The most extraordinary thing happened on what started out a very ordinary day in Broadchurch.
Rose was in the back garden, hanging the laundry, when an inexplicable and familiar wheezing groan filled the air. A sudden wind whipped out of nowhere, blowing her hair around her face, and obscuring her vision. She dropped the laundry basket, spilling clean towels and linens out onto the freshly mown lawn. Shoving her hair desperately out of her face, she turned in the direction the sound had come, from the back corner of the garden. A blue police box materialized, and then sat, as if it were waiting. Rose didn't realize she was holding her breath until she heard the familiar squeak of the TARDIS doors opening, and all the air rushed out of her lungs.
"Doctor?" she croaked in disbelief. He looked almost exactly the same as he had the last time she'd seen him, years ago, except that his eyes looked much more tired. His face split into a wide grin when he saw her, and then they were running to each other, although this time there was no errant Dalek to interrupt their joyful reunion. Rose launched herself into his arms, and he lifted her up and off her feet and swung her around before setting her back on the ground.
At which point, she immediately began smacking his chest.
"Ow!" he said, fending off her blows. "What the heck is that for?"
"iThat/i is for leaving me on a beach twice without saying a proper goodbye. That's for making me wait years to have you finish that sentence, just to say 'does it need saying'. That's for leaving me and John here without asking what either of us wanted. I told you I loved you, and you said 'quite right, too'. Who does that?"
"Rose...if I had done it, if I had told you how that sentence ended, would you have ever allowed me to leave you behind?" he asked softly.
"No, of course not," she answered immediately.
"That was why I had to do it, Rose. Because I ido/i love you. And the only thing I ever wanted is for you to be happy. You deserved a shot at forever, and I thought he would have a better shot at giving you that than me," the Doctor said, brushing his thumb across her cheek.
"Seven years later. It's about damn time," Rose said.
The Doctor laughed. "Yes, I suppose it was well overdue. Forgive me?"
"How did you even get here? I thought the walls between realities were sealed," Rose asked.
"Haven't the foggiest idea, actually. I was in the vortex, and all of a sudden, a wormhole opened up, and I landed here. The TARDIS must have homed in on you and the half-human Doctor because you're the only familiar things in this universe. Speaking of, where is himself, anyway? I wouldn't mind saying hello," the Doctor said cheerfully.
Rose's smile slowly crumbled. "He's not here."
"Oh, is he at work?" the Doctor asked obliviously, jamming his hands into the transdimensional pockets of his coat.
"No. He...John, he died. About two years ago. It'll be two years exactly next week, on the 31st," Rose said, biting her lip.
The Doctor's jaw dropped. "Oh, Rose...I'm so, so sorry. He died on Halloween? What happened?"
"Do you want to come in for a cup of tea? We have quite a lot of catching up to do, I think," she said, offering him a wan smile.
She saw the hesitation on the Doctor's face. "I shouldn't even be here. I need to find a way back to my own universe and seal the crack. But I suppose I have time for a cup of tea. But only for you, Rose Tyler."
She smiled and took his hand, leading them across the garden to the sliding glass door that opened up onto the kitchen.. "It's not Tyler anymore. It's Hardy now. Has been for almost seven months."
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, though whether it was in surprise or disapproval she wasn't sure. "So you got married to someone else. Oh Rose, I'm so relieved to hear you say that. When you told me he'd died, I was worried you might be pining over him. I'm glad that you found love again. You deserve it. What's his name?"
"Alec. Alec Hardy. He's a cop, actually, if that isn't ironic. He's ten years older than me, but we share so many things in common in spite of that. And he's an amazing father," Rose said, setting the kettle on the stove to boil.
"So this isn't your first baby, I take it?" he said, nodding at her swollen stomach.
She laughed. "No, this is baby number two for me. But this is our first baby together."
An indescribable look crossed the Doctor's face. "So you and John…?"
"Yeah. But he died before he even knew about the baby. John Alexander is just over fifteen months now, but he's so much like his father. So much like you. He's already so clever-his language skills are well advanced for a baby his age. And even though John is so obviously his father's child, Alec loves him as his own. He even adopted him. John will never know his biological father, but he won't have to grow up without a father who loves him, and I think that's the important thing," Rose said, leaning against the counter.
The Doctor reached out hesitantly, and spread his palm over the swell of her stomach. "You're due in about a month, yeah? Do you know the gender?"
"No, we wanted to keep it a surprise. But yeah, I'm due next month. November 23rd," she said, looking down.
