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Martha Jones
Martha hadn’t noticed his ring at first. All she’d seen was a good looking and smart man whose smile could light up a room, he may have shied away from her more blatant advances but she thought he had flirted back, maybe… possibly.
Her view of the Doctor changed drastically during her first trip. She learned quickly that his smiles were his mask, hiding a darkness she wasn’t sure she could cure. She was ready to be the one to fix him, the one to make his smiles real, so when he brought her up for the first time, Martha wasn’t really surprised by the sharp pang of jealousy (“Rose'd know. My wife, Rose.” He’d said, his tone sorrowful but loving). It was clear after that the reason for his darkness, why he was struggling, and Martha hadn’t dared ask, dreaded the worst had happened and she had been jealous of a dead woman.
Martha had stomached the semi-regular mentions of Rose for months until she couldn’t hide her curiosity anymore, but before she could work up the courage to ask Captain Jack had arrived with the end of the world and she’d gotten her explanation.
“The Battle of Canary Wharf. I saw the list of the dead. It said Rose Tyler.” Jack had said, his body tensed as if waiting for a blow.
“You knew the Doctor’s wife?” She’d asked before she could catch herself.
“Wife?” Jack had laughed and congratulated the Doctor before pausing in fear, “knew?”
Then it all came to light, piece by piece over the next few hours in the Silo. The Doctor’s wife wasn’t dead, but rather trapped in a parallel world, leaving him with a broken bond to go with his shattered hearts. Martha wasn’t sure she was meant to hear all this, but the way they spoke of Rose made her feel a bit better. The woman was clearly some kind of goddess, some being of time whom Martha had no hope of matching up to.
When Martha met Rose, she was thrown. The woman wasn’t a goddess, but she was brave and kind and everything the Doctor needed. Martha was still jealous, she had still fallen in love with the quirky alien in the blue box, but she could see that Rose was the one for the Doctor. Martha decided she was okay with that, as she watched him light up as Rose turned to him in the console room full of people.
Donna Noble
When Donna had first met the Doctor, he was in shambles. Tearing at his hair and borderline suicidal over the loss of his wife. She’d be lying if she said his emotional state hadn’t played a large part in her trusting him, but she couldn’t help but pity the man (alien) in pieces before her.
When Donna had next found the Doctor, he wasn’t much better. Still hurting, still missing his Rose. Over the months she had travelled with him, Donna had gotten the Doctor to open up about his life bit by bit, but nothing made his face light up like talking about Rose. He would give a big grin and prance around, throwing his arms about as he recounted their travels. They both cried when he told her about his wedding, how they’d not been married 2 months before she was gone. Donna had exhausted questioning the possibility of Rose’s return, learning quickly that the discussion only led to an angry Doctor – but she had always held out hope.
When Donna saw Rose for the first time, she’d recognized her immediately – not from her time in the weird pocket dimension but from the photos the Doctor had shown her with a lopsided grin, from the ones the TARDIS would display on the monitor every few days as if the ship too, was missing the girl.
Donna shed a tear when they reunited, kissing in the middle of the road and barely missing the shot from a Dalek. The handsome man – Jack – had saved them both before sweeping them up in a three-way hug and carting them back to the TARDIS.
When everything with the Reality Bomb was over and the day was saved, Donna watched the way Rose and the Doctor orbited each other. She was ready to head home and start her life on Earth to allow the couple some time to bond before it happened. Everyone had left and it was just the three of them, heading away from the parallel world when the ship suddenly shook and shrieked, causing them all to cover their ears as they fell about. The Doctor was screaming for Rose, sobbing for her to hold on to something when suddenly the TARDIS doors blew open and Rose fell out into the darkness of the void.
The Doctor was a mess, screaming at the TARDIS to do something, anything, to save Rose. But all the ship would show was the frozen frame of Bad Wolf Bay, the sound of the engines pitched low in sadness. “I think she’s safe Doctor,” Donna said, putting the pieces together. “I think Rose is safe and in the other world, and that’s okay, yeah? She’s not dead, she’s safe.” She whispered hugging the sobbing man and hushing him as he cried.
