Title: After the Year of Living Dangerously
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: All of series 2.
Summary: How do you live after you've almost lost everything? AU for Doomsday
A/N: I've been working on this since January and I have to thank the wonderful goldydollar for beta-ing and helping me connect all the pieces.
The Doctor's mind works fast. Advanced calculations that the best mathematicians on Mars have devoted years of their lives to solving? He can solve it in thirty minutes, just hand him a calculator. In serious danger? He can think of at least two escape routes in the time it take a normal person to realize they're in serious danger. He can't remember a time when his mind wasn't racing.
But when he sees Rose reach for the lever, his mind comes up blank. He can't just run across to the other side and save her if she slips and he can't do anything from where he is now. There is nothing he can do but watch.
Rose somehow lunges herself forward and grabs the lever and begins pushing it back into the right position. He can barely hear his screams of her name over the beating of his hearts. The lever goes back into the 'On' position and suddenly the wind doubles. All he can see is her body, so strong but so vulnerable, beating in the wind.
There is nothing he can do.
Rose pulls herself up and hooks her arm around the lever. His mind flashes back to the time she lost her grip on a rope and fell into a swamp. "Fingers are tricky, Rose," he told her, "Elbow, now there is a strong joint. Love it."
If he weren't so terrified, he would be grateful for the proof that she actually listened to him. As it is, all he can do is watch and wait. The seconds stretch into minutes until finally the last Dalek goes shrieking by and the wind stops. The Doctor doesn't even think before he is across the room and pulls Rose into his arms.
He murmurs her name over and over, hands touching any part of her skin he can reach, and occasionally interjecting with "Don't do that ever again". Before long, he notices that Rose isn't responding. He pulls back and sees that her gaze is over his shoulder.
The Doctor lets go and Rose walks as though in a trance to the wall. She rests her hand against it and stares blankly ahead.
"So now I can't ever see her again?" Rose asks, leaning heavily against the bright white wall.
The Doctor sighs heavily, standing away from her and dreading what is coming, "You can't."
"I made the right choice, didn't I?" Rose says softly. "She'll be happy over there, right?"
No, he thinks, you didn't make the right choice, no matter how happy I am to see you right here in front of me. And no, your mother will never truly be happy without you. But there's nothing we can do about that now.
Instead of answering, he goes to stand next to Rose and puts his hand over her outstretched one. "Rose," he says. She doesn't respond, so he repeats her name louder. She looks at him with glassy eyes and he pulls her into a hug once more. She clings to him tightly, her back centimeters from the wall.
Shouts from the outside pull him back to reality. "Rose," he says softly but urgently, "Rose, we need to go, they've probably sent the entire army into this building and I don't want us to be here when they get in."
Rose nods, her eyes glassy with tears. The Doctor calls for the TARDIS, and she lets him pull her into it.
He wordlessly follows Rose to her room and stays with her until she falls into a restless sleep. Then he sprints back to the console room. He knows that she's still in shock, and that the worst will come later. He wants to be there for her, but he has other things he needs to attend to.
In practice, the Doctor doesn't know a lot about how these voids work, but in theory, he has a few ideas. The way they closed the void was quick and dirty. There has to be a few gaps left.
After about six hours of theorems, graphs, and a little algebra, he has an answer. He sets the TARDIS in motion and runs back to Rose's room. He stops the moment he sees her spread across the bed. He knows she needs rest, but he would never deny her the chance to say goodbye to Jackie.
"Rose," he whispers, "Rose."
She wakes up slowly. The Doctor can see the realization that she's lost her mother washing over her. His excitement over finding the gap is quickly washed away by a fresh wave of guilt. There are so many things he did wrong. He should never have taken off without making sure Jackie wasn't in the TARDIS. He should have left her in the TARDIS and brought out Rose instead. He should have left them both in the TARDIS and dealt with Torchwood on his own.
He'll never have a chance to fix that, but right now he can try to do something to make it better. "I need you to come with me to the console room."
"Why," she asks, "Is something wrong?"
"No, it's just," (how does one break the news that one has to prepare to say goodbye to their mother?) "I've found a hole, in the void."
Rose sits up, fully alert now. "What, like a way to get through?"