"November 23rd? Really?" he asked, his eyebrows raising.
"I know. It's a strange coincidence, right? John was born on Alec's birthday, this baby will be born on John's...on yours. Almost made me think it wasn't coincidence, but I don't even know. Alec said maybe it was a sign, that John wanted me to be happy. I would love to believe that, but it seems impossible. And now here you are," she said, reaching out to brush his hair away from his forehead.
The Doctor took her by the shoulders. "After everything we've seen together, you should know that nothing is impossible."
"So what is it, then? A cosmic message that John somehow managed to send to tell me that I would see you again?" she asked. "He was an atheist, at least I think he was. I thought you were, too."
"Not atheist, no. More agnostic, really. The universe is a vast place, I don't pretend to know every corner of it. There was no religion on Gallifrey, though. The Time Lords were elevated beyond such superstitions, supposedly. There was the beast on Krop Tor, though, whatever it really was, the devil or just an idea. And I've met fake gods, and bad gods, and would be gods or creatures that were seen as gods. Some people I've encountered believed I was a god," he said thoughtfully. "You never did, though. You always treated me like I was as human as you were."
"That was an artful way of avoiding the original question," Rose said, poking him in the chest.
"What was the original question?" he asked, grabbing her wrist to keep her from poking him again.
"The baby. It's due on November 23rd. That has to mean something, yeah?" she asked, rubbing her belly with the hand not caught in his own.
"I honestly couldn't tell you. I want to say it's just coincidence, but I really don't know," he answered honestly, releasing her wrist. He rested his open hand on top of hers, over her belly. "Not to change the subject, but have you thought of any names?"
"Sophia Alison, if it's a girl. Sophia, we just liked the name. Alison is after Alec's sister who died of cancer. And if it's a boy, we were thinking about Emmett or David for a first name, and possibly Mickey or Peter for the middle name," she answered.
The Doctor smiled. "Sophia's a brilliant name. Means 'wisdom'. Although I definitely prefer David to Emmett. Emmett sounds like a cowboy in a spaghetti Western."
Rose laughed. "Emmett was Alec's pick. I voted for David. But I don't know...I just have this feeling like it's going to be a girl, y'know? Don't answer that, by the way, because I'm sure you can probably tell."
"Yes well, luckily I have an excellent poker face," he replied.
"You're terrible at poker. Remember when we went to New Atlantic City? You lost three hands before I finally managed to drag you away from the table," she pointed out.
"I was always better at Black Jack," he sniffed indignantly. "Anyway, I may be terrible at poker, but I still have a good poker face."
"If you say so," she said, tongue poking between her teeth.
"I do!" he insisted.
She threw her arms around him then. "Oh, I have missed you, Doctor."
He held her close, and rested his chin on the top of her head. "I've missed you, too, Rose Tyler."
"Rose Hardy," she corrected him.
"Sorry, Rose Hardy. That'll take some getting used to. You'll always be Rose Marion Tyler, Defender of Earth to me," he said.
She smiled sadly. "I'm not defender of much of anything, these days. Defender of the last pint of ice cream, maybe. After John died, I left Torchwood and went back to working in a shop. But I like it. My boss is very flexible, and she doesn't mind if I have to bring John with me to work sometimes."
"You never did say. How did he die?" the Doctor asked softly.
Rose sighed, and poured them both a cup of tea. They added cream and sugar in silence. A moment later, after stirring her tea a bit more vigorously than necessary, she finally answered him. "He was a professor, down at King's College, in London. Pete offered him a position at Torchwood, several times, but he wasn't interested. Wanted to live like a normal human, or try to anyway, he said. One day, a student showed up on campus with a gun. He killed six professors and ten students before turning the gun on himself. By the time the first responders got to the scene, he had bled out."
The Doctor set his tea down on the counter. "I'm so sorry, Rose. You have to know, if I'd had any idea things would have ended up like that, I would've...I would've...oh bollocks. I don't know what I would've done. I could've seen it maybe, if I'd looked, but I didn't. I didn't want to see. How much happier he'd end up being with you, while I traveled on my own. I'm sorry, Rose. So Sorry."
"Hey," she said, grabbing his hand. "It's not your fault."
"But it is. Because I left you two here. I wanted you to be happy...and this happens," he said, the anguish evident in his tone.
