whoever he is… well, she can already tell that he’s different than Jimmy, and that can only be a good thing.
“Alright,” she says, so quietly that he barely hears her--but he does, he does hear her, and secretly his hearts rejoice. “I wasn’t keen on spending the day alone, either,” she admits. “I just… it’s hard to go back.”
“I understand,” he tells her meaningfully, and it’s only when he squeezes her hand again that he realizes he hasn’t let it go. He coughs lightly and lets go, but the pink tint on her cheeks seems to indicate that she’d noticed as well and hadn’t exactly minded. The very thought makes his blood sing.
“Well, then, better drink up,” he says seriously, taking a sip of his still-blessedly-warm cocoa. “We’ve got a lot to do.”
“Oh?” she asks teasingly, taking a sip of her own drink. He can’t help but track the motion of her tongue as she licks the whipped cream off her lips, and frantically tries to remember what he’d been about to say.
“Oh, yes, lots to do,” he repeats with a vigorous nod. “Christmas, after all--well, what do we need at Christmas? Have you got a tree, or decorations? And food, I know food’s a part of Christmas--um, some sort of… meat, the one with the herby stuff--”
“Blimey, we’re going all out, are we?” she laughs, sipping at her cup, and he looks at her fondly.
“For you, Rose Tyler? Always,” he promises, and she smiles prettily back at him. “So hurry up and finish your drink, because we’ve got some shopping to do.”
It’s a small nightmare, trying to shop on Christmas Day, but nothing can curb the Doctor’s cheer so long as Rose is by his side. They look for decorations first, and manage to find a rather straggly, miniature, Charlie Brown-esque tree at a nearly empty lot. Rose finds an unclaimed string of fairy lights and a generic set of bauble ornaments, and the Doctor finds an utterly ridiculous tree-topper, made all the better because of the delightful laugh it elicits from Rose. It’s someone’s take on an Abominable Snowman character, made to look like it’s climbed up to the very top of the tree, grabbing a classic UFO in one enormous, furry claw.
“That thing is so awful, it better be free,” she cackles and he grins widely.
“It’s got more personality than those monochromatic baubles!” he argues, gesturing to the collection in her arms.
“I hope no one’s ever had the sense to let you do the decorating,” Rose teases. “These are really quite nice, you know.”
“Nice is synonymous with boring,” he informs her as they trek through the store. “Though I’ll concede that not everything can be as glorious as an alien-abducting mythological winter beast. Now, go see if you can find us some stockings, and I’ll try to see if there’s crackers anywhere.”
They part ways again, and the Doctor waits patiently for Rose to exit his line of sight before making a beeline to the women’s section of the store.
He’s on a time crunch and he knows it, and for the first time all day he finds himself frustrated as he looks around desperately for something to give her. If only she’d met him already, if only she knew him, well, he’s got a dozen bits and bobs floating around in his pockets that he’s bought over the years on alien planets with her in mind. But she’s so endearingly, wretchedly young right now, and he has to try to think like some ordinary human male trying to snag a last minute gift for… well, for a girl.
Right, ordinary human male gifts. Chocolate, flowers… jewelry. Jewelry.
The Doctor hurries over to the counter, and the saleslady eyes him over with a mixture of judgment and pity. He tries not to think about what a pathetic picture he makes, hunched over the jewelry counter on Christmas Day. He can’t even look at the rings, trying to ignore the clenching of his hearts as he thinks about the lucky bastard of an incarnation that probably did get to buy her a ring, and quickly moves on to the shining gold and silver chains in the next case. The bracelets aren’t bad, but one of the necklaces--a simple, gleaming silver chain with a tiny star charm--catches his eye and he freezes.
He’s seen it before, around Rose’s neck. And after that day with the Slitheen, it had always had a TARDIS key strung alongside the charm.
“Something caught your fancy?” the sales clerk asks, and he nods.
“That one.”
On the other side of the department store, Rose wanders through the men’s section absently, looking for something in particular. She’s got two stockings--they’re hideously embroidered with tacky reindeer and Santa artwork, but after seeing the tree-topper she figures her new friend has no room to complain.
