I. The Consequences of Boredom
(between "World War III" and "Dalek")
Inspired by Ramin Karimloo, in honor of Jamie's leather jacket
Rose supposed everyone got bored every so often, even travellers in time and space. She knew the Doctor did, even if he never said as much. At least she thought when he stared petulantly into space for no reason, surely that must be boredom.
She was used to spending forty-eight hours on alien planet surfaces without a change or a trip to the hairdressers', so actually having the luxury of time enough for a bath had become quite a novelty to her. She turned on the top water tap of the TARDIS bathroom and let the glass steam up. Much to her delight, she found the tub crowded by foreign-looking bottles of soap and gels, something called "scented attar," bubble bath, shampoos and conditioners, and salts and foams . . . She dumped them all in and stayed in the water until her fingertips were all pruny.
What would she do after she got dressed? Read a book? Maybe she could find a CD player and put in that Learn Mandarin CD she'd found. ("What good is learnin' a language when the TARDIS translates everyfink?" she'd asked the Doctor, a bit scornfully since she resented the TARDIS' presumption in the first place. "Good for you," the Doctor'd said earnestly. "Never know when you might need it.") She wasn't exactly hungry, but she was peckish. Raid the TARDIS cupboards for a biscuit and some tea and . . .
Where was the Doctor anyway? she wondered. He'd said something about tinkering in some of the TARDIS' lower levels, whatever that meant. Was he being metaphorical? She wiped the mirror clean, her reflection staring back at her. She towelled her hair, then wrapped herself up in her pink, fluffy bathrobe. She skidded a bit over the bathroom's slick tile floor, looking for her slippers. She stared at her feet. She had time to paint her toenails now, if she could find some nail varnish.
Rose shuffled through the corridors on her way back to her room. She heard clanging from the direction of the Control Room. She made two tentative steps toward it, then decided whatever it was, she wasn't going to face it in her bathrobe. She turned and was jolted against the wall, just grabbing onto a protruding railing before she fell. "What the 'ell was that?" she shouted when she heard cursing and more clanging.
The Doctor didn't answer, which she found curious, but the TARDIS had quickly steadied herself. Rose picked herself up, brushing her hand against something soft. She recognized it immediately: the Doctor's leather jacket. He'd left it hanging across the railing. She was almost as shocked as if she'd been thrown to the floor again. He never took off the jacket—at least she'd never seen him without it. It was more than a fashion statement. It was armor.
She picked it up; it was heavier than it looked. Soft, though, surprisingly soft for all its worn exterior. She draped it over her shoulders and slipped her arms through the sleeves. It was too big for her. She staggered, as if she'd been hit by a wave of really strong cologne. It wasn't scent, though, but a torrent of feelings skating over her mind. She felt huge burdens and great loneliness. Years and years of experience, ancient as the stars. Capacity for nameless wonders. Sadness and joy, lifetimes of it, like a familiar tune conjuring up memories. She hugged herself in the jacket, felt glad of its weight on her shoulders and arms.
That's when she saw him. She had no idea how long he'd been standing there. Holding the sonic screwdriver in one hand, some kind of wrench in the other. Grease, or dirt, or something, smeared on his palms and his face. He was wearing a new jumper, in point of fact, green. He looked like a stranger without the jacket on. His face was blank aside from surprise. She thought he would be angry. She stripped the leather from her shoulders and held it out to him, limply. "Sorry. Don' know what came over me." She looked down, like a kid stealing sweets. "Didn't mean anything by it."
She waited for him to take it. He just stared at her. She flapped it like a white flag. I surrender, she thought. He wiped his face on his sleeve and picked it up, putting it on. "Somefink wrong with the TARDIS?" she asked, not looking at him.
"A bug. I fixed it," he said, without emotion.
" 'Kay, then, I'm just gonna get dressed," she said, turning and shuffling off. "Sorry again." Normally she would have argued the point, demanded to know why she'd been hurtled against a wall. But she didn't look back, just kept walking until she was safe, in her room. They never spoke of it. No reason to, she thought, putting on her makeup. She was just glad he wasn't angry.
If she'd turned back, she might have caught a glimpse of the Doctor removing the jacket and staring at it, as if it were animate. Long minutes would have passed, but in the end she might have seen him bring the leather to his nose with trembling fingers.
