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He brings it up when she turns sixty. Not on her birthday - he knows well enough from forty years together to save the serious talks for after the parties or dinners or romantic getaways. But he’s been thinking about it for a while.
She knows something has been bothering him. Sidelong glances with a troubled expression, hesitation when they exit the TARDIS. She knows something is coming, can sense a shift within him. It’s hard not to, after so many years, and a life so well-lived and well-loved. But his nervous energy makes her nervous - his pensive expressions make her pensive - their emotions tangled with the symbiotic intimacy of decades together.
“How would you like to retire, Rose?” he asks one day, smiling at her over a plate of pancakes and blueberry syrup in the built-in booth of the TARDIS galley. “Tropical paradise? Fun in the sun? A daily banana daiquiri? Or two.” He gives her a wink, and she knows he’s hiding something painful behind the enthusiasm and charm. She’s long learned the difference between hyperactive excitement and overcompensation.
“Is this about what happened on Trisol? I’ve told you. The only reason I tripped was because the vines were sentient and wrapping themselves around my ankles. And you healed my wrist in five minutes. I don’t need to retire. You tell me all the time how fit I am.”
“It’s not about that. Well,” he corrects, “It’s not just about that.” He drags a piece of pancake through the syrup, back and forth, and lets it drop back onto the plate without eating it. He’s serious, now, grins and winks dissipated.
“Doctor, what is it?”
He’s silent, for a moment, poking at a bit of pancake with his fork.
“Tell me.”
“You’re getting old.”
“Excuse me?” Rose asks, eyebrows raised.
“Not old, no, sorry, that’s not the way I want to say this.” Clearly struggling, the Doctor takes her hand across the table, running a finger along the tiny, textured blue veins, then along her wedding ring. “You’re beautiful and you don’t look a day over forty.”
She does, really, although not by much, perhaps. He definitely doesn’t. He looks almost the same as the day he’d regenerated, though he’s a little grey at the temples, and his smile lines are set deeply from years of laughter. She hasn’t been mistaken for his mother, yet, but she knows it’s coming someday, some year soon.
“Shut it,” Rose chides good-naturedly, “There’s no backpedaling out of that one and I plan to have a proper row about it just as soon as you explain to me what you’re actually trying to say.”
“I’m scared.” He’s looking down at his plate.
“Of what?” She suspects she already knows.
“That my time with you is running out.” He meets her eyes and she knows this look. It destroys her to see it. His eyebrows are knit upward, eyes wide and large, shimmering just slightly. He looks so vulnerable that she knows she won’t be able to tease him for calling her old. This is serious. This is hurting him.
“Doctor, I’m only sixty.” She stops him tracing the lines of her fingers and grips his hand tightly, placing her other hand over his for good measure. “I’m practically middle-aged, with all the medical resources of the TARDIS at our disposal. You don’t have to worry just yet.”
“Oh, but I do.” His voice cracks. “I’ve worried for so long - about what our lives would look like in the future, about how I can keep protecting you… But --” He struggles, taking a shuddering breath before continuing. “--but you’ve been so wonderful. Always so strong.” He looks down again. “You make me strong.”
“I’m glad. You do the same for me.”
“But I’m greedy,” he tells her, fiercely, looking up at her again with those shimmering eyes. “And I’m selfish. I know that. But I can’t lose you - I can’t. Not yet.”
She can’t sit across from him any longer. She slides in close next to him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He drops his fork, curling an arm around her waist, and dropping his head into the crook of her neck.
“You’re not going to lose me. We have time. We have lots and lots of time left.”
She feels moisture on her neck and tightens her grip, trying to stop herself from crying along with him. This is one of those moments where she needs to be strong. She knows it, but her eyes start to sting anyway.
“These years with you have been - are - the best of my life. But they’ve also gone the fastest.” He nuzzles just slightly into her neck, and she feels him place a gentle kiss there. A tear lands on her collarbone. She tries to swallow around the lump in her throat.
“We’ve got time.” She rests the side of her head against the top of his.
“A few more decades,” he says with a broken scoff. “It’s going to go by so fast. And then -- then I’ll be alone.”
“You’ll do no such thing. You’ll find friends and get up to mischief and save the universe. You’ll be stronger for the time we spent together. You promised me.”