She knows she should be hurrying, but she can’t help but amble along a little more slowly, taking the time to think about the strange man she’d suddenly decided to share her holiday with. He seemed nice enough, if a little odd. He was earnest and energetic and endearingly sweet, and she couldn’t help but trust him even if everything about the situation screamed “bad idea.” After everything that had happened with Jimmy, all of the cheating and the lying and the manipulation and the heartbreak, she couldn’t help but soak up the affection and attention that this man seemed to be overflowing with. It was impossible to articulate just why he seemed to slide right into an empty slot in her life or how he seemed to alight just so with all of her jagged edges, but he did, and something about him felt like a premature homecoming.
She isn’t sure if there are rules, exactly, for how to spend Christmas with a complete stranger, but she thinks that she ought to at least get him a present. Even if he doesn’t get her one, she wants to, if only to show her appreciation for everything that he’s unwittingly done for her: in only a couple hours, he’s made her feel lighter than she has in nearly half a year.
At last, Rose finds herself in the section she’d been heading for: bow-ties.
“You carry that much cash on you?” Rose hisses incredulously, eyes wide as the Doctor pays for all (or almost all; she can feel the weight of the bow-tie resting gently in her coat pocket) of their holiday materials. It makes her the slightest bit uneasy--Jimmy had had friends that seemed to operate solely in cash as well, and that had never been a good sign.
The Doctor, for his part, doesn’t notice her discomfort as he hums and shells out the proper amount to the cashier. She’d offered to pay for half of their items, but he’d insisted--he remembered exactly what she’d told him, his ninth self, when they’d sat down after that awful day in Van Statten’s bunker and traded carefully guarded stories from their pasts. That rotten dirtbag had left her in debt, and he was itching to go find the idiot and make him miserable, was yearning to fix the problem and give her the money she’s still in desperate need of. But he couldn’t; after all, she’d gotten her Henrik’s job initially to pay off that debt, and he’d met her at that very job. He was helpless to help her, so the very least he could do was give her this one day, this one Christmas when she wouldn’t have to worry about money.
“I do, now,” he agrees cheerily, bouncing on his heels impatiently as the clerk bagged up their items. “Used to not carry any, really, but then, well. Met a girl once, and wanted to take her out, only I didn’t have any money on me,” he smiles wistfully, remembering that day of burning worlds and chips. “I’ve always had cash on me since.”
“Oh my god, you’re a romantic,” Rose accuses jokingly, trying not to smile at the story. She wonders, not for the first time, how such a kind and friendly man could possibly end up alone on Christmas Day.
He laughs then, bright and loud, swiping the bags from the checkout and leading her towards the doors. “I’ve been called a great many things, Rose Tyler, but I don’t think anyone’s ever come up with that one.”
“How come?” she asks incredulously. “I’ve known you for, what, a couple of hours? And even I can tell.”
“Maybe you’re just good at reading me,” he shrugs, unable to tell her the truth: that she sees a completely different side of him than anyone else ever gets to. “Come along, Tyler, we’ve got some food to buy!”
It’s the best Christmas she’s ever had, really.
When they finally make it back to the dingy little flat she’d once shared with Jimmy, they were so heavily-laden with bags that Rose doesn’t understand how Rory, or the Doctor (and what kind of nickname was that, really?), managed to make it up the stairs.
She laughs when he gets stuck in the doorway, their mini tree (which had stopped feeling mini about four and a half blocks ago, but he’d never dare tell her) getting caught on the edges of the frame. She starts pulling the bags from his shoulders and setting them down on the ground until he’s able to maneuver his way inside.
“Right, excellent! Shall we get started?” he asks eagerly, and her eyebrows inch up at his seemingly boundless energy. Most blokes she knows would flop right onto the sofa after the hours of frantic shopping they’d just done, and they’d have been complaining the entire time to boot. But here he was, her new Doctor friend, eager to begin decorating and cooking after bouncing excitedly from shop to shop and throwing the most ridiculous of things into their baskets.
It melts her heart, just a bit, and she wishes she’d met and ran off with him six months ago and not Jimmy bloody Stone.
“Yeah, alright. We should get the food started first, and we can decorate while it cooks,” she suggests, and feels herself flush a bit when he beams at her words.
