A/N: I had the pleasure this past year of hosting dw-secret-santa, which brought 98 authors together to write secret santa fanfic for each other in the Whoniverse as a holiday present…. this is my gift to each and every one of them, and anyone who has read and enjoyed their stories. Happy holidays, and happy new year!
Betababe: the unparalleled fadewithfury
The champagne flows freely that New Year's Eve in the hot, crowded flat, sloshing onto the carpet from the multiple bottles Jackie insists on carrying around. She's in her element here, hugging guest after guest, pouring the cheap bubbly into the plastic cups and not letting anyone's go empty while they celebrate. The festivities blare full force from their small telly as well, the corks popping and the fireworks crackling all across England—across the whole world—heralding a new start.
It's a celebration of sorts for Rose too—and not only for the new year and the new man with a new face that she's spent the past week trying to get to know. It's also a celebration of old things she holds dear, things she keeps locked away quietly inside her heart as if hidden inside a treasure box—an old daft face, an old flirtatious friend, and an old comforting leather jacket she now keeps hanging in her closet on board the TARDIS. In some ways, she thinks, it's almost like she's celebrating both the old and the new, everything that she holds dear and hopes to continue—the chance to keep saving the world with her best friend in the universe, side by side… together.
Some drunk woman—Bev? Pat?—pulls Rose into an embrace, and through champagne-induced tears spends five minutes telling Rose how much she's missed her all the time she's been gone. Rose doesn't think she's ever met half these people—including this woman—before and wonders how many of them are friends her mum made during her year away. Smiling politely, Rose extracts herself and weaves her way through the crowd, both to escape outside for some fresh air and to look for the Doctor.
After all—she has a feeling that when she finds one, she'll find the other.
She pauses only when Mickey calls her over and insists on taking a selfie of the two of them together. Mugging for the camera, she puts on an intentionally silly grin, only to inhale sharply when Mickey leans over and gives her a sloppy kiss on the mouth as the flash goes off.
Blinking the glare out of her eyes, she gives him a half-hearted smile and then turns back towards the hall. She pushes through the front door and heads off once again in search of her best friend.
As she exits the flat, a blast of freezing air hits her and it feels like freedom. She shuts the door behind her, closing in the noise and stuffy air and alcohol, and inhales the cold, crisp night air. The winter chill prickles against her skin and she wonders for a moment if she should have brought a coat, if she should go back inside—but she hears an uproar of laughter in the crowded flat and she changes her mind. If nothing else, the cold is already starting to dampen the buzz of alcohol in her system—a good thing, really—she'd hate to find him and be noticeably tipsy. What might he think about that? She knows the old him used to drink sometimes, but she doesn't yet know if this him does. There are a lot of things she doesn't know about him yet, really.
She exhales. It's quiet out here. Dark. She stands alone, enjoying the stillness for a moment before continuing on her way down the balcony to find him.
Rounding the corner, she sees him standing solitary at the end of the balcony in his long coat, his elbows resting lightly against the railing. In the distance beyond him, the fireworks over London have already started and she smiles to herself—his hair looks like a starburst all its own.
Quietly, she walks over to him and leans against the rail beside him, mirroring his stance. He grins at her and her at him, and she nods her head towards the flat, almost apologetic.
"I know time passes different for you… must seem silly, really, all this fuss over a new calendar."
She's expecting agreement of course, maybe a lesson on the various calendars and celebrations throughout the entire history and future of the human race, or even stories about bigger and better celebrations on alien worlds, in the past or in the future, where he'll promise to take her. He still starts half his sentences off with 'Rose Tyler', as if her entire name were a single word. She never would have admitted it, but at first it sounded wrong coming from this him—it should have been spoken with a northern accent, instead of one so closely mirroring her own. But… already it feels right now somehow, despite the small flicker of guilt she still feels. She can already hear it in her mind, how this new him will probably respond to her: 'Rose Tyler, just wait until I take you to New Year's Eve 4518 in New Belgium—the island not the planet–now that was a party!'
Instead, he sniffs and shakes his head.
"No, it's brilliant! That's the marvelous thing about you humans—out with the old, in with the new. Constantly reinventing yourselves. You lot have a sense of hope, more than any other species—for yourself, for the future, for all this—"
He gestures out with his hand, in what would have been a sweeping, almost grandiose gesture if they'd been on the roof and had the whole city at their feet, all the bright and twinkling lights of London just waiting and ready for the taking.
But instead, down here outside her flat, he's simply motioning across the quad towards the darkened playground and the graffitied brick of the other estate building facing them from across the street.
She looks down at the flaking black paint on the wrought iron rail and smiles, not sure how to respond to that. A year ago he would have been talking about ape traditions—stupid ones. Now, though…
She looks up at him, and her breath catches when she sees how tenderly he is gazing back down at her. Different man, different eyes, but she knows that look—remembers that look—and how secure he always made her feel, and in that moment it's all just too much. The thought comes welling up out of her lips before she can stop it.
