Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all characters are property of the BBC. I do not own them nor make any money from them. I only spin stories for my own amusement and the entertainment of others. Any original characters are mine.
Author's Notes: This story contains romance, but it is not fluff. And while it is not a Shakespearean tragedy, neither is it a Disney fairy tale. It is a rather emotional journey with laughter, tears, and a lot of questions with complicated answers. When it comes to characters and endings, I am not Moffat or Whedon or George R. R. Martin. But I am not Jane Austen either. Take from that what you will.
The title, "The Way We Were," is based on the song with the same title. It is a beautiful song performed by Barbara Streisand and I recommend you look up the lyrics or listen to it on YouTube to understand my inspiration for the "misty water colored memories of the way we were." Many of the lyrics will loosely reflect Rose's internal struggle.
The Way We Were
Chapter 1
Rose Tyler woke up from a peaceful dream and felt as if she had entered another dream in which things were both familiar and strange. She sat up and looked around. The room she was in looked like her mother's room in the one-storey flat Rose grew up in. The carpet and door looked the same and the widow was in the same place, but nothing else was the same. Jackie Tyler's bedroom was painted pink, her bed had a padded pink headboard and a pastel duvet, and she had a vanity covered in hair accessories and make-up. Even with the faint illumination caused by a nightlight in the corner of the room, Rose could tell that the walls in this room were a deep blue hue and that the simple curtains on the window matched the walls. The bed sat in the same place that Jackie's bed had been, but appeared to be the modern type that one bought at a large Scandinavian furniture store then assembled at home. It had a simple black rectangular headboard with a duvet that matched the wall and curtains. The furniture in the room consisted of a black dresser and wardrobe that both matched the style of the bed. In the corner was a black chair that likely came from the same page in the furniture store catalog. Over the top of the chair were a man's dressing gown and a woman's dressing gown.
"Mum?" Rose called out. "Mum, are you there?" No one answered.
As she woke up more fully, Rose tried to make sense of her surroundings. Rose looked at the dark décor and the pair of dressing gowns. Perhaps it had been a longer time than she thought since she had last visited and things had changed in her mother's life. Maybe a man had come to live with her mum and they had redecorated.
Rose crossed the hall to use the loo and saw evidence that a couple shared it. One side of the sink was neat with a razor (the good kind with replaceable blades, not the disposable plastic kind), a comb, and a tin of dental floss set perfectly side by side as if they were the utensils of a table setting. On the same side of the sink near the handles sat a tin of shaving cream. On the other side the only things that were neat were the dark blue soap dispenser and the dark blue cup containing two toothbrushes. One toothbrush was blue and in perfect shape; the other was bright pink and appeared to have been gnawed on by a beaver. Rose smiled at this. Her mother had similar brushing habits as she did. On the counter, the toothpaste was missing a top and had been squeezed in the middle, causing a pool of mint gel to form on the counter's shiny white surface. Various combs and brushes littered the countertop, along with make-up, lotion, and mouthwash. Since she didn't have a toothbrush, Rose gargled with the mouthwash. She noticed the hairbrush that she had taken traveling sitting with the other items on the counter. She used it to smooth out her blond hair.
Rose walked back into the master bedroom and sat at the end of the bed. The feeling of being disoriented was making her dizzy, so she laid back. Someone had placed glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and it surprised her that they were actually in the form of constellations. Rose closed her eyes. She remembered an article she had read which said that one could determine if something was a dream by looking at a detail, looking away, and then looking back at it again. It said that in dreams, minor details (such as the constellation pattern on the ceiling) would usually change. She opened her eyes to find that the constellations remained unchanged. Though the stars were not her mother's style (Rose liked them, of course), she was not dreaming. Rose wondered if her mother was dating an astronomer or some other space enthusiast.
Rose stood to her feet. She was not bothered that her mother had met someone, but she was confused as to why she woke up in their room when she had her own room in the same flat. After a bit of thinking, Rose determined that she must have been lying in bed with her mum talking and laughing like the old days and had fallen asleep there. Her mum's boyfriend likely thought the gentlemanly thing to do was kip down on the sofa for the night. Her mum had probably gone and slept in Rose's room. Rose was about to leave the master bedroom and validate her theory when she looked down and saw that her nightdress was rather sheer. If there was a strange bloke in the living room, she wanted to be more covered up. She grabbed her mother's dressing gown and tied it tight around herself.
When Rose entered the living room, she noticed that the redecorating had spread to the living room. There were a few items Rose remembered, such as the soft chair she used to snuggle in to read and some random knick knacks, but the rest must've come from the same store as the bedroom furniture. At least her mum had a nicer television now. The one Rose was looking at looked brand new and huge. Her mother's new man must have made good money. But whoever he was, he was not in the room.
Still not convinced she was awake, Rose tried her dream test on the clock on the wall. One hand was on the number two and the other was on the five. The second hand had almost reached the top. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, everything but the second hand was the same. It was pointing at the twelve and continuing to circle around again. Though Rose was never up this early, she was now convinced it was not a dream, and she was concerned that nobody was there at that hour.