"No," he says quickly, and watches her face fall, "But it's big enough that you can go in and say goodbye."
She is out of her bed in an instant, and grabs his hand to pull him along with her into the console room. She loses her single-minded steam along the way; Rose stops once they get into the room and asks, "How long will I have?"
"Only a few minutes. Four at the most, then it'll close," the Doctor says softly.
Rose takes that in, and then asks "How does it work?"
"I want you to think of her," the Doctor says, putting his hands on her shoulders. Rose closes her eyes and pictures her mother, sitting in their kitchen. "Do you have it?" Rose nods in response. "Now find her, with your mind."
Rose tries, but there's nothing. "I can't find her."
"Hold on," the Doctor says, and he moves his hands to rest on her temples. "I'll help."
There is a sudden warm strangeness inside her mind and Rose's eyes fly open. "Are you in my head?"
"Well," the Doctor looks sheepish, but he recovers, "Just to help a bit. You're exhausted and you can't do this on your own. Just call out to her."
"All right," she says, warily. Rose starts shouting for her mum in her head, and the Doctor winces. "Not so loud."
"Sorry." She calls for her mother again, softer this time. "What am I supposed to be looking for?"
"You should feel her soon-ah, there she is, feel her?"
"Yes," Rose says, barely above a whisper. "But she feels far away."
"Keep calling. And once she gets close enough, I'll help you to project outwards, all right?"
Rose continues, and she slowly starts to feel her mother pull closer in her mind. Eventually, it's so strong that she wants to cry. It's her mum, right there, closer than she's ever been before.
The Doctor senses it too. Rose feels him push her mind a bit, he lifts his hand off her temples, she opens here eyes, and then she is standing on a beach with her mother right in front of her.
Rose goggles for a bit before speaking. She can see the beach, and the wind whipping through Mum's hair, but she feels as though she is still in the TARDIS.
"Rose?" her mum asks, walking towards her.
"Hi, Mum." Rose says with a weak smile.
"Is it really you?" Jackie asks.
"Yeah, Mum, it's me."
"They didn't believe me at first," Jackie says, gesturing behind her. Rose can see Mickey, Pete, and Jake off in the distance. "Mickey finally convinced them that it was worth going after."
"Good thing," Rose says, laughing slightly. She looks at the beach around her. "Where are we?"
"Norway. A place called Dårlig Ulv Straden."
The TARDIS translates for her so that she hears the English name and she takes in a deep breath. It was that word again, following her still.
"How long have you got?"
"Not long," Rose breathes. "He said we'll only have about four minutes."
"So you've still got the Doctor, then?" her mum asks. Rose nods, and her mum smiles sadly.
"Yeah," Rose says, "we're just gonna pick up where we left off, seeing the universe." She looks beyond her mum, not wanting to see her face, and sees the man who could have been her father watching them intently. "So you and…and he…" Rose trails off, not entirely sure what to call him.
"Yeah, we are," Jackie answers. "Actually," she searches around for the right words, "I'm expecting."
"You're what?" Rose asks, not entirely sure that she heard right.
"I'm pregnant," Jackie smiles through tears, "Three months gone."
"That's amazing," Rose glows. "A baby! You'll have everything now." Rose's voice catches in her throat before she says "You've got Dad again, and that great house, and a new baby…"
"Rose, don't you dare think this one's replacing you. No one can replace you." Jackie takes in a deep breath before continuing, "I don't know what I'm gonna do without you."
"Everyone leaves home in the end," Rose repeats what she said the last time she was stranded. There was no hope that time either, but she is trying hard to hold it together. "It was gonna happen one way or another."
"But I can't even talk to you again!" Jackie's fully crying now. Rose knows that her face mirrors her mother's. "It wasn't supposed to be like this!"
"No, mum, it's gonna be okay," Rose cries. "You've got Dad, and you're gonna have a baby, and your life is gonna be perfect, I promise."
"Oh, Rose," her mum says through tears, "my precious girl. I love you, you know that. And I always will."
"I love you too, Mum. I love you so much," sobs Rose. "I love you. I'm gonna miss you and-"
Before she can finish her sentence, the void closes and Rose collapses forwards into the Doctor's waiting arms. He had been expecting that to happen; that sort of projection was mentally exhausting at best. Factor in Rose's fragile emotional state, and he isn't surprised that this is so hard on her.
