Why hello! :D Well, this is random…yet another random "Doctor Who" oneshot by yours truly, when I really should be updating my other stories, shouldn't I? Hahaha
Well, I was inspired! And also, I WAS writing a chapter of "An Unlikely Pairing" but then I LOST ALL 8 PAGES OF IT. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW PISSED OFF THAT MADE ME???????
Ahem. :)
Anyway, I also wish to inform my regular readers (*feels posh lolol*) that I am currently on holiday in America, and my internet kinda depends on the hotel and how much it costs cos my dad is cheap ¬¬ But I will update when I can..promise! (yn)
Title: My Happy Ending
Summary: "Let's have all that. Do all the things we can do, take all the chances we get. Together. And I'll finally achieve one thing an old friend told me to do a long time ago. Have a fantastic life." Set after "Journey's End"; Rose has a choice to make.
Pairings: 10.5/Rose. Completely and utterly :)
My Happy Ending
The Tardis faded from Rose's view, the ancient engines slowly dimming until all she could hear was the wind whistling past her.
His hand was clasped firmly in hers, warm where the real Doctor's would've been cool; they could've been any other human being's, but when she turned her head, it was undoubtedly her Doctor. The similarities between them were as endless as the differences.
It would've been easier, more explicable to just lead him back to where Jackie stood, hands still clasped as they were. Instead, she allowed herself to let go and turn on her heel towards her mother.
It would've been easier, more explicable to keep looking at his smiling face, full of hope, and keep smiling too. Instead, she looked away, and all her sadness and horror at being left came to a boil, resulting in tears beginning to fall from her eyes and onto her cheeks, heart-breaking sobs wrenching from her throat.
It had been almost four years in this Universe since they'd parted last, and it seemed history was repeating itself as she stumbled forward into Jackie's arms, clutching her Mum tightly and sobbing onto her shoulder. If she had been aware of his presence, she would've noticed the Doctor standing where he had been left, back to them as if granting them privacy.
"There now, darlin'," Jackie whispered gently into her ear, rubbing her back, "What's up, eh?"
"He…he left me!" Rose choked out, "Again."
"I know, sweetheart. But it was out of kindness – you get to stay with me and your dad, and you still get the Doctor."
"No, no I don't!" Rose cried, pulling away from her mother and staring incredulously at her; her eyes were red and moist, and the cold wind bit at her wet cheeks. She swallowed once or twice, trying to compose herself, before turning to face the gray sea, folding her arms.
"I get a Doctor," she whispered, her words nearly blown away on the wind, "A lookalike. A copy. A clone. My Doctor had lived for centuries and he…he had been alive a day. How could the Doctor think I'd want this?"
Jackie sighed, and much to Rose's surprise sat down on the ground, folding her legs and patting the sand next to her. Rose gingerly sat down beside her and wiped her cheeks, suddenly embarrassed about her breakdown.
"The Doctor," Jackie began, "Knows what's best, Rose. You're right, he's lived for ages now, and he's gonna live for ages more. It would only hurt him to be as close as you were for years and years, only for you to die. At least, in this situation, you get to grow old together. Rose, I know this seems awful now, and right now, it hurts. You loved him, and he left you with a knock-off, sure, but that knock-off is the Doctor, to all intents and purposes. And he loves you, Rose. It's not hard to see,"
Rose glanced sideways at the Doctor, who was pacing on the beach, every-so-often scuffing at the sand with the tip of his trainers.
"But he's not him," Rose repeated, grasping at straws.
"Yes, but Rose, what future did you actually have with the actual Doctor?"
Even though she had expected them, and had actually thought it enough herself, the words stung, and a fresh stream of tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
"W-we could've w-worked it – it out," Rose stuttered, choked with emotion.
"How? You'd be fine, sure, but he'd have to cope with losing you in the end."
"In all of time and space, we might've…" she swallowed and wiped the tears of her cheek, sniffing, "F-found something that'd…let me…"
"Live forever?" Jackie asked, seeming genuinely shocked at such a notion. Rose nodded feebly.
"Oh…Rosie…" the older woman breathed, shaking her head, "The sky really is the limit for you, isn't it?"
Rose sighed, "It wasn't…once upon a time,"
The young woman glanced up at the cloudy Norwegian sky, and Jackie could see in her eyes that she had drifted to another time, and many different places.
"See, Mum…this is as close to the stars as I'm ever gonna get. Once, it could be done at the touch of a button, and now…"
Rose looked down, watery eyes meeting her mum's, "Now, I'm stuck on Earth, just dreaming of the past. And the Doctor wonders why I didn't want to let him leave."
