Being Human
Summary: He hadn't expected so much tension between them or the awkwardness of his new feeble, human body. / Post Journey's End. Rose/10th Doctor Duplicate. First Doctor Who fic (this is what happens when I OD on a new series to avoid things like packing) so be gentle - plus has only been edited by me. Might continue with some other ideas in this verse.
Rating: strong T
It doesn't start out spectacularly well. The quiet certainty of their joined hands and the way Rose looks up at him seem to disappear not long after the TARDIS does the same. Jackie leads the way to the road, going on about bloody Norway, while they follow side by side with his hands stuffed in his pockets. After the right proper snog on the beach he hadn't expected so much tension between them or the awkwardness of his new feeble, human body. That one lone heart beat, the lungs that just can't quite take in enough air.
He glances at her now and again, but her eyes stay forward as if she's someplace else. He gathers she is. Rose Tyler with the Doctor in the TARDIS. As it should be.
"I am him." he says, finally. Desperate to know she gets it, wants to get it and believe it.
"I know."
"Do you? Really?"
She stops and turns toward him as he stops with her, forgetting Jackie. She looks him over and he's never felt more scrutinized. Has never cared more about the outcome of another's thoughts about him.
"Yeah. I mean, mostly. Its just weird, yeah?" she says. "All that time trying to get back to my world. To you...him."
She looks down at the sand and shrugs a little.
"Does it feels like a waste?"
"No. Just not the ending I was expecting."
"Doesn't mean it's a bad one," he says. "I meant what I said. I do love you. Have loved you. Missed you..."
He hears her swallow as she turns to look in the direction they came. He sees tears forming in her eyes, and, bollocks, he wishes he could just stop making her cry so much.
"Yeah. Me too. I guess it just hurts how much had to change to get you to say it."
She turns and starts walking again. He follows because in this body, in this universe he has nothing else to do. The Doctor, the other one, said he was born of battle and rage and vengeance, but he thinks maybe, just like his counterpart, a little bit of him was born out of love for her. For Donna. And for all the people who have come and gone.
"He left us here because he knew he could never really give you what you wanted," he says.
"Doesn't give him the right to make up my mind for me," she says and begins walking faster. "Mum, wait up."
/
They sit on the roadside for several hours waiting for the zeppelin Pete Tyler is sending to pick them up. Rose stands off on her own, arms crossed over her chest. She occasionally walks in one direction on another or fidgets with her hands, pockets, jacket. She doesn't look him in the eye. Jackie is the one that takes the spot next to him, chattering away about all the strange little things about this world.
"And pet goats are all the rage. Of all things, goats. Nasty little buggars if you ask me," Jackie says. "There's things like that that are just barmy, but then there's some things that are so much the same, but not quite right at the same time. It just makes you feel all wonky at first."
Kind of like me, he thinks.
Jackie seems to be watching both of them carefully trying to defuse the tension, being Mum to them both in that moment. He wonders at the thought of Jackie Tyler being his one ally.
/
Once on the zeppelin Roses curl into a seat next to a window. She stares out of it, her face sad and unsure. He eases next to her and lets out an audible sigh, wishing he could do something silly and make her laugh. It used to be so easy. Maybe I'm not the same, but neither is she. There's a thin exterior that wasn't there before, closed around that up-for-anything, smiling, pink and yellow girl. Its part simple maturity, but part something darker grown from heartbreak and desperation.
He hears her shift and he looks to see her staring up at him.
"Sorry. I don't mean to be cross with you," she says. "But it's like a part of me feels like it's a dream sitting right in front of me, but then I also feel like I just lost it all in the same moment."
He smiles a little.
"I think I know the feeling. I mean look at me. Human. Well, half human, but still. Nine hundred some years being a Time Lord and now only a half of one. Blimey."
"You'll miss it?"
"Yeah. Well, yes and no. Feeling now the finality of this new body, doesn't seem fair to complain about all the lives I've had."
"Are you scared? Of growing old, I mean? Dying?"
He scrunches his face and thinks about denying it with a joke and high pitch tone, but then he sees her eyes. They're still watery and maybe a little scared, like he's just going to disappear too. He swallows, leans slightly closer.
"Terrified," he says. "Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah."
"When you planned to go with him, back to your universe, did you think about what it would be like ten, twenty years from now? Him never aging, having more new faces? Though I doubt any will be as good as this one here," he says and smiles when she laughs just a little.
"I won't argue with that."
"Appreciate it," he says with a smirk, but then swallows and sobers. "Or never seeing your mum or Tony again? Could you really have lived with that?"
"That's a lot of questions."
"You don't have to answer. Just curious."
She nods and sighs, looking out at nothing in particular.
"I guess I didn't really think about anything but him. You."
"And now I'm here."
"Yeah. You are."
Her brow furrows like she isn't sure if she believes him, but then she reaches her arm across the space between them and finds his hand. He laces their fingers together, while she shifts closer. She lays her head on his shoulder and he watches her sleep the rest of the flight.
/
When they finally arrive at the Tyler Mansion, Pete is there waiting for them with a squirmy toddler in his arms, who looks so much like Rose it's both startling and pleasant. Jackie rushes toward them and plants kisses upon kisses on both of them. He approaches more slowly, just a step behind Rose, and then watches as Pete throws his arms around her with poor little Tony trapped between them. Rose pulls out of the embrace and ruffles her wee brother's hair and then kisses his forehead. I never could have let her leave this.
Pete catches his eyes then and gives an uncertain smile.
"Human now, yeah?" Pete asks.