"Last year was… it was great—really great—I just…"
She pauses, looking up at him. He's quiet, though his eyes burn with an inquisitive energy that's new to him now, though they're no less gentle than they were a moment ago.
She swallows and breaks into a smile. "…I'm glad you wanted me to stay, is all."
His face relaxes into an easy grin then and he gives a contented chuckle. "In with the new Doctor?" he teases.
He leans in so close she can almost feel his hair playing against her own. It tickles and she laughs, leans in even closer so that their foreheads are almost touching. "'Course! And in with the old Rose?"
He grins, and leans in imperceptibly closer, his nose bumping hers. "Roooose, you'll never be—"
He stops then, and something in his eyes changes. Inhaling deeply, he pulls away, the game clearly over. He swallows and his eyes turn to the playground, at the empty swings rocking aimlessly.
There's a silence between them, and it grows bigger and darker the longer it lasts. She takes a deep breath.
"So…um. We're leaving tomorrow then?"
He nods slowly in response, then cocks his head to the side, his eyebrows raising as he pulls a face and nods towards her. "Tomorrow's almost today."
"Ten! Nine!"
Jackie counts down loudly, her voice heard even outside the flat. The last seconds of the old year fade away as if they'd hardly ever existed at all.
"Eight! Seven!"
Which to Rose, she supposes they really hadn't—she'd hardly spent any of that last year on Earth.
"Six! Five!
She can barely even remember her last new year's eve, its details foggy and muddled in her head no matter how hard she tries to concentrate on remembering them.
"Four! Three!"
Blimey, how much had she had to drink that night? No matter.
"Two!"
She looks out over the railing, drawing her jumper in a little tighter around her.
"One!"
She spares a glance through the kitchen window of her flat and sees her mum planting a big snog on Howard. He returns it enthusiastically, and Jackie pushes him into the wall near the door to the kitchen, her fingers attempting to tangle in the thinning ginger hair on his head as his hands clutch onto her bum. The corner of Rose's mouth quirks up, and she blushes, turning back around towards the rail.
Hesitant, she looks over at the Doctor, who stares past her into the flat almost mystified at the spectacle before him. His eyebrows furrow as Howard pulls Jackie closer, and she wonders what he is thinking, if this is all too human for him as he'd once put it. At her glance his eyes flick down to meet hers, and he grins and shakes his head.
Biting back a laugh, she stands at the railing a moment longer, looking down, before raising her eyes to the sky. The night is now fully alight with a grand finale of fireworks, whistling and flaring for a moment, shimmering in golden wisps and curls against the black sky and then receding into the darkness as they turn to ash. The golden starbursts remind her of something, something quicksilver and vague, hovering on the tip of her tongue—and the memory makes her shiver. Blimey it is cold out here after all…
She feels a sudden warm pressure, new and comforting, settling gently around her shoulders, and looks up to find the Doctor wrapping his coat around her. It comes down past her ankles, and feels different than the heavy leather he used to wear—but this feels right all the same, and she smiles up at him.
Back in the flat, she can hear Jackie and Howard, and Bev (or was it Pat?) and Mickey and the rest of the crowd in the flat singing Auld Lang Syne along with the telly at the top of their lungs, and knows they're all standing together, arm in arm, just like every year. But she doesn't turn around, she has eyes only for the man standing in front of her.
"Happy New Year, Doctor."
He glances over her head through the window and smiles, before resting his gaze back on her.
"Happy New Year, Rose."
She smiles then, the same tongue-touched grin which used to come so naturally to her—and she hasn't felt like smiling this brightly all week.
By the look on his face, she thinks he notices, as his eyes soften and focus on her mouth—and she'd smile like this all year if she could if he'd keep looking at her that way. He leans forward then. Gently and deliberately, his lips ghost across her cheek and come to rest at the corner of her mouth. Tendrils of something warm spark inside her, flashing deep in her belly, and the kiss burns hot along the contour of her jawline long after he slowly retreats.
He pauses a moment, staring down at his trainers in the space between them, and she suddenly feels less sure of herself.
"I don't think I like that saying, 'out with the old, in with the new,'" he murmurs.
She shakes her head. Something resonates in her heart with his words, and it wells up behind her eyes.
"We could always change it, yeah?"
"Have you heard 'make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold'? I think I quite like that."
"Yeah, me too," she says, almost a whisper.
He nods, and reaches down to take her hand in a way that is so familiar, but grips it a little less gingerly than when he had a different face. She squeezes his fingers, and draws his coat tighter around herself, nestling into it.
Still hand in hand, they stand by the rail and watch the rest of the fireworks as they dance and flicker across the dark London sky.