"Clocks and Lovers"
By SuperherogirlCat
"Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful."
--from "Lullabye" by W. H. Auden
Rose Tyler, walking into the TARDIS for the first time, knows instinctively that her life will be changed forever. She doesn't know how much she'll hurt before it's all over.
He never wants it to end, like one day it must. He'll fight it. He knows how to fight, knows how to rage against life and death and time itself, but none of it matters in the end. In the end it is always already too late.
He fights on.
Rose Tyler reads somewhere that Metathesiophobia is the fear of change. He's already changed once. He asks if she'll stay with him if he changes again. Yes, she lies, and feels afraid.
The first time he makes love to her it's like walking off a precipice.
It's been awhile for him, and she's the first he's had in this new new body. But he knows sex. Legs gripping hips, backs that arch in ecstasy, lips on necks and teeth on skin and hands everywhere, then he's falling and taking her with him.
Sex complicates things, though. It always has a price and sometimes the price is friendship. He has sex with her anyway. Because she won't be around forever, and he refuses to have any regrets once she's gone.
Rose Tyler makes love to the Doctor, knows that he doesn't do domestic and wishes more than anything she could change that.
Was there ever a time when he wasn't running? Running from danger, running from responsibility, from the law, from his future, from his past. Running simply for the sake of running.
Always running away. But there's this feeling that he's also running at something, towards something, something elusive that he can't quite grasp; and every time he thinks he's found it, it slips through his fingers.
Sometimes he feels guilty about his Companions. Innocents that he grabs hold of and takes with him on his mad race through time. Sometimes they can't keep up, sometimes fall behind, sometimes he outdistances them without a second thought.
Rose never seems to be running from anything, even when she is. And when he's with her, he doesn't feel like he's running either, even when he is.
Maybe, he thinks in his most unguarded moments, she's what he was always running to.
Rose Tyler has stared down Daleks, has looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, has had the limitless entirety of Time running through her head. Rose Tyler convinces herself, occasionally, that she is immortal. Sometimes, it's the only way she can fall asleep.
He's not sure if he loves her, but he knows that he needs her. And he knows that this is dangerous, because he can sacrifice people he loves for the greater good, but he doesn't know if he could sacrifice her, if it came to that.
He hopes so hard that he'll never have to find out.
Time moves, and the fact that Rose Tyler is still alive against astronomical odds tempts fate. Live, little human. Live while you can, Time whispers.
Humans sleep too much.
Fully half their already-too-short lives are taken up by slumber and dreams.
The Doctor doesn't dream, but he often wishes he could. He wonders what he'd dream of; Gallifrey and the Time Lords, of his past selves, of a life where his Companions never die. Or perhaps he'd dream of Daleks and blood and fire, of making a choice no living being should ever have to make.
Maybe it's best that he doesn't dream.
He looks into Rose's mind, and finds she's dreaming of his love and summer. He shares her dream, and he's almost content.
Rose Tyler, on the cusp of life and death, wishes more than anything that she had a chance to say goodbye.
In the end, he never even saw it coming.
So fast. It all happened so fast, one stray bullet and Rose's body was in his arms, his hands were slick with her blood, and her eyes were glassy with death.
This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to fight. She was supposed to live.
He howls his rage to an alien sky and demands that the Universe return her to him.
The Universe is, as ever, silent.
Rose Tyler, dearly departed, leaves behind for her Doctor a letter full of messages and hope. He reads it and imagines it's her voice whispering it to him. He hides the letter somewhere safe.
Time moves, and the Doctor begins to feel real again.
He keeps his new Companions at arm's length; loves them, but refuses to need them
He's started running again, and he's resigned to it now. Because there's nothing more to run to, just the things to run from.
He still wishes he could dream because he knows he'd dream of her.
Time moves.
And then there is nothing, and it's as if Rose and the Doctor never were.
Time moves. And Time remembers.
"It was late, late in the evening, The lovers they were gone; The clocks had ceased their chiming, And the deep river ran on." -From "As I Walked out One Evening" by W. H. Audenfin
Acknowledgements:
Many thanks to my Betas; nightbladeallan, Before-I-Sleep (from Deviantart), and Nenemefish (from deviantart).
Also, thank you to Kiyda, for sharing my obsession and just being there.
--Cat