He slips into her life effortlessly, folding perfectly into the empty spaces of her life. Rose keeps a careful distance between them. In the beginning, she is guarded and sometimes shy, remaining close-lipped around him. She finds the reality of him – being there, by her side, with her – hard to grasp. She does not tell her family or friends that the Doctor has come back. He likes that; he only wants her anyway.
The Doctor learns about this new and older Rose by simple observation (this is the quietest he has ever been). He does not dare to interfere with her daily routines and rituals. There is something heavily sacrosanct about her and her world. He notices how slow her life has become. Her town is a sluggish and relaxed one with little activity within its borders. She keeps herself busy with work (she works as a librarian) and volunteering (homeless and animal shelters). She owns not a car, but a bike and uses it extensively. He buys himself one to keep up with her and they spend an afternoon refreshing his memory ("So it is true what they say about riding a bike," he says happily as he pedals alongside her).
Rose herself is different too. She moves differently now, her movements more fluid, her steps almost weightless. Her speech is quieter, the timbre of her voice lower and her accent has shifted into something new. She has aged, but not by much; twenty-one years has barely left a mark on her. Only her eyes are older. There is still something slightly unreal about her that he can never seem to pin down.
The Doctor fights the urge to run. He has promised himself and her that he will stay and he intends to keep that promise. When she sleeps, he waits in the dark, hands folded across his stomach. He can feel it all, the ticking seconds, the turn of the earth, and the sounds fill his head. In the dead quiet, the pull of everything is so much stronger. He thinks back to his TARDIS, thinks of possible travels and adventures, thinks of all his friends. He misses his not-so-distant past and he thinks how easy it would be to slip out in the middle of the night and slip back in before she wakes. He thinks of sneaking away every night, but with every morning, he finds himself still stretched out on her couch.
And that is how Rose finds him every morning too – still there. Each time, he sees the shadow of surprise pass over her face, though it begins to fade. Rose smiles at him, the next morning's smile a little bit warmer than yesterday's.
"Good morning," she always greets.
"Good morning, Rose Tyler," he always replies. "And what are we going to do today?"
TBC
A/N:
I've been a long time lurker of fanfiction and I wasn't particularly compelled to publish any of my own until recently, so please excuse any noob mistakes... Anyway, if people are interested, here's a little backstory for the motivation behind this fanfic: I rewatched Doctor Who recently and the whole Rose/Doctor thing left me feeling very annoyed (and enormously sad). This is basically my silly way of "mending" the whole thing.
I don't really have a set structure to this story, but there is definitely an ending (ironically, it was one of the first things I wrote and is patiently waiting to be uploaded as I figure out the middle bits). Eventually there's just going to be a chapter of just drabbles that fits somewhere in this separate world of theirs.
Thank you for reading and thank you for your patience.
