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Floating.
She’s floating, drifting, every atom of her very existence on fire.
Burning, burning with the fire of a thousand suns–
–burning up a sun just to say goodbye–
–pain, pain, pain, as the Void tears her apart–
As she is destroyed on one side of the barrier only to be rebuilt–no, regenerated –on the other side.
And then the pain stops, all at once. She gasps, her lungs gasping in cool air, the first breath she’s taken in what might have been seconds or centuries. She’s not quite sure.
And then she’s falling, falling, falling.
—
Rose drifts in and out of consciousness. As she does, she dreams. Dreams of golden light. Of bright, colorful galaxies. Of wolves, made of stardust. Of the Doctor. Always the Doctor.
She vaguely sees a white, sterile room with soft lighting, feels herself in a firm but comfortable bed. Once, she thinks she hears singing.
When she regains a sense of lucidity, there is a man standing in the corner, watching her. He’s tall, with big gray hair and severe eyebrows. He’s dressed oddly, though, more like he’s on his way to a punk show than… wherever she is right now.
Rose tries to sit up, but her head pounds with a migraine, and her mouth feels dry like it’s been stuffed with cotton, and every muscle in her body feels sore and tender.
“Woah, hey, hey, hey,” the man says, moving swiftly towards her when he notices what she’s doing. “Here, let me help you.” His voice is gentle. He leans down and eases her into a sort of sitting position in what Rose now realizes is a type of hospital bed.
“Who–” When Rose tries to speak, her voice comes out hoarse, like it hasn’t been used in a long time. “Who are you?”
The man’s (rather impressive) eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. “Seriously?” he says disbelievingly. “Is this going to happen every time?”
“What?”
“...Never mind. Rose, it’s me,” he says. “I’m the Doctor.”
Rose’s mind is still far too clouded with pain to catch up to her mouth. “Not a very bloody good one,” she says. “I feel like shite.”
The man scoffs. “Yeah, well, connecting with a TARDIS from a different universe and dragging yourself through the Void will do that to you.”
The words register in Rose’s brain, and then she notes another thing: a low, content hum in the back of her mind–in a spot that had previously been empty for a long, long time.
Oh my God, I’m in the TARDIS, she thinks. But that means—
Rose throws her arms around the man–the Doctor. He stiffens slightly and pats her back awkwardly. “Penny dropped, has it?” He clears his throat. “Not too fond of hugging, this go ‘round.”
She eases back to rest on the bed, but keeps her hands in his and studies his new new new new face. “I like it,” she says approvingly. “Dashing.”
“Am I?” he says, pleased. Then he looks her in the eyes, and his expression turns serious. His blue gaze is warm, but intense. “What happened, Rose? How are you here? I thought the walls were closed for good.”
Rose huffs out a quiet laugh. “Doctor, you were wrong about a lot of things. We were wrong about a lot of things.”
“...Like what?”
“Like Bad Wolf.”
The Doctor opens and closes his mouth several times, but the only thing he comes up with is a quiet, “Ah.”
“I can’t believe we didn’t see it back then. I mean, you hold the power of the Vortex for, what, thirty seconds? And it kills you? But I had it for at least a quarter of an hour, and we thought it didn’t affect me at all?”
The Doctor sighs. “I wondered, at times. But I hoped… I hoped it wasn’t true. And my mentality back then was to ignore a problem until it went away.”
“And how well did that work out for ya?”
“Got me killed, eventually,” he says flippantly. “I was stupid back then.”
“Yes, you were.” Rose says. “Anyway, you were wrong about that. I’m not human anymore. And you were wrong about the Metacrisis too.”
“Was something wrong with Handy?”
Rose raises an eyebrow at him. “Yes,” she says. “You were wrong. So wrong. His mind was too Time Lord, and his body was too human. He lived for about a year.”
“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor says. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known–”
“I know,” Rose cuts him off. “I know. I forgave you a long time ago.”
“You shouldn’t have,” he says under his breath. “Is that why you’re here, then? Because he died?”
“Kinda,” Rose shrugs. “More that… that being in that universe, it was killin’ me. Remember what you said about the TARDIS the first time we landed there? You said it was like–”
“Like diesel in a petrol engine,” he finishes. Oh, he was an idiot, a first-class idiot. “I’m–”
“If you apologize to me again I’ll slap you.”
He laughs. “I’m usually not prone to apologizing in this body. Rose Tyler, you do something to me.”
Rose opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off by a short man with an egg shaped head entering the room.
The man, dressed in monotone orangey-red clothing, has a sour look on his face. His gaze drifts over the Doctor to scrutinize Rose.
“Oh, you’re awake,” he says, his voice just as sour as his face. He turns back to the Doctor. “Sir, you need to get back to the Vault. It’s been days, and your oath—“
“Yes, yes, Nardole, why don’t you go and make some tea? Without the coffee this time.”
