Wanna Go Home
By: SilverLunarStar
Disclaimer: I hold no claims over Doctor Who.
Note: Heavily influenced by Michael Bublé's Home. Hmm... This is my second fic with this song... *shrugs* It's a favourite, what can I say? Also! A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DEAR ISILIEN ELENIHIN!
It was summertime and it'd been almost three weeks since he'd been on the road. Three, long hellish weeks and he'd only been able to see his Rose Tyler once during a quick video conference. A conference in which her alternate universe father, their boss, had been a part of. The Doctor was not happy.
His first stop was Paris. He shuddered. Their first fight, him and Rose's, just as they'd finally settled down in Pete's world, had been about France back in their original universe. Both had said things they didn't mean and they'd barely made up two days before he'd received this assignment.
There was a pack of aliens that had landed on Earth almost two months ago and they were leaving a trail of bodies. Technically, this wasn't his job. He had happily been working at the University of London for a whole semester, though he consulted with Torchwood every once in a while when necessary. However, whereas this was usually Rose's job, she had already been deep into an assignment and Torchwood's other teams were either occupied with their own work or inexperienced. Or, in the case of the team he was travelling with, leaderless.
Begrudgingly, the Doctor had accepted the temporary position, so long as he was back in time to prepare for the fall semester at the university. It wasn't that he didn't want to save these people, but he had become too used to Rose's presence that, the first night away from her, he had not been able to sleep at all. In fact, he'd called her using his brand new mobile and he could tell she hadn't slept well either. While they had both had years to get used to adventures without the other, he didn't want that anymore. They had also agreed that working together might not be the best idea.
Rome was the next place the aliens led the Doctor and his team to. Although he was always used to travelling with someone, or sometimes even a pair or two of someones, it wasn't the same. It didn't feel right. He was finally reunited with Rose, he could finally give her the life she deserved, live the life he'd always wanted with her, and he didn't want to waste a minute of it. He just wanted to get back to London and soon.
One night, during the second week away from her, the Doctor began remembering all the letters he'd written for Rose when he'd first lost her. At first they were only a line or two, but then, with his tendency to ramble, they became longer and longer. He would tell her about his day, about Martha, about Donna, the Ood, Jack, and even the Master. In one he begged her forgiveness. In another he pleaded for her to return to him.
After that one, he'd almost thrown the box he kept them in into a wormhole.
He stopped writing after that for a while. What was the point? She wasn't there to hear, or read, his words. It didn't matter how much he screamed and raged at the universe. Rose was gone and she wasn't coming back.
Except she did. Somehow, Rose Tyler had done the impossible and she had come home to him. And although there was one of him out there without her, she had him now and that wasn't ever going to change.
Of course, the Doctor being the Doctor, he was a genius and he never let anyone forget, but sometimes, and these were rare occasions, really, he was very stupid. If Rose had been here, she would have let him have it. Unfortunately for him, she wasn't. On the fourth day in Rome, the Doctor finally got a lead on the Ejgrsfi and after what he thought to be careful planning, he and the team set a trap.
It backfired tremendously. The six men and women the Doctor was temporarily leading were hardly scratched, but the half-Time Lord took the brunt of the attack. What they hadn't realised was that the Ejgrsfi in this universe were telepathic and, the Doctor, the only being around with the highest capability of telepathy, was viewed as a threat. There were only two Ejgrsfi in all, but it had taken all six agents to capture them while they were distracted by the Doctor. However, simply handcuffing them and putting them in the back of the Torchwood lorry wasn't enough.
Heidi Carls, one of the more promising agents, finally realised what was going on and pulled up a small box that worked as a telepathic shield. She threw it in the back with the Ejgrsfi as it could only be deactivated with her fingerprint and the Doctor finally stopped withering on the ground. He was motionless and Heidi shouted at one of the men to get him into the back of a car and to the nearest hospital.
It felt like an out of body experience, as if what was happening to someone else. He could feel what was going on around him, but could do nothing about it. The Doctor was dragged into their one SUV and laid out in the back seat. Once the smell of disinfectant and… was that burnt flesh? - everything began to go dark and he simply floated around in a meaningless void, similar to when he first lost Rose. There was something different now, however, something he didn't have before and it came what felt like ages later. There was hope and he heard it in a soothing, if reprimanding voice.
"I swear, if you don't come back to me right now, I'll never forgive you. You, you'll spend…" A sob interrupted the beginning of the tirade and a couple of drops splashed on his hand, a hand that felt warmer than the rest of him. He tried moving his fingers, but found that they wouldn't. It wasn't fair. He wanted to hold the hand under his just like she held his, like he always had, like they always had. For he knew that hand as well as he knew his own, but his body wouldn't obey him. At least not yet.
Time moved on, as it was wont to do and it was only after he felt the soft silk of her golden blonde hair on his forearm that he finally regain movement of his fingers. Judging by the slow breaths ticking his manly, hairy arm, however, she was asleep. Well. That complicated things. He wanted her to notice now so she wouldn't be mad at him - though something told him he would still hear it from her.
Although it felt like all he had done was sleep, he felt it tug at him once again. Okay, so he had been unconscious and couldn't really count it as sleep, but… He gave a mental sigh. Tomorrow, tomorrow he would awaken and he would finally be with Rose Tyler.
Everything would be alright and he would be home.