He did. He will again. It doesn’t change anything right now.
“I just can’t lose you so soon, Rose,” he whispers into her neck. “I can’t do it.”
“So we’ll slow down. We can do that. More leisure planets, maybe? But you can’t wrap me in cotton wool for the next fifty years. It’ll drive me mad, for one thing. And I don’t think it’ll make either of us happy to do that before we have to. We’ve got time.”
He lifts his head, resting his forehead against hers. She moves her hands from their place along his back and shoulders to his cheeks, kissing him softly. He returns it desperately, bringing his other arm to her waist and pulling her close. His cheeks are wet, and hers are too, and neither is sure who is responsible. After a moment, he breaks away, resting his head on her shoulder again. She wraps her arms around him.
“I have an idea.”
She runs her fingers through the back of his hair, scratching softly at his scalp. He keeps his head bowed, not meeting her eyes.
“Tell me.”
“I leave for an hour everyday.”
“What, for some ‘me time’?” She nudges him with a grin. He keeps his head hidden.
“Not exactly. I leave for an hour ... your time.”
“You leave me - without me - in the TARDIS?” she asks, voice caught on a breath.
“Yes.” He finally raises his head, looking up at her. She brings her hands down, resting them on his arms, wrapped around her.
“How long? An hour for me. How long for you?”
“A week?” He sounds sad and hopeful and scared all at once, and she gasps. “You could be with me everyday - it won’t be much different for you - and I’ll be with you one day a week.”
She wants to ask why but she’s scared she already knows.
“Like you’re weaning yourself off of me?” Her eyes start to sting again. He wipes a tear away before she even realizes it’s fallen.
“No, no, no. Never. Impossible.” He cups her face between his hands, kissing her once, twice. He’s crying again, too. Or maybe he never stopped.
“You want to travel without me?”
“Of course not. Don’t be daft,” he says. “I never want to do anything without you. Not ever.”
“Then why?”
“Another fifty years for you, Rose Tyler, right?” She nods. “At least. Fifty more years… That’s eighteen thousand, two hundred and fifty days. It sounds like a lot, put that way. It’s not. Not for me. But if I space it out, if I wait a week in between every one of your days… I could keep you for three hundred and fifty more years in my own timeline.”
“Does it have to be an hour, for me?”
“Any less and it might be .. difficult. To be precise.”
“Oh. Where will you leave me?” she asks, reaching for his hands and holding them in hers over her lap. His face lights up and she knows she’s going to let him do this. Fewer hours together in total, she knows, and he must, too. An hour less together per day, for the rest of her life. She can’t resist, though, not when this means she can stay in his life for so much longer. Not when he goes from tears to smiles so easily at the thought of this plan.
“Somewhere lovely.” He rubs patterns on the backs of her hands. “Could do Earth, if you like, or if you’re feeling nostalgic. A nice flat in London, or a beach home in Florida, maybe a loft in New York City, if you want something a bit exciting? Could switch between, too. Or go off planet. Whatever you like.”
“For an hour, right? An hour per day.” He nods. “Anywhere with telly will do. I won’t be moving in. The TARDIS is my home.”
“Of course. Right."
“You double check the coordinates when you come back. Triple check. You don’t leave that TARDIS until you know you’ve landed an hour in my future.”
“I will duodecuple check that I have the right coordinates.”
“I don’t think that’s a word.”
“It is, too! It means twelve times.”
“Okay.”
“What?” He utterly fails to obscure just how hopeful he is.
“Yes. Okay. We can do this.” She smiles at him, and he reciprocates with a megawatt grin. “Promise me you’ll be careful. With coming back on time, and with whatever you get up to without me. And promise we’ll still travel, when we’re together. And that you’ll find someone to travel with when you’re away.”
“I promise I’ll be careful, and I promise we will travel together any and every day of your life, for as long as you want. But I don’t need to find anyone else, Rose.”
“Doctor, you can’t spend six days per week alone for the next three hundred and fifty years. You need someone with you. That’s a requirement. Promise me that or we’re not doing it.”
He swallows, then nods. “I promise.”
“And you have to tell me about all your adventures while you’re away.”