“Sir—“
“Nardole, if you want me back guarding the vault, you should help me get Rose back on her feet.”
Nardole scowls. “I don’t see how tea–”
The Doctor scowls right back. “Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannins. Just the thing for healing the synapses. Excellent for healing individuals after a regenerative coma. Do you need any more information, Nardole, or will that be sufficient for you?”
Nardole glances at Rose one more time before leaving the room, grumbling under his breath the entire time.
Rose raises an eyebrow. “That your companion?”
The Doctor scoffs. “Hardly. More like my babysitter.”
“How’d that happen?”
“That’s a long and complicated story spanning three regenerations. People usually need a flowchart.”
Rose, softly and gently, takes his hand. His fingertips are deeply calloused–the mark of a longtime instrument player–and his hand quickly, almost eagerly, flips to clasp her palm against his. “Three regenerations?” she asks. “How long has it been, for you?”
She doesn’t feel the need to clarify any further.
The Doctor sighs, staring down at their entwined fingers. “Thousand years,” he says, “give or take a few billion years in a time loop.”
“What?”
“This is my second body since I saw you last. Regenerated not long after… you know. After. Had the next body for a good few centuries. Actually died of old age, in that one. Doesn’t happen to me too often.”
“...Wow,” says Rose, unsure of what else to say. “Only been five, for me. The Metacrisis only lived for a year, and he was sick for a lot of that. And then after he passed, I got sick not long after. My mum just thought I had a broken heart or something, I kept having to convince her it was more than just that.” She chuckles halfheartedly, and the Doctor smiles back at her, but his eyes are deeply sad.
They sit in silence for a few moments, still hand in hand.
The Doctor opens his mouth, then closes it and rubs a hand on his chin, as if uncertain if he should ask his next question. “How much,” he asks slowly, “do you know about how you… uh, got here?”
“In this universe?”
“Yes.”
As Rose thinks about it, pain builds behind her eyes, like someone is shining a light directly into them, and her headache reintensifies. “I don’t… remember much,” she says. “I had this feeling, like something was telling me I needed to go back to Bad Wolf Bay. I went alone, left letters for Mum and Pete and Tony. When I got there, I felt like… like I was on fire. And my skin.…” She presses her lips together and shakes her head.
“What?” prompts the Doctor, his voice gentle.
“My skin looked like yours does, right before you regenerate.”
The Doctor nods, as if she’d just confirmed something he already knew. “And then you felt a pull?”
Rose nods. “How did you know?”
“I think I’ve figured it out. Well, I have a theory. More of a speculation—“
“Doctor.”
“Right.” He clears his throat. “Right, so, imagine a cheese grater.”
“What?”
“You know, it’s shaped like a box,with the holes on each side, and you—“ He begins to mime how a cheese grater is used.
“Doctor, I know what a cheese grater is. I’m just not clear on how it relates to interdimensional travel.”
“Right, yes. Erm–” His thumb starts to rub along the outside of her palm, going back and forth in a rhythmic motion. Rose doesn’t think he even notices that he’s doing it. “There are the walls of the universes, yes? And the Void separates those walls from each other. The two walls–the one of Pete’s World, and the one from ours, make up two sides of the cheese grater.”
Rose nods. “Okay.”
“You–” the Doctor says, pointing at Rose with his free hand. “are the cheese.”
Rose raises an eyebrow.
“A nice one. Like a good parmesan. But you understand what I’m saying, right?”
“Sort of. Not really.”
He looks at her, and Rose sees that light in his eyes–the one where he’s excited about something new he’s discovered, and overjoyed at the prospect of explaining it to someone. She’s known him in three bodies, now, and he’s always, always, had that light.
“Somehow, and I really don’t know how, because it shouldn’t be possible, you split yourself apart. Into small enough pieces that you could get through the wall of Pete’s world. But then , once you were through, you had to navigate the Void. Without a capsule, without a Void ship. But you, Rose Tyler, found your way, and got through the wall of our world. And once you were there, you could… well, regenerate. Re-form.”
Rose stays silent for a long moment. “Well, at least it explains why I feel like shite.”
The Doctor laughs. “That’s regeneration for you. You’ll feel better, in time.”
“Did you feel like this while you were sword fighting that Sycorax for the planet?”
“Not really. That regeneration was difficult, though, I imagine, not nearly as difficult as dragging oneself across two universes and the Void would be.”
Rose frowns. “I think… I think I might know how I did that.”
“Oh?”
“I think it was the TARDIS. All that time ago, when we became Bad Wolf, she left a piece of herself in me, which is why–” She gestures at herself with one hand. “But I think I left a piece of myself in her, too. And I think we kind of… reconnected?”