"You've managed for four years now." Jackie pointed out.
"I had hope then!" Rose exclaimed, "I thought I'd make it back to the Doctor and he'd actually accept me back, and that we could fly off again, more adventures, more –"
"You can have adventures!" Jackie cut her off, equally frustrated, "The Doctor has given you him in a human form! You can have the one adventure he can never have – a family, a house, a mortgage, a dog, whatever! You can have a life, Rosie. And love is one of the greatest adventures in the world; shouldn't I know? I've had two chances at it, and I wouldn't give up your dad for all the alien planets and time travel in the world! You've always had your head in the clouds, Rose Tyler and maybe now you can just…be what the Doctor always wanted you to be. A human being. Not a bloody…space hopper!"
Rose stared, mouth open at Jackie, who finally thought to stop and breathe after her tirade. Silence followed for a moment or two, before Rose licked her lips and said in a quiet, croaky voice, "'Space hopper'?"
Jackie blinked back and shrugged, smiling slightly, and instantly both women dissolved into giggles, Rose smiling genuinely for the first time in a while. After a minute or two, when they had both sobered up, Rose nodded and sighed.
"You're right, Mum. He's given me this chance, and I can't waste it."
She glanced over at the Doctor, who had wondered over to some rocks and was perched on them; his trainers and socks were abandoned beside him, and his bare feet rested on the sand. His hands were resting behind him on the rock and his head lolled back, grinning gently.
"I'll go talk to him," Rose decided, getting up and brushing herself off.
"Good girl," Jackie grinned, also standing, "And I'll go call your dad. Tell him what happened,"
Rose hardly registered her mother's words; her stomach was twisting with nerves and she was trying to decide what to say to him. There was no doubt that he knew what they'd been talking about, even without his Time Lord hearing, and now that her head had cleared, she knew he was probably as confused and lost as she was.
She left Jackie's side and walked slowly towards him, arms still folded across her chest. He didn't seem to register her, but as she got closer, his head fell forward, smile gone, and his feet stilled where before they had been scraping across the sand, drawing strange patterns.
Rose stopped about two feet from him, just...looking. Everything about him was so Doctor, and she knew he had memories of nine hundred years in his very human head, memories of her amongst them. If she told him an inside joke from their time together, he would understand it. If she started telling a story, he could finish it. He knew her favourite sweets, how she liked her coffee, what she liked and didn't like...he was the same man she fell in love with. But, somehow, she still couldn't push out of her head that she had told a different man that, years before this man had even been born.
The silence stretched, and Rose's determination suddenly wavered; was this what was in her future, long awkward silences?
"It's been a long time."
His voice made her jump, and her eyes snapped to his face, which was still directed at the ground.
"Since?" she asked, for lack of anything else.
"Since I've sat like this, with the sand between my toes," he sighed, smiling slightly, "I was always too busy having adventures, running. It's nice to just...stop."
He sighed again, and his head lolled back once again, and he looked so peaceful, so blissfully...happy that Rose felt more tears prick at her eyes, and her lips stretched into a smile.
"Humans have it so easy. You can just have these sweet, peaceful moments. Utterly peaceful. In nine hundred years, the Doctor has had very few peaceful moments, you know. Actually, you probably do know. He has to keep travelling to avoid his demons – Earth was always a nice planet though. No demons there, really. Well, there weren't. There's always...Donna,"
Rose's eyebrows arched, surprised at the mention of the redheaded temp she'd come to know well in such a short space of time, "Donna? What about her? She knows as much as him now, they're equals..."
She trailed off when she saw the Doctor shaking his head, lips pursed and eyes still closed.
"She can't handle it, all that knowledge inside her little human mind. She's burning up; she was dying slowly as we watched. The worst part...she knows it. She knew what was happening to her."
Rose's eyes widened, and she felt a cold shiver go up her spine, "You mean she's...she's..."
"He'll save her," came the reply, as the Doctor's head tilted forward; his eyes opened and they were cold and furious, "He'll wipe her mind, make her forget everything, and drop her home. Then he'll just walk away, like he always does, running from more demons."
Rose slowly sat down beside him, not noticing how suddenly close they were, "Oh no...poor Donna,"
The Doctor turned and looked at her, and his eyes were steely as if bracing himself for what he was going to say next.
"Rose, he didn't just leave us here so you could help me. He knew what had to be done, and he thought I was 'pure' enough to be tainted by what he felt was an awful thing. And he didn't want you to be there when he effectively killed the Donna we know." he said in a small voice, and Rose swallowed, her throat suddenly dry, "He had more reasons; if it weren't for that fact, he might've kept you with him, who knows?"
