Through the Rain
Disclaimer: I don't own a thing.
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When she was a little girl, Rose Tyler would curl up tight in bed at night and dream of her daddy, a king or a knight on a great big horse come to rescue her and Jackie from living in a two-bed flat and never having enough money to buy new trainers.
When she was older (but perhaps not any wiser) her very own, very real knight swept her off her feet in the magical blue box he called home. He wasn't a king on a horse, but maybe he was better than that. He showed her the stars and she fell in love, and she didn't need to dream anymore – everything she saw every single day was more terrible and incredible than her sleeping hours could ever have conjured up for her imagination.
But the fairytale ended, as all good fairytales do, and Rose Tyler finds herself curled up on a large window sill, head pressed against the cool glass as sheets of rain roll down it, older, sadder, wiser. She's got the king for a daddy, she's got the castle and the servants and the horses. She's well-known in this world, the mysterious Tyler girl who sprung up fully-grown in the midst of a war. There are rumours of affairs, of adoption, of Rose's tragically lost fiancé and cruelly sheltered childhood. There's even an abundance of men willing to play prince, but they're not want she wants anymore.
Even this life goes beyond her childish dreams of better days, but she's not the same little girl who lay in bed and dreamt of being rescued from her London estate. There's only one type of prince she could love, and he's not a prince at all. He's as far from this world of riches and package holidays and daytime TV as it's possible to be.
Perhaps she's too old to dream, but she never out grew hope.
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It's a normal Sunday. They're sitting around the dining room table, eating their normal Sunday tea, being normal. None of them seem to even be surprised at the way they've slipped into a routine anymore, this once-dead man and his wife from another world, her daughter who's touched the stars and their baby who shouldn't exist, the second chance two universes conspired to give them.
Even Torchwood is normal here.
Just last week, she'd talked a spiky purple alien out of taking over the world with nothing but her own mind and tongue, and, as she'd tiredly but triumphantly got into bed, she had fleetingly thought that her fairytale rescuer would have been proud. She slept peacefully that night, and Jackie found her dozing with a smile the next morning, pale sunlight streaming over pillows that had received too many tears.
It's been two years, three months, seven days and eleven and a half hours, but she's no Time Lord and her memory doesn't work like that. It was two years and one day before she'd even realised it had been two years, and then she felt so guilty that she cried over the banana she'd bought as some sort of penance for her guilt.
She doesn't miss him because the day is special or because she's alone. It's the little things that were always so big to him: when she runs into danger and there's no hand to grab hers, when her little brother almost chokes on the edible ballbearings on his birthday cake, when she goes to get her hair cut and remembers how he'd told her, once, that he likes it better long. When she comes out of the pub a little bit drunk and she swears the police box on the corner of the road has moved. Cruelly, they still have those here, and it's taken a long time for her to learn where they all belong and to stop herself from knocking on the doors of each and every one.
She hasn't thought about him today.
When the doorbell rings, the sleeping baby cries and Jackie grumbles without meaning it. Pete wonders whether Pakistan has been invaded by giant talking mushrooms again and if so, why someone else can't deal with it? Sunday is his only day off, after all. Even God gets the day off on Sunday, but oh no, not Pete Tyler. He thinks the aliens do it on purpose.
Rose just smiles her way down the hall to answer it.
And he is standing there in the dark and pouring rain, hair (it's longer than she remembers) plastered to his forehead, hearts held in his outstretched hand. The light of the porch shines through the gloom behind him like he's some sort of dreadful angel. She never liked it when he played majestic, and she can't quite believe that's all she's thinking. She's got gravy on her tshirt and she's still chewing a bit of carrot, and oh God, she loves him even more than the last time they said goodbye.
She doesn't move. Face falling ever so slightly, he goes to put his hand on the doorframe awkwardly, almost managing to adopt a carefully casual look, but she reaches out and clumsily pushes her fingers through his before he can make contact with the wood. They still fit.
The baby gurgles. Jackie laughs. Rose looks back.
"Run," he whispers, and something in his eyes sparks back to life. And she's not sure how, or when she made the decision, but somehow they're half way down the road and the front door is wide open, and it's December without a coat so she's soaked through, probably inches away from pneumonia, and she didn't think about shoes so there are little pebbles between her toes but his hand is cool and dry and safe, and they might as well be floating in the middle of June because she just doesn't care. Nature can throw anything it likes at her, because this is what it feels like to be alive. Oh, they've been laughing and crying and running and surviving, but it wasn't the same. It hasn't been like this.
Tomorrow, she will ask how and why and when, tomorrow she will get her things and say her goodbyes. Tonight is for them, for making new memories like this and trying to forget all the old that have hurt them so much.
He has a new blue suit, and she fleetingly thinks that as soon as she gets it off him, she's going to burn it.
Lights are clicking on and on down the street after them and neighbours are staring from behind their twitching curtains. There's a despairing, confused maid calling from the end of the driveway wondering if she's been kidnapped, but they're both laughing and breathless and she's so dizzy with having found him again that it takes her brain a minute to catch up with her feet before she realises they've stopped. He's lifting her up and spinning her around, and she has no idea who moved first but his lips are cold and taste like rain and she never, ever wants to let go of his hand again. I love you feels like home. When he sets her down again, he's got her cascading mascara all over his cheeks and collar. Her mum always said she wore too much.
"Hello," he grins, the hands clutching hers betraying the fear and loss he is still feeling.
She's not sure if it's the rain or her tears making her cheeks wet. "Hello." She kisses him again, pushing closer, trying to make sure even the rain can't come between them.
"Did you know," he begins, forehead against hers and eyes resting closed (he has three, she's that close), and she's delighted to see that he still rambles at the most inappropriate times, "That if you kiss someone goodbye every morning for ten years, you'll have been kissing for fourteen days altogether?"
"Shut up," she says, tiptoeing up to meet his lips again. She's never kissed him goodbye yet and she's certainly not going to start now.
A few steps backwards, hands still clasped, and the most incredible warm presence fills her mind, a tingling hum at the back of her brain that she thought she'd never feel again. She looks up and over his shoulder, and the TARDIS is standing right there at the end of the street, glowing softly through the night. She's pretty sure she's not drunk, and it definitely wasn't there before.
He squeezes her fingers and she nods. There's no danger or necessity, and she's out of practise and out of breath and she thinks her feet might bleed in the morning, but they laugh and run for home.
It might not be happily ever after, but they'll give it a bloody good try.