"Doctor, I iam/i happy," she said emphatically. "Don't get me wrong, there isn't a single day that goes by where I don't miss him, or you, for that matter. But I have the baby. I have Alec. I have a family all of my own, something I never thought I would have, something I never allowed myself to want because I believed I didn't deserve it and could never have it. Seeing the universe, traveling with you...that changed me, changed my life. Becoming a mother, and a wife? That's changed me too, but in a different way. I'm not the selfish, immature child I was when I traveled with you. I would've torn apart the universe for you, consequences be damned, and I almost did. Having John put a lot of things into perspective for me. I have things in my life far more important than myself now."
"Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf. You were mother to the universe once. Now it seems you're mother to something even bigger," he said, smiling at her fondly.
She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her. It felt so right, and yet it was so different from the way it had felt when John had held her, when Alec held her. It was strange, to miss him so much when she spent every day with a man who had his face.
"Can I see him? The baby?" the Doctor whispered.
"Of course," Rose said, taking him by the hand and leading him out of the kitchen and up the stairs. She stopped outside a door that was halfway closed, and pushed it open, revealing a nursery that had been painted like a galaxy.
"I did that myself, actually. My friend Beth's daughter Chloe helped. I love the way it turned out. I know John may never get to come as close to the stars as either of his parents, but I still want him to grow up with them," Rose said, laying her hand on the railing of the crib. The Doctor came to stand behind her, and peered down into the crib at the sleeping infant, whose full head of hair was sticking up and out in a dozen different directions. He was wearing a pair of footie pyjamas that looked like a space suit.
"It's a good look," the Doctor said approvingly. "Rose...he's perfect. I wish…"
"You wish what?" she asked, suddenly anxious of what he was going to say.
"Nothing," the Doctor mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.
Rose squared her hips and crossed her arms. "Oh no you don't, mister. This is probably the last time you and I will ever see each other, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life wondering how that sentence was going on to end."
"Oh Rose," he said, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. "I wish it could've been ius/i."
The statement rocked her. She wrung her hands, and thought of how she wanted to respond. "It was us...in a way. You said John was just like you, and this baby is his. Which in a way, makes him yours, too."
The Doctor smiled ruefully. "Here you are, living a life. The one adventure I can never have. We had adventures...but I could never have a life like this. Not on board the TARDIS."
"What about Donna? It seemed you and her were...well, I don't know. But it seemed like there was something there. And she had the mind of a Time Lord. You're not the last anymore. I mean, you don't have to be," she said. "Where is Donna, anyway?"
The Doctor's gaze darkened. "Donna's gone. I had to wipe her mind of everything we ever did together to save her. Her human brain and body couldn't handle a Time Lord consciousness. If I had left it in her, she would've burned. I've been on my own."
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't know."
Right then, the front door banged open. "Rose, I'm home!" Alec called from the front hallway.
Rose looked stricken. "Shit, he's home early. Stay in here. I need to warn him about you. Oh, and there's something I didn't mention earlier. He's a doppelganger. He looks exactly like you."
"He..what?" the Doctor asked, incredulous.
"Just stay here. As you're so fond of saying-don't wander off!" Rose warned, closing the door behind her. She met Alec at the bottom of the stairs.
"What's wrong?" he asked, immediately sensing something was amiss by the look on her face.
She took a deep breath. "Remember before, when I told you about the parallel universe?"
He raised his eyebrows. "...yeah?"
"Well," she said, biting her lip. "We have...a visitor. From the parallel universe. He came here by mistake, but he's a very old and dear friend of mine. But Alec...here's the thing. He's the man that I tried to close the breach with...and he's the man that John was cloned from. When I first woke up that night in A and E, and I confused you for a doctor? I confused you for him. He's called the Doctor."
"He...what?" Alec asked, an almost perfect mirror of the Doctor only moments ago.
"Just come upstairs and meet him," Rose said, tugging her husband up the stairs. The door to the nursery was open, and the Doctor was gone.
"Son of a bitch!" she swore, running to the window. The TARDIS was still parked in the back garden, and she didn't see a thin, anxious figure hurrying towards it. So where had he gone?
"Sorry, just popped to the loo," the Doctor said, ducking back out into the hallway. Him and Alec met eyes, and both of them began to silently appraise the other.
"I did try to warn you," Rose said, worrying her thumbnail.
"Well that's...uncanny," the Doctor finally replied.
"I think that's putting it mildly, mate," Alec offered stiffly.
"Blimey, you can smell the testosterone," Rose interjected.
"So you'll have to excuse me, because this is all news to me...but were you two...together?" Alec asked.
