He took a deep breath, wiped his sleeve across his eyes, and ducked back out of the storage closet. He would've liked to stay-- maybe sit on the floor and weep a while-- but there wasn't any time. God, no time at all, why weren't they alloted any time? They deserved it, deserved all the time in the world--
--but nothing was neverending.
The few nurses who were staffing this floor, at least, were appropriately somber; they knew what was going on. Still, they couldn't block the noise from the street-- cheers and whoops and music and fireworks, in full defiance of the rain that was approaching. And they deserved to celebrate. After the last two years-- the end of that deserved a celebration.
Two orderlies had assigned themselves to guard her door, and god, but he found that touching. When they could just run away from all this, go out and lose themselves in the celebration, that they thought enough of responsibility, that they thought enough of her...
He'd spent so long learning how to do the same thing, and here they were.
They let him through, of course, and he took (wasted?) a few seconds of his precious time just looking at her there. Pale, roots obviously showing; hair a mess, and they'd cleaned her up, but what could you do about the scars...
He pulled up a chair and took her hand. She stirred, and turned her head; and there was that smile of hers. "Hey."
"Hullo, Rose," he answered, and guided a strip of hair away from her face.
She said, "We won."
"Yeah," he said. "So we did."
(He'd been pretty sure the girl had followed him here from that chip shop, and if he had a stalker, he'd wanted to know it now so he could get a head start on the paperwork. "Can I help you?"
She'd started, and turned, and she was prettier than he'd thought. "Not unless you know a way off this planet," she'd said, and winced.
No need. He could relate to that. "I wish. What, trouble with your boyfriend?"
"Oh, more than that. All kinds of trouble. It'd take me ages to explain it all."
He'd nodded. After all, if you followed a man to his work from a chip shop for no apparent reason, you probably had problems.
"Might be able to get a good start on it over dinner, though," she said, and smiled nervously.
He'd stared at her, and even as he thought she was definitely barking, he felt the strangest sense of vertigo: something was at stake here. Something was being offered. There was some chance here that might never come again.
And what kind of man would he be if he turned down a date with a hot blonde?
"Where d'you suggest?" he'd asked; and maybe it was just her blinding grin, but he'd known that he'd done the right thing.)
"Sound pretty happy down there, yeah?" she said, grinning.
"I could close the window--"
"Don't-- it's nice. Really."
("What did you do?" some shrill-voiced angry bloke had been yelling, which probably had something to do with the fact that nobody saw him come in. "Rose, this is serious--"
"Oh, yeah, an' here I thought there wasn't any problem, just 'cause that whole wall between the universes thing's not working, that can't be serious, can it?"
"Rose--"
"That whole Void thing, I'm sure that was a metaphor."
He'd been circling around them, slowly, edging his way around the humming blue box. You couldn't hear it, but the thing hummed, and it went straight down into your bones-- not in a bad way, really, just... strange.
"All right," the man had said-- and by then he'd been able to see him, or the back of his head; some skinny little fop in a pinstripe suit. Who the hell wore a pinstripe suit these days, anyway? Pretentious as all hell. "Maybe it wasn't you, but it was someone here at Torchwood-- How'd you get into Torchwood, anyway? Don't tell me you really joined--? Why does everyone I know keeps joining up with these idiots?!"
"I wanted to help," she'd said, and there'd been a hurt in her voice that made his hands clench into fists involuntarily. "Keep 'em from doin' anything too stupid. Keep 'em from hurting you."
"And yet someone here's reopened the Void, seem a bit problematic to you?"
"I don't know of anything that's goin' on that could be doing that! How d'you know it wasn't on your end, anyway?"
"Because something diverted us here! Something brought us here, and if it really wasn't you--"
"You know I wouldn't do that!"
"--then clearly you don't know your people as well as you thought you did, and there's a massive failure of management we ought to--"
"Oi." He'd tapped the man on the shoulder, held himself in check for the two seconds it took him to turn around, and punched the little prettyboy square in the face.
"John?! How did you-- oh. You followed me." Rose had buried her head in her hands. "Of course you did."
"Seemed important," he'd defended.
"Doctor!" the other girl had yelled, dropping down by his side to check his pulse, even though he was sure he could see the idiot's head twitching.
"What, that little bitch got through medical school? Why haven't I run for President?"
"What'd you hit him for?" asked the girl, glaring up at him.
He'd folded his arms. "Nobody disrespects my girl like that. Especially some skinny little punk."
Said skinny little punk had struggled upright, gaping at him rather like a desperate fish, then glanced between him and Rose in a way he would've sworn that real people didn't actually do. "...What?!"
"I don't know," Rose had said, firmly. "Make yourself useful an' help me figure it out, yeah?")
"'S about time, isn't it?" Rose murmured. "It's been so long since there was anything to celebrate... it's good to hear."
