I'm still having trouble with it. I mean, how are you supposed to deal absorb something like this? To be with the man you love, to always have him beside you, him making you happy, you making him happy… but to have those facts poisoned. Because I know, that while I spend my life with him, at the same time, he is somewhere else, alone? I hope not. I called him John the other day. Accidentally of course, I think I'm subconsciously trying to separate them in my head- John, the Doctor, and I know I can't, I know I'll only hurt myself more. He looked at me- a look I recognised, and made me sink inside. The clench of the jaw, and the nod that he didn't have to move his head for- acceptance, because he knows what I'm going through and how a part of me is dealing with it. But that's true of me too- I don't know what to do for him. He has to travel, it's just who he is. He has to run. Even though he felt that it was his duty, to go around healing places I mean, I know he loves to run. Now he's sort of confined to one planet, in one solar system. I don't know what that will do to him really. He has to save people and wander- it's just a part of him.
We talk as if he's the same man I fell in love with- to him he is. To me he is. The first day, we were talking in the car on the way home. Ha home. I think we both needed to have something to do. We always had something to do, or solve, or save, or run from. So when it occurred to me about his name, I didn't stop and think how it would make him feel, I just spoke as I would have done, as I did once before, when we were stranded and Tardisless. That's quite similar to what we are now really. Feels like it. Feels temporary.
"You know," I said, turning to look at him, "You'll need a name. What shall we say you're called?" His face was blank, staring ahead, and for a moment I thought I'd upset him, or that all of this was just to much… "Doctor?" He smiled though, then.
"Alonso." He said, cracking a grin. I had to laugh at that, and squeezed his hand.
"John Smith it is then."
"As always."
"Hello John Smith." I said, still laughing.
"Hello Rose Tyler." He said, in his familiar happy tone, rolling the words all the way around his mouth before saying them. I'd missed that. I shook myself.
"We're acting as if someone's died!" I sat up and grinned at him. "But here we are." I think it was a combination of making him feel better, and making me feel better. "We're together Doctor." He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him.
"Yes we are Rose Tyler, yes we are."
