Chapter Text
—
1-1
wait
—
Rose wakes up late that Thursday. Her back and side are still bruised and battered from Tuesday’s fall out of a relatively high building during an alien chase (she had been shoved out the window by a belligerent Vundai, a stout, snot-skinned humanoid with a gun it’d snuck along during its tourist trip to Earth; the Doctor had screamed her name as she fell but, thankfully, she’d landed in a full dumpster), but she stretches her arms above her head and relishes in the feel of her muscles shaking and quivering with new awareness from deep slumber.
The other side of the bed is empty. Rose circles her hands over where her husband usually sleeps, but he’d been called out early last evening to deal with a potential first contact in the American Colonies. He’d been loath to leave her, injured as she was—and they were partners anyways—but she’d been on leave to recover and, honestly, it really was an emergency that he’d need to deal with. The Doctor had made a few quips about guns and cowboys, but his face had been set in determination as he made his way out the door to the waiting UNIT truck below, his hastily-packed day bag slung over his shoulder. He’d kissed her tenderly before he’d left, on the mouth and on the palm of the hand, and as he’d stepped from their bedroom (where she lay, ensconced in ice packs and drowsy on painkillers) he’d stopped.
“Rose,” he’d said into the door frame, not meeting her gaze, “what we talked about—I don’t want to pressure you, not at all. Never. Not about this.”
She’d smiled, hazy and floating. “Doctor,” she’d said. His wild hair had been backlit by the light from the hall, casting his face in profiled shadow. “You’re a very silly man, sometimes.”
“Ha ha ha,” he’d said, flatly. “Rose.”
“Doctor, go save the day. We’ll talk when you get back, yeah?” She let her best grin wobble onto her face, and she heard him sigh.
“Of course,” he’d said, softly. Then: “I love you.” Always serious, when he said it. He needed to lighten up, sometimes. This him could get so sad and scared.
“I love you tooooo,” she sang to him, and he snorted. She’d felt the bubbles of medicated giggles pop up through her throat, her teeth, effervescent and slightly burning, and so she’d warbled more of her ersatz tune to him more as he’d chortled in the doorway—Oooooh, my husband, the silliest daftest speccy alien I’ve ever met—I love it when he laughs and I also love that thing he does with his tongue, he loves my tits and naked breakkkkkkfassssttttttttt—and it hadn’t rhymed or followed any sort of solid key, but it’d made him laugh, true and hard, and that was good enough.
Now, in the bright morning, her body aches, and her mouth is dry, and she has the flat to herself.
Right. Rose levers herself out of bed, wincing at the dull throb of pain, and walks stiffly to the bathroom to take her pills. She contemplates her birth control. After some thought, she pops the tablet from the row—maybe a refill, soon—and swallows it down with her painkillers. She pats the growing TARDIS coral, safe in its pot, on one of its branches. That done, she maneuvers to the kitchen and makes tea and toast scraped over with butter and blackcurrant jam. The morning is warm and gold, and there’s a silence and stillness in the flat that’s only unfamiliar because of the new flavor of this solitude.
It’s the same flat that she’d had during her dimension-jumping days, but sitting alone at the counter now doesn’t feel as stifling as it had back then. There’s a peace and contentment in the dishes left in the sink and the chorus of jam flavors in the cupboard. A child’s picture of the Doctor and her, stick-figured and simplistic, hangs on the refrigerator from a kitschy UFO magnet. Tony had given it to them on Sunday, and she supposes that’s the impetus for what the Doctor’d said Tuesday evening. Rose goes to take a sip of her tea and the china clinks awkwardly against her teeth.
Her head has returned to that floating, half-slowed state and she hurts less, so she deposits her plate in the sink and carries her tea to the sitting room. She begins flipping through the channels as she sits down—checks the news, first, for any possible report of something from the Colonies, but there’s nothing on that front—and settles on a documentary about astronomy, quasars and pulsars and massive universal structures. If the Doctor were here, he’d be looping one arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him as he whispered filth in her ear, or he’d be babbling about scientific inaccuracies as she slithered her fingers through his hair, his head in her lap and his naked, bony feet jutting off the end of the couch.