“Fantastic idea Rose, very smart. I’ve never made a roast before, this should be fun,” he says gleefully, and she laughs as he practically dashes to the kitchen with their groceries in tow.
It turns out he’s by no means a natural cook in this body, and the Doctor finds himself entranced as Rose takes over most of the tasks without even realizing it. She’d always insisted she was a rather mediocre cook as long as he’d known her, and he’d taken that at face value and they’d eaten out a lot. But she does have years of experience living with just her mum, and he learns that she’s picked up more than perhaps even she ever realized.
“I’m starting to think you suggested this just to get a good meal out of me,” she teases when she sees him standing around doing nothing, and he protests.
“I’m not doing nothing! I’m… I’m… I’m learning?” he offers hopefully, and she just laughs and makes him start in on the dirty dishes.
A while later there’s food in the oven and on the counter and on the stove and in the fridge (“Blimey, Doctor, I think we’ve overbought a bit. S’just the two of us, isn’t it?” “Nonsense, Rose Tyler, it’s a holiday! There’s supposed to be leftovers, that’s all part of it”), and Rose sits on the couch sipping a cup of tea, giggling as the Doctor tries to separate out the strands of fairy lights.
“You’re going to take your own eye out if you’re not careful,” she comments with a smirk, and he shoots her a half-hearted scowl in response.
“I know what I’m doing!” he insists, and seemingly untangles the rest of the thread quickly just to spite her and her doubt. When he triumphantly holds up the unraveled strand, he teasingly loops it around her and gently tugs her towards him.
“See?” he grins widely.“Rose Tyler, I am impressive, remember?”
Rose wonders if he even notices the way she practically stops breathing at their proximity.
“Yes, I can’t believe you beat a strand of fairy lights,” she teases, and he nearly trips over the lights as the waves of longing wash over him. He’s found her, yes, but she’s oh-so- young, and in every movement and expression he can practically see the shadow of the woman she’ll grow into. This Rose has all of the fire and the heart that he remembers, but she’s missing some of the confidence and reassurance that has always astounded him.
“Well, next time you can have the hard job, then,” he says, pretending to be miffed as he winds the lights around the tree. She hums in amusement as she joins him moments later, adding baubles to the lower branches that he’s already covered as he makes his way up to the top. When he’s done, he arranges their alien-hunting Abominable Snowman figurine at the top with a proud smile that sends her into further fits of giggles.
They stuff the stockings with cheap candy canes and other silly knick-knacks that they’d scrounged from the nearly-empty shelves, and the Doctor carefully places Christmas crackers and pine-scented candles around the table while Rose starts pulling dishes out of the oven. It hits him, as he’s lighting them, how ridiculous the whole thing is--how domestic the whole thing is, in a way he’s never been with any of his companions, not even the Ponds--and he wouldn’t dare change a thing.
It’s the most precious holiday he’s ever celebrated, and he resolves to savor every moment of it.
It goes, in retrospect, like every other day of his weary old life: everything is rather lovely until it all crumbles into dust before him.
Dinner averages out to be something spectacular. The food overall rates somewhere in the “above average” category, the atmosphere is still tinged with the beauty of holiday magic, and the company is… well, incomparable, to say the least.
They open the Christmas crackers; despite being cheap leftovers and the last on the shelves, they still have the crepe paper crowns in them, and the Doctor tries his best not to tear up at the memory of the last time he wore one of these, at her mother’s flat. Rose’s flat doesn’t have a radio to play Christmas music on and he can’t just break out the sonic screwdriver, so they settle for leaving old Christmas movies on the tiny television as background noise. They barely put a dent in the food, and Rose laughs once more at how poorly he’d estimated. He doesn’t tell her that it was, in fact, a tactical purchase--he was paying, after all, and he knows for a fact that she’s digging herself out of a debt hole that her rotten ex had pushed her into. He couldn’t be sure how she’s doing on feeding herself, but he figured it surely couldn’t hurt to help her out a bit just in case.