II. New Shoes
(between "The Christmas Invasion" and "New Earth")
The Doctor jumped up and down in his new shoes. He'd done this once before, he was sure. Not the getting-changed, choosing-a-new-look part. He'd done that nine times now; it was becoming sort of a routine. The jumping-in-shoes thing he recalled doing just after assuming his Eighth incarnation. That time the shoes had come from a surgeon's ex-boyfriend's closet. He'd been jumping in them, he recalled, because they actually fit.
These ones fit, too, and he had selected them from the TARDIS wardrobe room rather than received them as a gift. ("You can't keep walking around barefoot!" a rather put-out Grace Holloway had told him. "Why not?" "Well, it's dangerous!" "To me or to others?" "Both!") They were white trainers. They were fun. They were youthful. They matched his new face. They were him.
So was the brown suit and the long coat. It was time for dashing again. It was time for a superhero silhouette, like the ones he'd cultivated in his Third and Fourth regenerations. He'd even considered the long scarf and hat again, but to his disappointment he found the scarf tickled his throat and the battered, shapeless hat, when he'd found it, was too big for him. The tie was better. It enhanced the youthfulness. He liked the new him. He was kind of seductive. In a non-threatening way. It did wonders for his aging ego and contributed, he suspected, to people underestimating him, which he always enjoyed. And there was always next time for being ginger.
He combed his hair and squinted at the mirror. Why was he squinting? He refocused. "A-ha!" he shouted. "I'm near-sighted!" Normally this was not the kind of thing that would send people into raptures, but the Doctor had rather missed the short-lived habit of his Fifth incarnation, of using spectacles. He started going through the pockets of all the clothes on the rack. Where was that silly cricketing outfit? Was that the last place he'd left them?
He stopped. He moved closer to the mirror, until his nose was touching it, leaving a smudgy mark on the glass. His eyes. They'd changed color. "So what?" But that was just it. They'd always been blue. Through nine hundred—almost a thousand!—years of existence. It had been the only thing his various regenerations had had in common. He slumped against the mirror, suddenly feeling crestfallen, all thoughts of the spectacles laid aside.
Didn't humans have a saying about the eyes? Windows to the soul? Alpha Centurians had said something similar, though it was more understandable since they only had one eye. Slightly buggy brown eyes stared back at him. He knew they were his, and yet they seemed foreign. How had this happened? He'd never known of a Time Lord change his or her eye color. Now he was the only one left. He recalled, shivering slightly, where he was going—that strange dark slice between his Twelfth and Thirteenth regeneration that would become the Valeyard—the distillation of his evil side. There could not be good without evil, even in the Doctor . . .
He blinked. The color was pleasant enough; indeed, on someone else they would have looked quite nice. He smirked—Rose had brown eyes. But there was something inherently sad in them, forlorn, like a lost teddy bear. Like a raggedy thing with no home of its own. "Really, now!" he admonished himself, turning away and resuming his pocket-search. Was it a result of the Time War? he wondered. Or something to do with taking the Time Vortex from Rose? He remembered his last, rather painful post-regenerative state. He'd been in quite a different frame of mind then, picking out his new look. He gripped the metal of the rack. So much anger, so much pain. It was no longer fresh. Rose had seen to that. She hadn't done it consciously, but she had. He still hadn't asked her if she recalled being Bad Wolf, the kiss. Not that there'd really been time.
There. He gripped his fingers around a pair of glasses. He inspected them, put them on. They were a bit dorky, really. Still, they looked okay. A sight better than anything his Sixth incarnation would have selected. He looked . . . good. But not himself. He took them off, stuffed them into his front pocket. He bounded from the wardrobe room to the console room and the door as quickly as possible; he knew Jackie was cooking Christmas supper and wouldn't stand being kept waiting much longer. More importantly, she was probably waiting for him to return her "friend" Howard's pajamas!
After supper, after pudding, after all the bits of foil had been cleared away and the ash had stopped falling outside, the Doctor found himself staring at the window, hands nonchalantly in his trouser pockets in the dark of the kitchen. Everyone else had gone to bed, and though Jackie and Rose had made up his sick bed again—and Mickey had mumbled something about he could bunk up with him, if he wanted—he wasn't sleeping. Ostensibly he was inspecting the scene outside, but actually he was looking at his reflection again.
"Doctor? You not in bed yet? Mum's gonna kill yer if she sees you up."