"Yeah," he said, "it's about time." It always was.
(And so it had come out that he happened to look exactly like the last incarnation of this lunatic time-traveling thousand-year-old alien bloke, who, like Rose, was from a parallel universe that wasn't ever supposed to come into contact with ths one. Oh, and Rose's classified government job? Dealing with aliens. That was actually the easiest part to understand.
"I don't care," he'd repeated. "There is no way in hell that little bitch and I are the same person. Hell, I'm not even sure we could be the same gender."
"Oi! Look, I don't care what they did to you, this is just uncalled for. Of course, I usually don't get along with myself, come to think of it. Second and Third? Fiery hate. And half the times I've run into fourth me I've tried to strangle him with that wonderfully tempting scarf--"
"Hang on, exactly how many people have you been?" Martha said, somewhere between suspicious and apalled.
"Beside the point, look, have you ever had a pocketwatch?"
"What?" He'd stared at him. "The hell would I have a pocketwatch for?"
"Seriously, think back. You're absolutely sure?"
"Yes!"
"Well, then. It must've been something else."
"Maybe I just happen to look like him," he'd suggested. "They say everybody's got a doppelganger, right?"
He'd shaken his head. "Not possible. Trust me. If it wasn't that, then someone must've done this to you... and the most obvious suspect..." He'd glanced meaningfully at the walls around him.
"What-- you think Torchwood brainwashed him?!"
"You really think they wouldn't?"
"Don't make me hit you again."
"No, it's all right, they really could've."
"Ah. Well. Just watch yourself, then.")
"I know what's happening," she said, and she was probably right. He'd found she usually was. "Don't..."
"Yeah," he said, and squeezed her hand. "I know."
(They'd put him in the chair and he'd stared up at the light, and suddenly he'd wanted to be anywhere else. Anywhere. It took him all the control he had not to jump up right then, not to run and keep running 'till he reached the shore, 'till he reached the... Anyway, he still wasn't sure what it was he'd been afraid of. Had it been an echo of the last time he'd seen this place-- or had he been instinctively afraid of the memories this machine might give back to him?
Why not both? Not like there was a lack of things to be afraid of.
"Are you all right?" Rose had said, worry in her voice.
"...Yeah," he'd said. "I still think this isn't gonna work. Wait, you're not letting that lunatic run the controls, are you?"
"I told you," said insane man had replied, utterly unrepentant, "it is not possible for you to be a doppleganger. I mean, the odds against it are astronomical."
"Oh, god, you are at the controls, aren't you?"
"Being that I'm the only one who understands them--'"
"I'm getting out of here."
"John," she'd said, "just give it a second, all right? It can't hurt you-- can it?-- and we need to know. Don't you think? We need to know."
He wasn't so sure; he'd been all right the way he was. All right, maybe his job was crap, but he had a good life here; couple friends, fantastic girlfriend, food on the table-- that was enough, wasn't it? Why go deeper? Why ask for more? There wasn't anything more.
The light shone brighter and the humming started and there wasn't anything more; there wasn't anything anymore; and the light was flashing and none of it had really been worth anything and there was nowhere left to run to and he'd lost the faith that it was even possible to do good, any at all, and so
When they'd got him in the alley it was possible he hadn't fought too hard, but that could be attributable to the fact that it was usually his mouth that got him out of trouble, anyway, so what was the point? But they'd wanted his knowledge, all nine hundred years and untold depth and breadth of it, and even if they'd thought they could persuade him to tell it, he could never tell it all, so
They'd taken it, and kept him around, carefully altered to be as human as possible, on the off chance there was anything they'd missed.
His race was dead, he was going to become that little bitch, and he didn't belong here.
"Anything happening?" Rose called.
He'd said, "Nope.")
"It isn't fair," he said. "It should be longer."
"Yeah. But what's there to do about it?"
He kept silent, because there were things; there were always things. If you were willing to sell your soul for it.
It was an equation he'd been at the other end of, once or twice. Because in the end, morally, the life of a world really did outweigh the life of one person. And the life of the universe-- the infinite lives in the universe-- really did outweigh the lives on one arrogant, shortsighted little planet.
It really was an equation you could balance. But that didn't mean he had to like it.
And she wouldn't stand for it: so there was nothing he could do.
("Incidentally," he'd said, while working through wires, when they'd been alone, "there is no reason I couldn't have been a doppelganger. Are you that stupid? Four times I've run into the things. I mean, what about Second and that Spanish dictator thing? Technically I don't think that might've happened anymore, but even counting you're from an alternate universe--"
"I KNEW it!" He'd laughed triumphantly. In his opinion, rather missing the point.
"But seriously, did you have some other reasons? Or have you just forgotten that much?"
"But if you remember, now," the punk had said (good god, did he ever get the point?), "why did you lie?"
