Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who . . . the show would be much, much different and would mostly entail Doctor/Rose fluff. -raises hand- I'd watch it!
A/N: Inspired by a conversation my husband and I had about the Doctor's goodbye to Rose in End of Time.
Warning: Extreme angstiness ahead.
Allons-y!
. . .
What Needs Saying
It's snowing.
A flake lands on the Doctor's hand and he licks it off. It tastes wet, nothing artificial or fabricated. He can't remember the last time he's seen snow, real snow, that wasn't the result of some alien genocide or supernatural catastrophe.
It's nice. Such a simple word, he thinks, to encompass such a strong feeling. He can't remember the last time he felt nice.
The Doctor limps out into the cold. The snow blankets everything – himself included – softening and smoothing sharp edges, so much so that he almost wonders if he is in the right place.
But it is a difficult place to forget. If it had been easy, he would not still remember to skip the second step (it squeaked) or recall the exact inventory of the pantry closet that last day (he had raided it for bananas and peanut butter).
He came here a lot, after. While Martha visited with her family (Mrs. Jones was even less fond of him than Jackie and that was saying something) or while she slept or while she did anything, really, that did not involve running, the Doctor would take the TARDIS down to the Powell Estates. He had never gone back in time, had not wanted to risk a paradox, the present had sufficed.
Well, no, not really. To say it sufficed was to say that staunching a bullet hole with a piece of tissue-paper was sufficient. It hurt every time, but he was pulled to the place like metal filings to a magnet. He held out an eternal, ridiculous hope that one day the TARDIS would materialize and Rose would be there waiting, bag packed and ready for another adventure.
Took you long enough, Doctor, she would say. And then he would laugh and she would laugh and he would grab her hand and. . . .
Some other family lives there now. He had seen them move in, had even offered to help with some of the heavier boxes if only to step into the flat one more time. He wondered if the second stair still squeaked, wondered what they planned on stocking the pantry with (not pears, never pears). But the guy, muscles bulging threateningly, had only given him an odd look and said they were fine, thanks.
The last time had been with Donna. Loud and brash as always, she insisted on finding out where he disappeared to every week (twice if he could manage it). It was only they arrived that she went silent, only watched as he watched the flat, willing Rose or Mickey or even Jackie to appear. After a mere half-hour, she had been forced to drag him away.
"I want you to promise me you won't go back there," she had said. "If she loved you, if she really loved you. . . . Doctor, Rose wouldn't have wanted you to spend your life like this. . . . Doctor, promise me."
And he had promised. He hadn't gone back.
But did promises really matter when you were dying? A promise made, no less, to a woman who could no longer remember it.
It's selfish, he knows, but isn't he entitled to be selfish once in a great while? Once in such a great while. For all the thousands of lives he's saved, isn't he allowed this one reward?
He doesn't plan to do anything but watch, not at first. It will be nothing more than a one-sided farewell, a goodbye she will never know happened. And that's alright, that's great, that's molto bene. To see her happy, one last time, should be enough for him, shouldn't it?
But it's not. God help him, it's not. He spots her from a distance, Jackie at her side. They're discussing boyfriends and the Doctor feels an irrational surge of jealousy. He wants to tell himself that it doesn't matter – that it's far too late (or early) for it to matter – but it does.
He can't just let her pass by without saying something, doing something. To do nothing would be to make what they had had nothing more than Time Lord and companion when she was – when she has always been – so much more than that. When she has the power to heal him and tear him apart again.
"Don't stay out all night," he hears Rose warn – Try and stop me, Jackie retorts – and now she is starting his way, her footsteps crunching in the softly falling snow. The Doctor's throat constricts, he wants to say something, anything, but no words will come. She will turn and go inside and this moment – just like so many others – will pass him by, gone forever.
Panicked, the Doctor steps forward – there has to be something he can say, what use is a gigantic brain if he can't think of something to say now of all times? - just as a wave of pain ripples through him. Crying out, he falls to the ground and for a moment thinks he might just stay there. It wouldn't be a terrible place to go, after all.
"You alright, mate?"