The Doctor laughed bitterly, "And you know why I'm telling you this? Because now you know that this isn't completely what he wanted. You can walk away, and rebuild your little canon, get back to him and tell him you don't care, you'll still be with him. You don't have to be with me."
Rose's mind was too busy spinning to properly comprehend his words. The Doctor had had an ulterior motive in this arrangement, even if it was for the protection of both of them. And he wouldn't reject her if she came back, angry that she'd left his clone.
But Jackie's words stayed in her mind, and for the first time in years Rose could see with such clarity how doomed any romantic relationship between her and the Doctor would be; as he'd said once, humans withered and died and he was left alone. And if there was one thing Rose couldn't stand, it was the idea that even she would leave him one day.
She had a chance from a normal relationship, with a man she most definitely could love, and she knew if she let it slip away she would regret it forever.
"Did you mean what you said to me earlier? What you would've said all those years ago?"
"Irrelevant."
"Do you love me?"
"Irrelevant."
"Do you want me to find the real Doctor?"
"...irrele—"
"If you say 'irrelevant' once more, I'm gonna kick ya," Rose grinned, prodding his side.
The Doctor peered up at her from under his lashes, and said quietly, "I meant it. I do. And I don't want you to go."
Rose bit her lip, "Would it be out of line to...hear you say it?"
He smiled slightly, and shook his head, "I suppose not,"
She looked at him expectantly, poking her tongue between her teeth.
He rolled his eyes, "I love you,"
Rose exhaled shakily; she had imagined a million times what it would be like to hear him say it, but she still felt her stomach turn over, and tears sprung to her eyes.
They were both silent for a moment, Rose reeling after hearing the three little words she'd always longed to hear out loud, not just whispered in her ear, and the Doctor panicking inwardly, wondering if he'd overstepped the line, pushed her farther than she wanted to go, even if she had requested it. This silence was broken by Rose.
"We could have a life," she breathed, her voice betraying how she was feeling, "You and me. It wouldn't be perfect, we'd probably fight sometimes; a lot, maybe...but it would be completely normal and human. And it would be fantastic,"
Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, her mouth smiling hugely even as tears leaked onto her cheeks. The Doctor breathed a silent sigh of relief, looking away from her so she wouldn't see that he had doubted her, even for a second.
"I could work at Torchwood," he said thoughtfully, staring out to sea, "Work alongside you, both of us putting our knowledge to good use,"
"Absolutely," Rose said enthusiastically. He turned to look at her, eyes warm.
"You and I could get married," the Doctor said quietly, all seriousness.
Rose couldn't keep back her eager nod. His face split into a lopsided grin.
"We could get a little place somewhere," he suggested.
"A house maybe," Rose added, shrugging.
"Maybe a...spare room for a nursery?"
Rose leant forward towards him, and her hand covered his, "But we have some things to sort out first."
"What?" the Doctor asked, frowning.
Rose's smouldering eyes met him, and she set in a quiet voice, "Kiss me."
He didn't need telling twice; taking his hands away from hers, the Doctor gently cupped her face and leant in, his lips barely brushing hers. Rose's eyes fluttered closed immediately, and her hands moved up to rest on his chest – momentarily, the feel of only one heartbeat gave a pang of longing for the real Doctor, but just from that kiss, she knew she would get used to it, and in a few months she would barely even think about two hearts at his touch.
Feeling Rose kiss back, the Doctor allowed himself to deepen the kiss, bringing himself even closer to her as their lips met more passionately, his hands sliding the length of her side to wrap around her waist and her hands gripping his collar, tugging him closer still.
Eventually, they had to break apart due to the need to breathe – a problem the Doctor had never encountered before – but even then they kept their closeness, Rose's hands gripping his collar and his around her waist.
"Is he gonna be alrigh'?" Rose asked quietly, "Rattling around, in that old spaceship of his, with all that guilt?"
The Doctor was strangely silent for a moment, his eyes unfocused, before nodding, telling her, "Yeah. He gets to live forever, and if all that time does one thing, it heals."
"And Donna?"
This time, he responded quickly and enthusiastically, "Donna? Oh yes! She's not gonna remember her time with me – him – but she's still brilliant. Always was, always will be. And she gets to live the same adventure as us. Love, family, work, emotions, life, chips. He'll make it up to her; he'll make sure Donna's happy. She'll be just fine."