“Of course. Telling you is the best thing about having adventures when we’re not together.”
She smiles. Can’t help it when he says things like that. She brings one of his hands up to her mouth and kisses the back of it, delighting in the way his eyes warm.
“And if you need me - for more than a day out of the week, you have to tell me. And you have to stay.” She looks into his eyes. He nods again. She nods too.
“Rose.”
“Yes?"
“Thank you. I love you.”
She throws her arms around him again and doesn’t let go for a long time.
--
The first time doesn’t go as planned.
The Doctor figures, quite reasonably, as far as he’s concerned, that since Rose sleeps half her life away, anyway, that it might make sense for him to leave for an hour as she sleeps. This, quite naturally, requires Rose to sleep outside of the TARDIS.
He brings her to a posh hotel in her favorite year on her favorite planet. He doesn’t say so, but she knows that he’s chosen that particular locale so she’ll be somewhere she likes if he bungles the landing.
He parks the TARDIS in the foyer of the hotel suite and follows her into the room, holding her hand, and turns back the duvet on the lovely, king bed. Her suspicions are confirmed when he leaves a white card, loaded with credits, on the nightstand. She gets into bed. He takes off his trainers, jacket, and tie, unbuttoning the first few buttons of his Oxford the way she likes and climbs in next to her, wrapping his arms around her. He lies on his back and she sighs, laying her head on his chest and closing her eyes.
An hour passes, then two. The Doctor, usually so hyperactive and keen to tinker while she sleeps, holds her patiently, no doubt anticipating missing her very soon.
“Doctor, I can’t sleep.”
“Nervous?”
“Maybe,” she whispers. “Really, though, I miss the TARDIS. It’s been so long since I’ve slept without her humming in the background.”
“What about last month, when we spent the night in that Stvorenje jail cell?”
“We didn’t really do much sleeping.”
He looks down at her, lifting his neck so he can see her face.
“Do you want to go sleep in the TARDIS? I can bring you out here once you’re asleep.”
“As suggestions go, that’s not bad, except for the part where it definitely won’t work.” She grins, saucy tongue flashing at him. “Remember when I fell asleep in the media room and you tried to bring me to bed? I accidentally smacked you in the jaw and it was all for nothing; I didn’t get back to sleep for ages.”
“I have a very strong jaw.”
“Your jaw is perfect.” She cranes her neck up to kiss it.
“Well, yes,” he agrees, turning onto his side and wrapping his other arm around her. She shifts and they’re burrowed close, facing each other on their sides, her head cushioned on his arm.
“You should go.” Her voice is muffled in his shoulder. “Go and come back. I’ll order room service and save you some. Come back tired and hungry. We’ll eat and go sleep in our bed, where we should be.”
He buries his head in her hair.
“I know this is my idea,” he says, kissing the crown of her head, “but it’s very difficult, you see. Leaving you.”
She swallows, suddenly aware of a lump in her throat.
“It’s what you want, right? Me, in your life, for centuries.”
“Forever,” he corrects, “but I’ll take what I can get.”
“Then go. Be careful. Come back to me in one week and one hour. And I’ll order in.”
“Yes, quite right. Just - one thing, before I go. To get me through the week.”
In one smooth motion, he flips her on her back and she lets out a squeal, laughing as she wraps her arms and legs around him.
--
When he comes back an hour later, looking tired and hungry and sad and so excited to see her, she tackles him, even though he’s only been gone long enough for her to order room service and watch the first third of a Lord of the Rings movie.
By the time they eat the food from room service, it’s gone cold.
--
The next few weeks - or months, depending on the perspective - go as well as can be expected.
From her perspective, life is much the same. After they agree that he won’t be leaving while she sleeps, they choose a place for her to spend an hour everyday. The beach house in Florida, which she chooses because of his enthusiasm (“Naples, Rose! Florida. Not Italy. You can watch the sunset on the Gulf of Mexico any night you like! We can rent a car and drive down ‘Alligator Alley.’ Alligators!”) He buys it using earnings from a careful - and shameless - manipulation of the Florida Lottery. She pretends to be angry, but she’s not. She’s happy to have a place that’s hers for the hardest part of her day.