"Yes," said the Doctor, at the same time that Rose replied, "No."
Alec's lips pressed into a very thin line. "Oh?"
"Oh no, not like that," the Doctor laughed nervously, pulling at his collar. "We traveled together. That's all. As friends. Nothing else ever happened."
"But you wanted it to?" Alec pressed, moving his hand in a circle to indicate to the other man that he should continue.
Rose and the Doctor exchanged an uneasy look. The Doctor cleared his throat, taking the lead. "There was once a time when Rose and I might have been more than friends, but that moment has long since passed. I'm just happy to see her happy, that's all."
"With a man who looks exactly like you?" Alec asked in disbelief.
"Well, she does have excellent taste," the Doctor said, sniffing.
"Alright, fine. But John...you...clone? How did that even happen?" Alec asked, pulling at his face.
"Instantaneous biological metacrisis," Rose and the Doctor both replied in unison.
"Uh…?"
"Right. So...I'm an alien. A Time Lord. I have two hearts, and the ability to heal and repair my body when it is damaged, but the caveat is that when I do this, every cell in my body dies and I change. Every single cell in my body dies and is reborn. I was injured, in a sword fight, and my hand was cut off. Several years later, I was injured again, this time gravely. Rather than change myself, I healed myself instead, and funneled the excess energy into a bio matching receptacle-my spare hand that was cut off in the sword fight. My human companion, Donna, touched the hand while it was still bursting with energy, and it caused an instantaneous biological metacrisis. John grew out of the hand, a half-human version of me and Donna with my looks and the same memories, but a body that was more human than Time Lord."
"Right. Well, that clears everything up," Alec replied sarcastically.
"Babe...it's the truth," Rose said, squeezing his arm.
"And if he hadn't just happened to come here accidentally, you never would've told me about him, would you?" Alec asked. He sounded more tired than angry, but Rose knew how to read him. This was the calm before the storm.
"Alec...I didn't know how to tell you. The stuff about the parallel universe was hard enough for you to swallow. How could I even begin to explain to you that I was once in love with a 900 year old alien, and we used to travel together in his time machine?"
"Time machine? Instant biological whatever majiggy? Alright, are you two taking the piss? This is some sort of joke, right?" Alec asked, his gaze darting between Rose and the Doctor. "Oh my God...you're leaving me for him, aren't you?"
"Jesus, Alec, no! How could you even think that?" Rose asked, her hurt evident in her tone.
"I used to worry that I was a stand in for John. Now I see that I was apparently a stand in for someone else, too," Alec replied bitterly.
Frustrated, Rose began to cry. Both men instinctively went to comfort her, but the Doctor hung back, seeing the look on Alec's face. Rose clutched at Alec's shirt, and cried into his shoulder. "I'm sorry, okay? I know I should've told you about the Doctor. But I was afraid. Afraid you wouldn't understand. And you don't. I don't understand. You were okay with John, but not this. Why?"
"John is dead," Alec said flatly. "This man..sorry, this iTime Lord/i, is very much alive. A fact that you've apparently been concealing from me the entire time we've known each other."
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Listen...it was certainly not my intention to come between you two. In fairness to Rose...we were very close when we traveled together. I told her the last time I saw her that it would be the final time. Me landing here? That was just a fluke, a hiccup in the space-time continuum. In the short time I've been here, it's been made painfully obvious to me how very much in love with you Rose is. You have no competition, Alec. Certainly not from me. I just ended up here by accident, and I got caught up with an old friend. Rose and I have a history, but it's just that...history. It's in the past. You are her future. Please, don't take my presence here as a threat. This is your home, I'll gladly leave now, if you want me to. Seeing Rose happy, for just a moment, was gift enough."
"Well she's not happy now, is she? You upset my pregnant wife, mate. Probably best you go," Alec said coolly, Rose still clutching weakly at his chest.
"iI/i upset her? We were having a perfectly pleasant conversation before you showed up!" the Doctor snapped.
Alec snorted. "You were saying about gladly leaving?"
"Stop it," Rose said, pulling back from Alec. "Just stop it, right now, the both of you. I'll not have this!"