For a Christmas that she’d intended to spend alone and the first Christmas she’d ever been without her mother and Mickey, it turns out to be one of the most special holidays Rose can ever remember celebrating. She knows without a doubt that it’s the company--it feels a bit like the silly movies they’ve been mostly-ignoring on the telly, where a stranger comes along to sweep her off her feet and brings the magic back to her holiday. Part of her aches to ask more questions--why does he go by “the Doctor” instead of his real name? Why isn’t he spending the holiday with loved ones of his own? Where is he from, since she knows for a fact he’s not from the estate? But she says nothing, fearful of shattering the delicate warmth that surrounds their peculiar yet perfect celebration.
That is, until the Doctor ruins everything.
“My mum always says that Christmas is magical because of the sales,” Rose reminisces, biting back a smile at the memories of her mum tugging her from shop to shop as they picked out gifts for each other and some of the neighbors. “She told me when I was six that Santa isn’t real, but she was, so I had to be good since she was the one really in charge of the naughty list.”
“Charming,” the Doctor chuckles. “Good ol’ Jackie Tyler.”
Rose swears her blood freezes. “Pardon?” she asks, praying she heard wrong, praying that this entire day wasn’t just…
“Hmm?” the Doctor asks obliviously, trying to fit the last few dishes into her dishwasher.
“You said… you said ‘good ol’ Jackie Tyler,’” Rose whispers, and her heart plummets when she sees him stiffen. “‘Cept I never told you her name.”
“Well, you might’ve mentioned it,” he tries, but the dark look on her face shuts him right up.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” she snaps. “I’ve just had six long bloody months of my ex-boyfriend lying to me constantly, telling me I’m misremembering, telling me I’ve got it wrong. And you know what? I know better, and I’m not taking that utter bullshit ever again, certainly not from a complete stranger--”
“No, you’re right, I’m sorry,” the Doctor hastens to correct, eyes widening when the extent of the damage registers in his mind. “I shouldn’t have… you’re right. I didn’t--I never wanted to be like him,” he says desperately, practically begging her to believe him. “That was awful of me, and I’m so sorry.”
“‘Sorry?!’” she exclaims, trying to compose herself and wondering idly if she should be running for the door or her phone by this point. “It’s lovely that you’re sorry, ta very much, but how the bloody hell do you know my mum’s name? Are you some kind of bloody stalker? Was this whole thing a set-up, to… to what? Get my address? Kidnap me? Oh my god, are you going to--”
“Rose,” the Doctor interjects fearfully, hearts pounding as she starts to spiral into panic and hysteria. “Rose, I promise you I will explain everything, but you need to breathe,” he says worriedly, and tries not to flinch when she levels him with a burning glare.
“Don’t you tell me what to do!” she yells, and he takes it as a half-victory anyways when she has no choice but to take a moment to catch her breath after that. “God, I trusted you,” she says, and the brokenness to her tone kills him. “I trusted you, and I was having such a nice time, and I should’ve known.”
“Let me explain,” he begs. “It’s… I know how it looks. But it’s not… it’s not what you think.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Rose says sarcastically. “Because there’s loads of great explanations for pretending to be a stranger and weaseling your way into the flat of a girl you clearly already know, somehow.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, wishing there were some way to make her understand, wishing that he could just make her see--
Well, there’s a thought.
“This is going to sound absolutely barmy,” he says softly, and offers her a tentative smile when she continues to glare daggers at her. “And, well, it’s going to sound awful. And it’s not, but I don’t know how to convince you otherwise, but… well, I can explain, but I need you to come closer.”
“Closer?!” Rose repeats incredulously. “How dumb do you think I am?”
“Not dumb at all,” he says softly, swallowing hard. “I know you’re not. And I know it sounds absolutely insane, but I… look,” he tries again. He needs to figure out how to give her the upper hand so that she can trust him without fear, but he can’t… or maybe he can. “How about this? You come closer, but… if it makes you feel better, bring one of those knives,” he manages, nodding his head towards her knife block next to the sink.
“You want me to walk right up to you with a knife?” she asks in disbelief.
“Well, I want you to walk right up to me without a knife, preferably, but I know you don’t feel safe and I’d like you to feel safe,” he sighs in distress. “And I can’t really do anything about that until I explain, so the best I can do is offer you some way of feeling… reassured, while I work on that.”
“What kind of explanation requires me to be any closer than I am right now?” Rose asks sharply, and he swallows hard in both relief and disappointed-yet-understanding grief when she slides a knife out of the block. He can hardly fault her for not feeling the trust that will be built over the years in her future, but it still feels to him like a loss of dear past.