Donna left after another few weeks. She had met someone on one of their Earth adventures and was ready to step off the TARDIS on the proviso the Doctor kept in touch, so she knew he was okay. He stopped all contact after her wedding, popping in looking worse for wear before leaving, having dropped off his (amazing) gift.
Amelia (Amy) Pond
Young Amelia had noticed the ring on the man’s finger, mainly because it made him laugh in a sad way, muttering something like “my clever girl” as it glowed where it lay in the middle of his palm and then grew to a slightly bigger size before the glow vanished and he slipped it on, going back to making a mess of her Aunt’s kitchen as if nothing had happened.
When Amy was bigger and saw the Raggedy Doctor again, he was still sad and still wearing his ring (she noticed now it wasn’t any ring but rather a wedding ring, and Amy was a bit upset by the realization). She wasn’t above some goggling, even if he was married, especially if said wife wasn’t even around.
Amy was confident she had met the Doctor’s wife when River Song summoned them. The woman was flirty and confident, prancing about the TARDIS like she owned the place and making the Doctor as flustered as a schoolboy. But when she’d asked, the Doctor’s face had tightened and his anger radiated from him in waves. “River Song is not my wife.” He’d growled, making Amy shiver for all the wrong reasons.
It wasn’t until after she’d tried to kiss him that she understood. After she’d pressed her lips to his he had turned positively green, and Amy had been offended until he’d sputtered something about a marriage bond and she became very very mad.
“What kind of woman are you marrying that gets off tying you up like this, making you sick if you just kiss another person while she’s not around? You can’t just do that to someone. I want to meet your wife, who thinks it’s okay to do this to you. I’ve seen you when you’ve had your ‘headaches’ and I reckon it’s got something to do with this bond thing too, yeah? What kind of ‘marriage bond’ is it if you’re in pain all the time, huh?”
She hadn’t noticed during her tirade how red-faced the Doctor had gotten, but when he grabbed Amy by the arm to swing her around she got an eyeful of angry Time Lord. “A broken one,” he said quietly.
“Huh?”
“You asked what kind of bond leaves me in pain all the time. A broken one. My wife isn’t River. My wife isn’t just prancing about the Universe. My wife is gone. Don’t speak about things you don’t understand, Amelia Pond.”
When Amy explained why she’d run, the Doctor’s hackles had raised again as he questioned why she’d run away and try to kiss him on the night before her wedding. Amy had cried and the Doctor’s anger had melted away, allowing him to give her a small and quick hug before bounding up and declaring Rory would be coming with them.
Rory Williams (but really, it’s Pond)
Rory very strongly disliked the Doctor when he first met him, disliked him more when he met him next – bounding into the pub as he did and declaring his fiancée had tried to kiss him. Throughout the whole Venice ordeal, Rory was mad at the alien, mad at his fiancée and mad at himself. When they got back though and Amy was explaining, she threw some offhanded comment about the Doctor’s dead wife and Rory felt some understanding settle over him. He’d noticed the Doctor’s flair for trouble and throwing himself into dangerous situations, how he was always smiling to hide the seriousness underneath his quirks. Rory understood a bit because he supposed he’d go a bit mad if he lost Amy too.
When he had worked up the courage, Rory asked the Doctor about his wife. He shut down and muttered something about how she was gone and he missed her before bounding below the glass flooring to mend the TARDIS.
Rory compiled every mention of the Doctor’s wife, had figured out the way the TARDIS decorated the halls with roses and would occasionally bring up a picture of a blonde 20-something-year-old woman with a cheeky smile with the word Rose capitalized below it. It wasn’t difficult to put two and two together, especially when the Doctor smiled at the monitor before switching the screen every time.
When River tried to destroy the universe, going on about how she loved the Doctor more than anyone and how she couldn’t kill him, the Doctor snapped.
“River! You’ve researched me but you don’t know me, all you know it’s what you’ve studied. You know that I’m married, you know I have a bond and you must know that I don’t love you! You need to move on, this obsession isn’t healthy. You’re destroying the entire Universe, the entire web of time. You have to stop this! Move on and stop being stupid!”
Rory would have yelled at the Doctor for breaking his daughter’s heart if it hadn’t worked, River slapping him and righting the Universe, somehow managing not to kill him.