Rose pulls the blanket from where it’s wedged between the cushions and wraps herself in it. Then she flips to an Eastenders rerun—well, Westenders, in this universe, some things were swapped like that—and squirms her way fully into the couch. Everything is moving around her in a lovely liquid haze, she thinks, and she’s as warm and tucked in as a child.
Hm.
Her, as a mum. He’d talked about it on Tuesday, while she’d been in the medical ward awaiting attention and any measure of painkiller, so he’d run his mouth about anything and everything in order to distract her (and himself, she wagered; he was absolute pants whenever she was hurt) from the burning contusions running along her side and her back.
Really, the man could talk for miles. “And tea was quite nice, Sunday, good thing your mum’s got a cook and Rose, you know, you’re brilliant with Tony, you don’t spoil him or talk down to him, have you ever thought—” and she’d shot her eyes to him as he’d carried on with his train of thought, but he’d seen her shock because his rate, impossibly, increased, “—well, what I mean to say is that you’d be a brilliant mum, I think, which would really do well to negate any of the worst parts of my, frankly, anarchistic parenting style—”
“Doctor,” she’d said, solidly thunking her forehead into his to silence him. It’d hurt too much to raise her arms, or she’d have held his jaw in her hands, directed him to her eyes. “This is not the time to have that discussion.”
His throat had worked nervously, a dry swallow and a nod. “Right.”
She— fuck it, she’d thought, ow ow ow, she’d thought very quickly after—cupped his jaw. “Not sayin’ no. Just. Not right now.”
The Doctor’s face had been flat and alien but his eyes had been bright and wet. “Of course,” he’d said. “Later.”
“Later,” she’d affirmed. “Now, go raise hell with the nurses, will you?” She’d smiled weakly, tapped a tango along his cheeks with her fingers. “This really hurts. ”
He’d hopped away, and then everything was the boring whirlwind of recuperation. He’d not mentioned it again until Wednesday night, and again, she’d deferred.
Her, as a mum. She’d considered it, distantly, when she’d been younger and a bit more naive. In the dark camps and hotel rooms and hammocks, delving in the night, she’d halfway allowed herself to dream what a quote-unquote- normal life with the Doctor might look like. Sex, marriage, one or two faceless children running around a house. It’d never quite fit, really. It certainly didn’t fit during the black hole, and it especially didn’t fit after the Olympics when she’d realized that he’d once had children who must have died in the war. So she’d bit it back and buried it deep and threw herself into the race, just as he’d done.
Even here, although she loves her human Doctor, there’s something a bit mythic, a bit untouchable about him. She knows her husband intimately and can see his workings and rationales and half-said things far more clearly now; she also knows there are centuries of existence that she will never know, never experience. Sometimes it chills her. But she also loves that alienness of him, feels a crooked-coy arrogance at the immutable fact that he gave up his sprint across the cosmos and the eternal to live a life with her.
Did he want this because he wants to immerse himself in a human life fully? It’d been a bit like that at the beginning, all awkward expectations and attempts at normalcy. No, that wouldn’t be it. He wouldn’t have even brought this up in the first place if it wasn’t something he’d been considering for ages, something he’d been turning and analyzing and examining from all angles in his vast mind. By even floating the idea, he’d made his wants known, and he wanted this—wanted this very badly, if the stumbling, affected nonchalance he’d been attempting had been any cue.
Her, as a mum. Rose Tyler, as a mum. She’s never truly imagined herself as a mum, so she tries now: getting fat, being sick. Ultrasounds and a needle digging into her spine, a little squalling red bundle slicked with fluid and tucked into her arms, suckling at her breast and entirely dependent on her, on him. Getting older, crawling and standing and running, leaving for school and screaming at her as a teenager.
Tries is the operative word. It doesn’t fully make sense for her beyond abstraction and images cobbled together from Mum’s pregnancy, from her UNIT colleagues’ parenting stories. Would she be a cool mum? She’d like to be a cool mum, if she has the choice, but there’s something askew even with that. She wants to be Rose Tyler. She likes being Rose Tyler. To grow another person from her blood and bones, anchored deep within her and then hollowing her out—she doesn’t know. Part of herself, wandering the world, tethered then distant and then, inevitably, gone.
