Time Locked
It wasn't everyday that the Doctor took her to an archeological site. In fact, they usually avoided them, since the Doctor was prone to getting into arguments with the archeologists over the historical accuracy of their hypotheses. Such visits usually ended with Rose dragging the Doctor away from an argument by the cuff of his coat and aiming half-heartfelt apologies, and smiles over her shoulder, and glowers at the alien next to her. Naturally the Doctor was usually clueless as to what he had done wrong and why Rose was now mad at him.
Luckily, this wasn't one of those days. Rose didn't think she could take it if it had been.
They were exploring the ruins of an ancient city that had been destroyed by a volcano and looked much like Pompeii back on Earth but wasn't. (As Pompeii was fourteen hundred light-years away, and a little over four million years into humanity's past from the time they stood in now.) When Rose and the Doctor couldn't help but be drawn to a crowd that had gathered around on particular spot in the excavation, and judging from the excited chatter that reached the Doctor's ears, he reckoned that someone had found something rather worth the excitement. With that the Doctor gripped Rose's hand in his own and chirped a cheery, "Come on!" before he pulled her toward the crowd.
The Doctor being rude and not ginger pushed his way through the throng of people tugging Rose behind him so that they could get a front row seat. Rose gasped when she looked down at the excavation site. Even the Doctor let out a soft, "Blimey!"
Half-buried in the ground before them lay two perfectly preserved skeletons…
Perfectly preserved except for the caved in skull that was evidence of the immense pressure the bones had been under for however many centuries. But that wasn't the thing that had stolen the breath from Rose's body. The thing that had stolen the breath from Rose's body was the fact that the two skeletons were entwined together; locked forever in an intimate and obviously terrified embrace. Their leg bones were tucked up close to their pelvises, and their hand bones and arm bones were twined in a lover's knot. Eyeless sockets stared deep into the other's and the domes of their skulls were pressed together to whisper comforting thoughts and words of love.
The Doctor crouched onto his haunches and stared down at them. Tears had sprung into Rose's eyes at the morbid romanticism of the scene. The only sounds were the respectfully low murmurs of the crowd about them, and the out-of-place joyful trilling of local birds in a scrubby tree not far off.
"Doctor," Rose managed after a few moments to regain her voice. "What happened here?"
The Doctor didn't answer for a few moments, still taking in this amazing find.
"One day, one perfectly normal day, the mountain this city-state lived in the shadow of, began to rumble. Then after sending ash and smoke and sulfur into the sky for hours, the top of the mountain exploded and sent tons upon tons of rock and ash and debris into the air to fall onto the town below… The town was slowly buried alive. Some fled the city, successfully escaping the wrath of the volcano, but there were many who couldn't. Those who didn't get away fast enough were suffocated and burned in the streets. Others had hidden in their homes in an attempt to outlast the terror nature had unleashed. It wasn't long before they were trapped. Everyone indoors died indoors, either from lack of air, or from their homes caving in on top of them under the weight of the rock and ash belched from the belly of the earth… It seems these two were the latter." He said sadly.
Rose and the Doctor did not budge from the excavation site for a long while. The sun was setting before either one made an effort to move, or speak again.
"S'beautiful, even though it's horrible…" Rose said quietly.
"Why's that?" The Doctor replied. "They died a horrible death, Rose."
"I know that." She said dismissing his statement. "But, they loved each other, and they died together… Imagine it, Doctor. Cowerin' in your home, not really understandin' what's goin' on around you. The only comfort you have is this one person you love is holdin' your hand. You're terrified, because somewhere deep inside you know that today is the day that you die, despite you're best efforts to believe this is just goin' to blow over and as long as you stay inside, away from the ash you'll be alright… deep down inside, you know… you know today is the day the world ends, and the last bit of comfort you have is that you don't have to die alone. The person you love is goin' to be there with you…" Rose had tears coursing down her cheeks at this point, and the Doctor was staring at her with an unreadable expression.
"The person you love is goin' to be there with you though," she repeated. "So it's not so bad…" She motioned to the skeletons casting intricate shadows in the setting sun. "Holdin' each other's hand through the fear and the pain, still holdin' each other when their bones get dug up centuries later… Givin' comfort to one another by simply existin.' It's every couple's dream, Doctor. They're gonna be together forever, for always and always, holdin' each other until the end of time. It's beautiful, timeless… time locked…"
"Yeah…" The Doctor replied he was still watching her; the dying sun was making the tear-trails on her face into glistening rivers. "Their love forever immortalized in the way they died… it is a bit beautiful isn't it?"
"If only you didn't have to do it."
Rose began to sob, and the Doctor moved to comfort her. She cried for the fact that these two lovers were dead, for the fact that they didn't have a proper grave in which to rest. Rose cried for every man, woman, and child who had to suffer a slow death at the hands of an unpredictable disaster. Rose cried for the fact that the Doctor had had to destroy his entire planet, she cried for the fact that there were almost certainly couples who would be forever locked in an identical embrace on his planet, had there been any planet left for them to be found on. The Doctor understood this on some level. Perhaps it was just that a shamefully large portion of his brain was tuned into interpreting her words. Perhaps it was that he was thinking the same thing as she had spoken the words. Perhaps it was just because he felt a connection to the two skeletons in the dust because he could think of no other person he would rather be trapped with at the end of all things.
In any case, the Doctor knew that Rose needed some comfort for herself now and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she turned into him, to clutch at his jacket and soak her tears into the fabric of his collar.
Rose pulled away for a moment, hope shining in her eyes, hands clutching at his lapels, and the Doctor knew what she was going to ask before she could ask it.
"We could—we could…" Rose sniffed pitifully. "Doctor, we could save—"
"No Rose." The Doctor shook his head.
"But—"She tried again.
"Rose…" He said, closing his eyes to shut out the pleading of hers. "I've told you this before, your wish in my command, but please Rose…" the stress he put on the word "please" tore at her heart. "Please, be careful what you wish for…"
The Doctor watched as memory flashed behind Rose's eyes. Memories of Reapers, and churches, and memories of the day her father died. The Doctor saw the idea of rescue snuff out in her eyes and watched it be replaced with pain and mourning for the lives of so many people she never even knew. He marveled for the umpteenth time, at the capacity of the single heart of this wondrous human being, who was no longer the girl he had originally stolen away from planet Earth, but something much more.
"It's not fair." She choked out.
"No, it's not." He agreed. "Not a lot of things are in the universe."
"I love you…" she said, but it was little more than a whimper.
"I know." He replied after a pause, quite blatantly trying to mimic Harrison Ford's famous line in Star Wars.
She grinned at him through her tears, somehow managing to pick up on the reference, and accept it as a satisfactory answer.
She knew too.
He stood and wiggled his fingers in front of her face to coax her up and back to the TARDIS.
"Onwards and upwards?" He sighed.
"Onwards and upwards." She replied taking his hand and following him back to his magnificent blue box.
"How long you going to stay with me?" he asked after a few steps.
She stared at him and said quite seriously, "Forever."
Back in the ruins, the lovers in the dust remained locked in their final embrace until the end of time.
A/N: Review please!