Usually, he leaves her in the evening. She starts by sitting on a beach chair, under an umbrella, often sipping a banana daiquiri (which he hands her, daily (weekly), fresh from the TARDIS, before he leaves. He kisses her hair and tells her he’ll be right back and they both hope it’s true, but he always leaves her a credit card on the dining room table). She often uses the hour to shower, shave her legs, do her hair - by the time he’s back, she’s just finished. Sometimes she paints her nails. She touches up her roots. Sometimes she watches a soap opera. Once in a while she cooks or bakes or orders some food, surprising him when he gets back with nibbles.
On the whole, an hour of ‘me time’ every day is actually pleasant. Or it would be if she weren’t spending the entire hour agonizing - hoping he’ll come back on time, come back safe.
He does come back on time. With the way his face lights up, it’s obvious he misses her terribly. She misses him for that lonely hour that he’s gone, but it’s nothing compared to the fervor he shows everyday (every week) upon his return.
He regales her with tales of grand adventure - planet saving, universe saving, TARDIS repairs, everything she’s loved and lived for more than forty years with him. She can almost fool herself into treating these stories like stories from before they met. But she can’t quite forget that he’s out there, without her, almost everyday of his life. She’s not there to hold his hand, or to save him, anymore.
She still travels everyday of her life, lives on the TARDIS apart from that one hour a day, but she feels like she’s retired. They aim for leisure planets often, the Doctor managing successful peaceful landings more than he ever did when his daily life matched up with hers. Between that and the daily on-time arrivals, she wonders if he’s struck a deal with the TARDIS somehow.
The TARDIS misses her, too, she thinks. It’s impossible to forget that an hour away from the Doctor is a week for him. But it’s easy to imagine she’s just left the TARDIS moments ago, when she’s really been gone for days. The Doctor doesn’t move her things, wanting to preserve the illusion that their timelines match.
She notices the little things aboard the TARDIS. The rooms are always the perfect temperature, there are always fresh pastries in the galley, and her clothes have never felt so soft.
--
A year in, for her, and seven for him. The Doctor hasn’t traveled with anyone else. He greets her with increasing desperation every night, clinging to her as though she’ll disappear at any moment when he picks her up even though he’s never been late.
She worries at the desperation pouring off of him and asks him to find someone every night (every week), in their bed, head on his chest where it belongs. He tells her he doesn’t need anyone yet; he’s enjoying some time to himself. She doesn’t believe it.
“Have you found anyone who might be up to the challenge, that you didn’t ask?” she asks one night, playing absently with the hairs on the back of his arm.
“A few.”
“Bring the next one you find.”
“I want us to have our privacy.” He nuzzles her cheek with his nose. It is very clear to Rose that he is trying to distract her.
“So you can send them home for a visit to their mum once a week, or have the TARDIS put their room in another wing.”
“You’re all I want.”
“Tough,” she says, not letting him sweet talk his way out of this. “It was part of our agreement. The next person who’d be a good companion, you take ‘em along, or I’m not laying a toe on Florida soil again.”
He sighs. She knows he’s won the argument.
--
He has a new companion. However, he’s clearly following the letter, but not the spirit, of her request.
The girl is twenty two, which seems about right. She’s from twenty third century America, which is one of the Doctor’s oft-stated least favorite time-and-place combinations. Her name is Lana. She’s highly sarcastic and a bit brash in a way that stems from a spoiled malicious streak rather than, for example, Donna’s deep-seated insecurity.
Rose listens day after day to stories of the ways in which Lana nearly brings doom upon the Doctor and the universe at large with her behavior. It’s clear the Doctor hasn’t warmed to her, not at all. He complains incessantly about the way Lana tries to take advantage of all-of-time-and-space for her own gain, about how her immaturity and mean streak cause communication breakdowns across the galaxies, about her tendency to run away from danger and people in need.
Rose tries to imagine that the girl just needs some time to grow into her compassion, and tells the Doctor so. Then, after twenty nights of listening to the Doctor complain, Rose asks to meet her. He sulks, saying he doesn’t want to give any of his time with her away. Rose insists.
--
The Doctor picks her up in Naples, an hour after she’s last seen him (her nails are lime green tonight), and herds her inside the control room.
“Lana’s here, you’ll say hello, then we’ll drop her off for a visit with her mum. Good? Good.”