He'd looked up at him, coolly. "'Cause I'm not gonna let it change anything."
"How could it not change anything? It changes everything. You don't belong here. You can't stay."
"Yeah? Why not?"
"...You're really serious, aren't you? You're just gonna stay here as John Smith--"
"Saunders."
"You'll never manage it," the punk had said, which might have been what truly gave him the determination to do it. Just because he'd gotten his memories back now didn't mean he liked the idiot any better. In fact, knowing that this squirrel of a man might very well be his future made it much worse.
"You can't stay in one place," he'd said. "You just can't do it. I've tried."
"Yeah, an' so have I, remember? If you actually are anything like me. Where've I got to go? What've I got to do that can't wait five decades or so? Why the hell not?"
"But you can't stay in one place. We just can't."
"Yeah? Watch me. Or actually, I'd prefer you didn't, but the point's the same."
"You can't."
"Watch me.")
"We've got it all set, yeah?" she said. "All the... plans, and what..."
"'S much as you can. No plan survives contact with the enemy an' all. But we've got some good people-- Earth's always been resourceful."
"And you'll be back."
"'Course I'll be back. Haven't I told you? This planet's my favourite."
"So you can leave, now."
"Rose. Didn't I tell you? I'm not fooling anyone. I was never fooling anyone."
(Back in the beginning of those days, with bright sunshine and gentle breezes carrying the scent of smoke across the world, with those so carefully controlled explosions-- nothing wasted; nothing out of place-- somewhere in the middle of nowhere, breathing heavily, behind a rock, with a backpack and each other and nothing more. Of all the species he'd wanted to stay anywhere but here.
"Where'd you leave it?" she'd said, and she wouldn't meet his eyes.
"What?"
"The TARDIS-- where'd you leave it?"
"Excuse me?"
"Y'know, you're only fooling yourself," she'd said, and there'd been such pain in her smile, and she still wouldn't meet his eyes. "I know who you are. I know."
"Rose. Listen to me." He'd grabbed her arm. "I'm not foolin' anyone, here. I'm not lying."
"But you are the Doctor."
He'd looked up, at the faintest haze of smoke covering the perfect blue sky, and sighed, because to be the Doctor, at a time like this, entailed certain things that he just wasn't at all sure he was even capable of anymore. But he'd told himself he wouldn't lie. "Yeah."
"I figured." She'd tossed her head back. "So when are you goin'?"
"I'm not."
"You have to."
"Who says?"
"You do. You can't-- you run around space an' time in the TARDIS, it's what you do. T'think of you standin' still--"
"What, this looks like standin' still to you? All that runnin' for our lives from the Libriti, that's too boring for me?"
"Yeah, but if we win--"
"It's not standin' still. I don't care what any of those idiots told you, it isn't. Even ignoring the minor alien invasion currently taking place. Nothing on this planet's standin' still."
"Yeah-- you told me. Earth 'round the sun 'round the galaxy out to space, yeah, you said, you could feel it all, but that's not enough, is it?"
"It's more than that-- god, how long were you runnin' around with that little squirrel? Ruined you for life, he has. Listen to me. Of course it's enough. Just living-- payin' bills an' goin' to work and out to the pub an' home to your wife-- I'm not gonna lie an' say that's all I ever wanted, but I can't think of anything I want more. Say it's 'cos I'm traumatized, I don't care. Just 'cos there's not-- not mortal peril an' alien invasions an' really wild things-- it's everything, Rose. Everything. Only difference is the scale. And it's high time I learned these currents, anyway."
"The scale," she'd repeated, not sounding convinced.
"Size is relative! --and don't you give me that smirk! Humans! All this modern tryin' to get different perspectives, go multicultural, take all the biases out of art an' they never realize the most significant bias of all-- it's all biased toward drama, toward excitement, exoticism-- tryin' to take you out of reality, an' I respect that, but it's got its perks! Can't you see I might want that? Maybe I like havin' the worst trouble in my life bein' those weird looks your Mum gives me during those stupid dinners you make me go to. Though I'll grant you, that's no small trouble. Your mum's formidable. Maybe I like havin' a home, settlin' down, seeing everything in detail, how it all fits together day-to-day. Clockwork 'stead of tides, the basic principle's the same, but there's still a difference you can only appreciate by studying 'em. Maybe I like you."
"...What, maybe?" And she'd started to grin.
"Startin' to have my doubts-- but Rose, can't you understand? It's worth it, to me. It's not perfect an' it can't last forever but it's worth it, to me. I'm not fooling anybody, Rose. I'm here 'cos I want to be here an' you bloody well won't stop me, y'hear?"
"Oh, yeah." She was grinning at him; all was right with the world (except, yeah, pesky alien invasion, they could deal with that tomorrow). "Loud an' clear."
"Good. 'S long as that's settled.")