“You wouldn’t believe me in a million years,” he says softly, trying his best not to sound bitter even as his hearts break at how different she is, how different they are. It’s her before she met him, and him before he lost her--he’s been with her so many times and still he wonders if they’ll ever get it right.
She takes a cautious step towards him. “This good enough?”
“Closer,” he says with a wince as she eyes him dubiously. “I… you need to be right in front of me. I’m sorry.”
“I’m gonna be bloody murdered on Christmas,” she mutters under her breath, taking another step towards him.
“You’re the one with the knife,” he points out lightly, hoping to cut the tension a bit, though she simply clutches it tighter in distrust.
He exhales nervously when she’s stopped in front of him. “Thank you. Rose, I’m going to raise my hand and touch your temple.”
“Why?” she demands, and he tries his best to look reassuring.
“You’ll see in a moment. I just wanted to warn you that I’m about to move so you don’t stab me to death.”
“I mean, that option still isn’t off the table,” Rose grits out, and the corner of his lips twitch at the fire in her that he’s missed so dearly.
Slowly, he brings his hand up to the side of her face, trying not to feel hurt when she visibly tenses up as his fingers get closer to her bare skin. Earlier this very day she’d held his hand, hugged him, trusted him, and here she is now ready to defend herself in case he hurts her.
He’d never, and he wishes more than anything that she could just know that.
"Rose, this isn't going to make a whole lot of sense to you," he begins. "But I'm going to make telepathic contact with you."
"Oh my god, you're mental," she moans softly. "I've spent Christmas with a mental man."
"It's not going to hurt a bit," the Doctor says gently. We've done this before, he aches to say, but she hasn't, not yet, and he really doesn't want to open the floodgates on time travel before sharing the memories, if possible. "Think of it... well, really, it's going to be a one-way thing. Me showing you memories, nothing else. You can think of it like watching a short film of my life. I know it seems like... hypnotism, or something similar, and you don't have to believe me yet. But I would feel a lot better if you told me that it's okay."
"Well, I've already let you in," she mutters. "Cooked dinner, and now I'm right in front of you with a knife. What's another thing on the list?"
"Rose," he pleads helplessly, and she rolls her eyes and grips her knife tighter.
"Okay," she relents, though she does narrow his eyes at her. "Fine. Okay."
"Thank you," he breathes out, chest aching. He knows, in theory, that she grows to be okay with this--he's shared memories with her before, connected with her on adventures and sometimes even after them, on the harder days--but he still feels better hearing the words from her regardless.
He inhales sharply when he finally makes contact, hearts full to bursting when he feels a light mental connection between them ignite. Knowing that it’s best at this point to show and not tell, he closes his eyes and ever so gently eases her into his mindspace.
He throws her straight into the memories--holding hands and running through a shop basement, watching the planet burn, working together to save the whole Earth time and time again. He shows her his regeneration (ironically, her past self is now probably aware of more details than her future self), their first Christmas together, running off to explore New Earth afterwards. He shows her all of his stolen glances and kisses on cheeks, shows her the hugs and the hand-holding and the dancing and every single moment when he wishes with every cell in his body that he’d have been brave enough to just take the leap and kiss her. And finally, he shows her what it was like losing her, losing each other, and sets her free from his mind.
Physically, Rose doesn't move an inch, but mentally she feels like she’s reeling backwards into a freefall.
“What was that?” she gasps out, surprised to feel herself fighting to catch her breath.
“My memories,” the Doctor explains softly. “It can be a bit of a shock to the system when you’re not used to telepathy, and I’m sorry for that. I just… I didn’t know how else to explain.”
“You’re alien,” Rose manages after a short silence, trying to process everything she’s just seen. Her chest aches at the familiar words, words she’d just witnessed herself--her future self, apparently--uttering to the Doctor in his strange time machine spaceship.
“Yeah,” he chuckles weakly. “That alright?”
“Yeah,” she whispers back, trying to sort through her emotions. “God, I…. so, you’re alien, you travel in time, and… and in the future, we’ll know each other?” she asks tentatively, and her heart skips a beat at the fond nostalgia spreading across his face. “And… and we’ll be friends?”