Rose walked into the room that should have been hers, just to see if anyone was about. When she did, her heart sank. Rose had always had a place to stay at her mother's flat. Even when her mother had thought her to be missing for a year, Rose's bedroom had not been changed. Now none of her furniture remained. There was no bed or vanity, just a simple desk with an equally simple chair. (Her mum's bloke must've spent a lot of money at that furniture store). On the desk sat a high-tech computer and random pieces of electronic gadgetry. The walls had been painted a coral-orange color and the curtains were a sea-foam green. The only thing in the room that she recognized was a box filled with children's books that belonged to her when she was a child and her favorite teddy bear. She had kept the bear on her bed even as a teen, so she was glad to see it had not been thrown out. The room contained other cardboard boxes that she did not open, so she guessed that her other items were inside them.
Rose backed up against the wall, slid to the floor, put her arms around her knees, and began to cry. She knew it wasn't fair to expect her mother to never change anything. After all, she had been busy traveling the stars with the Doctor and their friend, Captain Jack Harkness. Rose had tried to remember to call her mother, but she had only come home once and no longer considered the flat her true home. Still, this change made it feel as if her mother had wanted to erase everything about her. Worse than that, it only now occurred to her that she had no idea how she had even come to be in the flat in the first place. The last thing she remembered she had been in…Rose wasn't even sure where she had been last or what she had done. There was Cardiff and that Slitheen egg they had to return to Raxi-whatever. Then there was that planet with the hopping nonsense. There was also that family they met in Southampton in 1912. But there was something else—the reason she was back in London—and she couldn't remember.
After a several minutes Rose got up. She had to find out what was going on. She could use the phone in the flat and call her mother's mobile. And if she could find her own phone, she would call the Doctor. He had to be in the Tardis somewhere nearby.
Just then, Rose heard a familiar high-pitched buzzing sound at the front door. Then the Doctor in his leather jacket came through the door with his sonic screwdriver in his hand and holding what looked like a bag of groceries. And he was humming! (Rose thought it sounded like "Moonlight Serenade.") Rose was beginning to doubt the validity of that dream test, because the scene before her was the most surreal thing she had seen all morning.
"It's you!" Rose said astonished.
"Hello," responded the Doctor cheerfully, waving the hand that held the sonic screwdriver. He pocketed his screwdriver and proceeded to the kitchen where he set down his shopping bag and began to unload the contents. Rose watched astonished as he put all the items away adeptly without asking where a single thing went.
"I bought more bananas," was the only comment he made.
"Where's my mum?" Rose finally asked when the Doctor's very uncharacteristic domestic chore was done.
"In her bed sleeping, I imagine," the Doctor answered nonchalantly, leaning on the kitchen counter. "And please don't tell me you were expecting her, because it is too early in the morning to pretend to be nice."
Rose just stared.
"It was a joke Rose. Your mum picks on me just as much."
Rose frowned. If the Doctor thought her mum was in bed, then that meant no one knew where she was.
The Doctor misinterpreted the look on her face as disapproval. "Rose. I'm sorry," he said. "She's your mother and I should be kinder. Plus it is clearly too early to joke with you." He paused at that last statement and thought a minute. "Why are you up anyway? You normally aren't up before nine unless you're made to be."
This was true. Tardis time was set for human sleep cycles and Rose would usually wander into the control room sometime after what it had set as nine in the morning, often still in pajamas and largely incoherent. One of the luxuries of traveling through time and space was that she didn't have to keep to a schedule. She took the fact that she was up so early as a sign that something was very wrong.
"Doctor, my mum is not home. I just went and looked for her."
"You went upstairs in your dressing gown?" the Doctor asked, surprised.
Her dressing gown? Upstairs? She was clearly missing important information. Rose wasn't even sure how to ask for clarification, so she switched questions. "Why are you even here?"
"It's only half five. I don't leave for work for three more hours."
Work? This did not answer her question at all and only confused her more. In fact, the whole morning had been so strange, that the worry over it had begun to make her feel physically ill.
"I don't feel well," she said.
He looked at her with concern. "Go get more sleep," he said. "Doctor's orders."
The pun made Rose smile despite the situation, but she still wasn't sure where to go. "And I'm to sleep in there," she said doubtfully, pointing toward the blue-painted room.
"It is the bedroom," said the Doctor with a shrug. "But I suppose you could sleep on the sofa if you wanted to."
Rose put her face in her hands and rubbed her temples. "I have no idea what's going on," she said, frustrated. She felt like crying again.
"Rose," the Doctor said. His tone had changed to one of alarm. He stepped over to her, took her shoulders gently, and looked into her eyes. "What is the last thing you remember?"
Rose frowned. "I don't know. I was on the floor in that room," she said, turning and pointing to the room with the desk and computer.
"Before that," he said more insistently. "Before you woke up." His blue eyes stared intently into her brown ones as he gripped her shoulders a bit more tightly. It was making Rose nervous. She broke free and began massaging her temples again.
"I don't know," she said. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes. "I remember Raxi, Raxico, Rax—"
"Raxacoricofallapatorius," finished the Doctor.
"Yeah. And then it's fuzzy. I'm not sure of the order after that. And then I woke up in this flat that looks like my mum's. But it must not be hers, because you said she was upstairs." Rose searched the Doctor's eyes as if looking at them would clear everything up.
"It's my fault," the Doctor said sorrowfully, looking down. "I shouldn't have left this morning. Things had been going so well for so long, I just assumed…But then you had to wake up alone and confused. I should have been here."
Rose felt bad for the Doctor. She wanted to assure him that she was not upset and didn't blame him, but she was still unaware what the problem was.
"I—I don't understand," she said.
"Of course you don't," the Doctor said with anger toward himself. Then he softened. He placed a hand on Rose's back and led her to the living room. "Rose, you better sit down."