Craig Owens
When Craig met the Doctor, it was a headache. Literally. But he had a better understanding of the Doctor than most. He knew of his planet, the war, his family, his wife and his pain. He knew what had happened with Rose and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it gave him the courage to finally ask out Sophie. He had Rose and the Doctor to thank for little Alfie, and when Craig told the Doctor that he nearly cried (he’d deny it, but he did).
Clara Oswald
Clara didn’t understand the Doctor. He'd mentioned his wife from the beginning, saying she was gone and had been for a long while. She didn’t understand why he would flirt but never make a move. Why he’d shut her down any time she suggested something more. Why he still wouldn’t move on, even after over a century.
Clara also didn’t understand why the TARDIS didn’t like her. The ship often moved doorways just out of the way so Clara would run into walls, move the halls so it took her half an hour to get breakfast and once even hid her entire bedroom. Clara figured it out after a few months, after the TARDIS kept flashing pictures of the same girl anytime Clara’s thoughts strayed to the Doctor and his dead wife. The ship was being possessive.
She finally understood when she entered the Doctor’s timestream. Admittedly, it was meant to be a big romantic sacrificial gesture, but that changed pretty quickly when she met the golden force weaving itself through the Doctor’s timeline and holding it together. Initially, she’d thought it was the Whispermen’s influence, but when she raised a hand to tug it away, the moment she touched it her mind was filled with Rose, everything about her and her life and her loss. Clara understood then why the Doctor was so hung up on his wife. She would be too if she had a piece of someone in her soul, yearning for the other half.
When Clara met the other Doctors, she understood more. She saw how every single one of the Doctors avoided mention of Rose, how each one seemed to be in various stages of grief. She was especially interested by how each Doctor reacted to the mention of Bad Wolf.
When the Doctor changed it was easier to move on. She realized she had never loved the Doctor in a romantic way but had harboured a very strong crush. When the Doctor got his new (old) face, Clara asked him more about his wife. She knew a lot about her from her time in his time stream (even if she couldn’t remember it all) but learned quickly that talking about Rose was almost always a sure-fire way to get this grumpy and closed-off Doctor talking.
It was especially helpful as a way to pull the Doctor up on his bad behaviour. When he finally went too far, leaving her and her student on the moon as it broke apart, Clara was irate. Once Courtney was taken care of, Clara yelled at the Doctor for what felt like hours, feeling as though he listened to none of it before she finally threw her arms up and said, “What would Rose have done?” Making him pale and think for a few moments before nodding with a whispered apology and wandering into the bowels of the ship.
When Danny died, Clara understood the Doctor more than ever before. She understood his pain in a way she'd never wanted to. She understood how she haunted his memories, how she was always there but never there enough. After her blunder with the TARDIS keys, it was something they discussed at length. The Doctor had never opened up to her so much before, but it was exactly what she needed. She had needed to know that he felt what she did.
When Clara realized how she was changing, how far she was from okay, she took some time for herself before deciding she needed to move on from the TARDIS. The Doctor was upset, but understood, having gone through the same thing after Rose.
River Song
River Song hated the Doctor’s wife. She hated Rose Tyler with such a burning passion, and yet she didn’t hate her at all. She realized after Lake Silencio that she had been stupid. She had set herself up to compete with a ghost, knowing she wouldn’t win.
After all her research on the Doctor, every book, myth and whisper, after all of that she had found one surefire way to correctly place adventures in a timeline. And that was when the Lonely Doctor was lonely no more. When he was happy, he was with Rose. When he was angry and vengeful and dark, he was without. River heard tales of their love and felt it was a challenge. If Rose could get the Doctor to love her then surely, she could too, right?
When she met the Doctor in the library, she knew he was younger. Not because he didn’t recognize her, but because he was still drowning in the memory of Rose. Every distraught look she had ever seen on the man had nothing on how empty he was right now. Her heart broke for him.
Bill Potts
Bill first learned about Rose when she saw her photos on the Doctor's desk and called her hot. She hadn’t believed him when he said she was his wife, but it clicked when she saw his face. He didn’t talk much, the Doctor, but when he talked about Rose it was different. He often just mentioned her in passing, saying she liked chips or that he’d always wanted to take her someplace or another, but it was one of the only times she saw him smile. From the sounds of her, Rose was an amazing woman, and Bill wished she could have met her.