"Word travels fast," the Doctor says while he gives a pointed look to Jackie.
"Oh, don't look at me like that," Jackie says. "What you expect me to do stranded for hours..."
"Mum, I'm going to show him the guest room. I think we could all use some rest, yeah?"
Rose looks up at him and then heads into the house. He follows, realizes he will always follow her regardless as to what will or won't happen between them in this world and life. They go up stairs, around the corner and a few doors down. She opens the door to show a rather lavish guest room, but he figures that's what guest rooms are for - to impress the guest.
"There's a private loo right through that door, closets there...it should be fine...until we figure everything out."
"It's not like I have much to unpack," he says.
He wanders in and looks at the little trinkets that almost resemble those found in 19th century Earth and impressionist paintings that are identical to those he's seen so many times. He gets now what Jackie was saying - it does make him feel a bit wonky.
"Yeah, well, we can go into the city tomorrow. Get you some proper clothes. Necessities."
"Right. Necessities." Blimey.
She wrings her hands together and shifts on her feet. He stuffs his hands in his pockets because he's not sure what they'll do if he doesn't. All he wants is another moment like that on the beach - wrapped up in each other, oblivious to anything else.
"I'm two doors down on the left if you need anything," she says.
"Thank you."
She nods and then disappears out the door.
/
In the first week, Rose takes him all over London getting necessities. He's ecstatic when he finds a couple comfy pinstripe suits to add to the trousers and T-shirts she helps him pick out. He's especially amused by one that states "Trust me, I'm a doctor." She shakes her head trying not to smile, but doesn't protest. He later learns it's a catch phrase from some cheeky hospital drama and doesn't find it quite as amusing.
Next she takes him to the people in Torchwood she trusts the most. They set him up with a new name, backstory, and social security card - everything an illegal alien could need. Rose laughs after she sees what he's filled in on the paperwork.
"I like the Noble part. It's sweet, but you're really putting your first name as Doctor?"
"It's what everyone calls me. Plus human parents give their kids plucky names all the time. Just means my fake parents were a bit presumptuous and maybe a little pretentious, which they probably were."
She smiles brightly for the first time since they were dropped off and tries not to laugh. He catalogues it and tries to calculate how to recreate it in the future.
/
Within the first month, thanks to Pete's influence, Torchwood takes him on as a consultant sorting out the "archived" alien technologies without too many questions. "Archived" meaning they don't know what it bloody does. Some items he makes sure stay that way, others he goes ahead and gives them a hint about since they're relatively harmless.
Rose drives them both to work and back to the mansion each day. Most nights, after dinner, they walk around the grounds or go out into the city. They talk about all the things they did while away from each other - the year that never was, the dimension cannon, little Tony, Donna just appearing on the TARDIS out of nowhere.
They don't, however, touch much, let alone kiss. Its been a constant battle in this new hormone driven body, especially since they all seem to go in one direction at full force all the time. It's a wonder how he doesn't kiss her silly whenever she walks into a room or pulls her down onto any available surface whenever she smiles.
It's been thirty two days, six hours, and ten minutes since that kiss on the beach. They're walking the perimeter of the estate, like they've done several times before. He tells her about the second time he met Donna - the time she said yes to traveling with him.
"It seems like we were always connected," he says. "Like she was always meant to take in the regeneration energy to make me. Like I was always meant to end up here."
"Like destiny?"
He smiles, remembering Donna asking the same thing.
"Nah. Well, maybe."
He looks up at the starry sky and thinks of Donna, his best friend. The woman who made it possible for him to exist and to be standing here now with his Rose. The woman who would never know all she did for the universe. For him.
"You all right?" she asks.
"I'm always all right," he says.
"No you're not."
He stops and faces her. There's a pleading look in her eyes and for the first time he wonders, if a part of her doesn't want him to be exactly like the Doctor at all. He sighs, his whole body itchy with emotions that seem harder and harder to suppress.
"A human brain isn't equipped to handle the kind of information Donna took in. Eventually it would kill her," he says.
"So, what's that mean? How long-"
"I...he wouldn't have let it go that far. To save her he more than likely erased her memory. Everything involving him. Me."
"She won't remember any of it?"
"No."
"Travelling or anything?"
"No."
He swallows the knot forming in this throat for his short-lived sister, Doctor Donna, while Rose pulls him into a tight hug. He feels her face burrow into the place his neck and shoulder meet and pulls her tighter against him.
"I'm sorry," she says.
"Not your fault."
She pulls back a bit to look up at him and for a minute she just looks at him. Eyes filled with sympathy, but then something else as they seem to darken and dilate. His fingers twitch against her back, pleading to press along her temples to take a peek inside, but reading one's mind is kind of like sex - not something one should do without proper permission.
But then her hands snake up, brushing along his cheeks and into his hair. She pulls his mouth towards hers and then her bottom lip is between his. Its different from the snog on the beach and he's certain he can only feel the difference because of his new human self. This isn't just an impulsive kiss from surprise. Its a kiss leading to something more with her tongue sliding along his and all those hormones heading in that one direction at a ridiculous pace.
He pulls her even tighter against him and knows she can feel everything. And while there are no direct signs, he knows she's right there with him. All that biology and pheromones and need and lust and love just crashing down on them both. He thinks he understands now, more than ever, why it is humans fight so hard for what little life they are given in this world.
She pulls back then, noses still bumping together. They suck in air and harshly breathe it out.
"So? Ready to head back then?" he asks.
She grins, tongue between her teeth.
"Definitely."
"Well, come on then."
He takes her hand and runs.