It's raining the following Tuesday; a steady soaking coming down from the sky that started before sunup, and is predicted to continue throughout the day.
Rose is beyond exhausted when she arrives at the school to pick Tony up.
Torchwood has been contending with an alien threat in the form of body-swappers preying on the homeless, and the situation has become critical enough that all other regular business has been postponed. Rose's meeting with Pete regarding Weevil control in Lambeth has to be delayed till next week, and her annual physical has been rescheduled for Friday.
She's soggy, both literally and figuratively after spending the day outside in a chase that has yielded little and landed two Torchwood operatives in hospital. As she makes her way indoors to the auditorium where the children are congregated waiting for their rides, she has to remind herself not to take her grouchiness out on her brother.
She scans the room in search of Tony – scans past a game of Tag that threatens to trample the gaggle of girls playing dolls over by the rear wall, past a group of boys sharing trading cards and past the occasional studious pupil, buried in a book amidst all the activity.
Then she spots him – John Smith – and the corners of her mouth tug upwards, because he's stretched out on the floor in the corner, opposite a girl no more than five years of age. Even from Rose's vantage point across the room she can see the tears staining the girl's face, the short, sharp breaths wracking her small shoulders, giving evidence of the depth of the child's sorrow – the sorrow that's being allayed right now by a game of Tiddlywinks.
She winds her way between the children running in all directions until she's standing over him. When he sees her, he looks up with a welcoming grin, and there it is again – the inquisitiveness under the guise of playfulness in the way his eyes crinkle at the corners and in the way he smiles like he's genuinely happy to see her – like he's been waiting for her.
She sees this in a momentary glance at him and it's like a nudge to something sleeping deep inside her, but all she says is, "Can you tell me where Tony is?"
"Rose Tyler," he greets her as he climbs to his feet. "Excuse me for a moment, Molly," he shoots back to his Tiddlywinks opponent before returning to face her. "Your brother," he says, stressing the second word to show her he remembers, "is in the art room with Mrs. Larrabee. He was particularly insistent that he be permitted to finish today's project."
She nods knowingly. "Yeah – never been one for doing things halfway, that's Tony."
John nods, but something else has his attention, and he reaches out to finger a lock of her hair. "You appear to have been caught in the rain," he comments as he releases it.
She knows how dishevelled she looks – she did a quick repair job on her makeup in the car, but her hair is still in quite a state. "Not caught," she corrects him. "I've been out in it all day and it's just been pouring nonstop. It's for work," she adds vaguely.
His eyebrows go up in an unspoken question, so she adds, "It's a long story," refusing to elaborate.
"Of course, of course," he nods. His head turns slightly and he gazes at her from the side and he seems to be debating something.
The feeling in her gut pokes at her again, and she runs through her day in her mind, wondering how much she can share with him, because suddenly she's craving, desperately craving the simplicity of a normal conversation with a normal human being.
A particularly loud shout startles them, and they both glance over to where two of the boys are arguing over a trading card. The situation isn't dire, however, so she turns back to him, takes a deep breath and changes the subject from the ridiculous complexity of her own life, to one that's sure to be refreshingly straightforward, at least compared to the former.
"Have you worked here long?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "No, just a few weeks now. We moved up from Hampshire in August."
She notices his choice of pronoun and before she can stop herself, she's asking, "'We?'"
"My cousin," he explains, and she thinks his eyes warm over for a moment, but she's probably imagining it. "She attends university and we share a flat."
She wants to ask him why he lives with his cousin, and how he got into teaching and whether he likes London and any number of other, simple questions that are so refreshingly uncomplicated that she feels like she can breathe for the first time in memory. She wants to ask, but at that moment there's a cry of "Rose!" from across the room, and here comes Tony again, running towards her at top speed until he pounces on her with a hug that doesn't knock her backwards only because she's had time to brace herself.
She laughs with delight and John is grinning with her as he observes, "You have an admirer," and she's not sure why she's feeling herself flush.
