synopsis: Life isn't all sunshine-and-puppies for the Doct- err...John Smith and his new wife Rose. Even "meant-to-be" has its drawbacks. Very angsty post-Journey's End one-shot. TenII/Rose.
A/N: This fic was inspired and heavily influenced by the song Poison & Wine by the Civil Wars. I don't own the lyircs to this song, all rights go to their owners, please don't sure me, etc. My first DW fic to be posted, and its "very angsty", at least that's what I was going for...but don't worry, the others I'm working on won't be like this! ...probably :)
Always Will
In the light of day, anyone could see they were perfectly happy together. The Doctor and Rose Tyler…just as it should be. The same as always, but with more kissing. The same cheeky flirtations, the same jokes no one else understands, the same aura of rightness as always.
They couldn't have been happier.
But not having a TARDIS wasn't the only thing different about them now.
Their time apart had hardened them both into people they almost didn't recognize. They were still them, of course, in all the ways that mattered...but the girl who wanted chips after the end of the world and the man who raced her across hills of applegrass were gone.
At night, when the only sound was the soft hum of each other's presence in the back of their minds (-Even this, she knows, is a sore subject for him. Their telepathic bond is not nearly as strong as it should be- as it could be, if he were a proper Time Lord-) when they are alone and warm in each other's arms…at night there is doubt.
It has been happening since they were stranded here little more than a year ago. At least once a month, there would come a time when it wasn't enough. When they each- for their own reasons- felt that they weren't enough. When memories and hopes and promises get tangled and all that's left in their wake is confusion .
On nights like these, they can feel that doubt creeping up in their low-level telepathic bond. That hated emotion that is transmitted and amplified and sent back again and again in an endless feedback loop until they almost burst from the strain of it.
On nights like these, they would contemplate the events that led them to this point.
('This point' being married and domestic and stuck and now- as they'd just announced that very day- expecting their first child).
They would attempt to assure each other that nothing was wrong. They even had a set dialogue by this point.
"Rose…do you still…I mean…" He would never finish his sentence, but she knew what he meant anyway.
She may not know everything, but she knows him.
And she would always reply the same way. "You're the Doctor. It would be impossible not to."
Even after so long saying it, she still finds it hard not to cringe at the lie. The lie that's not quite a lie…
She still finds it hard to refer to him as the Doctor (even though he is) because he's not. Not anymore. He's John Smith, a physics teacher who sometimes consults for Torchwood. And her husband.
She still finds it strange having such an ordinary term as husband applied to the Doctor (even this not-quite-human, not-quite-Doctor).
She doesn't tell him that she's just as terrified of the slow path as he is. That ever since she met him- old blue eyes and big ears- the plans she'd had for her life had changed. She no longer worried about marriage, kids, a job. Because why would those things matter when the universe is so big and magnificent and awful? When there are places to run to (and from) and people to save and adventures to have? In just the few short years she'd traveled with him, she had become different. Become better.
And it hurt more than anything to be forced to go back to how she was, not just once but twice. On the same bloody beach, no less.
She doesn't tell him that sometimes she contemplates using the Dimension Cannon again.
She wouldn't ever actually do it, of course. But still. She thinks about it.
He'd been dropped here with nothing but the clothes on his back, the girl (no, woman) holding his hand and a name that no longer belonged to him. A name that Torchwood insisted he couldn't keep anyway if he wanted to blend in.
Rose only calls him John at work (or when they argue). Otherwise, it's still "the Doctor". And even though he knows she only does it out of habit and not because that's who he still is to her, he appreciates it. (And gets chills down his spine when she looks at him that certain way while saying it.)
But he would be lying if he said that he didn't resent her for this life. He doesn't want to; he knows it isn't fair to blame her for his situation, but that stubborn-ness he'd inherited from Donna refuses to let her off easily.
(The person he should really blame is the Time Lord still bouncing about the other universe in his TARDIS. But he already has enough self-loathing left over from when they were the same man that he really can't afford to heap this on top of it.)
He hadn't had a choice in this. He's too human to be a Time Lord and too Time Lord to be a human. Caught in limbo. A hybrid whose only connection to this universe was Rose.
He almost felt like he had to settle for her because who else? Who else would even begin to understand him?
And this Earth was just different enough to be disorienting. He had enough trouble blending in before, but now?
He'd be lost in this world without her guidance.
Her constant support and patience reminds him that she is still the same Rose beneath the tough exterior. The exterior she'd had to build because of him. (He's convinced she bought that leather jacket because she knows it's the best way to shut people out. She learned that from him, afterall.)
But he still can't talk to her about these things. That bit hasn't changed.
He knows he doesn't deserve her.
He doesn't know what she wants from him. Does she want him to just be the Doctor? To make her forget that he isn't really the same man and that there's another who is probably very damaged without her?
Or…does she want him to simply be John- a man who's similar to someone she once loved, but isn't? Does she want him to move on from who he was and become someone new?
He doesn't feel like he could do either. He's not good enough to be the Doctor, but not strong enough to leave that part of himself behind either. He's stuck somewhere in between.
(At this point he starts thinking that perhaps Donna's melancholy has rubbed off more than he really cares to admit.)
So he follows their routine. He tries to ask her the one question that plagues him. But of course can't get it out.
She knows anyway.
Her answer doesn't help because she calls him the Doctor and that just makes him feel like she's talking to other him and not the him that's here with her.
But he pretends to accept it and waits for her question in return. She will call him John (which means it's serious) and he'll feel awful that she even has to ask but these things do need saying.
So he does.
"Of course I do, Rose. You know that." (And he knows he hasn't really said it, but then again neither did she so they're even.)
That night, the routine was broken. Just before they drifted off together, a final message forced its way through their link, and was immediately repeated back.
In the morning, they don't remember whose thought it was first because in their exhaustion they blur into one mind. They think maybe the exchange was a dream.
But it doesn't matter because neither speaks of it again.
They reached an agreement, and there would never be another night like it again. There would never come another night when the doubts and the regrets spill over and prompt empty assurances.
Because that night, they were finally honest. And they finally understood.
"I don't love you, but I always will."
Please let me know what you think!