Replacement Therapy
"Well, I'm off to bed. Wanna get this smell off of me. Night." Rose doesn't wait for either of them before she disappears down the corridor.
The Doctor is flipping switches, plotting trajectories and in general, trying to project at least the idea of being busy. But Mickey still lingers.
"I imagine you're tired as well. Lots of running around today."
No luck, Mickey crosses his arms and leans against the console.
"You stole my girlfriend."
"Oh come on, it's been, what, two years? Or is it twenty? Twelve? Hard keeping track, time machine and all. Long enough, anyway."
"You do that a lot? Run around with your fancy ship and convince 'em to run off with ya?"
The Doctor's face grows serious. A warning to tread carefully. "Of course not."
"That's what I'm saying, man." Mickey nods his head as if he's just made some grand closing argument. The Doctor furrows his brows.
"You're not making any sense."
Mickey huffs and adjusts his stance. "What I'm saying is, you steal her bleeding heart right out from under me and you treat her like rubbish, yeah? Leaving her behind like that." He leaves out the part where he leaves to chase after another woman because that's a given. That, believe it or not, isn't the biggest problem. "Seems to me, a man whisks Rose Tyler off to see the universe, must be a special kind of bloke. Right clever, he is."
"Well, yes." The Doctor bristles at the implication. He doesn"t like where this is going, not one bit.
"Observant." Mickey continues and the Time Lord starts coming to the only possible conclusion. This is a trap. "Not a complete arse. Smart enough to know when he's done something stupid and man enough to make it right."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Maybe, maybe not. I mean, the Doctor is never wrong, right?" Mickey claps him on the shoulder, in a not entirely unfriendly gesture, before pushing off of the console and heading to his room.
Alone, in the center of his space and time ship, the Doctor has to make a choice. That's not so new. That's what he does, makes impossible choices by the second but this one is different. This one, he thought he'd made already, but it's very possible he's changed his mind. This incarnation can be a bit fickle at times. Not flighty, just easily distracted when the reason is right, like now when he's trying to delay the truth of what he's done.
He knocks on her door, once, twice, three times in rapid succession. He can hear a muffled groan indicating that she's already gotten into bed. Maybe he should come back tomorrow, or the day after, or maybe everything is fine and this will blow over like it always does.
"Go away."
"Rose, can I come in?"
"No."
"Then can you come out?"
"No."
He's silent for a moment. He considers leaving it as is but then Mickey would actually be right and he can't have that, no, not at all. So he takes a page out of his last incarnation's book and tries not so subtle manipulation. Pique her curiosity, draw her in with something grand and sweeping. He digs through his mind for something scintillating, something she would just love but all that comes up is the truth.
And what's the harm in that?
"I can't see the future. Not your future." The Doctor says this to the door, his vulnerabilities laid bare to the vast halls of the TARDIS, to ears of one Rose Tyler. But she doesn't come to him. The door doesn't open, she doesn't appear with words or gestures of comfort. Her voice is muffled through the barrier between them.
"And? That's nothing new, right?"
"I can see all of space and time. But I can't ever guarantee your safety. Try as I might, you always end up in danger."
"What's this all about?"
"I knew I couldn't stay. But it was a nice dream. She was always meant to die, Rose. Her future was already set in stone but you...you'll die one day."
"And you don't know when. And it scares you. So you tried to replace me with an 18th century prostitute."
"Yes. No! What..." The Doctor rests his forehead against the door. "Can I come in?"
"No."
"Are you going to stay mad at me forever?"
"I'm not mad at you." He scoffs, hopefully loud enough for her to hear. "Not about that, anyway." The door opens then and he almost falls through. He tries to cover it up my rocking back on his heels and shoving his hands in his pockets. "Look, I get it. You're the smartest, most interesting bloke in the galaxy and she was amazing and beautiful and probably the closest match you were gonna find. This new you needs that kind of thing or you're likely to go mad. But you left us. On a failing ship in the 51st century. What if your plan didn't work and we were stranded with a bunch of murder-y androids? What if something happened to the TARDIS and we couldn't leave? You just left us, Doctor." Rose pauses, playing with the hem of her night shirt and swallowing back tears. "I'm not mad at you. I want to be, I really do. I feel like I should be hurt or something but all I keep wondering is if you're alright."
Despite his best efforts, the Doctor's mouth is firmly set shut. As only seems to happen with Rose, when it really matters, he can't find the right words. He can never lie to her, even when he really, really wants to. It always throws him. He can't help but wonder, not for the first time, who this woman in front of him is. Who is this adult, and that thought startles him, being the voice of reason and maturity when she has every right to be angry with him?
Rose sighs again and runs a hand through her hair. It's eerily reminiscient of his signature move. He raises an eyebrow at that but doesn't let his mind wander.
"Just...just look me in the eye and tell me you're alright and we don't have to talk about it ever again."
"I'm not." He shakes his head. No, he thinks, that's not right. "I won't be." He wishes she could see it, all the things he's trying to tell her but there aren't words like this in her language and so he is constantly and fundamentally wrong in the things that he says to her. But she doesn't seem to care.
"Come on." Rose shuffles out of her room, grabs his hand and tugs him down the hall.
"Where are we going?"
"To your room, where I'm going to tuck you in and you're going to give me thirty reasons why I shouldn't slap you."
The Doctor is startled into laughter. It occurs to him in that moment that though there are no words to encompass what he feels, he knows that he absolutely adores the creature in front of him. The feeling is independent of gender and species and language, it is simply that everything she is, he needs, and she gives it so freely. As if she is the ocean and he is some king whale, massive and heavy and bouyant in her arms. And. apparently, she's turning him into a sappy poet.
He pulls ahead of her and now he's tugging her forward, almost excitedly. They take a turn away from their original destination.
"Wrong way."
"Nonsense, Rose!"
"You're afraid I might actually slap you." She smiles, a little watery, a little dim, but still hers, still his.
"Quite right, too. Thought I could bribe you with a box of rare chocolates I've been saving for just this occasion."
"You're not helping your case."
"No, I suppose not. Have I ever told you..."
"How much of an arse you can be?"
"Well, no, but that's a given." He hopes she can see how very sorry he is, hopes she can feel it in his fingertips, in the way he pulls her closer when she wants to drift apart.
"Don't think you hear it enough."
"Good thing I have you, then." And he means it, more than anything else he's said.