Time and Space had been kind and cruel to one Rose Tyler, age 23. At the tender age of nineteen, she had met a man several times her senior only to fall in love with him over the short two years they spent traveling together.
She always argued it was one year, but her mother never failed to remind her of all the nights she sat alone at home with no call or postcard, left all alone to wonder where her daughter had run off to or if she was ever alive. After awhile she just stopped trying to say it had only been a year.
After that she met another man several (but still less than the first) years her senior, and again accustom to the lifestyle, they went traveling. It was another short period, one full of adventure and frenzy, full of falling in love all over again and danger. It was he she lost to the war.
This was, at least, what the official story was.
If you were to ask her, Rose Tyler would have to admit that the first two years without him where the worst. Her stomach would knash at any little or constant reminder. Tears would fall unwillingly down already raw cheeks, her mascara tracks almost a permanent fixture on her once lovely face.
She dyed her hair black to match the color of her heart.
"Come on love, he said he wanted you to have a good life. He would feel bloody awful knowing that you're going on like this." Jackie would say.
"Good! Then at least I know someone else out there understands how awful this feels!" She would yell, slamming her bedroom door and falling to the soft welcoming bed.
If you were to ask her now, Rose Tyler would admit that she was the worst in those first two years.
It took awhile, but tear tracks were replaced by rouged cheeks, frowns to simple smiles, and greasy black hair to well-kept soft brown ponytails.
"What are your plans today?" Jackie would ask as she fed Rose's little sister Ruth.
"Maybe a bit of shopping, a trip to the gym and a walk in the park." Rose would reply.
"Don't be home too late, it's yer dad's big party." Jackie had a tendency of calling after her.
After all, for Rose Tyler, every night was one big party.
And she hated it.
"How to reinvent yourself to be a brighter happier you. My, my, I wonder where you would have pick up such a catchy title as this one. I'm guessing the adventure and mystery section."
She looked up, confused and annoyed by the voice reading over her shoulder. Hazel eyes lifted to hit brown ones, a hint of amusement tracing around them. They were so familiar to her that she was a little taken back.
"No need to look so aghast I merely was teasing." His voice was a bit tenderer and less severe the next time, added by a casual tilt of his head and tug of his left ear.
She looked him up and down not completely surprised that he wore a suit and tie, spectacles and a slightly messy approach to his hair.
"I'm Dr. Smith, I'm the director of the Institute of Historical Research at University College London." He said, holding out his hand to her as if he had wished to shake hers. Her hand stayed wrapped tightly around the book she was looking at.
"Well, I guess asking you to coffee is out of the question then." He said, putting his hand down and beginning to walk away.
"How about dinner instead?" She called out.
"I don't like this luv, not one bit." Jackie said to Rose that night that was not unlike any other night, other than the fact that she happened to bring a date this time.
And that date was a Doctor.
"He even looks like the second one, are you sure you're…"
"Mum, I don't want to talk about it here." She said, as she took a sip of her champagne. Jackie had continued to stare as he made his way across the room in a rather fitted tuxedo. The closer he got, the louder Jackie's bemoans and grunting displeasures sounded. Rose took that moment to detach herself from her mother and meet the intriguing man she met at the bookstore at middle ground.
"They're seems to be a lot of influential people here." Her date Dr. Smith commented.
"Really? I don't really pay attention to these things." She told him, taking a deep sip of the glass in her hand.
"You don't seem like you pay attention to much." He retorts.
And that's how her first date with The-One-Who-Acted-Like-Her-First-But-Looked-Like-Her-Second begun.
"I believe that God existed, as did Jesus, and I figure they may still do. I however believe that we fucked up what they're message was so bad, with so much hypocrisy, that they gave up on us a long time ago."
Rose had sighed rather audibly at this and checked her watch. Having dinner with this insufferable man had only been the tip of the iceberg. It didn't help even more that despite his wretched manners and his penchant for mocking her and hostile conversations she found herself enjoying him.
"The thing is Rose Tyler, everything can be a product."
"I think I'm going to go now."