He didn't turn around. He didn't have to. He knew that voice, he knew that she was probably in pajamas, her hips tilted slightly in an innocent question. "Do you notice anything different about me?"
She laughed. "Um . . . is that a joke?" He looked at her briefly, then down at the kitchen counter, then at the plastic white Tesco kettle. She moved closer. "Are you okay?"
"I think so," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "Probably nothing to worry about . . ."
"Okay, now you got me worried."
He looked at her, feeling a bit embarrassed. "My eyes."
She seemed to flush a little. "What about 'em?" She moved closer and stared at him. "They're brown."
"You did notice."
"Course," she said softly. "But I assumed it was part of the regenerative process."
"No," he said sadly. "They were always blue before."
"Well, before you were tall, dark, an' Northern." She grinned. "But I can see the old you, sometimes. You're the same man."
"Am I?"
"I don' understand."
He paced. "When I . . . said goodbye to you, before, you didn't seem to have remembered what had happened. To the Daleks. To you. To me."
"You said you'd sung a song and the Daleks had gone away."
He chuckled involuntarily at the memory. "Yeah, but . . . you haven't asked." He was staring at the new trainers.
"There wasn't time." She grinned. "I remember starin' into the heart of the TARDIS . . ."
"And then you became Bad Wolf."
Her face looked pale blue in the light. "I became Bad Wolf?" She seemed to be searching his face for a sign that it was a joke.
"You brought the TARDIS with you, you defeated the Daleks." His eyebrows furrowed. "You had unimaginable power. Rose Tyler. You saved the world."
He saw that she was breathing faster. "You know what? I think I'm beginning to remember." He grinned; she did, too. "Oh, wait 'til Mum hears about this!" Then her smile faded. "But you're the one who got . . . killed by the Time Vortex. I mean, that's what madeja regenerate. How did it get from me to you?"
He looked guilty, stuffing his hands back into his pockets. He searched her face. She knew. No need to say another word. Ever. She reached for him, then seemed to panic, change her mind. He took the opportunity to slip away. "I'm going to the TARDIS. It's getting a bit too domestic for me."
"You're not leavin' . . . are you?"
"Get packed tomorrow," he said. "I'll expect you ready to go by noon. You can say your goodbyes then."
She slumped. "I wanted a lie-in on Boxing Day."
He wondered if she knew how sincere he was: "No rest for the wicked."
III. Distance
(between "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Rise of the Cybermen")
"As distant as star is from star
heart is from heart, and twice as far."
–from "Distance" by Christy Brown
"Whoever loves the more is at a disadvantage and must suffer." –Thomas Mann, "Tonio Kröger"
Rose cleared her throat, stepping into the greenish glow of the Console Room. She waited. "Sleep well?" asked the Doctor from the other side of the room.
"Yeah." She stayed put. The sound of him tinkering. A meditative silence? Or one that simply said "Go away"? "You fancy going anywhere?"
At last his head popped out. Off came the glasses, held aloft. "I've got some work to do here. Nothing urgent, of course, but . . . Why? Was there something you--?"
Two steps forward. "No, no, you carry on."
And he did. She knew if she took any more steps, the sound would reverberate all over the gantry. "I'm gonna make tea," she said at last. "Do you want anyfink?"
"No, thanks." He never refused the offer of tea! True, she hadn't often asked, but . . . Taking a deep breath, she made those five extra steps, clanging as she went. The Doctor was hunched over an opening in the gantry, wires splayed out like multi-colored spaghetti. "Where's Mickey?" he asked when he saw her.
She smiled faintly. "Still sleeping." He quirked his eyebrow, unreadable, and went back to work. She outstretched her hand. It froze, in mid-air, hovering as the Doctor stared at it. She couldn't quite bridge the gap to his shoulder. "Doctor, are you sure you don't . . .?"
His eyes. They weren't cold, not really, but there was something smoothly alien in them. Not to be touched, in the physical sense and any other. "Nah, I'm fine," he said, with exaggerated amiability. She knelt down beside him, pretending to be interested in the chaos of wires. His hands were filthy, covered in grease, outlining his fingernails. They were cold, she knew, not even having to touch them. She tossed her hair back.
"That t-shirt," he said finally. "I know that one."
At last. "Yeah, I don't ffink it's too easy to forget. Me, in the middle of an air raid with a—"
"—Union Jack on your chest!" he repeated, grinning hugely and running a hand through his hair, grease and all. "The day that everybody lived," he said, and his smile faded.