Rose sobs weakly in his arms and the Doctor holds onto her tightly. He knows that he should be assuring her that everything will be okay, that he will always be there for her. Instead, all he can say is "I'm sorry, Rose, I'm so sorry."
She does not respond, so he lets her stay like that until she begins to quiet. He starts to help her up, but when she slumps against him, more than half asleep, he carries her. It's a bit awkward; he loses his purchase on her once but luckily doesn't drop her, and there's some trouble fitting through the door of her room without knocking her in the head, but he gets Rose to her bed. She curls away from him and he is left standing in her very pink room not knowing what to do.
He hadn't been in her room before this. He'd stood in the doorway of it a few times, but it was her space and he hadn't wanted to invade it. Now he feels more out of place than ever. A part of him desperately wants to get in bed with her, hold her when she cries, and be there when she wakes up. But as always, he listens to the cowardly part of his mind. The TARDIS provides him with a comfy chair that he falls heavily into. It is not long before he is asleep.
When Rose wakes up, many hours later, it takes her a moment to remember why she feels so horrible. The memory of the day before crashes down on her and she fights the urge to cry again. She feels very alone in her big bed. She looks over and sees the Doctor, passed out in a chair by her bed. His long limbs are splayed out uncomfortably. She wonders if he left her side. She knows that he probably didn't.
She crawls out of the bed and situates herself on the Doctor's lap. He wakes up and the concern is evident on his face the moment he focuses on her. Without any thought, Rose leans down and kisses him softly.
When she pulls away, confusion replaces his concern. "What was that for?"
"Thank you."
"But Rose, I didn't-"
"No," Rose interrupts him. "Just, thank you.
They don't start traveling again right away. They spend two days orbiting in the vortex so Rose can get more rest and the Doctor can work on the TARDIS. The next day he takes Rose to a planet with lush green grass and a large, light purple lake. They lie on his coat for hours, like they did back on New Earth, but there is much less talking this time. Instead, they just hold hands and stare at the pink clouds floating above them.
On the fourth day, he tries to approach a topic that he doesn't really want to bring up.
"Do you want to go back to London?" he asks softly. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor of the TARDIS, having just come out from under the controls. Rose is reading a book, sitting across from him.
"What for?" she asks, not looking up.
"To go back to your flat, get some stuff, talk to people…" he trails off at Rose's blank stare. He finally gets to the point he doesn't want to make, "Post a death notice."
"We're not doing that," Rose says quickly.
"Rose, she'll be on the list of the missing and so will you. We might as well let them know you're alive and that your mother won't be coming back-"
"She's not dead."
"She's dead in your world Rose, and if you tell the authorities that, you can have a funeral for her."
Rose stares at him coldly, "I'm not having a funeral for someone who's not dead."
He doesn't bring it up again.
The first time the TARDIS flies them somewhere by accident, he discovers a new feeling: he wants to turn around and fly to the right place. He doesn't particularly like that feeling, nor the one that accompanies it: fear.
He's scared of what might be out there. More so, he's scared for Rose.
"Hold on a moment." He turns back to the TARDIS computer.
Rose stares at him oddly. "What are you doing?"
"Finding out where we are. And that would be," he checks the computer, "Earth, the year 2482. Oh, the beaches of East Atlantis. Nice place. You won't need that coat."
Rose continues to stare at him. "This is new."
"Well, it never helps to change routine," he explains quickly. "Routines are complicated things, Rose. You should never get too complacent. There is only one routine you should follow and that is to always bring bananas to a party. Although I suppose that's more of a rule. Oh! Speaking of bananas, they make glorious banana smoothies here…"
He babbles on to hide his nervousness and Rose rolls her eyes like she always does. But she does take off her coat like he suggested.
They have a fun, safe day in New Atlantis, but that Doctor can't help noticing that things are changing.
Rose liked to think that she didn't scare easily. She remembers listing what she had seen to Sarah Jane and acting as though she didn't have a care in the world, like it hadn't scared her at all. But she remembers other things; she remembers the sounds of the werewolf tearing up Sir Robert, the shrieks of the Gelth, the Beast's predictions, and the Daleks, always the Daleks.