"Being a drunk is no different then being a Christian." He ignored her.
"What?"
"Okay fine, what are you a wino or a drunk?"
"What?" She had asked rather appalled once more by the question. Still he didn't stop, but continued to carve the bloodied steak in front of him before popping a bite sized piece in his mouth.
"I said what are you, you're either a wino or a drunk. Can only be one or another."
"That's absurd, you can be both."
"No, no you can't. Not really. You see the Wino is a more sophisticated more romantic drunk. They hold themselves as a different class, an upper class. Where as a drunk can be more of a laid back atmosphere. It's the college life, the middle class style. Have a few beers with a friend or a have a few glass of wine. They are completely different."
"I never claimed they were, I just said you can be both." She replied not understanding why she continued to argue with him over such a ridiculous topic.
"No, you can't. You can pretend to be both, but once you've reached that dinner party, glass of wine stage, it's hard to move back, you've changed.. You can do both but you'll always do one better whether you prefer it or not. That's why the prince and the pauper would never work, the pauper would have to been a damn fine actor to have reached the wine stage. And then, there are the different kinds of drunk stages. You have your college stage, and your buddy stage and your sloppy stage. Doesn't matter because they all are inebriation. Just like faith."
"… What about hard liquor?"
"Pardon?" he looked up at her, surprised.
"What about hard liquor, what kinda drunks are they?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Look you started this bloody stupid conversation, just answer the question." She snapped.
He took another sip of water, washing down the chunk of steak he had been so mercilessly chewing.
"They are the worst. You can't be a wino and a drunk, but you can drink that poison for either one of them. Hard drinkers are the mean drunks. They are the lone-drinkers. They are the alcoholics."
And that was how her second date with The-One-Who-Looked-Kinda-Like-Her-Second-But-Still-Acted-Like-Her-First ended.
It just so happened that a few months after that Rose traded one vice for the form of another. Retiring the Rum and Whiskey, she found solace in hymns and Sunday morning sermons.
"You're just another one of those born again mind slaves now? AA convince you to trade up?" The-One-That-She-Had-First-Thought-Acted-Like-Her-First-But-Still-Sorta-Looked-Like-Her-Second said one Sunday morning after church.
"Goodbye Doctor." She said, before hanging up the phone.
She met The-One-Who-Looked-Like-Her-First-And-Seemed-A lot-Like-Her-Second at therapy.
"Excuse me for interrupting Doctor Taylor, but I was wondering if I could have a word with you after your session."
"Sure." The psychiatrist replied before the other closed the door and left them to her session.
"Who was that?" she blurted out, forgetting all about her revelation that she pushed the people in her life that she loved away because she was afraid of commitment and loosing them as well which is why she turned to church so devoutly and why now she's feeling trapped in a life that doesn't really belong to her.
"That was my colleague Doctor Johnson. He's the other Psychiatrist in the office."
Rose left for the first time before her session was over.
"I admit I was rather intrigued when you asked me out Ms Tyler. Technically it's unethical for me to be dating patients–"
"Well it's a good thing I'm not your patient, more wine?"
"Not to mention, women 20 years younger then myself." He finished, holding out his wineglass.
"Here's to unethical moments, and how fun they can be." She toasted, holding out her own barely touched wine.
"Rose come and see this!" he called to her as the first airplane of this universe took off that September afternoon.
She found that over time, no matter how much she tried she began to really like The-One-Who-Looked-Like-Her-First-And-Seemed-A lot-Like-Her-Second. In fact, there were times that she forgot to call him The-One-Who-Looked-Like-Her-First-And-Seemed-A lot-Like-Her-Second because she was beginning to forget what her First and Second looked like.
She began to hate herself because she had so firmly believed that she would love them the best out of anyone ever and that no one would ever replace them. She would always pine for the Doctor, she would always want what she couldn't have.
But she was beginning to learn that Time and Space was not her mistress, and that they were still with her. Time began to heal some of her older wounds, and dress some of her newer ones.
