There was once a man who traveled the stars. He skipped across time and space in a box full of wonders. The entire universe and everything that happened or will happen was at his fingertips. He could be anywhere at any time. All he had to do was push some buttons, pull some levers, kick a couple things, undo some rubber bands, and maybe bang on some stuff a couple of times…
Which is why, to Rose Tyler, finding this same man (well…almost the same man) sitting in her day room, watching regular ol' television with his stocking feet propped up on the coffee table, eating a bowl of ice cream for breakfast was so strange that she almost had to pinch herself to see if what she was witnessing was real. Sometimes, like now, she just stood off to the side and watched him. Most often than not, she still woke up every morning afraid that he wouldn't be there when she went downstairs. She worried that she had gone mad and that everyone would tell her that the Medusa Cascade never happened. And, in the darkest parts of her mind, she sometimes would wonder if it was really him at all. As odd as it was, he was still part human now…a clone…a copy… And even though she now accepted that he was the Doctor in new body (he likened it to regeneration), there were times where she actively looked for differences. But, to be fair, the first time he regenerated in front of her he became a completely new man with a new face and she was able to overlook that, eventually. This, really, should have been a lot easier to get used to. And it probably would have been if she didn't ever think about the other Doctor – the last of the Time Lords. He was the one (well…his body, at least) that she had traveled with for two years. She tried to think about it the way that her Doctor did. There will always be other versions of the Doctor. There were Doctors that she had never met and there were Doctors that she will never get the chance to meet. There were even Doctors that (from what he had told her) she wouldn't want to meet. The Doctor was constant and forever. Her Doctor, was not. The man that she loved would change, move on, keep running…he might not even give Rose Marion Tyler a second thought after that. He might even change so much that he wouldn't be the same man. He might change so much that he wouldn't even like Rose anymore, let alone be fond of her. Her Doctor would never do that. Her Doctor said that he loved her.
It might have taken her a while to come to this conclusion, but she had now. She kept thinking back to that day that the Time Lord had left them on Bad Wolf Bay and the one thing that really cemented it all in her mind was the way that he had looked at her when he asked, "Does it need saying?" That had been the voice of a stranger talking to her. That had not been her Doctor. The man that had stared back at her with that determined, obstinate, yet pitiful look was not the man that she knew.
This was not the case with the man that now sat on her sofa. Half Time Lord he may be. Same thoughts, same memories as the other one, but this was the man that she remembered (even if he was quite a bit sassier than she remembered. He told her that it not only had something to do with Donna's help in his creation, but also that he had traveled with Donna for quite some time and she did tend to bring out his argumentative side. It reminded Rose of the first face that the Doctor wore when she met him and so she didn't really mind it, except when his sass was directed at her.)
It had been a month since they had been stuck together in this alternate universe. They had already almost been kidnapped by fairies, suffered through family dinners, and the Doctor's first week at Torchwood (where he had fixed just about every piece of alien equipment that Pete hadn't been able to bring home…and scrap about half because it was "too dangerous for humans to have access to." The latter hadn't earned him any brownie points, but Pete and Richard were adamant that the half Time Lord have carte blanche. Rose warned them that this would do absolutely nothing for his already over-inflated ego, but if a whole Dalek fleet can't hold the Doctor back, she doubted anyone could.)
"You're doing it again," he called out from the sofa.
"Sorry," Rose mumbled from the doorway as she finally stepped into the room.
The Doctor patted the seat next to him, still not looking away from the television. Rose made her way over and sat cross legged, facing him. "Can you believe this?" he asked her, pointing to the telly with his spoon.
She glanced at the screen to see a picture of a very surprised Doctor, washed out from a camera flash, leaving the Torchwood facility. Rose could hardly hold back her laughter, even though she pressed her lips together as tight as they would go. "I tried to warn you to leave outta the back," she said.
"I don't understand what the fascination is," he lamented. "You wouldn't think the boyfriend of Pete and Jackie Tyler's long lost daughter would garner this much attention."
"Is that what you are? My boyfriend?" Rose asked, smiling with her tongue poking through her teeth.
"Well," he said, tugging on his ear and looking up at the ceiling, "they've started calling me your 'mystery man.' They really could have come up with a better title."
"Like Doctor? Or John Smith?" she asked. "Anyway, Mum's already told a few reporters that we met when I was away at boarding school. Ya know, when I was missin' for twenty years."
"So I went to boarding school too?" the Doctor asked, scrunching up his face in confusion.
Rose bit her lip and looked down at her yellow socks. "Uh, not really. Um, Mum said that you were a…uh…professor there."
The Doctor's jaw dropped at the same time that he let his spoon fall with a "clink" into his empty bowl. "She told them that I was a professor that was…with a student?"
"She had to come up with somethin'," Rose said, wincing.
"And that's the best she could do?"
