ONE
"Make a wish."
It's been a long time since Rose really believed in magic or wishes or anything like that. But then, meeting the Doctor turned everything she knows on its head. As he holds one of Rose's eyelashes out on the tip of his index finger, all the while prattling on about the history of this funny little custom seemingly without taking a breath (he must have that whole bypass thing of his for a reason, she supposes), Rose wonders whether this is yet another thing she's been wrong about. He wiggles the finger entreatingly.
Well, she thinks, it can't hurt.
She smiles and blows, catching the lash with her breath and propelling it into the air. He grins in return, pleased that she's willing to play her part in his random little exploration of human culture.
He should know by now that she'll always go along with him. Always.
She watches him rather than trying to track the eyelash that's fading into the distance as she concentrates on a wish that reflects exactly that.
The Doctor holds out for a whole three minutes and twelve seconds before begging her to tell him what she's wished for. She smiles mysteriously and tells him that he's the one who said that the wishes won't work if they're said out loud.
"That's just a tradition, though," he protests.
"Is it?" Rose says flippantly.
The Doctor waits, but Rose doesn't elaborate. He pouts, and then fervently denies he's pouting.
Mickey finally tears his attention away from the gadgets on the console to dart his eyes between them with a vaguely disgusted look on his face.
"You sure he's actually nine hundred years old?" Mickey teases as the Doctor distracts himself by darting around the console, steering them towards the as-yet-undisclosed destination of Mickey's first proper trip in the TARDIS. "The two of you act more like two eight-year-old girls braiding each other's hair."
"You're just jealous," Rose claims, feeling put out. He doesn't have to be here if he doesn't want to, she thinks somewhat mutinously. It's not as if she invited him along or anything. Not this time, at least.
It's sort of annoying that he's actually not all that jealous, at least not in the way she's come to expect. It's not that she wants him pining for her — Lord knows she's made it clear enough to him that the Doctor's her life now — but Mickey's always been a constant for her. Despite her ever-brave face, Rose can at least privately admit that the conversation they'd had yesterday after meeting Sarah Jane has unsettled her. It would be nice, in light of that, to have something stay the same; safe.
Is it any wonder what she's chosen as her wish?
What she really wishes right now, though, is that the Doctor at least wouldn't rub it in her face that she's not going to get what she wants most.
"If I don't somehow make it back in a few hours, the TARDIS will take you home to London," the Doctor tells them from atop the horse (she still refuses to seriously think of it as 'Arthur').
Rose remembers the heartbreak of the last time he sent her away like that. She'd hoped that his promise he wouldn't treat her like Sarah Jane actually meant something. She'd even made an honest-to-god wish that he wouldn't leave her behind again. She thinks about how it will feel for him to do this just hours after she's realised that that's what she wishes for most in the whole universe.
Maybe the alternative isn't brilliant either. Rose is unfortunately well aware that the reason he's so intent on stranding himself in pre-revolutionary France is because of Madame de Pompadour. She knows it'll hurt to see them together first-hand more so than she has already. But Rose tells herself that she can get past that — that she can treat it like any other time the Doctor goes racing to the rescue — as long as he doesn't turn his back on Rose to do it. That would be too much.
Steeling herself, Rose says, "That's not gonna happen."
The Doctor frowns, but she doesn't even spare him a direct glance. She turns to look at Mickey and says, "I'm sorry. I've got to."
Mickey clenches his jaw, but he nods. He understands.
The Doctor doesn't seem to, at least not immediately.
"What are you doing?" the Doctor asks as she moves into the horse's way.
"It's a bit small for two," Rose says speculatively, gesturing at the horse. "Not exactly bigger on the inside, is it? But you and me? I think we'll manage just fine."
He obviously wants to protest. She doesn't let him.
"You're not leavin' me behind," she says firmly. "Not again."
"No," he denies her firmly. "You'd be stuck there."
