Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of the characters.
Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night, and panics at the silence filling up her room instead of the constant content hum of the TARDIS. Her eyes struggle to half-open but ultimately bow defeat to the weariness free flowing through her veins, and her mind screams at her in a tone that reminds her of blaring sirens from New Earth- something's not right. She hastily reaches out with her left hand to feel for him, to make sure that he's alright, that it was all just a twisted nightmare and she did not actually get stranded in a parallel dimension by some sadistic force in the universe, and he subsequently did not leave her there with his half-human clone. Her fingers find the familiar rugged texture of his skin, and her lips curl up into a relieved smile, until she feels a hollow space where his right heart should have been triumphantly beating in rhythm with hers.
Oh. Right.
So this must be what it would have felt like if the ship in the Krip Tor mission had delved into the black hole.
Sometimes she wishes she could borrow the TARDIS just once more, and travel back in time, to the home of a certain blonde beauty in France some centuries back, and fix the broken mirror that brought them seven years of rotten luck.
He takes her to Paris on their honeymoon. It's a lovely winter night, and he can't stop looking at her with a look of absolute adoration on his face. "Mrs. Rose Smith", he says, the words still new and delightful to him, "I swear on Rassilon, your smile is brighter than the eleventh moon of the planet Barcelona. And that moon is so bright, it's brilliant. It's because of the insane amount of diamonds found in the oceans. Did you know that the earth only has 0.05% of the diamonds of the Universe?"
Her tantalizing tongue touches her teeth as she smiles back at him, her heart a puddle of happy giddy emotions, but...
But something just doesn't feel right.
"Don't you feel strange?" She asks her mot one day when she and John visit her family for thanksgiving dinner, and the two women are left alone to chat for a while.
Jackie looks up from the bowl of broccoli that the youngest Tyler is refusing to touch. "Huh? Are you coming down with the flu or something? You're not knocked up, are you?"
"Mum!" She protests, shaking her head. "I mean, dad. He's not..."
She doesn't even know how to put it into words. It's like, well, when you love a man, you love him, whether he has big ears and wears leather jackets, or is a skinny, rude and not ginger sod in a long brown trench coat. And though you love the man who looks and talks and feels like just him, blimey, something just doesn't feel right!
"He's..." She tries again, still at a loss for the perfect words, and settles for, "different", mentally chuckling at how her Doctor would have followed that up by asking "different good or different bad?"
Her mother stares at her like she had done when she told her she is marrying the Doctor. "Different doesn't mean bad, Rose!" She exclaims, standing up now to face her daughter, concern written on her face. "He's still my Pete. The One. Mr. Right. Whatever you kids call it."
Rose worries her bottom lip between her teeth, watching her brother and absent-mindedly thinking of the possibility of having a baby, before her mother's next words bring her out of her maze of thoughts. "Your father likes this quote. It says something like, in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you."
A smile spreads across Rose's lips, despite all the things that seemed to be dragging her very soul to the ground for so long. "That's deep. And that sounds suspiciously like I will find you and I will kill you."
Jackie shrugs, returning her mind to the more important issue of broccoli and stubborn kids again. "That's how I feel about your bloke. But we were talking about how you feel."
And the things is, she, she feels... She doesn't know what she feels!
And then one day he finally snaps. She's in the kitchen, unloading the week's supply of groceries, when he suddenly stands up from his place on the couch, closes the distance between them in three swift strides, and stares at her with pained eyes. "Do you think I don't miss it?"
She blinks, with the jar of jam still clutched mid air in her right hand. "What?"
"The stars", he says, his eyes shining with the reflection of his pink and white wife, as he looks back at the past, at the vivid memories of the events that he did not get to experience but can recall like it was just yesterday. "The travels. The adventures. Gallifrey. TARDIS." His voice threatens to break, so he clears his throat, "My second heart. The hum. The planets. The banana chips from S.M.D., although there's this shop across your mum's flat I keep forgetting to tell you about. They make these amazing banana ice-cream where they-"
"John?", she interrupts his babbling mid-sentence, setting the jar down on the table softly and staring at him, urging him to go on.
He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. "You don't even call me Doctor anymore."
A sharp pain takes the air out of her lungs, like a bee piercing its sting in the bosom of a flower and sucking all the nectar out. "I..." She doesn't even know what to say.
"You're the only constant in my life, Rose." He says, giving her a sad smile. "And you're the one I miss the most."
And the thing is, she, she... She kisses him. Hard and needy and passionate and desperate like it's the end of the universe and time is running out and their survival depends on how their tongues can struggle for dominance with each other. "I'm sorry", she says when they have to break apart for want of air, "You adjusted so well to the domestics. The job, the marriage, mortgage -"
He interrupts her to counteract her argument. "Torchwood is basic alien business, no big deal. I'm married to you, so not a problem there. And mortgage. Wellll, let's just say your father is a really generous man."
She ignores his comment and continues. "I never even thought what it must be like for you. God, I'm selfish."
He shakes his head like a little child refusing to go to bed, and the thought of a baby pops into her head yet again, but now is not the time. "You're not selfish, Rose. You're just human. There's only so much that your limited brain chemistry allows you to focus on, and since I love you, I can't blame you for being an inferior species who-"
"Oi!" She warns, hitting him on the arm, and her smile matches his, as they rest their forehead against each other, knowing all is forgiven. "I love you."
"I know." He mentally notes to himself to definitely show his brother-in-law the Star Wars movie that he borrowed this cheeky retort from, despite how Jackie feels about galaxies and wars and him tempting her precious little kids into danger.
She rolls her eyes, stepping away from him. "I don't exactly miss it." She finally says, wanting to set the record straight once and for all. "Maybe", she swallows, not knowing what to say, and then laughs at herself, at how ridiculous she is being. "There's two you's. You're same yet different. And I love you both. But sometimes I feel like I'm cheating on both by thinking of the other and I feel like, like..."
"Like something's not right?" He completes for her, and she loves how he can be so daft sometimes and so knowing at others.
"Yeah", she nods. "It's all so confusing."
"I know," he rubs her arms, tracing patterns over her jacket in Gallifreyan script, confessing everything that the English language has no words for. "Like I said, you're just human. There's only so much that your limited brain chemistry allows you to focus on, and since I love you, I can't blame you for being an inferior species who can't figure out- Ouch!"
This time she steps on his foot and grins victoriously at his totally manly yelp. Before he can complain, she hands him the jar of jam to distract him, and he happily opens the lid and puts his finger in, licking the delicacy with a satisfied moan that makes her heart flutter.
"It could have been worse." He says, when he's done being adorable. "You could have had Capgras delusion, for example. You'd have thought I'm an impostor, and tried to hit me with a cricket bat."
"Like mum did?" She grins at the memory, when he had asked her parents for permission to marry her because she had managed to convince him that Jackie would never forgive him if he didn't, and this had been her reaction.
He grimaces, "Yup", pops the 'p', and returns to his ministrations of the jam.
And these are those times when she feels like she doesn't need to figure out what's not right, as long as she's in this with him, and he feels the same way.
And that's quite alright.
A/N: I hope you like it. Please review! Have a great day! :D