"Tha's right," she said, running her tongue along the edge of her lip. "That was the day I taught you to dance."
He stood up. "I don't remember it that way. I had the moves, and you—"
She laughed. "You needed a good deal of remindin', as I recall!" She held out her arms. "All ri', go on then. Show me your moves."
"What?"
"You heard me." She moved to the console and flipped the switch she'd programmed. A slow version of "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön" began to play.
The music moved softly, caressingly, but the Doctor stood still. "Rose."
"Come on," she said. "I'm startin' to look foolish, standing here without a partner."
"Rose, stop."
She dropped her hands to her sides. "What? What's wrong?"
He turned away, in profile. "I can't do this."
"Oh, so you save the world and you can dance with me, but on any other occasion--?"
"Mickey could walk in any minute!"
"So what? It's just dancing, Doctor!"
He tried to storm past her, for the door. "Can you stop for one second to think about how it might make him feel, Rose?"
Stung, she bit her tongue. She swallowed, cheeks burning. "How do you think this makes me feel, Doctor?"
He moved away from her. "I told you before. You can spend your whole life—"
"Just—no." She sunk inward, the Union Jack searing against her skin. "You've changed since then."
"Evidently."
"Not just the face an' stuff. I thought I liked it. You weren't so brooding, you were cheerful . . ." She looked down. "But now I'm not sure."
The line of his mouth was grim. "I can't change back. It doesn't work that way."
"You died," she said, her mouth dry. "You're the same, but you died, too."
For the first time, he looked guilty. He closed his eyes. "You can leave any time you like."
She grimaced and moved for the door. "I thought this kind of stuff would cheer me up. But I just think of Jack. The Daleks killed him," she said bitterly. "And yet the both of us are still here." She flipped the switch, cutting the music dead. "So you tinker, Doctor, you sit there and play with your wires, if that makes you feel better."
When he said nothing, she left the room. She refused to submit to tears.
IV. Il Ne Faut Croire à Rien
(between "Age of Steel" and "The Idiot's Lantern")
"Il ne faut croire à rien, même à ses doutes." –as quoted by David Luke
"Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
. . . Footfalls echo in memory,
Down the passage we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
--T S Eliot, "Burnt Norton"
Rose used to have nightmares about rooms that went on without end—her being lost in them, in the dark. Wandering the TARDIS alone had never before reawakened such anxieties. Then again, she tried not to make a habit of wandering the TARDIS alone. She'd immediately headed for the kitchen, her feet moving more or less automatically—toward tea, when she couldn't sleep. Sometimes she met the Doctor along the way, sometimes she was alone in the TARDIS' hum. She felt a pang, remembering how sometimes she'd stay up talking to Jack. Jack . . .
But this time she didn't take the tried-and-true route to the kitchen. She avoided the corridor that led down the steps to the kitchen; she didn't know exactly why. She was aware that the TARDIS could sometimes play tricks on a person, as though it enjoyed rearranging rooms. She was almost certain, though, it had been the Doctor who had caused Adam's room to miraculously disappear and reappear that night before they landed on Satellite Five. She smiled at the thought of the Doctor, her first Doctor, and felt unsophisticated disappointment at the thought of Adam.
She knew where the library in the TARDIS was—the Cloister Room—various discarded console rooms—the kitchen, the wardrobe room—the Doctor had told her there was a pool somewhere, but she'd never found it. "Hmmm," he'd said thoughtfully, "maybe I jettisoned that. Can't remember." Her heart sank as she recalled running around the hallways and metal gantries with Mickey, the first day he'd spent in the TARDIS, before the whole Madame de Pompadour thing. She hoped he was happy. When she thought about him, she wasn't.
She found herself staring at a door down a long hallway. Though the lighting in most parts of the TARDIS was harsh and green-tinged, here it was warm and welcoming. That put Rose on her guard, but she allowed herself to walk toward the door. It was a plain brown door with a brass knob. She cautiously put out a hand, touching what she expected to be cold metal. It was slightly warm, and she drew back. An absurd thought came to her: was someone in there? "Real smart, Rose," she chided. Only the silence answered her. What was that story, she tried to remember, about the serial killer who put all his dead wives in a room? Had that been a news feature or a morbid fairy tale?