All of that fear has been magnified in the last weeks. It's all Rose thinks about now. All of her mum's worries suddenly seem to make sense. Everything they do is dangerous. That they haven't been killed yet is now a surprise to her. There were so many opportunities for their deaths. Everything they walk into now feels like it could be the end.
So she starts to hold his hand more, stands closer behind him when the danger comes, and when he starts to babble haughtily to an angry alien, she tugs on his arm to get him to stop.
If the Doctor notices her change in behavior, he doesn't mention it. Rose is grateful for that; she doesn't want a verbal reminder of the fact that she feels so powerless and scared.
At the same time, she doesn't notice that when they do escape danger, he holds her for just a second longer than before.
"Is Jack dead?"
It is the question that has died on her lips many times, but she finally asks it, at a time when she feels vulnerable and he can easily dismiss it.
Rose had twisted her ankle while being chased by a pack of very angry Martians. Martians, as it turned out, did not like people to refer to them as Little Green Men -even if it was an accidental slip of the tongue- so much so that they immediately began to run the Doctor and Rose out of town. Years of misconceptions had led to them being touchy about the stereotype—or so the Doctor explained as they ran away.
She sits with her leg propped up on a chair in the kitchen, waiting the requisite two hours after a bone injury to pass so the Doctor can heal her ankle. And then, while the Doctor busies himself making their tea, the question pops out. He doesn't say anything, doesn't even still in his tea-making when she asks, so she repeats it.
"Is Jack dead?"
She isn't sure what makes her ask about Jack. Rose has been thinking about him a lot since she lost Mum (that's the verb she likes to use, "lost", because it leaves open a possibility for finding), thinking about missed opportunities and the like. Mostly, she knows she feels guilty because she never thought to ask before.
The Doctor's back is still to her, and he answers wearily, "I can't tell you Rose."
"You can't tell me," Rose states bluntly. "You told me that he was rebuilding the earth. Was that just a lie?"
He turns around to look at her and he looks all of his nine hundred years; he looks tired, like he knew this was coming and had dreaded it. She starts to wish that she hadn't asked the question, but now that she's opened the line of questioning, there's no use in walking away.
"Well," he sighs, "that's what I think he's doing. I didn't get a very good look."
"Look where?" Rose asks.
"When I absorbed the Time Vortex, I saw the possibilities, but I didn't look too hard at his."
"Why did you absorb the Time Vortex? How did that happen?" Rose is overflowing with questions now, ones that she knows she should have asked much earlier. "Doctor, what happened on Satellite Five?"
He avoids her eyes. "Rose, you're better off not knowing, trust me."
"Not knowing what?" Rose asks, starting to panic a bit. All the mysteries surrounding that night keep pounding in her head. "You're scaring me. What happened?"
He takes a deep breath and says, "If I tell you, there's no going back, even if you don't like what you hear."
"There's no going back from here, either. You can't just make me forget this conversation happened."
He avoids her eyes when she says that. It's only for a small moment, but Rose feels her stomach drop forebodingly. She's scared of what he may tell her, but her curiosity, as it always does, wins out.
"Doctor," she says, trying her hardest to sound determined. It works; he finally meets her eyes. "You have to tell me."
He takes a deep breath, pulls a chair out so that he can sit across the table from her, and begins talking.
"I wasn't the first person to look into the heart of the Time Vortex that night."
Rose tries to be brave after he tells her what happened on Satellite Five, she tries so hard. But after everything that has happened, it's too much.
She starts to have nightmares. She always prided herself on not having nightmares when she was little. Big bad wolves and ghosts never haunted her dreams. But now her mind is open to new horrors, like loneliness. She dreams of dying without anyone there to be with her or worse, staying alive when everyone else dies. She dreams of being just like Jack, of having the same curse as she bestowed upon him.
Rose knows that she's strong; it's something people have been telling her since she was a kid. But she can't get through this alone.
After waking up in a cold sweat the fourth night in a row, Rose climbs out of her bed and out into the hall. She's so addled from the nightmare that she doesn't realize where she's going until she's outside the Doctor's bedroom door.
She takes a deep breath and then opens his door.