Over that period, Time also took her hate away from her too, leaving her nothing to hold onto but the slivers of memory's that she had learned not to grasp onto so tightly anymore.
"They'll never take the place of dirigibles, you just wait this is just a fad." He told her, walking away while she continued to watch the airplane circle above her.
She stopped seeing Doctor Taylor.
He proposed to her the second of May, at the park that she had took him to on their second date.
"I want to spend forever with you." He whispered in her ear, bushing a lock of brown hair out of her face.
"Lets just make the most of now." She murmured, taking deep breaths of the scent of sandalwood that surrounded him.
They wanted a small wedding, though Jackie had begged Rose to make it a weekend-long extravaganza her father and she would host.
"Mum, I'm not interested in parties, I'm interested in just getting it over with."
"Well, you sound very keen on marrying this chap. Are you sure this is what you–"
"YES." She interrupted walking away.
"It's not you it's me." He told her, his bag beside him and their daughter in her arms.
"I wasn't ready for this kind of lifestyle when I was young man, and I thought I was ready to settle down when we did, but it all moved too fast and I feel trapped."
"You couldn't have told me this before we had Meredith?" She asked him, hurt and confused by his recent plans to leave her.
"I didn't know. I don't want you to think I don't love you, I do. I just need a little more time, I need a little space."
"You have no idea how fucked up that sounds, especially coming from you."
As he walked away, she realized that he probably thought she meant because he was a psychiatrist.
She sat in the sun, her auburn hair spilling out from underneath her sun hat as she watched her daughter play at the park. She was too big to be held now, but still small enough to demand kisses and receive them with full adoration. Meredith had seen her father twice since he left, and rarely asked for him, which made it easier for Rose to forget.
As she sat there, the wind whipping round her, she heard a noise off in the distance that sounded familiar to her, a familiar that made her strain her hearing. It was a sound that she had thought she had heard many times before but had always been daydreaming, which is why this time she didn't allow her heart to skip a beat.
She heard the crunching sound of someone approaching and turned towards it.
"Hello." A man called out to her, and she lifted her hat to take a peak at a freckled nose and green eyes that stared back at her. She lifted her own eyes higher to gaze at his ginger hair and Hawaiian-style shirt.
"I seem to have lost my good friend around here. She's darker, black hair, answers to the name of Martha?"
"Is she a dog or a friend." Rose bemused, still gazing at his freckled face.
"Yes, right. Well I suppose you wouldn't be calling out for her. Still, if you see anyone like that, could you please tell her the Doctor is looking for her?"
"The Doctor?"
"That's right." He answered, rolling backwards onto his heels, his hands in his trouser pockets.
"That's it? Just the Doctor?" She asked him, not a trace of surprise or excitement etched her voice. The conversation seemed so unreal to her, so detached, she hardly felt anything but amusement as she watched this stranger that she had once known so well.
"Just the Doctor." He answered, and begun to walk away.
She sighed a sigh of relieve and some disappointment, and she thanked God that dirigibles had gone out of style the year Meredith was born and they were using a different style of transportation aircraft, an aircraft they were now calling the airplane.
She watched him as he turned on his heel and began his trek back to her, something that made her panic for a few seconds at the thought of confrontation.
"Yes?" She had asked when he approached her.
"You seem awfully familiar." He replied, as he tried to get a better peak underneath her sun hat.
"You don't." was her calm reply as Meredith came running up to meet them.
"Mummy, there was a bee and it scared me! It kept chasing me around the park!" squealed the little girl, as she climbed up into her mothers lap.
"It's alright sweetheart, I'm sure it was more afraid of you then you were of it." She tells her daughter, the cliché falling from her lips with ease. She remembers a time when her mother used to say it to her. A time when she believed in the words.
"I'm sorry to bother you, I'll leave you and your daughter alone now."
Ginger and not rude. She thought to herself as she rocked Meredith back and forth on the park bench.
"I love you mummy." Meredith murmured and Rose looked down at her daughters multi-colored eyes.
"I love you too hunnie." Rose told her, and she smiled.
Time and Space had always been cruel and kind to Rose Tyler.