She opened the door soundlessly. Her hand fumbled for a light switch. The light came on, warm as ever, upon two beds. "These are really girly," Rose said. She stepped into the pinks and reds in what appeared to be a bedroom for two girls. She reached down to touch the bedclothes of the nearest one. No, no one had slept here recently, but someone had lived here once—perhaps for a long time. Rose had seen "ghosts," but now it felt as if she were one: walking in on the remains of someone else's lives.
She bent down to examine a picture frame on the nightstand separating the two beds. There was no photograph in the frame. She opened a drawer in the nightstand; it was empty. She opened closet doors; there were hangers, but no clothes. It was all immaculate, with no clue to its previous owners. But Rose thought she could hazard a guess about one of them. Sarah Jane Smith. A feeling of—what? Jealousy? Curiosity? Regret? Whatever it was shimmied down her spine. She closed the closet door abruptly. Then it hit her: the sudden, powerful scent of flowers. Like perfume and yet not so artificial. Like bouquets upon bouquets of jasmine and freesias. Perhaps some other flower whose name she did not know. Had she released it when she'd opened the closet door? She grabbed an empty chair to steady herself. Why was it so powerful? It was so thick, she expected to see incense floating through the air.
Just as suddenly, the names formed in her mind. Tegan Jovanka. Nyssa. She blinked, looking for where she'd read them. But they weren't written anywhere—they'd just appeared in her head. "Oi!" she shouted, looking upward. "Who said you could do that? I didn't ask you to!" Well, maybe she had. The names raced around her mind like dogs chasing cats. Without pause, without respite, TeganNyssaTeganNyssa . . . The smell was too much; it was putting her to sleep. She opened the door and stepped out into the hall, shivering. She moved a few steps down, glancing over her shoulder at the door. She came upon another, as dull and disingenuous to the sight as the first. "Okay, let's find out wha's behind door number two," she said with a levity she did not feel.
The room was smaller and gone were the frilly girly trappings. It was sober, with one bed, though the abundance of bright colors and geometric shapes suggested it was the room of a child. A boy's room. The smell she could not describe. It was too alien to her, but somehow not unpleasant. She tingled in half-fearful expectation. Then it came. The name was Adric. She assumed it was a boy's name. Why was the TARDIS giving her all this? She hadn't exactly liked the idea of the Doctor having had companions before he got to her, but she'd gotten used to it. She knew the Doctor wouldn't want to talk about it, but she wasn't going to let him off the hook this time.
When she stepped out of the room, the light in the hallway was cold and artificial again. She knew she'd probably never find this place again, the bedrooms of Tegan and Nyssa and Adric, even if she tried. Looking into the shadow, she was sure there were doors and rooms left, waiting to be seen, but she decided she needed the familiarity of the kitchen, of a good cup of tea—and she needed it now. She made her way back toward her room, refusing to be intimidated by the idea of her nightmare, that she would be lost forever in the bowels of the TARDIS. She debated stopping off at her room to get a jumper, she was starting to feel cold. But she didn't stop until she found the kitchen door, in all its strangely comforting kitsch.
She wasn't really surprised to see the Doctor. He was sitting at the table, feet up on the chair next to him, devil-may-care. He had a steaming cup of tea on the table in front of him, and he was reading. Rose looked at the book. My 900 Year Diary, it said. Before she could get a closer look, he put his feet down and removed his glasses in the same motion. "Rose! Hello!" he exclaimed, getting to his feet. "Came for a cup of tea, I reckon?" She nodded. He leapt to the cabinets before she could even take a step. "Luckily for you, I've just boiled a pot." He poured the dark, scented liquid into a flowery, delicate cup.
She took it from him shyly. "Ffanks." He grinned at her. She nodded toward the book. "You keepin' a diary?"
He crossed in front of her before she could move an inch. "Well, I, uh . . ." He cleared his throat and smiled again, dazzlingly. "Couldn't sleep?" She shook her head. He nonchalantly picked up the diary and stuffed it in his inside jacket pocket. "I seem to remember you had a penchant for wandering around at night." He was staring at the brown betty teapot now, as if it were a lot more interesting than she was.
She warmed her hands around the tea cup he'd given her. "Doctor," she said, "do you remember Sarah Jane?"
He rubbed a spot on the teapot with a handkerchief. "Of course I do!" His voice got inexorably tighter: "Why do you ask?"