“Like a trans-universal tow rope.” The Doctor nods, slowly. “That would make sense. Oh, Rose Tyler, you’re brilliant.”
Rose smiles at him, and he smiles back, and her heart warms with the brightness of this Doctor’s smile.
There’s a quick knock on the doorway, and then someone else enters the room. She’s about university aged, wearing bright clothing and matching bright, intelligent eyes.
“Doctor, Nardole is making a mess of the kitchen again. I keep having to tell him he shouldn’t put an energy drink into your tea, but he doesn’t listen to m–” The girl cuts herself off as her gaze lands on Rose, the Doctor, and their entwined hands. “Am I interrupting something?” she asks. “I didn’t know she was awake, Nardole didn’t say–”
“Bill,” says the Doctor, cutting her off mid ramble. “It’s fine. This is, erm, an old friend of mine, Rose Tyler. Rose, this is Bill Potts, she’s my student.”
“Nice to meet you, Bill.”
Bill still looks like she’s halfway in shock. “Oh! Er, um, you too. I guess.”
The Doctor stands, looking almost regretful as he gently places Rose’s hand down on her bed. “I’ll go deal with Nardole. Bill, you keep Rose company while I’m gone.” He turns to look at Rose. “Do you still take your tea the same way?” he asks.
Rose furrows her brow. “You still remember how I take my tea?”
The Doctor makes a noise in the back of his throat that isn’t quite a scoff, but near there. “Of course I do.”
With that, he leaves the room, and his companion, Bill, takes his seat.
“Sorry, but–can I ask, who are you?” she says. “He said you were an old friend, but like, he’s old enough to have been at the founding of Rome, so I’m not entirely sure what that means. I thought maybe that you two were, like, a thing, but he doesn’t say anything. And while you were asleep, I don’t think he left this room once. He was super worried about you.”
That’s new information to Rose. She of all people knew how the Doctor could worry, but she hadn’t really expected him to stay with her round the clock, considering how easily he got bored and restless.
“Yeah, erm–” Rose pauses, considering how much exactly to tell Bill. It seems like the Doctor hasn’t told her anything , which seems unfair, and something about Bill makes Rose like her immediately. “Well, we are old friends, that is true. He met me… I think about a thousand years ago. Maybe a bit over that, I don’t know exactly. We traveled together, me and him. Like the two of you do, I’m assuming.”
Bill nods.
“We did that for a few years, and then… well, long story, but something bad happened, and I got trapped in a different universe.”
Bill’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “Those are real? No way! Was everything there super different, like, all the people croak like frogs or something?”
Rose laughs. “Not really. It was a parallel universe to this one, so everything was the same except for a few smaller changes.”
“Cool,” Bill says quietly, almost to herself. “I mean, it's not cool that you got stuck! Cool that other universes exist–I’ll stop now, I think.”
They sit in semi-comfortable silence for a moment before Rose bites her lip, and then asks, “What did it look like? When I got to this universe.”
Bill’s brows draw together. “Uhm, you were kind of falling from the sky? And I could have sworn you were glowing. But the Doctor… I’ve never really seen him like that before.”
“Like what?”
Bill considers for a moment before answering. “Scared.”
Rose looks down at her hands–one of which feels cold now, with the absence of the Doctor’s hand holding it.
“Then he brought you in here, made Nardole bring the TARDIS back to Earth. And like I said, he didn’t leave. I saw him sleeping in here. I heard him singing to you, once.”
Rose’s throat feels dry. She hadn’t been sure. About any of this. That he would want her around. That he would even remember her at all. That he would care for her. That he would let her stay.
She’s more sure now.
Rose clears her throat. After a moment, she asks, “How did you meet him? The Doctor, I mean.”
Bill’s eyes brighten. “I worked at the same university as him, and I started sneaking into his lectures.”
“He works at a university? No way.”
Bill nods, grinning a little at Rose’s incredulity. “He noticed me, got me officially registered as a student, and became my tutor. I thought he was sort of weird, but, well, a lot of professors are just kind of… like that, you know?”
“Sure.” Rose had never interacted with too many professors, but she’d worked with enough brilliant scientists to recognize their specific brand of weird.
“But I didn’t know he was, like, actually alien until the girl I liked turned into a puddle and chased us across basically the whole universe. Then he tried to erase my memories, but he changed his mind and invited me aboard.”
“Definitely sounds like the Doctor,” Rose says with a snort.
“How did you meet him?” asks Bill.
“He blew up my job,” Rose says nonchalantly.
“...Deeeeefinitely sounds like the Doctor,” Bill repeats. She catches Rose’s eye, and both women burst out laughing.