"They were questioning the age difference."
He laughed then and raised up his arms to rest his head on them. "Oh, they have no idea."
"Cradle robber," she said, elbowing him in the ribs.
"Yeah," he said, scratching his chin. "Really ought to feel bad about that. But seeing as how I'm technically only a month old, I figure it evens it out a bit."
"C'mon, let's watch something else then. I'm tired of this whole town treating me like a boring Paris Hilton. Ya know, they had almost forgotten about me until you showed up."
"We're quite the scandal," the Doctor said.
"Guess that hasn't changed," she admitted.
"You going to work today?" he asked. Rose had been called in to work every Saturday since she had returned to Torchwood. Most of it had been paperwork or overseeing some things. She was easing her way back into field work. Although, thankfully, it had been quiet lately since the fairies left.
"Nope," she said, twirling her hair around her finger and settling back into the couch.
"We both have the day off?" he asked, excitement creeping into his voice.
"Seems like it."
"Whaddya want to do?"
"Well, if that ice cream hasn't spoiled your appetite, then we could go out and grab something to eat."
"Just be back 'ere this afternoon," Jackie Tyler said from the doorway. "We still need to go over all the details for the trip tomorrow."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow and gave Rose a questioning look while she groaned and threw her head back. "I completely forgot about that!"
"Don't know how you could," her mother said, plopping down in an arm chair and checking things off of a list. "Same time every year."
"Sorry, what…what trip?" the Doctor asked, his eyes darting from Jackie to Rose.
"The first year that Pete and I were together in this universe, we went away to a cabin to reconnect. Then, I 'ad Tony…"
"Thank for sharing that, Mum," Rose said, rolling her eyes.
"Anyway…" Jackie continued, "we made it a family trip after that. Same time every year, we go stay a week at the cabin."
"Sounds like you'll have loads of fun," the Doctor said, flipping through the channels.
"You're comin' too, ya dolt," Jackie said. "Half alien or not, you're part of the family now."
"Oh well, you know, Pete probably needs me to stay behind. There's so much to do at work. I've only been at Torchwood a week; wouldn't want to ask for holiday time yet. Would be…rude," he said, grimacing.
"Nah," Jackie said, waving her hand dismissively. "We already talked 'bout it. Pete wants ya to come. No one will mind. Perks of dating the boss's daughter."
"Ah," the Doctor said, rubbing his jaw and looking at Rose for help (albeit in vain). "Brilliant."
Later, when they were at Rose's favorite café for lunch, the Doctor took a bite of food off of her plate and then whipped out his mobile, scanning through the calendar.
"It's only a week, Doctor," Rose consoled him.
"One hundred and sixty eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. Six..."
"I get it," she said, cutting him off with a grin.
"Seven days, Rose," he whined. "Seven days with your parents in a cabin at a resort. Jackie mentioned fishing. Do I look like I fish?" he asked her, waving a hand down the length of his navy blue pinstriped suit.
"I'll make Mum happy."
"What if we compromise? We'll go for the weekend. They can go for the week and we'll drive up on Friday?" he was almost begging.
The thought of being alone in the house with the Doctor for five days was tempting, but also made Rose nervous. They hadn't really been given the chance to establish where they were at in terms of…dating. She supposed that they were now. But then again, other than the kiss in the kitchen after surviving the fairies, it had all been pretty common things like hand holding or sitting next to each other. But they always did that before. He had given her a couple pecks on the cheek when they parted ways at work. It seemed like they were always around other people – either her parents or co-workers – so they had constantly been distracted. She wondered if a week at the cabin (with no Torchwood) might even be good for them.
"We can't do that," she said, patting his hand. "It wouldn't be the Tyler family holiday tradition then."
The Doctor sighed. "I must really be fond of you, Rose Tyler," he said as he piled all of their trash on to the tray and went off to the rubbish bin.
"Quite right, too," she hollered after him.
As they were leaving the café, the Doctor's mobile rang. It was strange to Rose to see him answer a phone like a regular person.
"It's Torchwood," he said.
"I don't care what the emergency is," Rose cautioned him. "You're going. Mum's got an itinerary."
He made a disgusted face. "An itin…Hello, you got the Doctor."
Rose started reading the headlines of a newspaper that someone had left on one of the outside tables, until she heard the tone of the Doctor's voice.
"I see. Yes, I understand. We'll be right there," he said, shooting Rose a glance. "Yeah, Richard, we're on our way right now. No need for that. I'll get a cab. Thanks." He hung up the phone and furrowed his brow. "Richard needs us to go to the emergency room," he explained. "There's a man there who has been in a car accident and kept asking the hospital staff to call Doctor John Smith and Rose Tyler from Torchwood. He won't tell any Torchwood operatives why he wants to speak with us. Says it's private."
"So they have no idea what he wants with us?" Rose asked as the Doctor hailed a cab.