She set down her teacup and walked toward him. "I found some rooms tonight. Bedrooms, I mean. They must have belonged to someone. You . . . never showed them to me, in the grand tour."
He gave the teapot a final vigorous shine, favoring her with a short look, his voice deceptively aloof. "Well, if I didn't, there was a reason behind it."
She reached out and placed his hand over his. "Doctor, please. I'm not angry. Just curious."
He lifted an eyebrow. "You know what they say, don't you?" He turned and moved toward the door, squeaking on his trainers. "About cats."
"Who was Tegan?" Rose said loudly, stopping him at the door. "Tegan Jovanka? And Nyssa?"
He leaned against the door frame, dropping his head to one side, as if inexpressibly weary. "I suppose the TARDIS told you their names."
She moved toward him slowly. "The TARDIS led me to the room." She cracked a smile. "It must have had a reason."
He spun around, his brown eyes accusatory. "Oh, reason's got nothing to do with it." Rose shook her head sadly, eyebrows drawing together. The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "If I say anything, you're going to get angry. Don't think I've forgotten how you got when you found out about Sarah Jane."
Rose flushed. "I don't care . . . I mean, not like that. I just wanted to know who they were." He looked away and said nothing. She scoffed loudly and went back to sit down at the table. She sipped her tea in silence.
"Tegan . . . was an air stewardess," the Doctor said finally. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
Rose tried not to sound as interested as she felt. "Like a flight attendant?"
The Doctor clicked his fingers. "Yes! You call them flight attendants. She, um, liked to argue." Rose smiled. "And she was Australian."
"Really? I thought she was an alien."
The Doctor laughed. "What gave you that impression?"
"The name, I guess," Rose said quietly.
"Nah, Nyssa was the alien," he replied, moving back toward his tea. "She was a princess of Traken. Great at maths, too."
Rose couldn't tell if the fondness coming through was from remembered friendship or more, but she was surprised to find herself uninterested in that at the moment. "So you traveled with two people at the same time?"
"There've been loads of people in the TARDIS at once—remember, I told you about Ben and Polly?"
At the time, he'd said nothing about Ben and Polly traveling with him for any extended period of time—just that they made time in the TARDIS tricky. "How could I forget?"
His smile faded. "Oh, that was ages ago. I was so young then . . ."
She found it difficult to reconcile his words with his youthful appearance. "What did you look like then?"
"Me?" He pointed to his face. "Blonde."
She laughed. "You—blonde?"
"I was blonde for years—didn't even need peroxide."
"Oi!" She punched him in the shoulder. "Be nice."
"You're the one who asked."
She took a long gulp of tea. "So, where are they now?"
"Who?"
"Nyssa and Tegan."
The Doctor looked down. "I'm sure they're having the time of their lives, away from this crazy box and . . . me." His smile was gentle and unconvincing.
"Were they like Sarah Jane?" Rose asked quietly. "Did you leave them off somewhere, when they really expected you to come back for them?"
The Doctor swallowed. "Rose, you have every right to ask these questions." He turned and walked through the door. "And I have every right not to answer them."
"What about Adric?"
She ran through the door and past him, blocking his path. She had never seen him go so white. "Don't ask," he breathed, "about Adric."
She flinched. She wasn't sure what this reaction meant, but she had a pretty good idea. The Doctor—saver of worlds, hero, mentor, friend—conqueror of nightmares. The love of her life. It somehow hadn't occurred to her before that he'd let the good guys die—the people who'd been in her very place. How many? she wondered. It wasn't the possibility of death that scared her. She'd long grown past that. It was not knowing this man she entrusted her life to. Knowing that she would never know him, not really. "Doctor . . ."
"Just stop," he said coldly. "I knew this would happen. I tried to warn you—"
"Why don't you just erase people's memories?" she blurted out. She could see that she'd startled him. "The people who've traveled with you." She turned away from him. "So they don't have to be like Sarah Jane, lamenting over a life wasted waitin' for you to come back. You're dooming them to a life of disappointment, Doctor! Why do you do it?"
"Their minds were erased!" he shouted, suddenly toweringly angry. "Jamie and Zoe, the Time Lords did erase their memories! The TARDIS, the universe, all of that was lost to them!" He strode through the corridor, gesticulating wildly. "Nobody asked them if they wanted it, it was just done to them! Now they're wandering around, with no idea they traveled with a Doctor, or any idea what a time machine is!" His eyes were blazing. "And I miss them, Rose—I don't just forget! That would be too easy. I can never forget, I'm a Time Lord, remember?"