Lana stands next to the console, looking bored. Still, her eyes widen just slightly as Rose enters, the Doctor just behind her.
“Lana, hello. I’m Rose. I’ve heard so much about you.” She extends her hand. Lana stares at it, eyes narrowing judgmentally at her nails, and then slowly drags her eyes up to Rose’s face.
“Wow. You’re real.”
“Last I checked.” Rose laughs. “How are you? It’s so nice to meet you.”
“You’re his wife?”
“Again, last I checked.”
Lana looks at the Doctor.
“I figured you must’ve been lying to me, telling me you had to meet your wife and dropping me off at my mom’s every two weeks. Thought you might be going to a brothel, or something. But here she is. Even if she is… old.”
Rose turns as if in slow motion, jaw dropped in shocked anger.
“Lana, that’s really very rude. Rose is in the prime of her life.” The Doctor clearly struggles to avoid Rose’s eyes.
“Two weeks?”
“Usually,” Lana says. “One time I didn’t go home for a month, I think. It’s hard to tell on the TARDIS. I thought he said you knew how this worked.” At the Doctor’s glare, she spits out, “Sorry, by the way. You’re just older than I thought you’d be. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Apparently realizing that avoiding this is not going to make it better, the Doctor dares to look at Rose.
“We need to talk.” Rose stares at him with a ferocity honed through over four decades of chastening an incorrigible man. He withers visibly. “Please drop her off now.”
“Okay, no, I see it now. She’s definitely your wife.”
“Lana, nice to meet you,” Rose says. “Take care.”
--
The Doctor drops Lana off with no intention of ever picking her up again. He should stop abandoning people. He knows this. But Lana’s not attached to him, not really, and he’s had the courtesy to bring her directly home despite the fact that she was rude to his wife and got him in a lot of trouble. He does this despite thinking it might be really fun to drop her off in Aberdeen, particularly since she lives in Arizona. He calls it even.
As Lana leaves, the Doctor takes a deep breath, bracing himself. The second he throws the TARDIS back into the Time Vortex, Rose starts.
“Two weeks? A month?”
She’s not shouting. She’s speaking with that choked voice that he knows means she’s on the verge of tears, and that’s so much worse.
“How long have you gone? What are you doing - testing how long you can go without me?”
The Doctor approaches her and it hits him like a punch when he sees the tears in her eyes, ready to overflow.
“I’m sorry.”
“Tell me. How long have you gone? What’s the longest you’ve gone?”
“Six months is the longest,” he admits, shamed. “I’m sorry - I’m just trying to -”
“What? Get yourself killed and never come back to me? Drive yourself mad?”
“No, no - Rose. No.” He tries to reach for her and she side steps, leaning her arms against the console. “I did it because -- After a while, I could go a week. I missed you, but I was used to it. I thought - if I wait two weeks every time, I could spend six hundred years with her. Then I’d do a month, sometimes. After that, I just - It got out of hand. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I should have known,” she whispers, and a tear falls. “You were getting so --” She breaks off. “You missed me too much. Too much for a week.”
“I always miss you.”
“Don’t. Don’t -- do that.” She steps away from the console. “I need a moment.”
She leaves.
He tries, really, he does but, after thirty three seconds, he follows her.
She’s sitting on their bed, holding a music box he bought her on Glasba, a musical planet they visited for their fortieth wedding anniversary. Hers, anyway. It could have been his two hundredth anniversary with her for all she knows.
She looks up when he walks in. He sits next to her, his right thigh brushing against her left. She sighs and lays her head on his shoulder, looking at the box in her hand. Encouraged, he curls an arm around her waist.
“I’m so sorry, Rose.”
“It’s so dusty,” she says, running her thumb along the top and showing him the thick layer of grime. “I got it a month ago, my time. It shouldn’t be this dusty.”
“I know.”
“You can’t do this. You can’t. We had terms. We had an agreement.”
“I just don’t ever want to --”
“I know. I know and I’m sorry. This isn’t easy for either of us, and I know it’s harder for you with all the time away. But I can’t do this if I think you’re out there without me for months at a time. I can’t bear it. Please don’t ask me to.” She can’t hold it in anymore and lets out a sob, rubbing her eyes into the arm of his suit jacket.