Rose smiled back, "And we will too, Doctor,"
He frowned suddenly, eyebrow arched, "'Doctor'...I may need a new name now I'm human. I can't go around having everyone call me 'Doctor' – sounds a bit high 'n' mighty, 'specially since I know so little about medical health..."
"How about John Smith?" she suggested. He shrugged, and smiled.
"Well, it'll do for now I suppose."
"Alright...John," Rose grinned widely, "It's nice to finally put a proper name to the face...even though I will always call you 'Doctor'. It'll be like a little pet name!"
He beamed back, and Rose couldn't resist leaning forward to kiss him again.
"Oi! You two! Enough snoggin', we have to walk to the road to meet your father!"
The two broke apart at the sound of Jackie's voice, and John groaned, rolling his eyes.
"You know in this little life of ours?" he asked. Rose nodded, and John continued, "Well, is she gonna be in it much?"
Rose laughed, and took his hand, squeezing it lightly, "Well, yes. But despite her, we will have everything we talked about – the house, the marriage, the kids, the domestics; the greatest adventure of all. Let's have all that. Do all the things we can do, take all the chances we get. Together. And I'll finally achieve one thing an old friend told me to do a long time ago."
"What's that?" John asked, smiling adoringly at her. Rose's grin widened, and she said with a laugh:
"Have a fantastic life!"
Five Years Later
In the morning light, this room seemed a lot calmer than it had been overnight.
Through tired eyes, Rose Tyler-Smith could see three pale yellow walls of the hospital room; the far wall was completely glass, showing a sunny view of London, the Thames calmly flowing and Zeppelins moving lazily through the clear sky.
Upon sitting up, Rose could see Jackie's jacket thrown on the sofa, probably from last night in her haste to get to her daughter, and had a feeling she, and Pete were downstairs in Starbucks – a whole universe away and they still had Starbucks!
Tony lay across the sofa, snoring softly; he was eight years old now, and the spitting image of Rose. They had the same wide brown eyes, and the same tousled hair, although his was a lot darker what with Rose's tendency to dye hers. As she watched her sleeping brother, she felt truly guilty for keeping him up all night – even though that had been Jackie's idea, not hers!
She was about to get up when the door swung up and John stepped in, a small white bundle held tightly in his arms.
"Hey, you're awake!" he whispered, eyes lighting up. Rose nodded eagerly, sitting up and reaching her arms out towards him. He grinned back and moved forward, gingerly lowering himself to sit on the bed beside her, before passing the bundle to Rose.
As she settled back on the pillows, and took a good look into the blankets, Rose felt her eyes begin to water. A little pink face looked back up, dark blue eyes staring back at her. Everything about this tiny little human was so...so perfect. Her wide blue eyes, her little button nose, her small pink mouth, her tiny hands that could barely wrap around Rose's little finger... she was just perfect.
"Hi," Rose whispered, gently rocking her daughter, "Hi there, little one,"
John positively beamed at them; his two perfect girls.
"You should get some sleep," Rose told him, not looking up from her daughter.
"I don't need it," John said quickly, although the words were wasted on the yawn that soon followed.
"Yeah, right," his wife scoffed.
"Fine, fine," he gave in with an eye roll, quickly leaning across to press a kiss to his wife's lips, and one to his daughter's head, before retreating to the second sofa in the room, soon following Tony's lead and drifting off.
Rose looked back down at the baby and grinned, sighing happily.
"Oh, my little girl," she breathed, "My little Donna."
As Rose was greeting her newborn daughter, somewhere, a whole universe away, Donna Noble felt a tingle go up her spine, abruptly finishing her work on the shopping list. She looked up, pushing her glasses up on her head, and frowned.
"Mummy!" a little voice cried, and a second later Donna's daughter was bouncing into the room, jumping excitedly into her mother's lap.
"Hello there, little one!" Donna laughed, the tingle already forgotten, "Are you ready to go to Grandma's?"
The little redheaded child nodded eagerly, her blue eyes alight with excitement.
"Grandpa Wilf promised he'd tell me more about the blue box man!"
Donna rolled her eyes at the mention of her grandfather's silly old stories.
"Oh, my little girl," she tutted, "You shouldn't believe everything your Grandpa Wilf tells you stories about, my little Rose,"
...wow, I got a wee bit off topic at the end o_O
In fact the whole thing was off topic D: not really my best piece, but I love it so I shall put it up regardless (:
Please review? Reviews make me smile :D and update my other stuff faster ;)
Flames make me cry, and bury myself in a hole of DOOOOOM~ :(
And I will accept critique – I would love to hear how I can improve xD
Review! xxxxxxxx