These Small Hours
TenII/Rose, set post Journey's End. Rose and Not-the-Doctor struggle to build a life of meaning and adventure of the everyday kind. If that's possible.
"With so much lost for both of them… how were they supposed to overcome that? How were they supposed to not be the pair they had been, to just be Rose and the—Rose and whoever the hell he was if he wasn't the Doctor?"
Credits: Everything recognizable belongs to the BBC. Fic title and lyrics at chapter headings are from the song "Little Wonders," by Rob Thomas.
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1.
let it go, let it roll right off your shoulder
don't you know the hardest part is over
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When Rose turned to face him, there in the living room of her flat, it felt very wrong. Suddenly, what had seemed so simple, so right, on that dreadful Norwegian beach, suddenly it felt oppressive and out of synch.
The Doctor-who-was-not-the-Doctor leaned against the doorframe, hovering on the edge on her sitting room. Eyes she knew so well, deep and ancient and sparkling, swept the room with childlike wonder. He ran a hand back through his impossible hair and pulled a toothy, familiar smile.
"All yours?" he asked, impressed or skeptical.
"Mm-hm. Well, I couldn't live with my Mum and Dad forever," she demurred.
"Rose Tyler," he said, exactly the same. Exactly the way her name had always rolled off his tongue. "Have you got yourself a mortgage?"
She laughed, half because he remembered and half because she didn't want to. "Shut up," she said lightly. "So what if I do?" She'd done it all herself, too. Didn't need to share it with anyone. Torchwood paid well, even if your boss wasn't also your dad, and she'd be damned if she was going to be dependent on someone else forever. That left you vulnerable.
He read her defensiveness, and his joking expression folded in on itself. He straightened, but made no move to come further into the room, made no effort to approach her, touch her.
"Rose." His voice was strained, gentle. "I don't want you to think you have to—you didn't make me any promises. I can find someplace to—"
"No. This is fine, it's all fine. You can sleep on the—do you sleep then?" He nodded. "Right, the sofa. You should be comfortable enough there. You can stay as long as you like."
Not-the-Doctor took two steps into the room. "I'm sorry."
She scoffed, waved one hand dismissively, "What for?"
"For being who I am, what I am. For not being him."
There it was. He said it. It was out now, between them.
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He wasn't sure if it was better said or unsaid, but he let the words hang in the air a moment, watched her posture to read the reaction. She gave a half-nod, almost to herself, confirming that yes, this was exactly his offense: he looked like the Doctor, like the man she loved, but he was not. Not either of those things.
"Not your fault," she said, avoiding his gaze.
True and not true. He cursed himself, his other self, his Time Lord self, for thinking this was a good idea, for forcing him upon her like this. What did he think, that matchmaking was so easy? That you could take two people who should—who in some ways did—love each other and just stick them together in a room and trust it to work out? With so much lost for both of them, the same things lost for both of them: the TARDIS, time travel, a universe full of adventure, and the Doctor, always the Doctor, who was his own self and close enough to be the missing half of her self too—how were they supposed to overcome that? How were they supposed to not be the pair they had been, to just be Rose and the—Rose and whoever the hell he was if he wasn't the Doctor?
How was that supposed to be enough?
His heart thudded in his chest and he was painfully aware of its missing partner, missing like the part of him he'd been ripped from, missing like the man Rose had lost. One feeble, stupid, human heart, beating away on its own, beating away without everything that had made it whole and strong. Pointless. Weak.
He felt his universe, this universe, stretching out before him, measured in half-heartbeats and marked by the emptiness of things lost. The only benefit was that it was a shorter road than the Doctor was taking.
Rose had turned and crossed into the small kitchen, busying herself with the teakettle. He heard her set it on the burner with a loud rattle betraying the tremor in her hands. Softly, he crossed the living room and slipped through to the kitchen. She was standing before the stove, her hands braced against the countertop, shoulders slumped. Her body hitched a little, and he knew she was holding back sobs, and not doing a very good job of it.