Rose shakes her heavy head, but it doesn’t refresh her thinking and the couch is warm and comfortable and she is so very tired. She closes her eyes and dreams in spiralling loops and circles of visceral birth and the sensation of love and leaving.
—
1-2
what
—
Rose wakes up late Thursday. Her back and side are bruised and battered from Tuesday’s fall out of a building during an alien chase (she had been shoved out the window by a belligerent Vundai, a snot-skinned humanoid with a gun it’d snuck along during its tourist trip to Earth; the Doctor had screamed her name as she fell but, thankfully, she’d landed in a dumpster), but she stretches her arms above her head and relishes in the feel of her muscles shaking and quivering with awareness from deep slumber.
The side of the bed is empty. Rose circles her hands over where her husband sleeps, but he’d been called out early last evening to deal with a potential first contact in the American Colonies. He’d been loath to leave, injured as she was—and they were partners anyways—but she’d been on leave to recover and, honestly, it really was an emergency that he’d need to deal with. The Doctor had made a few quips about guns and cowboys, but his face had been set in determination as he made his way out the door to the waiting UNIT truck below, his hastily-packed day bag over his shoulder. He’d kissed her tenderly before he’d left, on the mouth and the palm of the hand, and as he’d stepped from their bedroom (where she lay, in ice packs and drowsy on painkillers) he’d stopped.
“Rose,” he’d said into the door, not meeting her gaze, “what we talked about—I don’t want to pressure you, at all. Never. Not about this.”
She’d smiled, hazy and floating. “Doctor,” she’d said. His wild hair had been backlit by the light from the hall, casting his face in shadow. “You’re a very silly man, sometimes.”
“Ha ha,” he’d said, flatly. “Rose.”
“Doctor, save the day. We’ll talk when you get back?” She let her grin wobble onto her face, and she heard him sigh.
“‘Course,” he’d said, softly. Then: “I love you.” Always serious, when he said it. He needed to lighten up, sometimes. This him could get sad and scared.
“I love you tooooo ,” she sang him, and he snorted. She’d felt the bubbles of medicated giggles pop up her throat, her teeth, effervescent and slightly burning, and she’d warbled more of her ersatz tune to him more as he’d chortled in the doorway—Oooooh, my husband, the silliest daftest alien I’ve ever met—I love it when he laughs and I also love that thing he does with his tongue, he loves my tits and naked breakkkkkfasssstttttttt—and it hadn’t rhymed or followed any sort of key, but it’d made him laugh, true and hard, and that was good .
Now, in the morning, her body aches, and her mouth is dry, and she has the flat to herself.
Rose levers herself out of bed, wincing at the throb of pain, and walks stiffly to the bathroom to take her pills. She contemplates her control. After some thought, she pops the tablet from the row—maybe a refill—and swallows it down with painkillers. She pats the growing TARDIS coral, safe in its pot, on its branches. That done, she maneuvers to the kitchen and makes tea and toast scraped over with butter and jam. The morning is warm gold, and there’s a silence and stillness in the flat that’s only unfamiliar because of the flavor of this solitude.
It’s the same flat that she’d had during her jumping days, but sitting alone at the counter now doesn’t feel as stifling as it had then. There’s a peace and contentment in the dishes in the sink and the chorus of jam in the cupboard. A child’s picture of the Doctor and her, stick-figured and simplistic, hangs on the refrigerator from a kitschy magnet. Tony had given it to them on Sunday, and she supposes that’s impetus for what the Doctor’d said Tuesday evening. Rose goes to take a sip of her tea and the china clinks against her teeth.
Her head has returned that floating, half-slowed state and she hurts less, so she deposits her plate in the sink and carries tea to the sitting room. She begins flipping through channels as she sits down—checks the news, first, for possible reports of something from the Colonies, but there’s nothing on that front—and settles on a documentary about astronomy, quasars and pulsars and universal structures. If the Doctor were here, he’d be looping one arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him as he whispered in her ear, or he’d be babbling about scientific inaccuracies as she slithered her fingers through his hair, his head in her lap and his naked feet jutting off the end of the couch.
Rose pulls the blanket from where it’s wedged between the cushions and wraps herself in . Then she flips to an Eastenders rerun—well, Westenders; this universe, some things were swapped like that—and squirms her way into the couch. Everything is moving around her in a liquid haze, she thinks, and she’s as warm and tucked in as a child.