"Nope, no clue," he admitted as they slid in the back seat. "But he said that we need to hurry. The man won't be around for much longer."
"We're here to see William Greene," Rose said to the receptionist at the front desk of the emergency room. She gave Rose a room number and pointed them down the hall. The Doctor was ten paces ahead of Rose; she almost had to run to keep up. Outside the room, Richard (her father's second at Torchwood) was waiting.
"He's dying, Doctor. There's nothing that they can do. But I guess he's been asking for you since they brought him here. Do you know a William Greene?" Richard asked him.
The Doctor glanced in the room at the man in the bed and then back to Richard. "Never seen him before. The name doesn't even ring a bell. He still won't say why he's asking for me? I've only been here a month, how does he know me?"
"No idea," Richard admitted. "All he keeps saying is that he wants to speak with you alone – except for Miss Tyler here."
"Alright," the Doctor said, soberly. "In we go then."
"Doctor, are you sure it's alright?" Rose asked him.
"It's a dying man's request, Rose. We should honor it."
The Doctor entered the hospital room with Rose trailing after him. He took a seat in the chair next to the bed. Rose stood behind him, looking over the old man that was hooked to I.V.'s and beeping monitors. His face didn't look the slightest bit familiar to her.
"William," the Doctor said gently. "It's the Doctor and Rose. We're here now."
The old man's eyes fluttered open and he smiled with thin lips. Rose noted that his eyes were almond shaped and the color of amber. Again, she couldn't recognize him from anywhere.
"Doctor," the man said in a hoarse whisper and tried to sit up.
"Don't move," Rose said, kindly. "We can hear you just fine. Rest is what you need."
William chuckled. "Rest won't help. I know where I'm headed. Damn broken stop light."
"You can still pull through," Rose offered.
"Still the optimist, I see," William said to her. "Young lady, I'm not afraid of death. My Sabrina died three years ago. She should be here now. She would have been happy to see you both again."
"William, how do you know us?" The Doctor asked him.
"You saved our lives, Doctor. Don't you remember?" William asked, closing his eyes again. "And your wife over there…that sweet young lady, she saved my marriage."
Wife? Rose thought, shooting the Doctor a surprised look that he returned in her direction.
The Doctor reached out and gently grasped William's hand. "When was this, William?"
"Oh, a long time ago. She would have left me. Sabrina. She was going to leave until Rose made me see it. My life would have been ruined. I would have never had my children. Our daughter, my first born, we named Rose – after you. We never forgot you, either one of you. Then, today, I saw you on the telly, Doctor. Heard you and Rose worked for Torchwood. Couldn't believe it. You still look the same, both of you. You haven't aged. How is that possible?"
"I'm not entirely sure," the Doctor said to him.
William smiled in his weary state. "We knew you were special. Sabrina thought you were angels. I never believed that. 'No, they're something different,' I told her. Then I knew I was dying and I knew that I had to see you again; had to thank you; had to let you know that we were happy."
"We're so glad that you were happy, William," the Doctor said, patting the old man's hand. "But can you remember what year it was when we met?"
"I was so much younger then. Thought I knew it all. Couldn't be bothered, really. Couldn't be bothered with her. I just couldn't see it, Doctor. Just didn't know how daft I was. I changed, though. Changed for Sabrina. Can't wait to see her again…" William started to trail off, his head started to lull to the side against the pillow.
"Doctor…" Rose said, putting her hand over her mouth. Tears started to form in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, William. I'm so sorry," the Doctor said as the monitors started to sound an alarm.
Before Rose could register what was happening, a nurse ushered them out of the room and started offering her condolences to them in the hallway. The Doctor nodded and thanked her. Rose went to sit down in a chair. She felt heartbroken for the man. They couldn't remember him. They hadn't met him yet.
The Doctor came to sit down next to her. "We'll see him again. Are you alright?" he asked her.
"Yeah, I just… I wish I knew him," Rose said, wiping her eyes.
"I think that we will. Probably after we get this TARDIS grown," the Doctor said, reaching out for her hand.
"He called me your wife," Rose said.
"Yeah, heard that," he said simply.
"When do you think we'll meet him, Doctor?"
"Dunno. But I swiped this off of the bedside table," he said, handing her a piece of yellow paper. "Mean anything to you?"
Rose stared at the scratchy writing and she almost gasped. "Uh…yeah, actually." The paper said, "Doctor John Smith. Rose Tyler. Torchwood. Carter."
"What, Rose?" the Doctor asked her. "What does 'Carter' mean?"
"I uh…I think it means Carter Cabins."
The Doctor's back straightened and he inhaled deeply. "Cabins?"
"Yeah. That's where we have our holiday. Carter Cabins."
"Looks like we'll be seeing William Greene again soon," the Doctor said, offering Rose his hand to pull her up out of her chair.