I write this fan fiction as a love for Doctor Who and not for profit. I own none of the characters.
Rose remembered how she and John stood on the beach staring at one another, feeling connected, yet, estranged from the man across from her. He had the Doctor's same lean, sculpted build, the unkempt spiky hair and those warm chocolate eyes that warmed her to her toes. It had been an overcast day on the beach in Norway where the Doctor broke her heart twice.
"What the bloody hell do we do now?" Rose whispered beneath her breath, the breaking of the waves on the shore covering her whisper.
"We have an entire future to figure that out," he said softly against her temple. "I want that future to be with you, Rose Tyler."
She looked at the indention on the beach where the Tardis had been, now, gone forever and lost to her. She would never see her Doctor again, but the sound of crashing waves would always remind her of the other saddest moment of her life. She blinked several times, sniffling as she wiped away the tears. Rose studied the man clad in the blue suit with the brown tee shirt and Converse trainers, standing there looking unsure with hands shoved deep into his pockets, studying the pebbles on the beach.
"I'm not sure what to do right now," she admitted, sighing as she looked where at that indention mark slowly being washed away by the tide. "I need time to think. I don't know you and I don't know how to bloody deal with this."
"Yes, you do know me," the Doctor said with quiet intensity. "I am the same man who loved you since the day I met you in the department store basemen. I gave my life for you when you were possessed by the time vortex. I could never you give you what you deserved and it ripped me apart until," he motioned up and down himself, "this happened. He was too afraid to tell you because he knew it was impossible, but, it isn't for me. If nothing else, I was made to love you, Rose, and I will until the universe ends."
"We can't just start snogging and believe everything will be all right," she threw her hands in the air, looking skyward. "It doesn't work like that. I – I don't know what to do."
"I don't know how this works, either," he admitted, taking her hands in his. "Please, don't lock me out."
"I'm not locking you out, but-" she placed a hand on his chest. "I've been without you for so long and I don't know what to think about you. Please, give me time to make sense of all this, of you-"
"I'll wait for you," he promised, his eyes burnt with unshed emotion, taking her hands in his and brushing her knuckles. "But remember, Rose, I don't have forever anymore. I'm half-human and I don't regenerate."
Pete and Jackie invited the Doctor to stay with them at their mansion while he established his place and identity in the world. With a few thousand quid and a few called-in favors, Pete helped the Doctor get the needed credentials to be a British citizen. Because he had a love for Scotland, the Doctor chose that land as his place of birth and, not surprising to Rose, took the name John L. Smith. He wanted to show her that he wanted to be an enduring part of her future.
She left the job she held at the shop and started attending Uni with intentions of completing her Single Honours Program in Literature. Rose found that she had a gift with putting fingers to keyboard and telling fantastic tales of aliens and travel to distant worlds. The Doctor -now, John -had taken a position at a nearby High School and enjoyed the work. She didn't know how to proceed in this odd development, this unprecedented relationship with the person who called himself John.
Pete and Jackie were kind enough to let John live with them and Rose, but she kept her contact with John to a minimum. It broke her heart too much to be around the man who looked so much like her Doctor, the one that left her and her family in some backwater parallel dimension with some half-human replacement without even so much as an "I love you" or "I'm sorry."
Rose woke often in the middle of the night with tears streaming down her face, reliving that fateful moment in her dreams when the Doctor had simply turned and left her behind as if she meant nothing to him and never existed. Her heart had shattered a thousand pieces at being abandoned.
"He's too dangerous to be left on his own," Rose remembered those words as they were embossed into her mind.
"You made me!" The other doctor's outrage flared with that statement.
"Exactly. You were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge," the Doctor looked at Rose, staring at her with eyes filled with an unnamed emotion, nodding in the new Doctor's direction. "Remind you of someone? That's me, when we first met and you made me better. Now you can do the same for him."
"But, he's not you!" Rose remembered ever vanishing second of their last time together as if it had been only been days instead of weeks.
His voice was gentle, "He needs you. That's very me."
"Rose," Donna looked past her to the new Doctor standing beside her. "It's better than that, though. Don't you see what he's trying to give you?"
Rose looked at the Doctor and Donna in silent confusion. Rose's thoughts rushed through her mind, 'I don't want that one, I want my Doctor!'
"Oi," Donna nodded to the new Doctor. "Tell her. Go on."
Rose turned her eyes to the new Doctor, her brow furrowed as she studied him.
New Doctor nodded towards the other. "I look like him and I think like him. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything except I've only got one heart."
"Which means?" Rose asked, a single spark lit in her soul.
"I'm part human. Specifically, the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want," his face was a neutral mask, showing no emotion, but his voice carried a thousand years of hope and uncertainty.
Rose felt the first sparks of hope catch fire in her heart. "You'll grow old at the same time as me?"
"Together," he replied.
Rose shook her head in disbelief, not quite trusting the new Doctor's words. Gingerly, stepping forward, she placed one hand on his chest and felt the strong, steady beat of his single heart. His brown eyes never lost her gaze, but the mask of careful stoicism remained in place. Rose remembered hearing the metallic whining and grind of the Tardis motor as it revved, readying for take-off.
"We've got to go. This reality is sealing itself off for ever," the Doctor and Donna turned to return to the Tardis, but Rose ran after them.
"But, it's still not right, because the Doctor's still you," she said.
"And I'm him," he nodded in the other Doctor's direction.
"All right. Both of you, answer me this," Rose challenged them. The new Doctor stepped closer, staring at his counterpart in silence. "When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me? Go on, say it,"
The Doctor swallowed hard. "I said, 'Rose Tyler.'"