"Only because I buy him candy," she ruffles Tony's hair fondly, brushing off the flattery like flour off her hands.
"I rather suspect you do more than that," he remarks. "He's shared some rather intriguing stories with the class involving you."
She shifts her weight between her feet, wondering just what Tony has said about her; about his sister who's explored the stars and other planets; who's met aliens and comes from a parallel universe, and the way this man's eyes are boring into hers makes her suspect he's said a thing or two.
She needs to have a chat with him about that.
For now, though, she chooses to dodge the question. "Yeah, well he's got a pretty good imagination," she replies. It's irrelevant, but it's not a lie, so she continues fixing his gaze until Tony gives her hand a tug and she finally turns to follow. "It was nice to see you again," she bids him goodbye.
"I look forward to the next time," he replies.
As she makes her way out the door, she turns and sees him as he sits down again with his Tiddlywinks opponent, and it occurs to her just how long it's been since she last played the game.
She decides to play with Tony today.
+ - + - + - +
That day at Bad Wolf Bay – so much had been said, so much more left unspoken.
For all the times she'd replayed the first scene at that wretched place in her mind; all the times she'd mulled over what he'd almost said, dissected every nuance about him – for all of the anguish she'd endured over what hadn't been said that day – it was really the second time that was worse, with all the unspoken sentiments between the three of them that would eventually tear out her heart.
She had watched the blue box dematerialise as the duplicate stood by her side, his hand in hers. She knew he was watching her closely; studying her as she watched the Doctor – the real Doctor – walk out of her life once and for all, this time by choice. Something inside her was struggling, pushing its way up and out of her, a firestorm of emotion and she wanted to cry and rage in sorrow and in anger at him.
But then the duplicate's fingers had tightened around hers, reminding her that he, at least, had spoken the words that she had longed to hear. He, at least, was willing to share his life with her, and he looked so much like the original, after all…
He had winked at her, and said "Allons-y," with a click of the tongue and a pair of playful eyes, so she had swallowed hard, forced the albatross back down deep and decided to try living the lie.
And really, it wasn't bad at first.
Actually, it was rather charming for a while – watching the delight he had taken in the new sights, sounds, tastes and sensations that came with his new, half-human body. His wonder at discovering that he rather liked liquorice, and that even pears weren't quite so distasteful any more. His fascination and joie de vivre about the tiniest details of human life; credit-card scanners, sunscreen, regional DVDs, and automatic flushing toilets all sent him off on a rant about the brilliance of watching human society develop.
And sex – oh, that new sensation; the awe she could see in him when their lips touched, when her hand caressed his face, when his fingers explored her body and he felt himself respond; he was a nine-hundred-year-old soul suddenly placed in the virile body of a young human man, and he revelled in every exploration of pleasure between them.
It was getting him to stop – that's where the problems began.
It wasn't that she had tired of making love with him, or doing any of the antics he was so eager to try - tasting every imaginable ethnicity of food, searching for alien sea creatures in the Thames, taking walks in the park at odd hours of the night, or sending signals to Bode's Galaxy using a homemade device constructed from hairpins and potato crisps – no, he was every bit as exciting and fun to be with as the original had been.
It's just that he refused to stop and take a rest.
Yes, occasionally he would deign to a catnap, usually following sex, although she suspected in these cases that he considered it to be more a part of the new experience of sex, rather than any real recognition of the fact that his body required rest.
And in fact, the very idea that he did require more sleep was something that he steadfastly refused to concede. When she suggested otherwise, he was positively offended, as if it was an insult, a bothersome character flaw she was accusing him of.
+ - + - + - +
"Rose," he had startled her out of her slumber one time in particular, and a quick glance at the clock showed a mere forty-five minutes had passed since she had drifted off.
The room was dark, he was still lying next to her in bed, and she knew what was coming next; knew from experience that pretending to be asleep would only cause him to amplify his efforts by shaking her or biting her ear or simply pouncing on top of her. So she had sighed deeply and responded with a sleepy "Mm?"
