I've been writing tiny fluffy fics for people on tumblr this week, and I was in the mood to write a longer piece of fluff, so I cranked the classical music and went to go write that. Well. It turned out a little more angst-y than I intended, but I still really like it. (Also, for those reading Along for the Ride, I got really stuck and am not sure when it will be next updated. Many apologies.)
As always, please enjoy!
Disclaimer: Aw, you thought Doctor Who was mine? That's so cute! *cheek pinch*
The night she returned to him, there had been so much battle and bloodshed, he didn't want to break her altogether by asking her the how and why of the situation. Instead, he held her close the whole walk back to the TARDIS, only speaking to ask her if she could walk alright; she only nodded. He was a gentleman and held the door for her, then laced their fingers together – thank Rassilon they still fit perfectly after all that time – as he lead her to the medical bay. She followed in an unnerving silence. He couldn't say he blamed her. It had been a trying enough day for him; he couldn't imagine how she felt.
When they reached the room, the TARDIS having moved it closer for them, he wordlessly scooped her up and delicately deposited her on the examination table. She sat stone still as he buzzed about the room, gathering supplies to patch up the cuts and bruises about her body, as well as fix the leg she had a slight limp on. The silence was beginning to get to him. The Rose Tyler he knew was never overly loud, but she was not known for going so long without teasing him or pointing out something he missed or making light of the situation.
His Rose didn't lie to his face.
Oh, he knew when she told him she was "fine" that it was a load of bollocks; he could see the pain in her eyes. Maybe she could fool the rest of the universe into thinking she was untouchable, but she didn't fool him for a second. He had spent too many hours just studying her face, especially her eyes, to fall for such a trick. It gutted him to know she would even try; cut him right to the core. What had happened in Pete's World that took out the bubbly shop girl and replaced her with a hardened woman? How could he have let this happen in the first place?
He made quick work of healing the marred skin on her exposed flesh. He helped her slide off her leather jacket and jeans to get at the bruises he knew would be underneath. He wasn't wrong. When he moved down to her legs, he saw the yellow-purple of her swollen ankle and barely resisted the urge to kneel down and simply kiss it better. He wasn't so sure of how she would react to that. Instead he settled for applying the cream he had used on the rest of her in a healthy amount, taking care so as not to move it to much or cause her more discomfort. She didn't make a sound as he touched it, but he sensed her stiffen. His hearts nearly shattered. His Rose was hurt, and it was all his fault.
If he hadn't sent her away in the first place, if he had made her go back to the TARDIS until Canary Wharf was sorted, if he had tried harder to get her back, if... if.
He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. He looked at her face, trying to gauge whether or not he had gotten the majority of her injuries, but she wasn't looking at him. It seemed she refused. He tried not to let that hurt him. He curled one finger under her chin and coaxed it upwards, so she would look him in the eyes. With reluctance, she did so. He didn't miss the slight quiver of her chin. He gave a soft smile and leaned forward to place a soft kiss between her eyebrows. Her body relaxed against him.
Again, he scooped her up into his arms, leaving her bloodied jeans and filthy jacket behind as he carried her further into the TARDIS. Without much thought, he went to her room to get clothes for her to wear, then to the library without letting her change. He placed her down on a sofa in a cosy corner, a fake fireplace – with all the warmth of a real fire – in front of them. He helped her into the shorts he'd gotten for her, but allowed her privacy as she changed into the vest he'd also grabbed. He waited a suitable amount of time before turning back round and silently asking permission to sit by her feet that were stretched out the same way he had left them. She lifted them, bending at the knee, and he took his seat, drawing her feet into his lap as well.
They didn't speak for the longest time. One hour, twenty-four minutes, and forty-nine seconds, by his time. He was waiting for her. He wanted her to make the first move, to allow her to speak on her own without feeling pressured or cornered. The last thing he wanted was to make her feel obligated to do anything. She had to be the one to do it. So, he took to stroking the top of one foot with the pad of his thumb, watching the fake flames dance in front of him.
"How old am I?" she said at last, almost making him jump. He looked over at her and considered. She did physically look a bit older than he'd left her, but no more than a few years. Her eyes, on the other hand, spoke of years. He shook his head, unable to give any form of answer. She was staring into the same flames of his gaze a few moments before, but it looked as though she was seeing through them, to whatever was beyond their depths. "I'm four hundred and nine," she seemed to muse.
His mouth flew open, flapping a bit as he tried to formulate words, but she only shook her head, still not looking at him. "You don't have to, Doctor, 's all right, I made my peace with it." The corner of her lips twitched up in a grimacing smile. "Long time ago, actually. I'm an old woman."