She looked down, taking his blows with patience. "If you miss them, then why don't you talk about them?"
"They sleep in here," he shouted, pointing to his forehead, "so I don't have to. Think it's fun, Rose, dredging up all of this?" She crumpled, shook her head. "So, how about it?" he asked. "You want me to give you the choice when the time comes? To remember, or to forget?"
"Doctor . . ." She tried not to let her voice break.
He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry." He hesitantly opened his arms. Was he offering explanation through open palms? Or did he want her to hug him?
"Yeah, I'm sorry, too," she said. "I shouldn't have said anything."
He encircled her in a hug. "It was only natural." He sighed. "I forget how potent human curiosity is." He gave a glare upward.
Even when she hugged him, she never felt warm. "I miss . . . Mickey, Doctor. I'm sorry."
"I know," he said softly. "I know."
"I want to say somefink." She straightened up, gazed into the dark eyes, now emotionless.
"Go ahead."
"I don't want to ever forget."
He looked down, forehead wrinkling. "You're sure about that? Take it from someone who knows—"
"Whatever happens, I want to remember."
He nodded, then let her go. "Better get to sleep. Who knows where the morning will find us?"
" 'Kay." She waited until he had walked off. She hoped one day he'd say a little more about Tegan and the others. She should really feel jealous, threatened, by the fact he'd done all of this before. But instead, it made her feel less alone. And the universe was so large, it was easy to feel alone.
V. The Phantom and Rose
(after "Doomsday")
Rose had never really liked the plushy seats of theatres. Proper theatres, that is. Cinemas were no problem, but there was something about concert halls, places with proper stages, that made her feel trapped. She was gripping the arm-rest tightly, unconsciously scanning the aisle for a way to get out. She tried to focus on the set onstage, feeling her mother's warm hand over her own. She glanced toward Jackie and smiled, forcing it. Her mum was heavily pregnant but had that new-mother glow prematurely blooming on her face. She smiled at everything.
"Now Rose, I want you to sit down and enjoy yourself." She leaned closer. "We could have never afforded to see a West End show back on . . ." she glanced to the side of her, "well, you know." Rose nodded, still forcing the smile. She glanced past her mother to the arm that encircled her. Pete Tyler. Her father. Well, almost.
"Babe, are you okay?" It was Mickey, sitting on her other side. Here they were, her family, encircling her, to protect her, to keep her safe. And yet she still felt trapped. She dropped the pretend smile with Mickey.
"Yes," she said softly. "I'm all right." Which was a lie. But there would never be any "all right"s again. Some days were better than others, that was all. She jumped in her seat as the Overture started, loud and discordant.
"Who would have thought?" Jackie whispered loudly, looking back and forth at Rose and Pete. "Phantom of the Opera would be popular in both universes?"
"Quiet now, Jackie," Pete said, sharing a look with Rose. "It's about to start."
"Right." She patted her swollen belly and sunk deeper into her husband's arm. Rose tried to relax against Mickey, feeling his warmth. How hard they tried to make her happy . . .
"Think of me,
Think of me fondly,
When we've said goodbye
Remember me,
Every so often,
Promise me you'll try!"
Rose arched against her seat, looking distractedly on either side of her. Was this song making sense for her alone? Was she the only one who ached because she understood exactly what it meant? She tried to concentrate on the timid ballerina on stage, wilting under the piano notes.
" . . . If you happen to remember,
Spare a thought for me!"
The stage transformed; the ballerina wore the prima donna's costume and sang with confidence and poise. The melody was pleasant; Rose willed herself to concentrate on the song, not the words. Her mother was smiling, her eyes reflecting the golds of the costumes and the brightness of the spotlights.
"Think of me,
Think of me waking,
Silent and resigned.
Imagine me,
trying too hard
to put you from my mind.
Think of me,
Please say you'll think of me,
Whatever else you choose to do.
There will never be a day
When I won't think of you!"
The music crescendoed; Rose was vaguely aware of a figure up in stage left emerging and singing in an agreeable tenor. But she had turned away from the stage. She pushed past Mickey, ignoring his surprised and disappointed expression, not daring to see what her parents thought. She excused herself through the tangle of limbs, moving silently through the dark of the auditorium and not stopping until she was outside the theatre, her breath frosting in the air.
