The End of the Fairy Tale
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. That honour belongs to the BBC, and RTD and Stephen Moffat now I guess.
Author's Note: so this is my way of trying to deal with my massive confusion about Journey's End, was that a happy ending for Rose or not?
The End of the Fairy Tale
She couldn't believe she was back here again, Bad Wolf Bay. After all this time, everything she'd gone through, everywhere she'd travelled she was back where she had started, saying goodbye to the Doctor all over again. It was a beautiful place she realised now. Last time she had been here she had been in so much pain she was hardly aware of her surroundings let alone able to appreciate them. A vast expanse of golden stretched out to either side of her, punctuated by stark black rocks. Salty spray filled the air, rising off a dull grey sea. She could taste salt on her lips. Her eyes stung slightly with it, or perhaps that was unshed tears. She was back at the end of the adventure.
Rose felt the wind blow her hair off her face as the TARDIS began to dematerialise. The humming, rumbling noise of its engines, the sound she thought of as the sound of the universe roared out across the bay. She was never going to hear it again. Part of her wanted to scream, to yell at him to come back, to take her too, to protest that she hadn't spent all those working to get back to him only to dumped here all over again. Then she felt a hand slip into hers. She became, just a little, calmer.
Once the last traces of the Blue Box that had seen so much disappeared from view she turned round to face the man standing beside her. For a long time she simply stared at him in silence, tracing every line of his face, searching for differences. She thought there was something behind the eyes, a darkness, that was not in the Doctor's-the other Doctor's, face. Perhaps it was only her imagination. She thought there ought to be differences, so her mind created them.
"Rose, are you alright?" he said in that gentle, oh so understanding, far too familiar voice.
She ran a hand backwards through her bottle blonde hair, her lip twisting in uncertainty. "Yeah" she said hesitantly "No, Oh, I dunno". She found her self trailing off lamely. She had no idea how she felt.
Then she looked up at him, a hesitant, nervous smile playing on her lips.
"Could you say it again, what you whispered to me just now, could you say it again?"
He gave her a broad grin at that, a grin that lit up his eyes so the darkness she had seen in them disappeared for a moment. "I love you Rose Tyler". He said it clearly and confidently, without even a second of hesitation.
She looked down at her feet awkwardly, grateful the words which were running like strength and adrenaline through her, but also more confused than ever.
"I think," she said slowly "I think I'm gonna need to hear that a lot for a bit, is that ok"
He cupped her chin in his hand and, very gently, drew her face up to look directly at his. "I'll say that as often as you like, in fact I'll say it so often you won't like, you'll get thoroughly sick of hearing it."
She gave a small laugh at that. She would never get tired of hearing that. It was the most amazing, dizzying, earth shaking thing to hear it coming from his mouth. She had believed she would never hear it, that it would never be possible for them to say those things to each other, and now she was hearing them, from someone who looked like her Doctor, spoke like her Doctor, he even thought like her Doctor. But he wasn't the same.
She bit her lip "You're not, You're not him," she said quietly. It came out strangely breathless.
"I know" he said quickly
"I'm sorry but you're not, so don't think you can just…"
"I know," he repeated quickly, firmly "I know. I'm sorry," there was a hard strained look on his face.
On an impulse, almost instinctively, Rose reached out to him, trying to comfort him a little. She streched up and brushed his shock of brown hair back from his face, looking into the brown eyes. She moved her hand down from the hair onto his cheek. He was flesh and blood and real, and here, and willing to say I Love You, willing to give her a life. That was something wonderful surely. She found herself smiling. He smiled back at her.
"You have all the same memories yeah" she said gently, he nodded.
"Well, do you remember when we went back to world war two, first time we met Jack, and we were stuck in that hospital, and we started dancing."
He smiled "Course I remember that, we didn't even notice when Jack teleported us back to his ship".
She laughed, "Yeah, of course, I'd forgotten that".
Suddenly she was back in that moment, lost in the movement, lost in him. His face had changed since then, she had changed so much too; she was older, sadder. But the way she felt had not changed. She had been crazy in love with the Doctor then, she still was now, but was the man in front of her the man she loved?
"Rose" he said quietly "Do you mind about the travelling, I don't have the TARDIS, I know, but…"
She held up her hand quickly to stop him, shaking her head "Nah, that was never important, I never cared about seeing the lost planet of Pyrovilia or whatever, I cared about being with him, you I guess".
"I'm glad," he replied, a tone of relief in his voice "That's what I thought but… I'm glad".
"It's just, gonna take som getting used to, you being part human and everything. I just…" she sighed a little, "I just need some time"
"How does a whole lifetime sound?" he asked, a little mischievously, but in a voice full of warmth.
"It sounds good, really good" she told him, and that, she found to her slight surprise was true. Time, with him, was good.
She frowned at him a little, the skin between her eyes creasing slightly.
"You see, what I don't get is-," she began, choosing her words slowly and carefully "what happens now? What do we do now?"
"I don't know" he said, with that look of exhilaration and wonder on his face, the look she knew so well, and loved so much "But I think we ought to live happily ever after"
She gave him a doubtful look.
"Hey," he protested "It wouldn't be a boring as it sounds, there'd be aliens to save the world from, your mum to deal with…"
She laughed "Not a bad life," and it didn't sound too shabby either
"Better with two" he said softly.
At that she pulled him into her arms and kissed him, running her hands through his hair, never wanting to let him go.
"Oi, love birds, its bloody freezing out here", a voice ripped through the silence, breaking the spell.Rose turned, still keeping her arms firmly around him, to see her mother looking on with an expression half amused half exasperated. She burst out laughing.
"A happy ending, yeah?" she said turning back to him
"I think, I think we should call this the beginning".
THE END