He was sure right then a piece of one of his hearts cracked. What had he done to her? How could she possibly be that old? He hurt for her as he thought of Jackie and Pete and Mickey and Jake and little Tony, all of whom were presumably long dead in the other world. She had been left on her own for centuries, probably relying on Torchwood – he nearly spat at the name – who could have done God knows what on her. Tests. Horrible tests, probably. He cringed at the thought, but a hot wave of anger and rage also surfaced within him. If anyone had so much as touched his Rose, he would make it his mission to get back to Pete's World and bring Torchwood to its knees personally.
"Before you go all Oncomin' Storm," she began, tearing him away from his murderous thoughts, "'s a bit complicated." He tugged on her leg and she scooted closer to him, drawing her knees up to her chest as he pulled her into his lap, not too far off how they used to sit before... Well. "When we got back to London," he grimaced, remembering that wretched beach in bloody Norway, of all places, "Pete gave me a job at Torchwood. Everything was fine for a few months, even though I was miserable. I lived with them, helpin' with Tony when he was born, but after awhile, I moved out on my own. Got a flat. Stupid, tiny little thing. Like I said, everything was fine for a long while.
"But then Pete and Jake and some other Torchwood agents started noticing changes in the universe. It started with tiny little things like the bees disappearing, but then one day one of the empaths we had started yelling and goin' on about how it was 'all wrong' and 'she's not supposed to be here' and 'the universe was going to right itself in the end'. Seemed crazy at the time, 'specially cos she was sayin' it to me and only me. She collapsed later – they said it was exhaustion – and slipped into a coma. Didn't come out of it for months. That's when we started puttin' the pieces together.
"There was no parallel me. There was a Ricky and another Jackie and a Pete and a Harriet Jones, but no Rose Tyler to be found, unless you count that stupid dog. Not on Earth, not on any other planet that we could find. I really wasn't meant to be in that world. I couldn't take anyone's place, so I was just an extra piece of the puzzle, and the universe was trying to fit me in as best it could, but I guess it couldn't. I'd been there for a little over a year and a half when I was first pulled. Basically, what happened was that the universe was trying to get me as close to the crack between the universes as it could without causing too much damage. It didn't work very well. I was stuck on the fourth moon of Poosh for weeks before I got pulled back to Earth, barely a day after I had left. I told Pete and he freaked. They started building this...thing that was supposed to be able to lock on to the place and time I disappear at and bring me back. I got stuck on Moldova for two years, Barcelona for a year – they have nose-less cats, by the way – and then Ambrosy for six months before I made it back and before they finished the 'cannon,' they called it. Basically, it was just a watch with a button on it that would send me home.
"It didn't stop the pulls, but it made it a little easier to get back. I was tossed around the universe at least a dozen times, being put back only a day later each time, before I realized that I wasn't ageing. I'd probably been gone for eight or nine years total, but I didn't look a day older than twenty-one. It was good for keeping up appearances, I suppose, but I was so confused and so... scared by it, I didn't know what to do. I told Mickey by accident one day and he wasn't surprised. He said that maybe the universe was doin' me a favour in trying to send me back to you. That you'd know what to do." She leaned against his chest with a heavy sigh, her cheek against the scratch wool of his pinstriped jacket. "I think he was right.
"There were sometimes weeks or months in between pulls, once there was a year gap when we thought it had stopped, but usually they were pretty frequent. I tried to spend as much time with Mum and Tony as I could in between, just in case I didn't make it back. It went on for years, according to Pete. For me it was so much longer. There was one pull that landed me on Braxmen 10 for over a century. I had to lay low for a few decades because a group of the natives had tried to name me a goddess and insisted I be worshipped and all that nonsense. Other places I only got stuck for a few days, few weeks or months, sometimes years, once and a while a decade or two, one other time I was gone for another century. It was never predictable, but each time It pulled me further out."
He felt her beginning to tense again. On instinct, he ran a hand up and down her spine and traced a knee with his thumb. She didn't relax as much as she had before, but she did some. "One mornin' I was playin' with Tony and talkin' with Mum about somethin' stupid when I got pulled for the last time. Somehow the universe threw me into this one, landing on a place called Midnight; you know, the pleasure planet made of diamonds? Took me the longest time to get my bearings again, but the 'cannon' had a programme on it to tell me what universe I was in and what time and century and all that. Dunno how, you'd have to talk to Mickey an' Jake about that part, but I knew I was in the right place.
"Took me about another century of hitch-hiking my way around the universe to even catch wind of you. I ran there as fast as I could, but you were already gone. Every time I thought I'd found you, you'd only just left. I was always too late. Until yesterday, when I heard you were around the area. Before you go askin' all those questions I knew you're dyin' to ask, I was not the one who stirred up trouble here. There were already talks of a rebellion when I got here. I guess I was just the catalyst that started the violence. 't's not my fault."