Hm.
Her, a mum. He’d talked about it Tuesday, while she’d been in the medical ward awaiting attention and any measure of painkillers; he’d run his mouth about anything and everything in order to distract her (and himself, she wagered; was absolute pants whenever she was hurt) from the burning contusions running along her side and her back.
Really, the man could talk miles. “And tea was nice, Sunday, good thing your mum’s got a cook and Rose, you know, you’re brilliant with Tony, you don’t spoil him or talk down to him, have you thought—” and she’d shot her eyes to him as he’d carried on his train of thought, but he’d seen her shock because his rate, impossibly, increased, “—well, I mean to say is that you’d be a brilliant mum, I think, which would really do well to negate any of the parts of my, frankly, anarchistic parenting style—”
“Doctor,” she’d said, thunking her forehead into his to silence him. It’d hurt too much to raise her arms, or she’d have his jaw in her hands, directed him to her eyes. “This is not the time to have that discussion.”
His throat had worked, a dry swallow and a nod. “Right.”
She— fuck it, she’d thought, ow ow ow, she’d thought quickly after—cupped his jaw. “Not sayin’ no. Just. Not right now.”
The Doctor’s face had been flat and alien; his eyes had been bright and wet. “Of course,” he’d said. “Later.”
“Later,” she’d affirmed. “Now, raise hell with the nurses, will you?” She’d smiled, tapped a tango along his cheeks with her fingers. “This really hurts. ”
He’d hopped away, and everything was the boring whirlwind of recuperation. He’d not mentioned it until Wednesday night, and again, she’d deferred.
Her, a mum. She’d considered it, distantly, when she’d been younger and a bit naive. In the dark camps and hotel rooms and hammocks, delving the night, she’d allowed herself to dream what a quote-unquote- normal life with the Doctor might look like. Sex, marriage, children around a house. It’d never fit, really. It certainly didn’t fit during the black hole, and it especially didn’t fit after the Olympics when she’d realized that he’d had children who must have died in the war. So she’d bit it back and buried it and threw herself into the race, just as he’d done.
Even here, although she loves her Doctor, there’s something a bit mythic, a bit untouchable about him. She knows her husband intimately and can see workings and rationales and half-said things far more clearly now; she also knows there are centuries of existence that she will never know, never . Sometimes it chills. But she loves that alienness of him, feels crooked-coy arrogance at the immutable fact that he gave up his sprint across the cosmos and the eternal to live a life with her.
Did he want this because he wants to immerse himself in a life fully? It’d been a bit like that at the beginning, all expectations and attempts at normalcy. No, that wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t have even brought this up in the first place if it wasn’t something he’d been considering for ages, something he’d been turning-analyzing-examining from all angles in his vast mind. By floating the idea, he’d made his wants known, and he wanted—wanted very badly, if the stumbling, affected nonchalance he’d been attempting was any cue.
Her, a mum. Rose Tyler, a mum. She’s never truly imagined herself as a mum, so she tries: getting fat, being sick. Ultrasounds and a needle digging her spine, a little red bundle slicked with fluid and tucked into arms, suckling at her breast and entirely dependent on her, on him. Getting older, crawling and standing and running, leaving school and screaming at her as a teenager.
Tries, the operative word. It doesn’t make sense for her beyond abstraction and images cobbled together from Mum’s pregnancy, from her UNIT colleagues’ stories. Would she be a cool mum? She’d like to be a cool mum, if she has choice, but there’s something askew with that. She wants to be Rose Tyler. She likes being Rose Tyler. To grow another person from her blood and bones, anchored deep within her and then hollowing her out—doesn’t know. Part of herself, wandering the world, tethered then distant then, inevitably, gone.
Rose shakes her head, but it doesn’t refresh her thinking and the couch is warm and comfortable and she is very tired. She closes her eyes and dreams in spiralling loops and circles of visceral birth and the sensation of love and leaving.