“Oh yes,” he promises gently. “The very best.”
“You…” she struggles, needing to get it off of her chest but feeling like she’s betraying him, somehow, for voicing it aloud. “You love me,” she whispers, and his smile turns tender.
“Very much so,” he promises, and her heart breaks when tears appear at the corners of his eyes.
“You came back to see me,” she realizes, tears welling up as she thinks of that last memory she saw, of herself falling towards some insane wormhole and being teleported away by a man who looked eerily like the pictures she’s seen of her father. “Because you lost me.”
“Because I miss you,” he corrects gently. “I always miss you.”
He hears a clink and idly realizes that it’s the sound of the knife dropping onto the counter behind him, but the motion hardly registers in his brain; what does register is her arms wrapping around him and the scent of Rose’s shampoo as she buries her head in his chest. He squeezes her tightly, grateful for her understanding and her forgiveness.
“Oh my god,” she mumbles into his shirt, suddenly recalling her earlier words and actions. “Doctor, I’m so sorry, I--”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he tells her fiercely, kissing the top of her head gently. “It’s my fault. For crossing your timeline, and for slipping up.”
“I’m glad you did,” she says softly. “I hate that… that you’re alone, now.”
“Well, I’ve made some other friends,” he admits. “But… well, it’s not the same with them.”
She hugs him tighter, and the two of them hold each other to the sound of It’s a Wonderful Life playing softly on the telly.
“I, um, I got you something,” the Doctor tells her nervously. They’re sitting on the couch now, sipping wine and doing something that can’t quite be classified as snuggling but feels awfully close to it.
“Oh! Me too,” she says brightly, and he tries not to let his jaw drop open. She’d bought him something while they were out, before she even knew him. Not that she really knows him right now, per se, but at least he’d been able to drop the pretenses.
“Hang on,” she says, setting her glass on the coffee table and making her way towards the pile of mostly-emptied shopping bags by the door. “Here we are,” she says triumphantly, holding up a small brown paper bag. “Sorry about the wrapping, it was sorta…”
“Perfect,” the Doctor finishes for her, throat tight. “It’s perfect.” He pulls the store-wrapped gift box out of his pocket, chuckling a little when she gapes at it. “Bigger-on-the-inside pockets,” he explains, and she shakes her head in amazement.
“They should make women’s clothes with some of those,” she says longingly. “Could make a bloody fortune.”
He laughs as she sits next to him again, trying not to feel too disappointed at the space she leaves between them so that they can properly face each other. They trade parcels awkwardly, both biting back smiles, and he feels like… well, like a kid at Christmas.
“Who’s first?” he asks nervously, itching to see what Rose bought for him. “Or do we open at the same time? Er, I’m afraid I’m not too well-versed in Christmas traditions, usually my kind of Christmas involves alien invasions--”
“Well, I think you’ve got that part covered. Consider my flat properly invaded,” she teases, and he barks out a laugh. “Anyways, why don’t you go first?” she offers, trying not to smile too widely. His excitement is palpable and endearing, and Rose wonders how she could’ve been so suspicious of him earlier. Even before he’d revealed his secret and shared his memories, he’d been kind and gentle and charming all day. Though she could hardly blame herself for being careful--
“Okay,” the Doctor nods agreeably, practically tugging his gift from the bag and stilling when he registers the fabric between his fingers. Rose bites her lip nervously; she’d assumed given his current attire that he might like this, and she hadn’t been too worried about gift quality considering they’d only just met, but recent revelations had proved her wrong. They did know each other, or rather he knew her, and suddenly it felt like there was a bit more pressure and expectation riding on this than she’d anticipated earlier.
“Oh, Rose,” he says reverently, and her breath hitches at the tone. “This is fantastic,” he crows in utter delight, and she smiles in relief as he stretches out the bowtie to examine the tiny polka-dotted pattern.
“Well, you did seem the type,” she giggles with a wink and a nod at his current bow-tie, and he beams at her as he starts to tug it off.
“Of course I am. Bow-ties are cool,” he insists, sliding his new gift on with ease, and she chuckles at his antics as he deftly ties a new knot and shoves the old bow-tie into his pocket.