"Yeah," Rose pressed. "and how was that sentence going to end?"
Brown eyes softened with hurt and tender adoration, "Does it need saying?"
Rose saw the Doctor glace at the other one, giving a nearly imperceptible nod.
Rose turned her attention to him, "And you, Doctor? What was the end of that sentence?"
The new Doctor stepped forward, gently touched her arm and leaned forward until his breath tickled her ear. "I love you."
Sparks became a flash fire when Rose grabbed him by the lapels of his blue suit, bringing her lips to his for the first time. Not since the Time Vortex had she felt so much energy coursing through her. Dimly, in the background, she heart the Tardis removing herself and her passengers from the closing rift between realities. Pain clenched Rose's heart as she realized that she'd never again see the Doctor nor had even said good-bye. He simply left again.
"What a git I've been," she said, wiping away the flood streaming down her cheeks. While she wallowed in her own anguish, she had missed John's confusion, anger and heartbreak. She felt an unfamiliar sorrow lingering at the corner of her mind, deep and quiet, but filled with passion and unquelled frustration wrapped in depression. She felt John's grief and desolation hovering on the edges of her thoughts. She thought she even heard the breaking of his heart as it beat a stuttering rhythm.
She put on her dressing gown, hastily tying it as she ran down the long corridor of the mansion's west wing. While she'd never visited his chambers, she knew their location. With each step, Rose's speed increased and her heart pounded faster as she neared his rooms. By the time she stood outside his room, her chest ached from the hard run from one end of the mansion to the other, the pain felt like it shattered her ribs inside her chest.
Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath. Vulnerability and nervousness assaulted her senses, making her hands tremble as she raised one to rap on John's door. She never had the chance.
The door opened and there stood John Liam Smith, without his shirt. Only in his pyjama bottoms, the look of utter astonishment on his face was highlighted by the redness of his eyes and their suspicious shine. "What are you doing here, Rose Tyler?"
"I just realized what a git I've been all wrapped up in my own pity," she stood in front of him, gasping for breath. "I'm sorry."
"I told you that I'd wait for you," John used the pad of his thumb to wipe away the tear slowly streaming down her cheek. "I've been just a bit scared, yeah. Just a little tiny bit. 'Cause you see, I've only got one heart and you're breaking it little by little every day."
Rose tucked a stray tendril behind her ear. "I don't want to hurt you and I want to stop hurting you."
"How?" John's voice grew hard. "You can't have me when it's convenient and then cast me out. I'm no one's substitute."
"I know you're not," her voice rose a decibel. "We could . . . go out, talk. I don't blame you if you don't want to after the way I've treated you. You must think me completely daft -"
"No, Rose," his voice dropped an octave, his palm brushing her cheek. "Never daft, only lovely."
"We could," she searched frantically for an idea. "go for breakfast."
"Breakfast?" John's brows rose at the word. "My stomach is all ears."
"We can go out to a little café I know of, my treat," Rose's words rushed with inspiration. "We can talk, get to know each other better."
"I like that idea," a slow smile crept along John's lips.
"I'll be here at your door," Rose promised. "Promptly at eight in the morning."
"At eight, it is," his wariness melted in the brightest smile she had seen on the Doctor's face, John's face, since his arrival.
John's hearing was still superior to that of the humans around him and he heard the rapid cadence of her heart on the other side of the door. He stared at the clock and saw it read 8:05. Count on Rose to always be late. He opened the door to see her dressed in a lovely pink and yellow shirt that clung to her in all the right places. He noticed the underlying scent of vanilla and lemon subtly behind her ears and on her wrists. Leaning down, John planted a brief peck on her cheek, "Good morning."
"Good morning yourself, John," she flashed him the smile that had stayed on the edges of his memory for all of the previous night.
She noticed that he wore jeans rather than his usual suit, but with a brown tee shirt and white trainers. He caught her appreciative smile and the subtle undertones of feminine appreciation that hovered in the air between them.
John recalled how Rose and he impulsively hugged in years past after adventures or for no reason at all, taking him with unconditional acceptance simply because he was the Doctor. His heart had thumped a bit louder when he offered his hand to her. She looked down at it, back at him and slowly smiled before lacing her fingers with him.
"I'm feeling rather peckish," he admitted. He hadn't felt this nervous since he and Rose had first kissed on the beach in Norway what seemed such a long time ago. He had lived on that memory for weeks, alone at night in the dark with only his loneliness as his companion. How he longed to feel her lips on his again and the would welcome his love. The last thing that John wanted was to revisit her confusion and her rejection. John dealt with his isolation as best he could, but being cut off from his Rose had caused him many nights of broken heart and more tears than he dared admit.
"I'd love to," Rose replied, the scowl melting away and replaced with that happy smile that had first drawn his attention. Within the half hour, they sat outside of a small, nearby café, never having felt this much hope about Rose when aboard the Tardis.
"How do you like your breakfast?" John asked, peering over the menu to study her.
"With good company," she said. "With you."
John's heart flipped as hope and anticipation coursed through him. He winked, "I look forward to it, then."
"Where do we start?" Rose asked in a small voice. "I don't know where to begin."
"Weeelllll," he said in a familiar way that made Rose's body relax and a bright smile appear. "We start at the beginning. I ask twenty questions, you ask twenty and we each answer."
"Perfect."
"Rose Tyler, where would you like to travel on Earth that you've never been?" John asked, feeling happiness tug at him s due to a brave blonde with a sharp mind and a beautiful smile. It was going to be a good day and maybe the start of something wonderful. He knew travel was a safe starter subject for them.
TO BE CONTINUED…..?