He takes the box from her, gently, and places it next to them on the bed. Wrapping his other arm around her, he holds her close, letting her cry. His own cheeks get wet and he buries his head in her hair, whispering apologies over and over.
--
They fall asleep together, all tangled limbs and aching heads from too much crying. When Rose wakes, he’s in his Oxford and trousers, wearing a different tie and beaming at her from the doorway. He walks over and places a device the size of a cell phone on her lap. Then, he places a muffin she hadn’t even seen him holding on the nightstand next to her.
“What’s all this, then?” Rose asks, unable to stop herself smiling at the look on his face.
“Breakfast! Well, some of it. I mean, there’s more food in the galley - some eggs and toast, if you’re feeling really hungry. And you’re not to eat the -” He points at the device. “Well, it doesn’t have a name yet. Chronocadenceometer? Too long. The CCM, then.”
“You already know you need to explain! Out with it.”
“It ties your point-of-departure timeline with the TARDIS. It’ll tell you how long it’s been for me. And the old girl, too, of course.”
“Oh,” she whispers, looking at the display. Two rows like stopwatches, both displaying zeros.
“It’ll start counting your time when you leave the TARDIS. It syncs up when you come back. The bottom row will tell you how long it was for me.”
“You made this last night?” Rose asks, still awed by his ingenuity after all their time together.
“Yep!” He grins, but then it falters. He sits on the bed next to her, regarding her seriously. “I thought-- You might not be able to trust me anymore. I don’t blame you, of course. I’m a daft old alien, me. I’m so sorry for staying away so long. Now you’ll always know how long it’s been.”
“Of course, you could set it to lie to me, too.”
“I didn’t.” She believes him.
“Two weeks is your maximum. For extenuating circumstances. Planet or universe saving only. Don’t you ever stay away for a month again.”
“I won’t,” he says, and it’s got the weight of a promise.
“We’re spending a week straight together. I need time to recover. This has all been very traumatic.”
“Of course.”
“And when you drop me off again, your first order of business is to find a proper companion,” she says, and he knows he’s busted about Lana.
“Right. Good. Of course.”
“Good, then,” she says, and yanks him into a kiss by his tie. He laughs in relief as he reciprocates.
--
Years go by, for both of them, though many more for him. She relies on the CCM for a long time, finally leaving it to dust next to her music box sometime around her seventy sixth birthday.
He travels properly, again. He has the habit of picking up couples, now, which works spectacularly better than his old model of letting young women across the galaxies fall in love with him. Couples are also, typically, all too willing to have a day to themselves once a week.
Rose meets his companions, from time to time, when they’re special, but they often change every few months from her perspective and she, too, has become protective of her time with him.
She’s in spectacular shape for eighty, the Doctor tells her. She exercises daily and receives the finest medical care from the finest doctor in all of time and space. By the standards of the twenty first century, she thinks she looks about sixty. Her heart, lungs, and bones are in splendid health, showing nothing beyond the slow signs of deterioration brought on by age. She even still runs, just a little, when she tests herself on the treadmill in the TARDIS gym.
Despite this, when the TARDIS takes them off course, the Doctor thanks her politely, takes down the time and space coordinates so he can come back later, and asks her nicely to bring them to their original destination. The TARDIS, who has shown more kindness and loyalty with her daily on-time pick ups than Rose could have ever imagined during her first years aboard, obliges. He takes her to leisure planets and planets of great natural beauty. She misses the running, but she’s ready to admit that it may be time to retire.
--
One day, the TARDIS and the Doctor are late.
The beach house is a second home to her, now, and she loves it even though it represents the loneliest times in her life. She usually enjoys her hour to herself. She’s recently taken up the piano, the Doctor immediately providing her with a spare baby grand he had on the TARDIS so that she can practice alone and surprise him with a concert.
As she’s plonking out Chopsticks and half-hoping he’ll sit down next to her at any moment to take the second part, it takes her two minutes to realize he’s late.
She checks the clock on the wall. She curses the fact that she doesn’t have the CCM. Wondering whether it’s been an hour and two minutes or an hour and five, she realizes she’s grown complacent. As soon as she sees him, after she’s given him a smack, she’s never going to leave the TARDIS without her CCM again. Or a stopwatch, at least.