They’re still laughing when the Doctor reenters the room, carrying a tray with some still-steaming mugs. “What’re you laughing about?” he asks.
“You,” Rose replies easily.
The Doctor releases a long-suffering sigh laced with frustration that, Rose knows, is at least a little bit facetious. “It’s you and Sarah Jane all over again. Ganging up against me.”
He gives one of the mugs to Rose, and she immediately takes a long sip. The Doctor rolls his eyes a bit at that, he could never understand why he liked her tea so hot, and she would often tease him about not being able to “handle” it, and then he’d crack a joke about “handling” things, and he would do that thing where he wiggled his eyebrows at her in a way she really hoped was flirtatious and she wasn’t just reading into it—She’s getting distracted.
The tea helps immediately. Her headache eases, and her bones seem to ache just that much less.
And the Doctor did remember exactly how she takes her tea. It’s perfect.
“I don’t know much about regeneration comas, or tannins, or healing the synapses,” she says slowly, “but you make a damn good cup of tea.”
“Did I remember correctly?” he asks, handing Bill her mug before dragging over another chair to sit beside her.
“Yes, you did.” Rose smiles at him. The Doctor smiles back, holding her gaze for a moment. Bill takes an audible sip of her tea. “Anyway,” Rose says. “Bill was just telling me about how she met you.”
“Oh, was she?” the Doctor asks, eyebrows raised. “What did she tell you?”
“Oh, you know, just that her crush chased you across the universe and you tried to erase her memories.”
“Ahh, I see. Did she mention how she thought her crush had a lizard in her brain?”
Bill’s eyes narrow. “Never going to let that go, are you?”
“Never.”
“It’s okay, Bill,” Rose says, smirking. “I’ll have to tell you one day about the time he brought me home a year late.”
“It was an accident!” the Doctor protests, and Bill starts laughing again.
Nardole comes back in then, looking just as disgruntled as before. “I don’t know why you send me to make tea if you don’t like how I make it.”
“Because I want you to leave the room,” the Doctor replies easily. “And you don’t make tea, Nardole. You make abominations.”
Nardole scowls. “I don’t like how it tastes! You’re the one that configured my synthetic tastebuds. Sir, please , we cannot be away from the Vault for this long! Don’t you think our friend will be getting suspicious? Now that she’s up–” he motions to Rose– “there’s no need for you to be here all the time anymore.”
The Doctor pinches the bridge of his nose. “What if I want to be here all the time?” he says petulantly.
Nardole looks up at the sky, as if pleading for help from some unknown deity. “Just… go down and check, okay? Five minutes. If you remember–” he leans in close to the Doctor– “I have full permission to kick your arse.”
“Fine. Five minutes. I hate when I let you win.”
Nardole rolls his eyes.
“But first–” the Doctor says, “Both of you, give us a minute to talk?”
Bill stands up, but Nardole doesn’t move.
“Alone?” the Doctor clarifies.
“Oh, right. If I don’t see you in five minutes, though,” says Nardole, “I’m engaging the arse-kicking protocol.” He and Bill leave.
The Doctor waits for them to shut the door entirely, and then waits another moment, as if ensuring they won’t come back in, before he turns to Rose and pulls her into a tight hug.
It’s a bit awkward, with her sitting on the bed and him on a chair a bit to her left, but neither of them mind.
“I thought you didn’t like hugging,” she says against his shoulder as he holds her tight.
“I don’t. I don’t like hugging because they’re just a way to hide your face. But perhaps I need to hide, for a moment.”
Rose pulls him impossibly closer.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Rose,” he whispers, so quietly she almost doesn’t hear it. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” She knows it’s not the same, her five years paltry in comparison to his millennium. But isn’t it? After everything she went through in the last few years. Maybe it is the same.
“I love you,” she says, because it’s true. It’s still true.
He doesn’t reply, but she hadn’t really expected him to.
The Doctor pulls back from the hug, and then brings Rose’s hand up to his lips and kisses her knuckles softly.
Then he says something that surprises her more than anything else he could have possibly said. “Go on a date with me?”
“What?”
“There’s this planet–I didn’t discover it until after I’d lost you, but I always thought about how much you would have loved it, and there’s this spot that would be perfect for a picnic, and–”
“Okay,” she says, a grin spreading across her lips.
The nervousness leaves his eyes and he smiles back at her.
He presses another lingering kiss to her hand as he stands up. “I need to go. I’ll be back in a little while, okay?”
Rose nods. “When you get back, will you explain to me what the hell ‘the Vault’ is?”
He looks away for a moment. “I expect she’ll want to meet you, so I think you’re going to find out no matter what. But yes, I’ll explain everything. I promise.” He moves towards the door, and then pauses. “I’ll see you soon.”
“I’ll be waiting,” she replies, and they share one more smile.