He only looks a little surprised to see her standing in the doorway. He doesn't say anything, leaving the explanation to her.
"I was wondering if I could sleep here tonight." Rose is very aware of how awkward a proposition this is, but she's willing to give anything a try at this point.
His mouth falls open a bit, as thought to ask her why, but he closes it before he can say anything. Finally, he nods, and Rose walks toward the bed. The Doctor doesn't look at her when she gets under the covers, and she turns on her side so that she's not facing him.
The awkward feeling is heavy in the room, and soon Rose hears him close his book and turn off the light. Rose is far on one side of the bed and he is far on the other. It feels like there is a wall between them.
But when she wakes up, the first thing she notices is their entwined fingers, meeting in the middle of the bed.
With each time Rose comes into his bed (always without an explanation), the gap between their bodies lessens until they spend their nights wrapped around each other. She knows that, logically, their bodies shouldn't fit together so perfectly; she is all soft curves and he hard angles, but it all melts together at night.
One night, when Rose is using his chest as a pillow and his side as a place to draw lazy circles, she says softly, "We were stupid, weren't we?"
He doesn't have to ask her what she means. He has been thinking about their time together since he has been in this body, and it makes him cringe. How many times did danger end with their giggles? They had played fast and easy with treacherous situations, acting like they could overcome anything. The Doctor had always had an uneasy feeling when it came to Rose's safety, and he had paid for not doing anything to alleviate it. The sight of her body being pulled towards the void was something that he would never forget.
"Yes," he meets her eyes, "We were."
"Are we being less stupid now?"
The Doctor smiles softly. "I hope so."
Their lives begin to normalize, or at least as normal as life on the TARDIS can be. Soon, Rose isn't thinking about death and her mum every hour. It isn't entirely out of her mind, but it's not at the forefront either. Life, she realizes, has to go on even if she doesn't want to, and it would be rude to let it go on alone.
She does ask the Doctor to take her back to London (she can't really call it home anymore). A quick search of the internet reveals that both she and her mother had been declared dead soon after the attack on Torchwood. Rose considers having her status changed back to living, if only so she can get back to their flat and take some stuff to the TARDIS, but she ultimately decides against it. All of her important belongings had already made their way onto the TARDIS, and she had been disconnected from that world long enough.
She does, however, go to see her own grave. It is right next to her mother's in a quiet cemetery near the library Rose went to when she was younger. She can't help but pleased to see that there are fresh flowers on both their graves.
"I wonder what would happen," she muses to the Doctor, "if one of my friends walked by here and thought they saw me. They would probably think they were going crazy, like those people who always claim to see Elvis."
"Oh, those people aren't crazy," the Doctor says with complete confidence. "But they weren't seeing Elvis, just an alien from the planet Relquoir, whose inhabitants happen to share a startling resemblance to the King."
"You're joking," Rose says.
"Could be," the Doctor smiles, "I guess I'll just have to take you there to see."
Rose smiled back at him before turning again to the grave. "It's funny," she says, "But the Beast said I would die in battle. And now here we are."
The Doctor doesn't respond. He keeps coming back to the headstone. Just a name and some numbers, but it opens his mind to so many horrible possibilities. He takes a deep breath and asks "How long are you going to stay with me?"
Rose thinks for a moment, refusing to meet his eyes. When she does turn to look at him, she sees the desperation and fear in his face. The Lonely God who doesn't know how to be lonely anymore, she thinks. "I can't promise you forever; I'm smart enough now to know that's not possible. But I'll stay as long as you want me."
"Oh, Rose," he murmurs, "I'll always want you."
"Yeah?"
"Yes," he answers firmly. He holds her gaze for a moment before breaking off and looking around the deserted cemetery. "Bit chilly, isn't it? How about we go get something to eat to warm up? Maybe some chips?"
Rose smiles. "Definitely some chips."
The Doctor holds his hand out for her and she slips into his grasp easily. "Chips it is, then. Allons-y, Rose Tyler."
They leave the cemetery and there is a moment when, as she walks so close to him that her head brushes his shoulder while she laughs over some stupid joke he made about Tony Blair, that Rose feels nineteen again.
The moment passes, and Rose can't say that she misses it too much.