"So will you," she says, as if that decides the matter. As far as she's concerned, it does.
"Rose, we don't have time for this," he admonishes.
"Better either say yes or knock me down, then."
He tries to stare her down with his Oncoming Storm expression. She's really not impressed, thanks.
Visibly exasperated, he reaches down and grasps her hand, then uses the grip to help her swing herself up behind him. She clings to his back as she settles into place, her cheek pressed against his suit.
"Thank you," she murmurs.
He says nothing, but a hand falls to his side to rest momentarily on her knee and squeezes it comfortingly in reply. It's gone almost before she can be sure it was ever there, pulling away so that he can properly grab the reins.
She's the one who has to take that first decisive step to make sure he doesn't leave her, sure, but it's still enough that he reaches out and helps her take the last.
As they crash through the glass, leaving Mickey and that wooden box that both of them love so much behind, Rose doesn't feel that separation half as much as she knows she would have if she was suck on the other side of the glass from him.
She's where she's supposed to be.
TWO
The Doctor awkwardly reaches out and brushes the cascades of drying makeup off her face. She knows that he thinks he's rubbish with these sorts of emotional displays, but he's wrong. Well, partly wrong. This time, at least, he's done the best thing possible after everything she's just seen.
He's taken her to see her mum. Voluntarily, even.
The Doctor pauses in his motion, staring at his hand. He looks like he goes to say something, but then thinks better of it. Rose blinks and sees, surrounded by the remains of her own mascara, an eyelash on his hand. The Doctor goes to brush it away on his trousers, clearly thinking this isn't the time. Rose catches his wrist and draws it back upwards.
She thinks she really would like to be able to make a wish, actually.
She chooses a wish that she knows won't be fulfilled straight away, but that's sort of the point. She's not looking for something short-term.
Hope for the future is what she needs right now.
THREE
Of all the things, she thinks with a fondness that only the Doctor can inspire. Only he would reach out mid-run, with about two hundred aliens breathing fire (literally) at their heels, to brush an eyelash off her cheek. Somehow, when they make it to the safety of the TARDIS, it's still in his hand.
He tells her to make a wish, as is becoming their custom, and Rose thinks about it for quite some time. She's considering it for so long, in fact, that the Doctor even uses his eyelash-free hand to wave in front of her staring eyes, perhaps thinking she's drifted off. She glares at him the way her Mum often does at her. The Doctor is quick to hold the hand up in a peace request, clearly deciding that perhaps he's better off waiting indefinitely rather than risking the ire of anyone from the Tyler clan.
For once, Rose decides, the wish shouldn't be about her.
Rose thinks of how she drove Mickey away, slowly but surely, so that he retreated to a whole other universe in the end. She thinks of the Pete Tyler of that other universe, and how she'd let her own feelings overshadow how devastated he must have felt after losing his Jackie. She considers her own, real Mum, who stares dejectedly after Rose as if they'll never see each other again each time Rose and the Doctor leave.
She closes her eyes and leans in the same way she always did when blowing out her birthday candles as she was growing up.
When she sees her Mum's expression the next time the Doctor takes her to visit, Rose realises that perhaps she didn't make the wish entirely selfishly after all. Her Mum waves an incredibly unexpected ring in Rose's face, and Rose's third thought (after "How on Earth did that happen so quickly?" and "Oh my god, congratulations!") is that she won't have to feel as guilty when she leaves her Mum behind now. The way she talks about this bloke Max, it's clear that he's not just like the other men that have passed through. For the first time since her Dad died, her Mum finally properly has someone the way Rose has the Doctor, and the Doctor has her.
She's not really proud of thinking of herself in a moment that should belong completely to her Mum, but she can't exactly take it back now.
The fact is, though, that she's never seen the sort of happiness that's graces her Mum's face when Max shows up in person later and all of them are together. And Max, Rose decides, seems a decent enough bloke that he might actually have a chance of keeping it that way, as much as anyone really can. So her little bit of selfishness, intentional or not, hasn't hurt anything.