Nardole
Nardole had been with the Doctor for a long time but learned quickly that there were certain days in a year when he should not be disturbed under any circumstances. When he had been employed by River Song just before her death, he had sworn to take care of the Doctor, but he didn’t know how to fix this. He didn’t do emotions.
When he’d asked the Doctor what was wrong, he’d initially been brushed off but year after year he asked and eventually got an answer. The Doctor missed his wife. His bond ached even after a thousand years, and he still mourned her. He said he limited his grief to certain days. His wedding day, the anniversary of their first meeting and the day she’d gone – both days. Nardole had nodded, made tea that the Doctor called appalling and continued on. He set up a tradition of using the Doctor’s favourite tea on these days, and he swore that once he even saw the Doctor smile.
Graham O’Brien
Graham knew pretty early on that the Doctor was married. One of the first things she said that made sense was that she had lost her ring. She’d gone into a proper panic, which worsened when she realized she’d also lost the TARDIS. The ring kept coming up anytime she realized her finger was bare.
After their first adventure, after losing Grace, the Doctor slowed down. She was very sombre during the funeral, quieter than she had been since they’d met her. Afterwards, when they were all outside drinking tea, the Doctor had asked about his speech.
“What did you mean in your speech, you thought you'd run out of time?”
Graham started, “Oh, well, er, I had cancer and er... Well, strictly speaking, I'm still in remission, three years gone. And Grace was my chemo nurse. That's where we met and fell in love. So, by rights, I shouldn't even be here.”
The Doctor nodded in understanding before Yaz asked “Have you got family?”
The Doctor smiled sadly, “I did. They’re gone now. My wife was a lot like Grace. I met her when I felt I didn’t have a lot of time either, but she made me better. I lost her a long time ago.”
“How do you cope with that?” Ryan asked.
The Doctor blew the hair out of her face, “I carry her with me, all of the people I’ve lost. What they would've thought and said and done. I make them a part of who I am. So even though they're gone from the world, they're never gone from me.”
Graham breathed a laugh, “That's the sort of thing Grace would have said.”
The Doctor laughed too before saying, “It’s the type of thing Rose would’ve said too.”
It was several adventures later when the Doctor found him wandering the halls of the TARDIS, his insomnia getting the best of him again.
“Are you missing her?” She’d asked in a rare moment of perceptiveness.
“Yeah, it’s still hard to sleep without her,” Graham said, moving to sit beside the Doctor in the console room.
“I still struggle to sleep without Rose, sometimes. She always helped with nightmares.”
“How long has it been, if you don’t mind my asking?” Graham asked, studying the Doctor’s face as she turned away.
She frowned before replying, “Since she’s been gone? 1487 years. Makes me 2389 years old. Only way I can tell my age now, to be honest.”
Graham blew out a breath in shock, “And you haven’t moved on or anything?”
The Doctor frowned again, “Do you think you’ll find someone else after Grace?”
Graham thought a moment but he knew the answer, “No. No I don’t think I will.”
The Doctor smiled sadly, “Me neither. Rose and I had a bond,” she said, tapping her temple. “It broke when she got trapped. It still gives me headaches. It also means I can’t be with anyone else but that doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t anyway.”
“Trapped?”
“She’s trapped in a parallel universe. Probably dead for a long time now, but as long as she’s there she’s always alive. I can’t see her again, either way. I was thinking of her right when I got this face, think that’s why I look a bit like her.” She laughed, before leaving the console room.
Ryan Sinclair
Ryan knew of the Doctor’s wife from their group chats and from the photos on the console monitor. He knew the Doctor still missed her even though it had been a long time, but he didn’t ask.
After their adventure meeting Rosa Parks, Ryan had felt his insecurities hit him like a truck. It was hard not to feel a bit lost around the Doctor, but in the few days he had been in the TARDIS he felt more inferior than he had in a while.
He’d been sitting in the media room, watching some mindless tv while the others slept when the Doctor walked in, carrying tea.