She knew he was there, and spoke softly, almost to herself. "You don't know what it was like, seeing him again after all this time, after the way he left…"
He swallowed around the lump in his throat, biting back the memory of seeing her, the elation, like the clearing of thick fog, when he tuned and saw her silhouetted in the street, running to her like a thirsty man runs to water, the shame at the reminder of his unfinished farewell and the fear of seeing reproach, anger, old resentment in her eyes. He sighed. "I know how terrifying it was seeing you again." He gave a short, choked, laugh. "How you must hate me. Him. Us."
She whirled on him then, pushing off from the counter, eyes fiery with unshed tears, meeting his words for the permission they were.
"He left me! Left me on that bloody beach, the bastard! I'd rip apart the fabric of a dozen worlds to find him, and he bloody well left me alone!"
His scream as she fell toward the void echoed in his ears, but he tried to reason with her. "Not alone," he offered. "You had your parents, together again, and Mickey…"
"Without him, I am alone."
Her tone was hard, angry, but he knew the vulnerability in those words, and the truth of them. Neither Martha in all her brilliance nor Donna, best mate a guy could have, had left him to work solo, and yet he was always alone. "It was the same for me," he said softly, then amended, "—him."
A flicker of compassion ran across Rose's face, and for a moment he thought she believed him. He watched the warring behind her eyes, her desire to believe that her Doctor had loved her, somewhere the underlying simple truth that the man before her was enough of that Doctor to still love her. But the wound was a deeper cut, and pain seethed up, hardening her eyes even as the first wave of tears slipped from the centers.
"And then he did it again. How could he do it again?" There was no answer, and yet he could tell she needed one, needed a justification, a way to either give him permission or make him a monster, anything to explain the incongruence of a man who could love her as he hinted, and yet leave her twice without ever saying so.
"That's something I'll never know, because I couldn't," he said honestly. Not that it made him any better—he wasn't sure it did—but it was the only truth he knew.
"He did it again," she repeated, her voice rising, "again! He left me again."
"He did."
The simple, flat fact, inescapable, uncomfortable. Much as he could tell she wanted to deny it, wanted to make it anything else, she couldn't, and so she raged against it. She let out an unintelligible cry, and tore into him, slapping at him with open hands, balling fists and hitting his chest, his sides, yanking the fabric of his suit coat. She poured her frustration and grief into his torso with all she had, her voice growing ever more ragged, her cheeks flushed and muddied with mascara. He absorbed it, accepted it as his own penance, reveled in it as the vicarious fury he wanted to unleash on the Doctor for what he had done and failed to do, for how he had hurt Rose, for how he had thought that giving her less than half of himself would do anything other than assuage his own guilt. As her thrashing eased and her breathing slowed, he wound his arms around her, cradling her like a child in the throes of a temper tantrum. She was warm and familiar in his arms, like every other time he had held her and rocked her in her sorrow, or fear, or relief.
She drew a shuddering breath and exhaled against his shirt, and he stroked her hair back from her blotchy face.
"Better?" he asked, not loosening his hold on her.
She nodded against his chest. When she spoke, he voice was small, ashamed. "I wanted to hurt him," she admitted. "I wanted him to suffer, to feel what it was like to watch me leave him alone. That's why I did it."
He swallowed hard, determined not to let that sting the way it did, determined to hold onto the brightness of that kiss, his and his alone. But no, she'd meant it not out of reciprocation or joy at what he'd said, but for vengeance, a wrathful attack on the man who had twice spurned her.
He rested a cheek against the top of her head and pulled up instead the memory of the first time he'd said goodbye, watching the wind tangle her hair while he stood a universe apart aboard the TARDIS. He felt the words he should have said then burn in the back of his throat, felt the tears that he should have let her see slide down his face, alone, forever alone. "Do you think he didn't suffer, Rose?" he whispered into her hair. "D'you think it didn't break him into a million pieces to leave you, to never tell you…"
The teakettle whistled, and she broke away to silence it and gather the cups.