"So. Jackie, eh?" says the Doctor when they get back to the TARDIS. He looks a little bit shell-shocked, as if it's his Mum who's unexpectedly gone off and found a man in the three months since they've last visited. "Who'd have thought?"
"I dunno," Rose says thoughtfully. "I've always sorta hoped."
It's not quite true. She'd always secretly hoped that her parents could somehow get back together like a fairytale; a child's dream untempered by the complete irrationality of expecting her father to magically come back from the dead. She knows now just how impossible that is, though. So maybe it's time to move on to a new fairytale for her little family.
After all, regardless of how it's brought about, her mother's happiness is definitely a wish well-spent.
FOUR
The next time the Doctor finds an eyelash migrating its way across her face (jeez, Rose thinks, how many does she lose?), Rose doesn't hesitate for anywhere near as long as the last time.
She knows exactly what she wants. This time she's not going to make it about herself even indirectly.
She's seen the Doctor's expression lately every time something suggests that they're going to be separated soon. He hides it better than she does, but she thinks she's getting good enough at reading him that he still doesn't fool her.
He's worried. More than that. He's actually afraid of losing her.
Her wish is that the Doctor can find someone to actually stay with him and help make him happy. She purposely doesn't specify that it should be her.
She really does want him to be happy. She hopes (god does she hope) that she's the one who can make that happen. But even though mere months ago the thought that he could ever replace her would have killed her a little inside, she finds that she can't stand the thought that he might end up alone if it's not possible for her to stay with him after all.
She's seen how ecstatic having someone makes her Mum. She wants that for him as well.
Wish made, she smiles at him and then races him out of the TARDIS to see where he's set them down this time. He doesn't know they're racing until she's already won, but apart from a little good-natured griping, he doesn't really begrudge her the victory.
With his hand in hers and a setting sky filled with airborne stingrays drifting lazily in front of them, she really does feel like they're both winners anyway.
FIVE
They join hands and practically skip through the playground and towards the Estate, talking about absolutely nothing of consequence.
"Wait," the Doctor says as they reach the stairs. She looks at him and realises that he seems to have been gazing steadily at her for some time. "Eyelash," he says, reaching out and running a chilly finger down her cheek.
Of the many little traditions that the supposedly not-domestic Doctor has picked up over the last couple of years, Rose might like this one most of all. She has no idea whether it actually works — she might just be purposely trying to read something into it, like a horoscope addict determined to justify the habit — but that slightly awed look he always gets on his face as her waits for her to practically touch her puckered lips to his finger and blow makes it worthwhile regardless of whether her wishes come true.
"Are you ever going to tell me what it is you wish for?" the Doctor asks.
"Nope," Rose says. "Why would I wanna ruin a good thing?"
Rose knows that it intrigues him more than it frustrates him. Telling him would break something precious about these moments, whether it's some kind of actual wishing magic or just that feeling of mystery. He's usually the one holding all of the cards, after all. Rose finds that she enjoys the reversal quite a lot.
It's still sort of an odd feeling, though, when she finds herself in a far more important — if unexpected — position of power much later in the day. She can see the look in his eyes that screams loud and clear how he wants her to go into that other universe, off to safety. The answering look in her own eyes is clearly warning him that even suggesting it out loud would be hazardous to his health, and she knows that he wants to hang onto those teeth. She digs in her heels, determined that this time she'll be the one to make the big decision. It's her life.
She tells him that her Mum's here, about to move to somewhere way nicer than the estate with Max. She wants to be here for the wedding.
That's not the point, though. Her Mum could be over in that other universe as well, and she'd still choose to stay here with him.
"Everythin' I care about is here," she says. She prays he understands what she's not quite saying.
