Now and forever.
By: Little Selene.
Beta: Jessica Wolfe
Disclaimer: Neither Doctor Who nor any of its characters belong to me, sadly.
Author's Note: This is my second time publishing this story and now I'm very happy with the result. I want to thank to my beta (my first beta ever!), who really helped me with the language thing, and even if I think that I'm not TOO bad, she made it all better.
I'll keep trying writing in English so wish me luck!
Sometimes when they're doing just… nothing, while they're sitting in the library sipping their tea, or lying together watching a silly movie on the telly in the living room, or just silently holding hands and so deep in their thoughts that they don't notice: he does it.
Without realizing it, without really intending to do it, without really meaning to do it, he draws patterns on her skin with the tips of his fingers. Sometimes on the back of her hand while theirs are entwined. Sometimes on her shoulders or her back during a specially long and emotional hug. Sometimes on her arms or even on her stomach in very special and rarely moments where that kind of touch is allowed; but he never tells her the meaning of that pattern.
At the beginning she thinks it's just a thing he does while he is thinking, like his thoughts dropping from his mind through his fingers without him noticing it, but with time she realizes that it's always the same pattern, always the same circles and lines, always the same thoughts again and again and it always makes her feel so utterly and incompressible happy.
And one day she just asks him. She wants to know the meaning of that words that make her feel that way, 'cause she likes feeling that way.
"What's the meaning of that?"
The Doctor looks at her confused.
"That… thing you write sometimes. 'Cause it's writing, is it? It's your language, the Time Lord's language."
He frowns at her. He didn't know he was doing that. He doesn't know when he began to do it; not just writing the words all around her skin, but to think them: to feel them.
"It doesn't have translation in your language, Rose."
"Oh…" She looks disappointed and he thinks if he should tell her, tell her in words that she could understand even if her language–and even any other language apart from his own—doesn't have the complexity to really catch the meaning of the patterns that are not only drawn on her skin but also burned in his mind.
"I can tell you what it says… In my language. Even if you won't understand it, you can hear it."
She looks at him in awe and smiles. "Yes, please. I want to hear it." She doesn't know what she is asking and he doesn't know why he hasn't told her before, but he immediately approaches her and whispers in her ear while at the same time draws the patterns in her palm.
She gasps, 'cause even without knowing the real meaning of them, the words are beautiful and breathtaking and suddenly her heart beats faster and her cheeks blush and her body shivers and she doesn't know why but she feels so… complete.
"It's beautiful," she says.
"It is." It's his only answer, and one of his bright smiles. "How does it sound?"
"Like…" She blushes even more. "Like it's true… and like it's real."
He looks into her eyes for a moment, searching for something, searching for an answer to the words that hadn't been said in a language that she can comprehend, but that in some way were said, anyway, and that has to count.
"Gallifreyan… the language of my people, it's so old, so antique that in some way it holds the meaning of things in a more real way than any other… Like, how really something is named and not how your people name it. In some way when you listen to Gallifreyan words, even if you don't know the meaning you can understand what it means, because they are the real words for that, even if you don't know it. So with the symbols… in some way you must know what it means."
She looks confused, but at the same time she thinks she understands what he means. That maybe she doesn't know what he is telling her when he draws that patterns on her skin, but she knows how she feels about it; whatever the words are, whatever the meaning is, they are beautiful and true and real and she likes them so much.
"Can you…? Even if the words don't exist in my language, can you "explain" it to me? Make me… understand it with other words?"
He thinks about it, and he knows which are the nearest words in her language but he also knows that those words are so much less than what he wants to tell her, so utterly inadequate for his feelings and he can't express them in that way, even if she could understand it in that way.
"No."
She tries to repress the feeling of disappointment in her, and the real desperation to "know", to really know which words are that make her feel in that way, that blissfully way. But then he says something that confuses her and relieves her at the same time.
"But I can show you."
She gasps again. "How?"
"In here," he says, tapping her temple with his finger. "I can show you the meaning in your mind. Without words, just… the meaning. If you let me."
"Yeah."
"Are you sure?"
She frowns this time, why wouldn't she be sure?
"What if you don't like it? What if you realize that I have been graffiti-ing your body with invisible words that doesn't amuse you?" he jokes, but she doesn't laugh. She wants to know, she knows she's gonna like it, she knows the meaning in some way and she already likes it.
"Please…"
"Close your eyes," he says firmly. "And open your mind, Rose. Just… relax."
She does as he asks and waits until she feels the touch of his hands on her face. She thinks he's going to do that thing with his fingers on her temples but he just caress her cheek with one hand, entwining the other in her hair and lets it drop to her back, just above her neck. Then, the first hand leaves her cheek and holds her jaw and softly pulls her up, just to touch his lips to hers, so tenderly, so lightly. And then she feels it.
Like a touch of electricity through the exact point where their lips are meeting and where his hand draws the patterns again on her back, she feels it in her mind and finally catches the real meaning of the words that make her so completely happy and she really knows that there is no way to describe this in any other language than his, but she can try.
If she had to explain it she would have said that the words describe three aspects at the same time; in some perfect way entwining them together into one word which describes everything. She would have said that the words describe two people, but not any people, 'cause the words are precisely to describe the exact two people: him and her, the Doctor and Rose. No one else fits those words nor their meaning; and the words talk about a feeling of complete devotion and surrender and faith and so many other things without names that she knows and that are being felt in so deeply a way that she didn't know was possible to feel either. And finally the words talk about a certain time, but a time with no end and no beginning, not a "now" or a "before" or an "after" but an "always", like something that has happened since the beginning of time and will never stop.
Finally, if she had to translate that words to an so imperfectly language like English, even with all the subtleties lost on the way, even with all the lost words and meanings and facts, the most exact translation would be something like "Rose Tyler, I love you, now and forever", and it's incredible how that means so much and at the same time just a fraction of the real meaning of the words, and it's amazing.
And she smiles while they break the subtle contact and decides to whisper the only words in her language that in some way can accomplish what she wants to really say.
"Me too, Doctor." And then she kisses him again; and this time she is not subtle or soft or tender. This time it's passionate and full of love and desire because maybe English isn't enough, but she does know another language that doesn't even use words, but that holds enough meaning in its own way.
And in that language she can make him know that she feels the same way, now and forever