She is standing over him, with snow in her hair, her purple hat askew and her cheeks flushed with cold and all he can think is how beautiful she looks. And somehow he finds the strength to respond.
"Yeah." He tries to smile, manages it, tries to get up – and almost falls again.
Rose laughs, extends a hand. "Doesn't look like it." The Doctor takes it, half-expecting her to whisper Run and bring them back to the start.
The start. . . . It had been only a few years (a blink in the life of a Time Lord) but how much had changed since then. . . . How much had he changed?
"Too much to drink?" she asks instead.
"Something like that." A wry smile.
"Maybe it's time you went home," she suggests, one arm still held out in case he loses balance again.
"Yeah," the Doctor repeats. He spots a nearby bench and begins an arduous trek towards it.
"You live here, then?" Rose nods toward the flats he is stumbling towards – he spots her window, Christmas tree lights illuminating the dark sitting room.
The Doctor remembers sitting around that Christmas tree. Rose had poured him a glass of eggnog and they had sung carols. She had taken his hand (his new-new Doctor hand) in hers, smiling at him – that tongue-between-her-teeth smile that he loved – and he had smiled goofily back. He had never thought he could feel so happy.
"No." When what he wants to say is I wish I did.
"Oh." She looks nonplussed for a moment but continues following him toward the bench. "Your girlfriend, then?"
"Not anymore." The Doctor sinks onto the bench, panting as though he has just run a marathon.
The Doctor hears, rather than sees, Rose sit down next to him. "You have a row?" she asks sympathetically. She shivers in the cold – she's dressed far too lightly for such weather, he muses – and he resists the urge to drape his overcoat across her shoulders.
She used to do that all the time, wear only a low-cut sweater when he explicitly told her to dress warmly. He would always act ticked-off (though he didn't mind the view – he wonders now if that was why she did it, the minx) and she would always act hurt but it never lasted long. She would always inch that little bit closer and he would always shrug off his long coat, throw it around her shoulders, and pull her closer still with an apologetic kiss to her forehead.
Rassilon, he wishes he could kiss her now. A real kiss, not one that was quick and chaste, bestowed on her forehead or nose after returning, triumphant, to the TARDIS but one that would steal her breath and leave her – leave them both – hungering for more. Those chances passed him by long ago and now all that remains are these few, precious minutes.
"Yeah." When what he wants to say is No, she was trapped in a parallel world and when we finally found each other again I accidentally made a clone of myself that could actually give her what she needed and I made her stay with him instead. And it breaks my hearts every day.
Hesitantly, Rose reaches up to pat his shoulder. "She'll come 'round, mate, you'll see. New Year's, new start an' all that. . . ."
"New Year's?" The Doctor has never felt so lost, lost in the very thing he is a supposed lord of. He could barely pilot the TARDIS to get here, his only parameter a very vague pre-2005. His head spins, darkness gathering at the corners of his vision – it won't be long now.
"Blimey, how much have you had?" Rose laughs and the sound – what a beautiful sound – acts as a beacon that he hones in on. "It's been January first 2005 for around . . . a half-hour now?" She shows him her watch, the digital numerals blinking 12:32 AM.
"Two-thousand and five," he echoes. And he sees it all.
He remembers the running – so much running – and the danger and the aliens; the laughing and the hugging – so much hugging, anytime they could get away with it – and the dancing (literal dancing). And he remembers the wanting: so much wanting.
"You know what?" he says and he smiles at her – it almost feels like one of his old grins. "I think this will be a great year."
"That's the spirit." She pats his shoulder again, her hand radiating warmth. "Bring her 'round sometime, yeah? My mum and I, we live there too. Ask your girlfriend if she's knows Rose an' Jackie Tyler. Maybe we're neighbors."
"Maybe."
The Doctor can only assume he must still look dubious because she gives him a reassuring smile. "Just bring flowers and chocolates next time you see 'er. Works like a charm."
"I'll have to remember that one." When what he wants to say is Why didn't you tell me that after Reinette?