“It looks good on you,” she tells him, and to her amusement he seems to preen under the praise.
“It does, doesn’t it?” he says delightedly, straightening the edges, and she has half a mind to point out that he can’t even see himself--there are no mirrors in the whole room--but she can’t bear to spoil his fun. “Rose Tyler, thank you for my utterly perfect gift. I believe it’s now your turn,” he beams.
“Alright,” she smiles, running her fingers lightly along the package before tearing gently through the gift-wrap. She inhales shakily when she sees the box-type; it’s clearly a jewelry box, and her heart pounds even though she knows she’s rather overthinking it.
The Doctor isn’t her boyfriend now, and, from his memories, it didn’t seem like he would be in the future either--though perhaps not for lack of wanting. But still, something inside her swells with love and happiness at the thought of him buying her jewelry when she didn’t even recognize him. Jimmy certainly hadn’t been the type to spoil her with jewelry, and Mickey had simply never really thought to do anything romantic like this. Their friendship had always plateaued at “comfortable,” and their relationship seemed to do the same.
She opens the box carefully and gasps lightly at the necklace. It’s beautiful, really--a pretty silver chain with a delicate star hanging off of it. She glances up at the Doctor to see him staring at her hopefully, and it’s all she can do not to throw herself into his arms again like she had in the kitchen earlier.
“It’s gorgeous,” she says instead, and the smile that blooms on his face seems to brighten the entire room by a few shades. “Help me put it on?” she asks tentatively, and he nods eagerly and takes the box as she passes it to him.
He lifts the chain over her head when she turns and she closes her eyes, reveling in the sound of his breath by her ear. She notices that he’s careful not to touch her, yet in her mind’s eye she can practically see his hands millimeters from her skin, and a large part of her wishes she were brave enough to lean back into his touch and see where it lands her.
She doesn’t, and after a moment the necklace is dangling above her neckline, cool and smooth against her skin. She turns to face him and her eyes fall to his bow-tie just as his fall to her charm.
It’s as beautiful on her as he remembers, and something in his chest burns at the realization that for all of the years he’s known her, she’s been wearing something he bought her.
The hopelessly romantic side of him (and he’s well-aware that this side of him exists, especially in this body, which can’t seem to stop flirting) thinks that in some ways, she’s been his all along.
“I… I don’t suppose you’d like to stay the night?” Rose asks nervously, and her stomach drops when she sees his sad smile. “Oh,” she swallows, trying not to sound too hurt, but he shakes his head vigorously before she can continue.
“It’s not like that,” he says gently. “I’d like nothing more, but…”
“You can’t?” she guesses. She doesn’t know a thing about time travel, but she assumes there are rules, and he’d said some strange phrases earlier about crossing timelines that made it sound like everything was a bit more complicated than he’d been letting on.
“I can’t,” he confirms, sounding very much like he’s reading his own death sentence. “If I stay, Rose, I’ll never leave. And I have to,” he says gently. “I have to go, so that you can meet me later.”
“Do all sentences in your life sound absolutely mad?” she teases even as her heart breaks.
He chuckles fondly. “Often enough, yeah.”
“Nutter,” she snorts, before looking at him with a serious expression. “Could you… I mean, if it’s too much…”
“What?” he asks gently.
“Could you stay until I fall asleep?” she asks quietly, and he hesitates. “You don’t have to. I know that it’s really--”
“Yeah,” he interrupts her, forcing a smile even as his hearts pound. “I can do that.”
He follows her around as she walks through her nightly routine, politely waiting outside of the closed bathroom door as she changes and leaning casually against the wall as she brushes her teeth and washes her face. It borders on hovering but she’s grateful for the company, and she feels her despair mounting when they finally walk towards her bed. Before she slides in, she makes an impulsive decision and turns around to hug him tightly, knowing that it’s her very last chance. The Doctor doesn’t miss a beat, holding her close and trying to commit every single detail to memory before he’s forced to let her go again.
“I’ll have to take these memories,” he murmurs against her forehead, kissing her hairline softly in apology.
“Oh,” she says, and she knows she should’ve seen something like this coming but it doesn’t do a thing to ease the swell of disappointment that rises inside her. It must show on her face, too, because the Doctor’s expression flickers and his hands tighten on her hips.