—what is happening—
—
2-3
something’s wrong—
—
Rose wakes up late. Her back and side are battered from Tuesday’s fall from a high building during an alien chase (shoved out the window by a belligerent Vundai, a snot-skinned humanoid with a gun it’d snuck along during its tourist trip; the Doctor had screamed her name as she fell), but she stretches her arms above her head and relishes in the feel of her muscles shaking from slumber.
The side of the bed is empty. Rose circles her hands where her husband sleeps, but he’d been called out last evening with a first contact in the American Colonies. He’d been loath to leave her injured but she’d been on leave to recover and it really was an emergency. The Doctor had made quips about cowboys, but his face had been set as he made his way out the door to the UNIT truck below, his day bag over his shoulder. He’d kissed her before, on the mouth and on the hand, and as he’d stepped from their bedroom (where she lay in ice packs and on painkillers) he’d stopped.
“Rose,” he’d said, not meeting her gaze, “what we talked about—I don’t want to pressure you. Never. Not about this.”
She’d smiled, floating. “Doctor,” she’d said. His hair had been backlit by the hallway light, casting his face in shadow. “You’re a silly man.”
“Ha,” he’d said, flatly. “Rose.”
“Doctor, go. We’ll talk when you get back?” She let her grin onto her face, and she heard him.
“‘Course,” he’d said. Then: “I love you.” Serious, when he said it. He needed to lighten up. This him could get so sad.
“I love you tooooo ,” she sang, and he snorted. She’d felt bubbles of giggles pop up through her throat, slightly burning, and she’d warbled her tune to him as he’d chortled in the doorway—Oooooh, my husband, the daftest alien ever met—when he laughs and that thing he does with his tongue, he loves naked breakkkkkkfassssttttttttt—and it hadn’t rhymed or followed any key, but it’d made him laugh, true, and that was enough.
Now, morning, her body aches, her mouth is dry, and she has the flat.
Right. Rose levers out of bed, wincing at the pain, and walks to the bathroom to take her pills. She contemplates birth control. She pops the tablet from the row—a refill, soon—and swallows it with painkillers. She pats the growing TARDIS coral, safe in its pot, on one of its branches. Then, she maneuvers to the kitchen and makes tea and toast with butter and jam. The morning is gold, and there’s silence in the flat that’s only unfamiliar
no—
because of the flavor of solitude.
It’s the same that she’d had during dimension days, but sitting at the counter now doesn’t feel as stifling as it had back then. There’s a peace in the dishes left in the sink and the jam flavors in the cupboard. A picture of the Doctor and her, simplistic, on the refrigerator, a kitschy magnet. Tony had given it to them, and she supposes that’s impetus for what the Doctor’d said Tuesday. Rose takes a sip of her tea
this isnt right
and the china clinks her teeth.
Her head has that half-slowed state and she hurts less, so she deposits her plate in the sink and carries her tea to the room. She begins as she sits down—checks the news, first, for report of something from the Colonies, but nothing on that front—and settles on a documentary about quasars and pulsars and massive structures. If the Doctor were here, he’d be looping one arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him as he whispered in her ear, he’d be babbling scientific inaccuracies as she slithered through his hair, his head in her lap and his feet jutting off the couch.
Rose pulls the blanket from where it’s wedged between the cushions and wraps in it. Then she flips to an Eastenders —well, West, this universe, things were swapped—and squirms her way fully into the couch. Everything moving around her in a haze, she thinks, and she’s warm and tucked in as a child.
this isnt new
Her, a mum. He’d talked about it Tuesday, while she’d been in the ward awaiting any measure of painkiller, so he’d run his mouth about anything in order to distract her (and himself, she wagered; absolute pants whenever she was hurt) from the contusions running along her side and her back.
Really, the man could talk. “And tea was nice, good thing mum’s got a cook and Rose, you’re brilliant with Tony, you don’t spoil him or talk down, have you ever thought—” and he’d carried on with his train of thought, but he’d seen her shock because his rate increased, “—well, what I mean is that you’d be a brilliant mum, I think, which would do well to negate the worst parts of my, frankly, anarchistic parenting style—”
“Doctor,” she’d said, thunking her forehead into his. It’d hurt too much to raise her arms, or she’d have held his jaw, directed him to her eyes. “This is not the time to have that discussion.”
His throat—a dry swallow and a nod. “Right.”
