It was if the old girl knew where to take him when he was needed most. How else could he come to stand in the world he had left behind a thousand years ago? The smoke and flashing lights, it all made sense now. The TARDIS had pushed her way through a crack in time, falling through the vortex and landing so infinitely far away. He could tell by the way the air nipped at his skin that he was in the world from so long ago. The idea that he was back, that his TARDIS had brought him back sent shivers racing down his spine but the Doctor kept cool, pale eyes framed by paler eyebrows, stared out at what was beyond. They were in storage of some sorts and it was lit only by a security light. Niggling at the back of his mind, the Doctor wanted to get out, to explore and find what he must have been brought there for.
From behind him, his companion pushed past so she could see where they landed. Clara, with her big brown eyes and straight brunette hair pulled back in a bun, looked exasperated. "All that noise and explosions and we end up here? In a hospital?" Clara huffed, folding her arms in front of her, wide eyes narrowed on the Doctor.
"Not just any hospital dear Clara, a parallel hospital," he stepped past her and went for the door, sonic in hand as he tried to loosen the locks.
Clara watched him curiously, "And that's supposed to make it better? Anyway, aren't parallel universes all closed off, like isn't it impossible to break through?"
"Not impossible, plausible but extremely hard to do. Way back, visiting another dimension became a bad habit for me but now, well it has been a very long time," with a click, the door to outside the storage unlocked.
"Well let's go explore, shall we?" Clara took the lead and walked out of the storage only to be faced with an almost empty hospital.
"Night shift," the Doctor pointed out from beside her. To their right were large windows looking out onto an inky black sky that was giving way to the purple embrace of dawn. Even in the darkness the outlines of zeppelins dotted the early morning sky. They were definitely in the right wrong Universe "I hate hospitals," the Doctor told Clara under his breath.
"Funny coming from you," she looked up at him, amusement lit up her face.
"Excuse me?" a woman with ginger hair and thick rimmed glasses scuffled up to them from a desk to their right, "It is four in the morning, visiting hours finished long ago. How did you even get up here?"
"I'm the Doctor and this is Nurse Oswald," he fished around his pockets until finding the psychic paper and shoving it in the ginger's face. She glanced at it before nodding in approval. "What's the date, the year and month and day? What is it?"
"Why? Is this some sort of test? Weak test if it is," the ginger raised a single brow.
"No, I just want to know the date," the Doctor persisted, eyes narrowed on the woman as patience grew thin.
The woman didn't budge, it had been a long shift for her and a stranger asking for the date seemed like a pathetic joke that she didn't need.
"I'd do as he says," Clara piped up as she noticed the refusal.
Sighing, knowing that one way or the other she would have to say it, the woman gave in, "Sunday the fifteenth of May 2067."
"Why would she bring me here? There is always a reason, why did she bring me here? And I hate Sundays," the Doctor mumbled under his breath.
"Pardon sir?" the woman asked
"Shush, wait, no yes no no, don't shush! Can you tell me if there is anyone under the name of Ms Tyler in the hospital?" his eyes widened and he smiled with anticipation at the ginger woman.
"Doctor?" Clara asked but was given no response; he just stared at the woman as she recalled her duty roster.
Finally after a few moments, the woman responded, "We do, room 259."
Before the ginger lady could ask, the Doctor was off down the corridor in search of that very room. Behind him, Clara struggled to keep up "Doctor who is it?"
He skidded to a halt in front of room 259, visibly gulping as his hand trembled towards the handle. Slowly he opened it, letting it slowly swing so the person inside could be seen. It had been around sixty years since she had seen him but over a thousand since he saw her. Either way it felt like eternity. "Rose Tyler," the Doctor whispered.
"Doctor?" Her voice had aged, crackled and strained but her tone was the same as before. Her hair a fine silver and skin wrinkled and splotched but even then she was still his Rose, still his pink and yellow defender of Earth.
"Hello," he forced out, a smile hinted on his lips. He felt Clara beside him, gently pressed against his side as she tried to look inside. He could sense her confusion and he didn't blame her. Talking about past companions in depth wasn't exactly a thing they ever did.
"You've grown old," she chuckled weakly; hazel eyes still glistened with mischief.
"So have you," the Doctor did the same, he felt a grin that had not surfaced in so many centuries make its way to shape. Slowly he stepped into the room, closer to Rose. He felt Clara follow suit, never leaving his touch as she watched on.
"How many times?" Rose croaked and hearing her distorted voice caused the Doctor to come stand by her side. Slowly he placed himself on her stiff bed and brought her hand to his.