He nods tersely, springing into action. When Mickey and Jake and Pete and the others Rose never even got the chance to find out the names of disappear, taking that last means of escape with them, the Doctor acts like he almost wants to be angry with her decision not to go with them. He can't quite bring himself to do it, though. Whatever he might say, he wants her with him. And he's finally apparently accepted that she wants to be with him as well.
Rose realises with a bit of surprise that a different wish than the one she'd made just hours ago has come true, one from quite some months ago when she'd been so incredibly sad and Mickey had just left her. She'd wished that he'd finally figure out that she'll never do that to him, no matter how much he might say he wants her to. She thinks he's finally starting to get it now.
Though they're about to be bombarded by Daleks and Cybermen alike any minute now, he stops dead when they enter the lever room, pulling Rose to a halt as well.
"Rose Tyler, I love you," he says in a rush, like an anxious teenager asking his very first crush out on a date.
Rose's eyes widen. Oh god, she thinks, now he's done it. They're really going to die this time. Why else would he finally say it now, like this? It can't be just because she's wished for it.
Wishes are one thing. The Doctor actually talking about his feelings is so far beyond a miracle that it legitimately scares her.
The Doctor bounds away from her over to the lever on the right side, as if trying to put some distance between them. Rose, still stunned, doesn't even hear him at first when he tells her what to do with the big clamp thing still hanging numbly from her grip. She's been in too many life-and-death situations to let anything phase her for too long in the midst of battle, though. She does as the Doctor says the second time he instructs her, pulling the other lever into position and then holding on for dear life.
She knows what the Doctor must think of their chances of living through this, for him to have made that confession. She knows it's probably even a sign of the apocalypse itself. She decides she doesn't care.
She's going to get through this. They both are. There's no bloody way she's letting him drop a bombshell like that on her without even a proper kiss to accompany it.
She's never been gladder about the regeneration than now, she realises, watching those ridiculously long legs of his just barely able to span the gap to let him hook his foot around the damaged lever and pull it back on-line. She's not sure he would have been able to reach in his last body. She certainly couldn't have managed it.
When the breach closes, the room is silent for a long moment. They look at each other, both stunned that they've somehow managed it.
They burst out laughing almost simultaneously. Rose doesn't even remember moving, but the next moment she's across the room and he's catching her in his arms, twirling her around with her feet floating quite a few inches off the ground.
She makes sure, then, that she gets the proper snog that she's promised herself. The Doctor, though he nearly drops her from the unexpected shock of her suddenly springing something like that on him (now he knows how it feels, she thinks smugly), really doesn't put up a fight. Quite the opposite, actually. Considering how little opportunity he's had to get in any kissing practice in this body, she's really rather impressed.
The Doctor seems gratifyingly hesitant to let her move away, but when she is eventually able to back off a little she grins at him.
"Can't take it back now," Rose says cheekily. "It's been sealed with a kiss and everythin'."
"Right," the Doctor says, looking dazed. He runs a hand through his hair as if trying to tame what her own fingertips have ensured is a lost cause. "I suppose it has," he agrees.
"Yeah?" Rose asks.
He looks hesitant, but after a moment does confirm, "Yeah."
"Good," Rose says. She doesn't think that word quite gets across the almost unbearably full feeling she has in the region of her chest.
They find each others' hands without either of them really even consciously seeking the contact.
"Oh," Rose says suddenly, "by the way, nearly forgot. I love you, too. Just in case you were wonderin'."
She pulls him along out of the room, suddenly keen to check in on her Mum after all that madness. She doesn't give him a chance to reply, or even stop to look at him. She doesn't have to. She knows that right now the Doctor's grin is so broad that his back teeth are practically visible.
He's actually happy, she knows. Really, unequivocally happy, and she's the reason for it. That in itself is better than having him finally just say the thing they've been dancing around for months, or even years.
She wonders whether she'll know what to do the next time the Doctor reaches out and comes away with an eyelash.
After all, she's already got everything she's wished for.
~FIN~