Both of the men became quiet, suitably chastened. Rose turned to the Doctor, and took a deep breath. "I will always love you. For who you are, and everything you showed me. Once upon a time, you were the most important man in my life, but now he is. Him and John. But loving you...that prepared me for loving them. Because nothing was easier or harder than loving you, but with them, it's mostly easy. If you had asked me seven or eight years ago what I wanted for my life, or how I imagined it turning out, I can tell you it was never this. I thought I'd travel with you forever. I thought we would never settle down, that I'd never have children. And at the time, I was okay with that. But now...I wouldn't trade this life for the world. If you asked me to leave with you today, I would say no. But I will never forget a single moment with you, or any of the wonderful things we saw together. I will cherish those moments until my dying day. Maybe one day, I'll even tell my children some of those stories. But that chapter of my life is over, and I can't and don't want to go back."
The Doctor wrapped Rose up in his arms, steadfastly ignoring the sullen look on Alec's face. "I will always love you, Rose. And I'm sorry I was too much of a coward to say it to you when it actually mattered. But I am happy for you, that you have a life you never imagined. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, to have a fantastic life, and it seems like you're doing pretty well at that here with Mr. Alec."
"Yeah," Rose said, breaking the embrace. She stepped back, and looped her arm around Alec's waist. He drew an arm protectively around her shoulders. "I really am."
"Well," the Doctor said, with forced cheerfulness. "I suppose it's time I was off. Tears in time to repair, that old chestnut. Rose...just be brilliant. I'm sure you will, though. And Alec? Please take care of her. She's more precious than you know."
"Oh, I know. She's the most precious thing in the world to me," Alec said gruffly.
"Before I go, there's something I'd like to give you. I've got to get it out of the TARDIS. Wait here?" he asked, bouncing on his heels. "Or, if you'd like, you could come with, show Alec the TARDIS."
Rose glanced at Alec. "Do you want to see it? The Doctor's time machine?"
"I suppose. This may be the only opportunity I ever get to see a piece of your other life," Alec replied.
The Doctor smiled at both of them. "Brilliant."
The three of them made their way down the stairs and out into the back garden. Alec stopped, his gaze darting from the TARDIS, to Rose, to the Doctor. "Your time machine...is an old police box? Why is it a police box?"
"That's just what it looks like. It's disguised as police telephone box from 1963. Every time the TARDIS lands in a new location, within the first nanosecond of landing it analyzes its surroundings, calculates a twelve dimensional data map of everything within a thousand miles and determines which outer shell would blend in best with the environment. And then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963," the Doctor said.
"That doesn't make sense," Alec insisted.
"The chameleon circuit is broken. Tried fixing it a couple of times, but it always reverts back to a police box. I think she likes it that way, honestly," the Doctor said. "I know I do."
"She?" Alec said, raising his eyebrows.
"The TARDIS. She's sentient," Rose explained.
"So you have a sentient time machine...that looks like a police telephone box?" Alec asked slowly.
The Doctor waggled his eyebrows. "Wait until you see the inside," he said, unlocking the door and pushing it open.
"Go on," Rose said, giving Alec a little push from behind.
Alec stepped onto the TARDIS, and his jaw dropped. "This is impossible. It's bigger on the inside! How does it do that?"
"It just does," the Doctor said with a shrug. "Anyway, you two wait here. I've got to go down to storage sixteen and get that thing for you.
Around them, the TARDIS hummed, almost as if it were pleased to see an old passenger. Maybe it was. Rose watched Alec walk around the console, fingering buttons and knobs in quiet disbelief. "This is just...wow," he said, several minutes later.
Rose smiled. "Yeah. The TARDIS kind of has that effect on people the first time they see it."
"What do you mean, 'TARDIS'? Is that an acronym, or something?" he asked.
"Yeah. It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space," she answered. "It can go anywhere in all of space and time."
"Here we are then," the Doctor said, emerging from the corridor with a large box in his hands. He passed it off to Alec.
"What is it?" Alec asked suspiciously, trying to peer inside.
"It's just some of Rose's things, things she left behind on the TARDIS. Pictures, souvenirs, that sort of stuff. I thought she might want them. It should be a trip down memory lane for her, at the very least. And if she ever does decide to tell some of our stories to your children, she'll have the mementos to go with them," the Doctor said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Thank you," Rose said sincerely.
"Well, as I was saying, best if I were off. There's a wormhole that needs fixing," he said, clearing his throat. "Alec, nice meeting you."
Alec shifted the box, and extended his hand to the Doctor. They shook, awkwardly. "Safe travels, I guess."
"Say it this time, please, Doctor. Please," Rose said when they were standing back on the lawn out front of the TARDIS.
He smiled at her sadly, and leaned forehead to press a chaste kiss to her forehead. "Goodbye, Rose Hardy." And with that, he turned and walked back inside.