She— fuck it, she’d thought, ow ow ow, she’d thought very quickly—cupped his jaw. “Not sayin’ no. Just. Not now.”
The Doctor’s face had been alien but his eyes had been bright. “Of course,” he’d said. “Later.”
“Later,” she’d affirmed. “Now, raise hell with the nurses?” She’d smiled, tapped a tango along his cheeks with her fingers. “This hurts. ”
but its not the same either
He’d hopped away, and then the boring whirlwind of recuperation. He’d not mentioned it again until Wednesday, and she’d deferred.
Her, a mum. She’d considered it when she’d been younger and more naive. In the camps and hotels and hammocks, in the night, she’d allowed herself to dream what a normal life with the Doctor might look like. Sex, marriage, children running, a house. It’d never fit, really. It didn’t during the black hole, and it didn’t after the Olympics when she’d realized that he’d once had children who must have died. So she’d bit and buried and threw herself into the race, just as he’d done.
Although she loves her Doctor, there’s something mythic, untouchable about him. She knows her husband and can see workings - rationales - half-said things more clearly now; she knows there are centuries she will never know, never experience. It chills her. But she loves that alienness of him, a crooked arrogance at the fact that he gave up the cosmos and the eternal to live a life with her.
its a circle
Did he want this because he wants to immerse himself fully? It’d been like that at the beginning, expectations and attempts. No, that wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t have brought this up if it wasn’t something he’d been considering, something he’d been turning - analyzing - examining from all angles in his mind. By floating the idea, he’d made his wants, and he wanted—wanted very badly, if the stumbling nonchalance had been any cue.
or a spiral
Her, a mum. Rose Tyler, a mum. She’s never imagined herself as a mum, so she tries: getting fat, sick. Ultrasounds and needle digging her spine, a little bundle slicked with fluid and tucked into her, suckling her breast and dependent on her, on him. Older, crawling and standing and running, leaving for school and screaming at her.
Tries is the word. It doesn’t make sense for her beyond images cobbled together from Mum’s, from her UNIT colleagues’ stories. Would she be a mum? She’d like to be a mum, if she has the choice, but there’s something askew with that. She wants to be Rose Tyler. She likes being Rose Tyler. To grow another from her blood and bones, anchored within her and hollowing her out—she doesn’t know. Part of herself, wandering the world, tethered then distant then, inevitably, gone.
what is that—
Rose shakes her head,
but it doesn’t refresh her and the couch is warm and comfortable and she is tired.
what—who—
She closes her eyes and dreams in loops and circles of visceral birth and the sensation of love and leaving.
—
3-5
doctor?
—
Rose wakes up. Her back and side are still bruised from Tuesday’s fall out of a building during a chase (she had been shoved out the window by a Vundai, a humanoid with a gun it ’d snuck during its trip; the Doctor screamed as she fell), but she stretches the feel of her muscles shaking with awareness from slumber.
The other side is empty. Rose circles her hands over where her husband sleeps, but he’d been called out to deal with potential contact in the Colonies. He’d been loath to leave, injured—and they were partners—but she’d leave to recover and it was an emergency that he’d deal with. His face had been set as he made his way out the door to the truck below, his bag slung over his shoulder. Kissed her tenderly before he’d left, the mouth and the palm, and he’d stepped from their bedroom (she lay, ice packs and painkillers) he’d stopped.
what—how is this—
“ Rose,” he’d said, meeting her gaze, “we talked about—don’t want to pressure you. Never.”
i’m here—where—
Hazy and floating. “Doctor,” she’d said. Wild hair backlit by the light from the hall, casting his face in profiled shadow. “You’re very silly, sometimes.”
“H,” he’d said. “ Rose.”
“Doctor, go. Talk when you get back, yeah?” Let her grin onto her face, and she heard him sigh.
“Of course,” he’d said, softly. Then: “ I love you. ” Always serious.
i love you too
He needed, sometimes. This him could get so scared.
yeah
“Love you tooooo ,” she sang. She’d felt the bubbles pop up, slightly burning, and so she’d warbled more to him more as he’d chortled— Oooooh, my husband, the alien I met—I love his laughs and I love his tongue, he loves my —hadn’t rhymed or followed key, but it’d made him laugh, true, and was good.