"Twice," he told her, lightly stroking her hand with his thumb as his eyes were drawn to hers. It had been too long and he had forgotten how powerful her hazel eyes were to him. They were intoxicating and even though they were old, they still held the same effect because Rose Tyler was still so young in his eyes, not that it changed anything anyway.
"Who's the pretty thing?" Rose turned to look at Clara, pulling her age worn lips into a smile as she studied the Doctor's current companion.
He faced his companion and introduced her, "Clara Oswald; English teacher. Very bossy and her eyes, don't you think that they are huge?"
"I think they are beautiful," she sent a scolding glance at the Doctor which shut him up. Next to them, Clara grinned at Rose, appreciating how she changed him, in a good way just by being in the same room.
"Why are you in here?" the Doctor asked after a long wave of silence.
"I'm dying," in the corner of Rose's eye a single tear shed, rolling down her waxen wrinkled skin.
"Don't you dare," the Doctor instructed, squeezing her fragile fingers the slightest.
"But it's true, old age," Rose frowned, her eyes leaving the Doctor's to look at the side table. In two frames were pictures that the Doctor had not noticed until then. One was off an army of people sitting on and around the lounge. In the centre were Rose and what looked like to be an echo of who he once was. Both grown old and surrounded by what he could only deduce to be children and grandchildren. The second was of just her and his metacrisis; her dressed in a white gown and him in a black tuxedo. They were a lot younger, youth still bright in their faces and love shone through even if it was just a simple picture in a frame.
"What happened to him?" the Doctor whispered, eyes studying the pictures.
"Last week, only last week his heart gave out during the night. Good life we led, John was good to me. He was so very much like you but different all the same," a soft smirk crept onto Rose's face but it was overshadowed by tears that began to well in her eyes.
"John," the Doctor let a half smile creep onto his face, "Smith, I presume?"
"Tyler actually, he liked my name better," Rose chuckled slightly, looking back up to the Doctor whose unruly eyebrows were raised in amusement.
Winking, the Doctor replied, "Of course he did."
Swaying on the balls of her feet, Clara coughed to gain their attention, "Hate to interrupt but can I ask who John is? I mean, in the wedding photo, he looks just like the Doctor..."
"You knew the Doctor back then?" Rose's age worn eyes widened at the idea.
"You could say that we ran into him a little while ago," Clara shrugged. She had in fact met him many times before, not just on the day when they saved Gallifrey but to save confusion and explanation, Clara ignored the part about the countless echoes scattered through time.
"Timey-wimey," Rose nodded, not needing for the young companion to delve any deeper.
"Well Clara, he looks like him because that was him, a human him," the Doctor pointed out, his eyes moved back to the wedding photo.
"Oh! I get it now! John was the vanity issues you were telling me about!" Clara's face lit up as she worked out the missing piece in the puzzle that was the Doctor's life. She then apologised to Rose since Clara guessed that calling someone's husband a vanity issue wasn't exactly nice, "Sorry."
"Don't be," Rose brushed it off, "Doctor, can you take me to the balcony, can I see a sunrise one last time?"
"What do you mean about last?" the Doctor furrowed his brows but agreed anyway, "Okay."
He removed her bed covers and picked up Rose's fragile body, not caring when she hissed at him about how she was still able to walk. Clara skidded in front on them so she could open the balcony door and as they walked past him she whispered, "I'll go talk to the ginger," he nodded in agreement and continued out to the balcony.
His two hearts pounded, paranoia sinking in the longer he held Rose's body. She was like a leaf, so thin and fragile and her skin resembled wax paper. Even though her body had deteriorated and faded away, she was still his beloved Rose Tyler, no matter how decrepit she looked.
There was a single bench on the balcony, lined with cushions and he placed Rose down on the right side before taking his place on the left. In front of them was the view of the city, starlight diminishing as it became replaced with hues of lavender and dusty blue. Zeppelin's still roamed the skies above and the city below glistened like a technicolour gem.
"We had three kids ya know, twin girls and a boy. It took us a while to kick things off since he was still part time lord, but when we finally got lucky with the twins, well, I've never seen anyone filled with more joy than he was the day we found out!" Rose leant her head down so she could rest on the Doctor's shoulder, hands weaving with his on their laps.
"I'm glad you lived the life you deserved to have," the Doctor whispered, fingers stroking the wedding ring that Rose still wore.