--
When the TARDIS finally materializes, Rose is half mad. It’s been ten hours. Ten hours. She’s choking out air in relief, simultaneously deciding to upgrade his smack to a slap.
Then the doors open and he steps out with a new face.
He’s young, and he’s still in his old clothes, which are burned and torn. Brown hair again, but darker and floppy this time, and just - so, so young.
“Doctor,” Rose gasps, and bursts into tears.
“Rose.” The Doctor staggers forward, spreading his arms hopefully.
She launches herself into them without hesitation, grabbing him tightly, crying so hard she shakes. Her greatest fear is him dying without regenerating, but this is second. This is exactly what she’s feared everyday for the last twenty years. He’s late, and he regenerated, and she wasn’t there to help him, wasn’t there to save him.
Her legs buckle beneath her and he follows her down. They sit on the floor, collapsed onto one another, grasping desperately.
She tries to stop her tears. Fails. Tries again.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice cracking. “I destroyed the console room when I regenerated. I had to come as soon as I could, but I couldn’t get closer to you than a ten hour window while she’s still repairing. But I couldn’t wait any longer to see you. I couldn’t wait until she was repaired. I’m sorry I made you wait instead.”
His voice is different. His inflection. His accent. She knows it’s still him, sees it in his eyes, but she’s going to miss his old face more than anything in the universe. Still, he’s her Doctor, and he’s looking at her like he expects a slap after all.
“Don’t be sorry, you daft alien,” she laughs around her tears. “I’m so glad you came as soon as you could. You’re worth the wait.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
She wipes at her eyes with a sleeve and looks at his new face.
“What happened?”
“I had to die to save them. It’s not bad, as far as reasons go. Better than the time I hit my head on the floor of the TARDIS.”
She can’t laugh at his joke, but it’s enough, for now. She’ll hear the rest later. She scoots closer to him and reaches a thin, wrinkled hand to his impossibly young face, cupping his cheek. He clasps his hand over hers, leaning into her touch.
“I don’t have to tell you I’m still me.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“What do I look like?”
“Haven’t you seen?”
“No, as soon as it was done, I had to save the world. And then I came here.” He pauses, reflecting. “My voice is very different, isn’t it? And I’m very hungry but nothing sounds good.”
She smiles softly at him.
“You’re young. You look about twenty five. I’ve every right to be cross with you for doing that, Doctor. People thinking I’m your mum’s one thing, but grandmum - that’s a lot to ask of me.”
“I feel old." He looks it, for just a moment. Something about the eyes. Brightening just as quickly, he says, “I’ll tell them I fancy older women.”
He smiles at her. It’s a goofy smile; he can feel it. He thinks he might’ve winked with a line like that before, but the urge has left him in this body.
“Oi!"
“So, am I handsome, then?”
“I don’t think there’s a face you could wear that wouldn’t be handsome to me.”
He grasps her hand warmly, lowering it in his from his face to her lap.
“That’s not quite an answer, though, is it?”
“So this new-new-new you likes flattery just the same as the last, hmm? Yes, you’re handsome. It’d be a bit hard to top the last face, though!”
“Oi!”
“All right, then, a tie.”
He smiles, then, satisfied with her response. “Up! Up, Rose Tyler. Into the TARDIS we go. Let’s find me some clothes.”
He stands, helping her up even though she doesn’t really need it just yet.
“Speaking of ties,” he says, casual, “I was thinking about a bow tie. What do you think?”
“Could be cool.”
He beams and gives her an exaggerated smack on the lips, grabbing her by the shoulders and leaning in at a sharp angle. Maybe for the last time, she pulls him in for a proper snog using his necktie.
--
There comes a time, many years later for her, and many more for him, when he cannot bear to leave her for a week in his time. He starts leaving for two or three days at a time, reluctant to let their timelines sync back up, but terrified to stay away. He’s spoiled on so many years with her and still greedy for more.
Even later, when he cannot bear to leave her for an hour in her own time, when she’s weak and struggles in and out of the TARDIS, mind sharp but body weak, he accepts defeat.
“Stay with me,” he pleads.
“Always,” she says.