"Rose," he was speaking over her back, propped up on an elbow as he tried to tantalise her. "Did you know that there's a creature who lives in Hyde Park with skin so luminescent it looks like it's actually made out of light from a sunset? It can only be tempted to show itself when the moon is waning, and Jupiter's moon Ganymede is transiting Europa, and even then it can only be coaxed to show itself by baiting it with tapioca."
She threw a weak smack backwards in his direction. "Need sleep," she had grumbled.
"The transit only lasts a few hours. You can sleep when we get back," he had goaded her impatiently, giving her shoulder a harder shake. "Come on – comeoncomeoncomeon," he implored, bouncing up and down on the bed as he spoke and waking her up further in the process.
"No!" she had snarled at him, having reached the limit of her patience. She sat up in bed, her heart pounding now with adrenaline and annoyance. "I'm exhausted. M'gonna get sick if I don't get some sleep. And so are you."
"I'm half Time Lord, Rose," he had reminded her for the umpteenth time. "I don't need as much sleep as you."
"You sure about that?" She had noticed his eyes looking increasingly baggy and puffy the past few days.
Suddenly he was rolling out of bed and onto his feet, and then pacing the room with excess – or, more likely, borrowed – energy. "Doesn't it drive you mad?" he had demanded. "Wasting all those hours in sleep? Such short, human lives and you still spend a full third of it unconscious. There's a star going supernova near Centaurus A, there's a lunar eclipse visible in Stockholm, there's a new breed of fungus evolving in Lima, Peru that will one day cure most varieties of influenza and Mark Shapcott picks up a basketball for the first time today – one day he'll go on to break five separate world records for points scored – don't you want to go see?" He bounced on the balls of his feet impatiently.
"Next time," she had said in a voice of quiet steel before lying down again under the covers. "Go without me if you want." She had shut her eyes and listened to him, trying to stifle the sound of her own breathing as she listened for his. Finally she heard him exhale, and then came the sound of his footsteps as he left the room.
A few minutes later, she heard the click of the door closing and she knew he'd gone.
Of course, she couldn't get back to sleep afterwards.
This had continued with him for upwards of a month, and by this time she knew he was lying about not needing the sleep; knew his body was dragging, in the way he slumped every time he sat down; the way he refused to sit for more than a few minutes at a time; she could see it in the dark circles under his eyes and the way he spoke with even more nonsensical meandering than usual.
It had all culminated one night at one of Mum and Pete's parties – an outdoor affair celebrating some sort of product launch at Vitex Industries. By this time, the Doctor had discovered the energising properties of caffeine, and for the first hour or so of the event he had bounded about like a madman, shaking the hands of the Vitex employees and just generally charming the socks off of each and every one of them with his charisma and flawlessly targeted flattery.
Then things had taken a turn for the worse.
His prattle with the guests began to take dizzying twists and turns, starting innocently enough with the nutritional content of the Vitex product, but then veering off into such topics as the development of ceramic glazes during the Tang Dynasty in China, and the censorship debate surrounding the Smothers Brothers in 1968.
Rose had been trying to distract him and get him alone for some time, but finally the call came to sit down for supper and she hoped the seat and the food would help to slow down his mania a bit.
And indeed he had quieted down as he began eating his meal, but they had barely started on the second course when he had thrown a woozy look in her direction, turned, and vomited on his neighbour, an unsuspecting administrative assistant by the name of Suzy.
Two minutes later, Rose had him in the loo, hunched over the toilet as he emptied the remainder of his stomach, all the while moaning like a five-year-old.
Thirty minutes later she'd got him home and put to bed, where he stayed for a full five days, getting up only to address his most basic physical necessities.
Afterwards, it was much easier to convince him of the need for regular sleep, but she knew he still resented it.
She was only just beginning to grasp the scope of the responsibility she faced.
tbc
