Author's Note: This is an Alternate Universe story where The Doctor is a female version of Rose and Ten is John Tyler, her human companion. I've had this idea in my head for a while now, but I'm really not sure if I like this writing style. I would greatly appreciate any feedback you lovely readers have for me, anything to help me improve my writing. This story is currently un-beta'd, so any grammatical errors are my own. Just let me know what you think. Thanks for reading and enjoy!
Forever
He's too old for this. He's tired of working this stupid dead end job at this stupid department store in this stupid city. He wants change, more than anything in the universe, but he's lost all hope of ever getting anywhere with his life.
And suddenly the shop window dummies are coming to life, backing him into a corner. For that moment, the only thing flashing through his mind is if he were to die here and now, he has no one left to miss him. Until he meets her.
"Run!" she says, her short dark hair and black leather jacket shining. She grabs his hand. He follows, fear and exhilaration raising his heartbeat. And it begins.
She's broken, and so is he. He has lost his family, and she killed her people, and they both hide it, the pain they are in. they hold it inside, punishing themselves. It's what they think they deserve.
It isn't until she takes him to see the end of his world, billions of years in his future, that either of them gives in. They are watching it burn, the Earth, and it hurts him, she can see it. She can feel it as she takes his hand. For the first time in a long time, she feels something, something besides her own pain and guilt and rage. Something besides the fire and the pain of the Time War.
So she tells him, that day, once they're back in his present, because she finally feels like she can say the words without breaking apart into a million pieces.
"My whole planet's dead. It's gone."
"What about your people?"
"I'm a Time Lady. I'm the last of 'em. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own… because there's no one else."
He doesn't say anything at first, because he understands. He's lost everyone too. He's alone as well. But maybe not anymore. He slips his hand into hers, and she looks up at him, her blue eyes meeting his brown.
"I know it isn't the same, but…there's me."
She smiles, a smile that, for the first time in centuries, reaches her eyes and warms her hearts.
O-O-O-O-O
They travel, they save worlds, they learn about each other. She discovers that under his pain and avoidance, there is compassion. When she's lost, angry beyond reason, ready to murder a lone Dalek, he stops her.
"What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?"
And that's what she needs. Someone to stop her. He helps her uncover herself, helps lessen her guilt. They heal each other.
When he begs her to go back in time, to see the family that he's lost, she obliges, though she knows it won't end well. And when it doesn't, when he breaks down and tells her the truth, how he had taken them for granted, how he hadn't even gotten the chance to tell them he loved them before they were lost to him forever, she just holds his hand.
"My people," she says softly, wiping the tears from his face as he looks up at her. "I killed them in a war. It was the only way to stop it...I didn't get to say goodbye either."
He looks at her, and there's pain and understanding and love in his eyes, and they reach for each other. They stay there, wrapped in each other's arms, knowing that they're not alone. Not anymore. Her rough and brooding exterior melts away at times like this, and no words needed to be spoken to express the completion they both have.
O-O-O-O-O
She realizes how she feels while inside Downing Street.
"I could save the world but lose you."
She can't lose him, she can't, and it's this determination to save him, to keep him with her, which tells her what she had avoided from her life for oh so long.
She loves him. John Tyler, with his gravity defying hair and his insanely adorable freckles. She loves him, the broken man who fixed her.
O-O-O-O-O
A few million years later it's this love that makes her send him away. They are on Satellite 5, and she can't see a way out. And he doesn't ask for one. He's too good for that. So good, that she just can't let him die. The universe needs him more than it needs her. She needs him to be alive, even if she cannot be alive with him.
So she tricks him, lies to him, sends him away in the TARDIS.
She should have known he wouldn't listen.
He comes back, glowing red and gold, The Bad Wolf. He ends the War, the War that's plagued her for so long. He saves the world. He saves her, yet again.
"I want you safe. My Doctor."
But it's killing him, and she can't let that happen, not for anything.
"Come here. I think you need a Doctor."
It's her turn to save him this time. She kisses him, and it is light and life and death and birth and finality, all wrapped up into one fiery snog. She kisses him, and it kills her.
"You were fantastic, John. Absolutely Fantastic. And you know what? So was I."
He's terrified as she glows all gold; he can't lose her, not after all they have been through together. Not when he loves her so much.
It stops suddenly, and she emerges, new. Her dark hair turned long and blonde, her pale skin now all pink and yellow.
Like a rose, he thinks.
O-O-O-O-O
She's so different, and it scares him. His Doctor, is she gone? He honestly doesn't know, and she's asleep, this new Doctor, and she won't wake up, and he sits at her bedside, waiting for her to get better with his heart feeling frozen and unsure.
But when he needs her, she's there, and that's how he knows it's her. She'd never leave him. Not even death can take her away. When she saves the Earth from the Sycorax, she gives him a tongue-touched grin that he finds irresistible. His heart is warm again, because she's alive, she is so alive.
And it's different, because she's different. She's all light and words a mile a minute and laughter, blonde hair and joy, and it carries over to him. John has never been this happy, he thinks, as they lay on apple grass on New Earth, the new man and his new new Doctor. He holds her hand and it's different in his, but the same somehow. They fit and it works.
He catches glimpses of the old her when he's in danger, when he's possessed by the Lady Cassandra, when he's threatened by a werewolf. The Oncoming Storm; The part of her that will stop at nothing to keep him safe, to keep him with her.
It scares her, sometimes, how much she needs and depends on him. She changed for him, she knows. She chose it, she chose to give her life for him, to look this way for him. And that's shaped who she is now. She's so much better. She was so alone, and he made her better. And she thanks him silently every day for saving her.
O-O-O-O-O
She almost loses it when the Wire takes his face.
"They left him where?"
"Just… in the street."