“The TARDIS told me you were in here. Are you okay?” She asked, handing him his tea before sitting in a chair nearby.
“It’s just stupid stuff, I’ll be fine.” He said, taking a sip of his tea.
“Mhm,” the Doctor hummed before turning to the tv. After a few minutes she spoke again, “You remind me of my Rose a bit too, you know.”
“How so?” Ryan asked, confused.
“She came from a council estate. She didn’t finish school and she really struggled with people thinking she was less. Think I’m getting that a bit now, too, being a woman. But people didn’t think she was enough, even though she was absolutely fantastic.” She grinned as she said the last word.
The shock must’ve shown clearly on Ryan’s face as the Doctor chuckled, “If you’re struggling Ryan, tell someone. You’re not less because of your background or your condition. If anything, it means you’re better. You’ve had to overcome more just to get to where everyone else starts from. Don’t forget that you’re fantastic.”
Yasmin Khan
Yaz loved the Doctor. That was something she struggled with, because she knew it’d never happen between them. She didn’t know why it wouldn’t happen, not for sure, but she had tucked away each moment between them to be cherished, just in case.
Everything came to a head after Dan joined, after the mess with the Flux and all that. They’d just beat the Sea Devils and were watching the waves while Dan was on the phone.
“I’m sorry, Yaz.” The Doctor said, out of the blue.
“For what?” She’d asked, confused.
“You know what.”
Yaz paled, “You - I don’t…”
The Doctor reached for her hand with a small smile, “I’m just sorry that I didn’t notice sooner. I could’ve explained. I’m pretty oblivious to this stuff.”
“Yeah,” Yaz laughed, “Yeah you are.”
The Doctor frowned and looked out at the sea, obviously trying to think of how to start. Yaz smiled sadly before asking, “Why were you so upset the other day? It seemed like you were in pain.”
The Doctor smiled sadly, watching the waves move. “My wife, Rose, and I had a telepathic bond. When she was trapped it snapped and it still hurts. There’s a part of my mind that is always reaching for hers, even when she isn’t around. It was our wedding anniversary, it always hurts more then. The bond means that we’re bound to each other. I can never be with anyone else, but I don’t think I could either way. She’s all there is for me.”
Yaz nodded sadly, filing the information away before asking, “What was she like? Rose?”
The Doctor’s face lit up and she smiled, “She was amazing. I think you would’ve gotten along well.”
Dan Lewis
Dan didn’t know a lot about the Doctor, but he learned about her wife from Yaz. How the Doctor married a young woman from London and she was trapped in a parallel world. It all sounded tragic and Dan was on the lookout for hard days like Yaz was, after her talk with the Doctor. It was hard to notice, but there was sometimes the faintest crack in her mask. She was still missing her wife, but she was okay. She hid it well.
The TARDIS
One not well known fact about TARDIS’ is that they know their whole life from beginning to end, the knowledge of their deaths saved in their consciousness from the moment they’re formed in the nurseries.
So the TARDIS always knew about Rose Tyler, always knew they would become one and that her Wolf would become the single most important person in her Thief’s life. She also knew she would become lost.
Being able to read timelines could be a curse sometimes, because she always knew, had known, what was coming and had tried everything to prevent it, but Time had taken her back anyway.
The TARDIS mourned her Wolf with her Thief, in her own way. She couldn’t cry and she couldn’t scream at the universe like her Thief did, but she could make sure she was never forgotten, make sure the part of Her that was all Rose and Bad Wolf was always present and remembered. She worked Rose into almost every aspect of Herself. No matter Her desktop, there would always be rose vines worked into the walls or ceilings of the halls, the Zero Room would continue to smell of roses (Which it always had, something She had allowed Herself in Her excitement for the future, something which her Thief had never understood and still didn’t), and Her Wolf’s room would never be jettisoned, even after House and an almost total reset.
She would show pictures of Her Wolf to Her Thief when they were mourning, or when She was, so they could mourn together. She used their pilot’s bond to aid Her Thief on bad days, when the torn telepathic bond shared with Her Wolf was particularly painful. And although Her Thief was unaware of it, She always kept searching for gaps in the walls between universes, for traces of Her Wolf – because she knew she was coming back.