"You're going to want to watch this," Rose said, taking Alec's hand. The wind picked up again, the wheezing groan filled the air, and slowly, the TARDIS faded from view. This time though, watching it go didn't break Rose's heart.
"It just...disappeared," Alec finally remarked.
"Yeah, it does that," Rose said, turning into him and resting her chin on his shoulder. Even with him still cross with her, she felt safe in his arms. "Alec...I'm sorry. I should've told you about the Doctor. Because he was a huge part of my life for so long. I guess I didn't, because a part of me still hadn't reconciled how I really felt about him. But when he landed her, I knew, I just knew, that the life I had with him wasn't anything I wanted anymore. I'm happy here with you, and John, and the little bean to come. I hope you can forgive me for being a coward and not telling you about him until my hand was forced."
"It kind of makes sense now. I always felt like there was this elephant in the room with your family, something they were deliberately avoiding talking about. And I guess that was it. It makes sense now, that conversation I had with Pete right before your birthday, before we got engaged. He asked me what sort of stuff you had told me, and when I told him just about Torchwood, he asked me if there were anything else. I wondered about that. Now I know."
"To be honest, I think we're all still surprised Tony never said anything. But I think my mother kind of drilled it into him that talking about the Doctor made me sad, so maybe that's why he never did."
"A nine hundred year old alien. Who slums around the universe with young coeds?" Alec asked, bemused.
"It does sound mad when you put it like that. I know he's an alien...but he didn't always seem like one. Sometimes, he was so incredibly human. And I think that's why I loved him. Because he was alien in so many ways, and yet still like me in some of the most important," Rose replied.
"Yeah but...nine hundred years old. How do you even relate to someone who's lived that long? It seems impossible," Alec remarked.
"Well, I fell in love with you, and you're an old man," Rose said, her tongue poking between her teeth.
"Oi! I think there's a bit of a difference between a ten year age gap and a inine hundred/i year one," Alec said, quirking his eyebrow.
"Age is relative," Rose replied.
"You'd think I would've learned by now that you are full of surprises. Still...it's alot to take in. Much more than parallel universes," he said into her hair
"Talk to mum and Pete. They could tell you about the Doctor, perhaps in a less biased fashion than I could. If you're ready to hear about it, that is."
"He was a part of your life. A part of what shaped who you are. I can't be angry about that, because I think you are wonderful. And if he had anything to do with that, than I owe him a thanks, I suppose. Just seeing him here, though, seeing how familiar you two were together...it just drove me a bit mad. I'm sorry," Alec said, hugging her tighter. "Suppose I wouldn't have you at all if it weren't for him."
"I'm glad you've calmed down. I don't think I could bear you being angry with me right now," Rose sighed with relief.
"Do you think maybe one day...you'll tell me about your travels with him?" he asked, his voice small. He toed the box on the lawn as he said it.
She smiled at him. "The first place he ever took me was to the future, to see the destruction of the Earth. The day the sun expanded."
"That's a hell of a first date," he said wryly.
"It was," she agreed, lacing her fingers through his. "But y'know, I think I prefer Italian to almost getting roasted alive. Besides, it wasn't all glitter and gold with the Doctor. Some days were terrible. I saw monsters that you wouldn't believe, things just as terrifying as the Cybermen. Ask me one day about the time he abandoned me and Mickey on a 51st century spaceship so he could go chasing after some French tart."
Alec raised his eyebrows. "Sounds like there's an interesting story there."
Rose laughed. "Suppose. At the time, I thought it was going to ruin my life. I couldn't believe he would leave me...betray me. But that was the Doctor, sometimes. He's like fire. Stand too close and you get burned. I much prefer your slow smoulder, anyway."
"Flatterer. You're just trying to make up for all the nice things you said to him in front of me," Alec said, and she wasn't honestly sure if he was teasing or being serious until the corner of his mouth quirked up.
"Maybe now would be a good time to watch the DVD of our wedding. So you can remember all the nice things I said to you then," she teased back. "Anyway...me and the Doctor, it's like an epic. It's a very long story. And I want to tell you all of it, one day. But right now, I just want to crawl into bed with you and lie there until the world goes still for a moment."
"And after seeing the universe, that's enough for you?" he asked.
"It is if I have you by my side," she replied, brushing his hair back from his forehead and leaning up to press her lips softly against his.
They would weather this storm, like they had weathered all the others, standing together, hand in hand.