"The street. They left him in the street. They took his face, and just chucked him out and left him in the street. And as a result, that makes things… simple. Very, very simple. Do you know why?"
"No—"
"Because now, Detective Inspector, there is no power ON THIS EARTH that can stop me!"
And there isn't. She fights and she climbs and she wins, and when she finds him, when she runs to him and she can see his face and feel his arms around her, something breaks inside her and she's so scared, so terrified that she will lose him again, and she can't, she just can't.
That night she won't let him leave her side, and he doesn't try to. It's late, and he looks at her, her hand covering the one that is cupping her face.
"I never said thanks," he tells her, staring deep into her eyes. "For saving me. For bein' so worried about me."
She smiles. "You never have to thank me for worrying about you John."
Then as suddenly as her smile appeared it is gone, replace by a frown as her eyes fill with tears.
"They tried to take you from me."
"They can't," he says adamantly, eyes blazing. He is looking at her, no, looking into her so deeply, that she cannot resist it any longer. She kisses him, and it is sunlight and fire and something cold, an icy fear and foreboding that she tries to push away, holding on to his warmth, to the warmth he brings in her.
It is the best kiss he's ever had. And it's great for her as well.
O-O-O-O-O
She remembers this night when she's dangling over the dark pit, trying to find the right words.
"If you see John, just tell him…"
Even now, she can't say it. Because the words just aren't enough. There will never be enough words, not in English, not in Gallifreyan, not anywhere in the universe.
"…tell him…"
And she thinks of how she's better with him, and how he looks at her, and their hands intertwined, and she realizes what she already understood.
"Oh, he knows."
She faces the Devil, but she is not afraid, not one bit, because she knows he's there, and he'll always find a way back to her, no matter what. Not even Satan can stop that.
"I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods. I've had the whole pantheon. But if I believe in one thing… just one thing… I believe in him!"
And she's right, he's there, he's alive, he's so alive, and they run to each other, a tangle of arms and legs and mouths. He feels like he's overflowing, and he's kissing her, and she is everything, all of time and space and everything in the universe he's ever needed and ever will.
O-O-O-O-O
"How long are you gonna stay with me?"
For once, her impending life span does not cloud her thoughts as she asks such an impossible question. Her whole world, her whole universe, her whole existence now revolved around this wonderful young man, and all judgements of mortality and endings were virtually nonexistent.
"Forever."
What do you say when someone promises you that? She says nothing. Nothing she could say would ever amount to the weight of promise held in those words. And for a while, she actually starts believing forever could be possible.
O-O-O-O-O
Not long after, it's Torchwood Tower and Daleks and Cybermen, and she can't let him die, she never could before and she won't now, not for anything. So she sends him away, as she always seems to do, just as he proclaims he'll never leave her.
"I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never going to leave you!"
But she makes him leave anyway.
But she should know by now that he won't let her do that, just like he didn't last time. So he comes back. And she is relieved, she truly is, because she doesn't know what she'd do without him, this broken man who fixed her.
Everything is all going right, the monsters are falling into the void, and they're holding on, as they always have, holding on together.
But he can't hold on forever.
He tries to play hero; following in her example, she supposes. But he has to get that lever up, or all will be for naught. He has to hold on, he has to, but she can see his fingers slipping from across the room. She aches, knowing she is so close but she can't let go to aid him. She is helpless as she watches her worst nightmare play out before her eyes.
He falls, and she loses him.
He's gone.
All that is left is a blank wall. She feels so lost, her hand touching the white space, her body shaking as she feels herself snap in half, as she realizes it's over. He is gone, really and truly gone. She's lost him.
On the other side, a whole universe away, he is screaming.
"NO!"
Bloody fists beat on the wall in desperation, as if he could break his way through the universe back to her.
"No! Take me back! PLEASE! TAKE ME BACK!"
He sinks down to the floor, and there are people around him, but he can't bring himself to care. There is nothing else to him aside from the tears streaming down his cheeks, the roaring in his ears and the blood pounding in his heart, twisting in his chest. He is alone again.
And so is she.
O-O-O-O-O
She calls to him, and he listens, following her voice. He stands on the beach, Bad Wolf Bay, oh the cruel, sick irony, and suddenly she's there. He reaches for her, but he goes right through her. She's in the TARDIS, she says. Burning up a sun just to say goodbye.
"Am I ever gonna see you again?"
"You can't," she says, her eyes haunted like he has never seen before.
He closes his eyes, wishing her could touch her, feel her cool skin against his, her lips on his neck and her hands tangled through his hair, and it kills him that he simply can't and he knows he never can again. He knows this is it, he's going to lose her, and it's all he can do to stay standing. The tears start.
"What about you? What are you gonna do?"
"Oh, same old life. Last of the Time Lords."
He sees her alone, again, on the TARDIS, and his heart clenches. He knows what being alone will do to her.
"On your own?"
She nods.
He knows it's almost over, and he's suddenly so afraid, so unsure of everything.
"I—" his throat constricts, choking back the words he's never said but always felt. They've always felt. And he knows he has to tell her, if for the last time. She looks at him, her brown eyes shining, and he says it.
"I love you."
"Quite right, too," she says, her voice cracking as she tries to smile. "And I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it… John Tyler—"
She fades away and she is gone, her words lost in the wind, lost in time, and he falls, his knees buckling into the sand. He lets out an aggravated scream to no one in particular considering he was all alone once more, his voice cracking and his eyes overflowing.
She's gone.
Forever.
Back on the TARDIS, she stands alone, tears running down her face, holding herself steady on the console. Her knuckles have gone white from the grip, because she fears she will collapse if she lets go. It's all she can do to finish her sentence, though she knows it is futile since the man they were meant for cannot hear them, will never get the opportunity to hear them again.
"I love you," she whispers. "Forever."