"It was strange at first; he and I in the beginning were chaos. He was you in every way but I'd remember that you were still alone in that big blue box of yours. He told me what you'd have to do with Donna, which made it worse in a way because you were proper alone once she forgot. It was hard for me to differentiate the love for him and the love for you but in the end it worked out quite well. He was you but he was also his own person. John always knew that I never let you travel far from my thoughts," as Rose spoke the first tendrils of pink seeped into the shades of purple and blue of the pre-dawn sky. Her eyes were transfixed on the constantly shifting spectrum of colours, mesmerised by the beautiful palette, the very last she would ever see.
"You never left my thoughts, not for a single day in over a millennia," the Doctor turned his head so he could bury his nose in her thinning hair, breathing in her scent that he had all but forgotten.
"A thousand years?"
"Too long," the Doctor sighed.
"You must have gone through so many companions," Rose pointed out but was corrected by the Doctor almost instantly.
"Not really. I only really had the Ponds and Clara. Amy and Rory stayed with me for a long time and their daughter River Song was an on again off again sometimes companion," he trailed off, unsure whether or not he should add in the part where she was his wife. He decided to skip that crucial piece of information, "Clara I met a long time ago and we met in the strangest of circumstances. We travelled but I left her for a few hundred years to save a town called Christmas. I guess after my 'children of time' left me I found it hard to make new friends."
"The sunrise is so beautiful today, so many beautiful shades of orange and yellow," Rose whispered.
"Don't do this," the Doctor mumbled; his grip on her hands tightening but not enough to hurt her.
Pulling her eyes off the first rays of daylight, Rose Tyler looked up at the Doctor; a single tear fell down her cheek, "Even forever has to end."
"Not our forever, not ever," the Doctor corrected.
Rose only shook her head, "You coming back here after not seeing you for so many decades, it is our final goodbye in our not surprisingly long list of goodbyes."
"You can't."
"The love of my life, this life," she corrected, "died last week and I'm in here because there is one illness they still cannot cure; heartbreak. I know I made my choice a long time ago, that I was never going to leave you but I have to. Humans flare then fade away forever while you live on. That's the curse of the time lords, right?"
His eyes locked with hers and he didn't gaze upon a woman crazed by heartache or a lady withered away from age. In her eyes the Doctor saw his Rose from long ago, more at peace with herself than he had ever seen. She had lived a long life, a full life, one with children and grandchildren and weddings and parties and graduations and a career. She lived the life she deserved with the man she deserved and the Doctor saw what she saw; her song was over now.
She broke from his gaze and went back to the sunrise. The sky was now a pale blue and white cotton candy clouds were tinted with sunlight that resembled honey. The sun had risen above the city, an orange and yellow star that warmed both their cheeks and their bones.
"Rose," the Doctor began, thinking of words to fill their last fleeting minutes. There was so much to say, so much needed to be exchanged and only three words filled his mind, "I love you."
A smile appeared on Rose's face and she turned her head to him, the wrinkles around her eyes becoming more prominent as well as her forehead wrinkles as she raised her eyebrows, "I know. Ya know Doctor, I don't mind your Scottish brogue, I quiet like how those words sound with your accent."
"That's not all," the Doctor told her. He knew that they were both long past the stage when those three words were so apparent yet so taboo, "I also have to tell you this..."
"What?" Rose asked and in response the Doctor brought his lips to her ear and told her his greatest secret. It lasted hardly a second and when the last syllable of the alien tongue left his lips, the Doctor waited. He pulled back slightly to find Rose attempting to construct the secret with her limited human tongue. When not a sound could escape her mouth, Rose gave up and tried her back up plan. She leant over to the Doctor and pressed her age worn lips to his in a tender kiss. When she pulled back, Rose settled into her starting position with her head resting on his shoulders and hands nestled in the Doctor's.
As the sun climbed higher in the sky and the last resonating hues of sunrise faded, leaving only pale blue, Rose Tyler asked a final question, voice quiet but loud enough for the time lord to hear, "How long are you going to stay with me?"
There was only one answer he could possibly give and that answer was, "Forever."
As the words reached her ears Rose Tyler finally closed her eyes and the Doctor never moved an inch. He was correct about his response because he did indeed stay for forever, at least until their finite moments came to a close.
Clara Oswald was shuffling though documents filed under Rose Tyler's name when a lethargic Doctor approached her. His eyes were distant and cheeks were damp and Clara couldn't do anything else but fold the ancient time lord into a hug, not caring one bit about if he liked it or not.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into his chest.
"Every story has to end," the Doctor told her; although unsure about the hug, he still reciprocated by wrapping his arms around her.
"But they will always be remembered," Clara reassured.
He couldn't help but smile, "Forever."