He wasn't sure what do say other than, "oh, Rose" and couldn't think of anything else to do but wrap his arms around her fully and crush her to his body. He caught hard against the crashing tsunami of emotions he felt himself being sucked into. There was sadness, crippling sadness; there was anger, oh was there anger; there was relief that she had made it back to him; there was joy that she was here with him and relatively okay; there was love. There had always been love.
"I know," he murmured against her hair, "I know it wasn't your fault. And I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry you had to go through all that. I'm sorry I was the cause of this. Rose, I'm so–"
She pulled back from him, abruptly. He expected there to be tears, or at least a sign of them, but there wasn't. Her lips were pulled tight in a frown, her cheeks were stained a bit pink, and her eyes were flashing angrily. "Stop it," she demanded, more forcefully than he'd ever heard her speak before, "stop it right now. You can't apologize for any of that. It wasn't your fault any more than it was mine. And what if I'm not sorry it happened at all?"
He furrowed his brows. She wasn't? "But– But," he sputtered for a moment, "you left your family there. You can't go back, Rose, ever. I'm sorry, but it's impossible."
She flew to her feet in front of him. "I said stop it!" she cried, taking a step back. "Don't you think I know that? I told you I spent a lot of time with them because I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. We all knew it, Doctor, and we all accepted it. I said my goodbyes, left them all letters and trinkets and whatever else I had in that world because I knew I wasn't coming back one day. I knew I was going to find my way back to you and that was the end of it because there's nothing in this universe that means more to me. Can't you understand that?" Again, he expected tears, but her voice never shook and her chin never quivered. His Rose was truly remarkable.
But was she his any-more? After all she had said about her life in the other world, how could she still look at him the way she did? Someone had surely taken her as a mate somewhere, and who was he to disrupt that? But, then again, she had said it was only him that mattered to her here. That counted for something, right? But did that mean she was still offering herself to be his? He was on his own feet in a flash, stepping forward to take her into his arms and press his lips to hers, perhaps a bit more forcefully and clumsily that he had anticipated, but she responded all the same.
When she pulled back for air, the anger was gone from her eyes. It was replaced with the familiar look of awe and love he'd grown so used to before her time in Pete's World. He was glad to see it back. He lifted the corners of his lips and rested his forehead against hers. "I understand more than you know," he murmured. "I'm only sorry it took you so long to find me. Had I known–"
"Stop." She pushed her head against his. "You didn't; you couldn't have."
He couldn't help the warm feeling he got in the pit of his stomach. His Rose. His Rose, who held within her so much compassion and empathy and forgiveness and love that it nearly overwhelmed him. A not-so-simple shop girl from Earth, reducing the high and mighty Time Lord to a simple man struggling to rein in his emotions. This woman was so much more than she knew. "How long are you going to stay with me?" he asked, remembering one of the last peaceful conversations they'd had.
"Forever," she replied, her famous tongue-in-teeth grin making an appearance.
He made the first move, again, leaning in and capturing her lips with his own. He made no move to escalate it, and neither did she. Both were content with just holding each other, connected once again. This time, when she pulled back, she wrapped her arms around him as if the world was coming to an end again. It was a moment of tight embrace before he felt her body start to convulse. Startled, he pulled back and looked down to see her sobbing into his Oxford. He took her face in his hands, cupping her cheeks and wiping away the tears that had forged a path down her face. She only seemed to sob harder, clutching him tighter. He moved so a hand was pressing her to his chest, the other gripping her ribcage, fingers nearly brushing the other side of his own suit jacket, his cheek resting on the top of her hair. Though this was a position he rather liked, he really wished it was under different circumstances, ones without tears.
He let her cry for another two minutes and twelve seconds before he picked her up once more, one arm supporting her back, the other holding her knees. He silently carried her from the room, towards his bedroom. The TARDIS, more than a bit helpful that day, had moved it right across the hall. He laid her on the bed, then toed off his trainers, stripped off his suit jacket and tie, and got in bed beside her. Immediately, she was cuddled up to his chest, the tears starting to subside as he stroked her back and whispered sweet nothings in her ear, pressing the occasional kiss to the crown of her head or her hair.
He stopped keeping track of time by the time she dropped off to sleep against him, but he was fairly certain it was not long. Her breathing was soothingly even, and the vice grip she'd had on his shirt relaxed. He moved back just enough to take in the peaceful expression on her face. It was then he decided how old she looked. About twenty-eight, perhaps a young twenty-nine when she was awake and alert, but she didn't look a day over twenty-three when she was asleep. The weight of some time had lifted from her face, and she looked even more beautiful than she already had. He pressed a sweet kiss to her forehead once more before pulling her to him and closing his eyes.
"I love you, too, Rose," he murmured just as he, too, dropped off to sleep.