"Y'know, I saw it," Rose murmured, and her eyes were starting to drift closed. She struggled on: "That time... with the TARDIS... I saw it all. I could've done anything, you know? Could've changed anything, could've gone down any path. An' I chose this. I chose this. Right brilliant of me, really."
"Rose..."
"I'm sorry. I knew it'd happen. Had to... didn't it? I'm so sorry."
"Rose, don't worry--"
"Go out an' save a few worlds for me, yeah?" Fading. That really was the only word to describe it.
"'Course I will! That's what I do!"
"'S why I love you," Rose mumbled, as her eyes slipped closed.
He pressed his lips to her forehead and spoke, low, because this should be only for her: "I love you too, Rose Tyler."
And it was him and the monitors and the tear running down his cheek, in the dingy hospital room where those with ears to hear could hear the storm approaching outside, above the fireworks.
That fool would call this sitting still, wouldn't he? He wouldn't be able to see how, sitting here, he moved with every rise and fall of her chest. Rise. And fall. And rise. And fall. And fall.
(He knew exactly where the TARDIS was. You probably could've plotted it by tracking his movements to determine where it was he didn't go. He'd been scared, probably, he thought: scared that they were right. Scared that if he left once, he'd never be able to settle down again. Old habits died hard, after all. Afraid he wouldn't have a choice. Afraid he'd lost it forever. Afraid Rose would ask him to, either because she thought he needed it or because she wanted it herself: maybe John Saunders was boring, maybe he couldn't hold a candle to the Doctor.
"There's not a difference," she'd murmured. "There really isn't. What with two of you, I've really learned to tell."
"Oh, god, please don't compare me with that little prettyboy twat."
"Really. It's just-- you."
He wasn't entirely sure, most days, who exactly 'he' was, but she knew.
Maybe he was traumatized. Maybe he needed to hear a second heartbeat just to feel normal again, hear the rhythm his bodies had been accustomed to for centuries. Maybe he was crazier than he'd ever been before.
He'd been pretty damned crazy in his time, so he doubted it.)
He tried it for a moment: sitting still. Truly still, not following her or the workweek or any of the other rhythms he always caught himself up in. Just-- still.
And he could hear it, a million different voices, a million different times, calling him forth.
("I'll take a vacation," he'd said, mentally blessing Douglas Adams for the 'reasoning'. "Go off the grid for a bit. If the universe really needs me, it'll call back.")
"Go out and save a few worlds for me," she'd said. And there wasn't any reason to stay here anymore.
He kissed her cheek, one last time, then took a deep breath and walked out.
"Sir?"
He turned; it was Gerald. "Didn't I tell you not to call me 'sir'?"
"Yes, sir, I was just wondering, sir..." His voice sounded hoarse, he cleared his throat. "Is there anything you need?"
Not really. "Find Harriet. Give her my condolences."
"Condolences?"
"She'll know what it means." Harriet was one of those people who understood the responsibilities of power. He approved of her, even if Rose kept giving them both those strange looks and posing her random ethics questions at least twice a week. A lot of people would like having power. Harriet wouldn't, which was why it was safe to trust her with it. Sadly ironic, but it worked. "Thanks, Gerald."
"Sir... what are you..." Gerald swallowed. "Where are you going?"
"Sunset," he answered, and walked away. What he made of that, he didn't care; Gerald didn't stop him.
It was going to make a good story, he had no doubt. Tragic death and disappearance and they'd lap it all up, the mystery of it. Romantic, they'd say. Romance was so much more than it seemed. So much less. So much more.
The storm broke as he stepped out of the hospital, which he couldn't help but find ironic. He just stood there, for a moment, and watched the crowds of people in the street.
And maybe it was crazy, but he could see her everywhere-- that girl holding the newspaper over her head had her eyes, that Haitian girl her laugh, that boy in the vest her smile... Maybe he'd been traumatized, but he could feel her in the rain, feel her presence in the currents of air around him.
Probably wishful thinking, but he'd take it.
And here they were, those humans, not even sense enough to come in out of the rain, dancing in defiance of the storm...
Or not even defiance, he realized; dancing with it, like it was a simple fact of nature, like it brought blessings in its wake. With the storm.
One thing about this "holiday": he'd realized that, going by most (if not all) commonly accepted definitions of the term, it wasn't his home planet he'd lost in the war. This was it. Here.
And maybe it was no coincidence it had survived. Dancing like the storm was on their side.
Home, or as close as he'd ever get. No-- despite everything, there'd never been a question that he'd come back.
(Watching her address the makeshift meeting hall, clear and awkward and defiant, it had come to him what he wanted to say to that man. And maybe he'd get the chance; Void or no Void, nothing could keep one TARDIS from another. It was probably possible, one short message, and he knew then what it would be.
He'd say, I just hope you'll live to see how wrong you were.)
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