Now, her body aches, and her mouth is dry, and she has the flat.
Right. Rose levers, wincing at the pain, and walks to take her pills. She contemplates her birth control. After some thought, she pops the tablet from the row—a refill, soon—and swallows it down. Pats the TARDIS coral, safe in its pot, on its branches. Maneuvers to the kitchen and makes tea and toast. The morning is, and a silence and stillness in the flat that’s the new flavor of this solitude.
what—
It’s the same flat she’d had during her jumping days, but alone at the counter doesn’t feel as stifling as it had. Contentment in the sink and the chorus in the cupboard. A child’s picture, simplistic, hangs on the refrigerator. Tony had given it, and that’s the impetus for what the Doctor’d said. A sip of her tea and the china clinks against teeth.
Her head has that half-slowed state and she hurts less, so she deposits her plate in the sink and carries her tea to the sitting room. She sits down—checks for any report of something, but there’s nothing—and settles on a documentary .
you said loop—what, it’s decaying, decreasing
If the Doctor were here, he’d be looping around her shoulders and he whispered filth, or he’d be babbling as she slithered her fingers, his feet jutting off the end of the couch.
Pulls the blanket where it’s wedged between the cushions and wraps herself in it. Then she flips to an Eastenders rerun—well, Westenders—and squirms her way fully into the couch. Everything is moving around her in a lovely liquid haze, she thinks, and she’s as warm and tucked in as a child.
i’m stuck
Hm.
Her, a mum. He’d talked about it while she’d been awaiting attention, so he’d run his mouth about anything to distract her (and himself, he was pants whenever she was hurt) from the burning along her side.
can you get me out
Man could talk. “Tea was nice, and Rose, you know, you’re brilliant with Tony, you don’t talk down, have you ever—” and she’d shot her eyes to him, but he’d seen her shock because his rate increased, “—well, you’d be a brilliant mum, I think, which would really do well to negate any of the worst parts of my parenting—”
“Doctor,” she’d said. It’d hurt too much, or she’d have held his in her, directed him to her “This is not the time.”
Throat had worked nervously, dry swallow and nod.
then what do we do
She— fuck it, ow ow ow, very quickly after—cupped his jaw. “Not sayin’. Right now.”
The Doctor had been alien but his eyes had been bright. “‘Course,” he’d said.
“Later,” she’d affirmed. “Now, go raise hell?” She’d smiled. “This really hurts.”
will i get out
Then everything was recuperation. Not mentioned again until Wednesday night, and she’d deferred.
Her, a mum. She’d considered it when she’d been younger. In the dark rooms and hammocks, in the night, herself to dream what quote-unquote life with the Doctor might like. Sex, marriage, children, a house. It’d never quite fit. It didn’t during black hole, and didn’t after the Olympics when she’d realized that he’d once had; must have died. So she’d buried it and threw herself into the race.
doctor
She loves her human Doctor, a bit mythic, a bit untouchable. She knows his workings and rationales and half-said things; she also knows there are centuries she will never know, never experience. Chills her. But she loves that alien, feels crooked-coy at the fact that he gave up the eternal to her.
okay—how much time
Did he want this because he wants a human life fully? Like at the beginning, awkward expectations. No. Wouldn’t have if it wasn’t something he’d been considering for ages, something he’d been analyzing from all angles in his mind. He’d made his wants known, and he wanted this—the stumbling nonchalance he’d been attempting had been cue.
stay with me
Her, a mum. Rose Tyler, mum. She’s never imagined, so she tries: getting fat, sick. Ultrasounds, a little bundle tucked into her arms, suckling and dependent on her, on him. Getting older, crawling standing running, leaving and screaming.
Tries . It doesn’t make sense, abstraction and images cobbled together. A cool mum? She’d like to be a mum, she has the choice, but there’s something askew. She wants to be Rose Tyler. She likes being Rose Tyler. To grow another person from her bones, anchored deep within her and then hollowing her out—know. Herself, wandering the world, tethered - distant - inevitably, gone.
Rose shakes, but it doesn’t refresh her and the couch is warm and she is so very tired.
She closes her eyes and dreams loops of visceral birth and the sensation of love and leaving.
it’s empty—where are you
doctor, please