For a fortnight after the France Incident (the capitals more than merited), Rose had gone through all the motions – exclaiming over various landmarks he would take her to and saving a whole planet every other day – but there had been something just a bit off. Instead of their usual evening pastimes, she would retreat to her bedroom. The TARDIS had felt unnaturally empty those few weeks without her curled next to him in the library or the cinema room (where he would have even watched one of her inane romances to bring a smile to her face). By the time he had worked out the problem – for a Time Lord, he could certainly be thick sometimes – she had returned to him again and he was too much of a coward, too terrified of losing her (for good this time), to bring it up.
Another moment that had passed him by.
Another mistake to add to his long list.
"D'you need me to call you a cab?" she asks now.
"Nah, I should be fine."
"You're sure?" She looks genuinely concerned and his heart swells. "You don't look too good."
He remembers the smiles he would get from pretty girls in pubs and how Rose would be at his side fast as a shot, grasping his arm and tossing her hair and shooting the girls a hands-off look that she thought he didn't see. Not that he didn't do the same thing if another man so much as looked at her – the jealous type she had called him then, and he would only scoff and come up with some other reason for dragging her away. He admits it now, just as he admits everything – what reason does he have to suppress it? What pride?
"It's a short walk. Besides, it might sober me up some."
"Alright. . . ." She still looks doubtful but the next shiver that courses through her body makes the decision for her. He hopes she doesn't get sick; how will she fend without her Doctor to nurse her back to health, to provide endless amounts of tea and tissues? "Well . . . see ya." She starts back toward the house. He imagines she will make herself a cup of tea, maybe watch some telly or phone Mickey before going to bed.
He wonders if she is working in the shop tomorrow, wishes he could go and see her, just one last time. And one last time after that and one last time after that. . . . It will never be enough, how could he have ever thought it would?
"Rose?" he calls. She gives him an odd look and he wonders if he should have asked her name (but he didn't think he could have stomached calling her Jackie) but it's been so long since he's said it that he needs to taste the words on his tongue. He feels like he could go on saying it forever – Rose, Rose, Roooose. His fantastic Rose.
But there is one more thing to say.
"I love you." He slurs the words, trying to play into the drunken charade, but the words – the words are so true they hurt. Three simple words that stand for so much: I loved you that very first time I took your hand and said Run. I loved you that last day on Bad Wolf Bay when I left you with him and didn't say goodbye – please don't hate me for that, please don't . . . because Rose, my breathtaking, beautiful, brilliant (boy, that's a lot of b's) Rose, I've loved you every moment in between.
She stares at him and for just a second – one exhilarating, terrifying second – he thinks she might see that in his eyes – those words that remain unspoken. He wonders if she will remember him – surely she won't identify him as the man who has stolen her Doctor, babbling about Barcelona and a mole between his shoulder blades. The Doctor can barely remember being that man, so much younger, so much happier; a man birthed from Rose's love, a man dying as that very Rose stares at him after his own, long-awaited amorous declaration.
Maybe there will come a day, not too far in the future, when they are curled up on the couch or hugging after an adventure or locked up in an alien prison. Maybe Rose will see that same look in his eyes and remember that brooding, drunken fool. Maybe she will tell him. Maybe he will wonder what exactly he was doing that night; maybe his ginormous, superior Time Lord brain will figure it out, will figure everything out. Maybe he will grab the right clamp instead of Rose and hold on those two seconds longer.
Maybe an entire gingerbread house of a parallel world will be created around that man and his Rose: one where he tells Rose he loves her, not just once but over and over because he can never grow tired of saying it, one where things are unbearably domestic (and he wouldn't have it any other way), one where they both give in to that insatiable wanting and it is beautiful and perfect and the Doctor and Rose – the stuff of legend – are together in the TARDIS and all as it should be.
But at this moment and in this universe, this Time Lord is dying as this Rose – who will become his Rose, completely and utterly, in such a short while and Rassilon he wishes he could tell her – laughs (a slightly awkward laugh as if she is still not entirely sure what she saw in his eyes for that one shining moment), tells him not to let his girl hear that and goes inside to have a cup of tea.
. . .
A/N: I really tried to skirt the line between romantic and I-watch-you-when-you-sleep Edward Cullen obsessive creepiness and hope I succeeded. Let me know what you thought in a review!