So this was why the fusty old syrupy musical was still playing, she thought. Despite its bombast, its unashamed sentimentalism, the words could cut deeply. She leaned against the cold stone building, watching the cars drive by. She couldn't know that the words had been written—in this world as well as her own—by a young idealist, too. She opened her program, wondering whether it was worth going back in or if she should just wait in the lobby. How far into the first act were they?
"The Mirror." That was the name of the number right before the title song. She scanned the synopsis. "Christine's Angel calls her from her mirror . . . her mysterious voice teacher . . . whom she hears and never sees." Rose blew on her hands and stuffed the program into her purse. She walked slowly back into the lobby. She knew that the tickets had cost good money, and though Pete was no pauper, she felt ashamed. "I can't even sit through a show and not think about him!" she said to herself in despair. The days and months were all the same now; there would never be any alleviation from this winter inside. She would never see him again, and unlike Christine, she would never hear the voice again.
VI. Broken
(between "The Runaway Bride" and "Smith and Jones")
What had gotten into him—making it snow? The Doctor jerked the TARDIS lever with disgust. The silly streak of sentimentalism was endearing at best, sickening at worst. "Where to now?" he asked softly. As usual, the TARDIS was recalcitrant. A nice cup of tea, he thought. A little bit of a lie-in . . . Surely he deserved that . . .
And in the kitchen, there it was again—her denim jacket. He remembered, he'd thrown it in there after he'd rescued Donna, just to get it out of the way. What was it with objects, he wondered, fingering the rough material. He'd had to jettison Romana's room when she left, ostensibly for practical purposes, but he and Adric both knew it was largely a symbolic gesture. As if her walking off into E-Space wasn't final enough. Though of course he'd seen her again, on Gallifrey, when she'd regenerated and he'd regenerated and . . .
Why was he thinking of Romana? She, too, was long gone, the Doctor thought dully. He stared longingly at the kettle, then left the room, jacket still on his arm. To the wardrobe room. Like all of the other clothes she'd left behind. He swallowed. The thing with Donna, the pilot fish, the Empress of Racnoss—it had delayed the owning-up process, postponed it—but now it was sinking in. He'd chosen exile, hadn't he, when he was so young and brash. Here it was, in a completely different form than he had ever anticipated.
He fussed with his hair in the mirror. "I used to be able to bounce back. I'm getting old and . . . sentimental." That word again. Despite his newly youthful appearance, he'd never felt older. He knew it wasn't just that, though. Rose . . . had been special. He picked up a hanger and began to slip the jacket on it.
He brought his fingertips to his nose, then the material followed. Like everyone else, she'd had her own particular scent. Perfume, some kind of hair product and then, just, her. The smell of Rose Tyler. The TARDIS did not smell at all, at least when working properly. He closed his eyes. He could still smell Gallifrey sometimes—the wastelands rather than the Panopticon—the planet itself. He remembered—the smell of vinegar, brandy, a wedding bouquet, the lurid stench of a morgue, an embryonic Slitheen—hard one to describe, that—not to mention the clinical scent of a scrubbed-clean hospital, mistletoe, champagne, the starchy twee of a 1950s London house—but above all, chips. In the end, all those things had permeated Rose. He hadn't told her; he had a feeling it would gross her out. But it was all there—everything they'd ever done together.
Every time he'd held her, by accident, or when he'd gone to hug her, or that heady night dancing to 1940s swing—he knew her scent so well. But he didn't know how she tasted—not the real Rose. Every second had burned his mouth and throat when he'd taken the time vortex from her, and everything had tasted bitter and confused when Cassandra had kissed him. "This is not a time to mourn." She wasn't dead. Nor was it a time for recrimination or regret. Knowing this, though, he couldn't put the jacket down. He held it lightly, brushed it against his cheek. Across his lips.
He screwed his eyes shut. This would not do. He carefully hung the jacket up and walked away. "Enough." He returned to the console room and jigged a few of the switches. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, jettison already!" he shouted. The machine was noncompliant. He would deal with this as he always had—by walking away. He jammed buttons, increasingly annoyed. "Manual override required? There is no manual override!" He kicked the console. He cleared his throat. "Where's my tool box? I feel like breaking something!"