“You’ll get them back,” he assures her, and she shivers at the promise in his tone. “You can't keep them now because you didn't know me when we met, the way you saw in my memories. When I meet people out of order, I can suppress their memories or erase them, in order to preserve the timelines. It happens sometimes; side-effect of life as a time traveller. It won't hurt, and you'll get them back, I promise. You’ll get them back on the last day I’ll ever see you.”
“So that I’ll know that you love me?” she asks tentatively, and something like pain crosses his face before he recomposes himself.
“I’m rather hoping that you’ll know already, by the time that day comes,” he says tightly, and she doesn’t understand anything except that these words are breaking him. “But… so that you’ll hear it, all the same.”
“Doctor,” she says helplessly, unable to continue, but she’s lost him to his own train of thoughts anyways.
“Or so that you’ll remember that you’ve already heard it?” he continues, frowning slightly. “Time-traveling tenses,” he scowls, and she can’t help but kiss it right off his face. He tenses up lightly; he’s wanted this for so long that he practically aches for it, but he’s hyper-aware of the fact that even if this could never be wrong, the Doctor and Rose Tyler, this still isn’t right. She’s young now, too young, and he’s far, far too old, and she doesn’t know him really, not yet. So he stays still; he doesn’t pull away, won’t hurt her like that when he loves her too, but he patiently lets her lead and waits for her to break the kiss.
He cups her cheek tenderly when she pulls away. A tear hits her cheek and she doesn’t dare ask which of them is crying. She’s not sure which answer would hurt worse.
“Isn’t it cruel, just a bit?” she exhales hesitantly, wishing she could stop her own words. “That I’ll know when I lose you?”
He chuckles softly and she presses herself closer, closer, to feel every vibration run alongside her skin. “For one, you told me once, on the day I lost you. And it hurt, yes, that we’d waited so long. That we’d wasted so much time. But there are also some days when that memory is the only thing that gets me through the day,” he tells her gently, and she knows she’s crying now, burning with the knowledge that she’ll break his hearts one day. Has broken his hearts already. He’s right, damn the stupid bloody tenses. “And for another, who’s to say you lose me?”
She frowns at that, and he can’t help himself; it’s his turn to kiss her cheek lightly, right next to the corner of her mouth. “But… I saw… and you said—”
“Spoilers,” he murmurs sadly, and she’s never hated another word more. “You’ll find out soon enough. You’ll meet me, Rose Tyler, and I’ll take your hand, and together we’ll run. And it’ll be absolutely fantastic,” he promises, and she squeezes him tightly one last time. “It’s time to sleep now, though. Your adventure awaits.”
“Our adventure,” she corrects, and she feels him nod.
“Our adventure,” he agrees, and her arms feel like lead when she finally lets him go.
She slips under the covers and is privately disappointed when he doesn’t join her in lying down; instead, he pulls the chair from her vanity over to her side and holds her hand. She tries to stay awake, foolishly hoping that if she doesn’t fall asleep she can keep him, but she’s helpless to fight off the exhaustion and eventually nods off, gripping the Doctor’s palm tightly.
The Doctor sits by her side for hours, watching the rise and fall of her chest and feeling the steady thrum of her pulse. When he finally, reluctantly, tears himself away, he presses one last kiss to her forehead as his fingers find her temples and hide away the details of their stolen day together.
Rose blinks the sleep from her eyes, trying and failing to clear the fog from her head. She’s shocked to see that it’s Boxing Day, somehow, and tries to recall how she seems to have missed Christmas.
It turns out she hadn’t--the leftovers in her fridge prove that, and she tries to remember what exactly motivated her to put so much effort into a holiday that she’d spent alone. There’s a Christmas stocking stuffed with candy canes in her living room and a single glass of wine on the coffee table--she eyes the empty bottle and figures that it probably explains her spotty memory.
When she finally wanders into the bathroom to get ready for the day, she’s in for another surprise. Her fingers wander up to the necklace she doesn’t recognize, and she traces the tiny charm with wonder.
She couldn’t quite remember enough to be sure, but perhaps it wasn’t her worst Christmas after all.
Five years later, on a beach with the man she loves (or one of them, at least), she remembers.