Listen to: "Adagio for Strings" or "So Far" by Ólafur Arnalds

Chapter 9: Àird

New report for Rose Tyler's 20 Questions: Hardy's pet peeve has now embodied Olly Stevens, and he only has minutes to live.

"Hello, Olly Stevens from The Echo, nice to meet you," he came up from behind Hardy and stuck out his hand to Rose (note that the other still held his mobile).

Rose reluctantly shook it. "Hello, are you related to Ellie?"

"My aunt, actually," he nodded, dropping her hand. "And who are you?"

"Olly," Hardy turned to the lad, "I swear on your mother's life if you don't get away from—"

"Oi! Come on!" Olly flashed Rose a nice smile, interrupting Hardy. "This'll be good for the community paper! Eh? Bitter Detective Hardy's relationship with a, if I should say, beautiful newcomer? Imagine it!"

Hardy just about opened his mouth to finally give Olly an unfiltered piece of his mind, but Rose jumped in, saying in just about the absolute politest voice he had ever heard: "Sorry, there's not really much to tell. We're not together."

"Oh," Olly flicked his eyes down and then back up to Rose's face, grinning. "Well, then I'm Olly. Very nice to meet you. How long are you staying in town? I—"

His blood boiled in that very moment as he watched him hit on Rose. "Okay, that's quite enough of that, now," Hardy snapped, trying to gauge Rose's reaction, but she still had the same smile plastered on from Olly's very first word. Did she like him? Olly? He wasn't exactly terrible looking, and around her age. Hardy didn't really want to think about Rose fancying someone else other than him. "Come on Olly, she's on holiday. You really that desperate?"

"Well, I think you're lovely," Olly said to Rose.

"A bit too young for me, don't you think?" she scrunched up her nose.

"Well…" he began.

"But, thank you," she cut him off, nodding.

"Right," Olly winced. "Well, follow me on Twitter anyhow. Olly Stevens! Remember the name!" He pointed to her.

"Oh, I will," Rose laughed, waving him off.

He got the hint and left the two alone, to the great enjoyment of Hardy. "How'd you do that?" he asked her once they were alone (as it should).

"Do what?" she said, all too innocently.

"Shoot him down so politely!"

"Well," she shrugged, "I figured I'd let him down easy. How old is he, no more than twenty-three, no?"

"Yeah, well, that's Olly for you," Hardy frowned.

"What, not a fan of the press?" she grinned.

"Not at all."

"Good, neither am I."

She smiled widely at him and in one of those ways where he thought she truly fancied him. That she had just shot down the charismatic Olly Stevens in favour of him. He liked to think things like that—that he was as special to her as she was to him. "Where's your family?" he asked.

"Oh, I went off on my own looking for you, actually," she explained with a nervous giggle.

Maybe it wasn't just in his head, with things she said like that. Made him think that he was her priority, that he was special. "Did you need to…?" his voice drifted, seeing if she needed to go back to her parents.

"I'm a grown woman," she laughed, "I think I'll be fine."

"Yeah, 'course," he nodded.

"So, what did you want to do?"

Hardy tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what did you want to do here?"

"Like, at the festival?"

"No, at the Buckingham Palace, yes at the festival," she playfully teased him.

He had to laugh at himself at that one. "Oh, yeah. Um, whatever you wanted to do."

"Well, do you want to get some chips? I passed the chippy booth back there," she pointed her thumb behind her up on the road, where various tents were set up.

He nodded. "I'd love to get some chips with you, Rose Tyler."

Suddenly her stomach dropped. Rose Tyler. Her full name. He said her full name. Rose Tyler. Always Rose Tyler. Always the same. A mantra. A chant. A song. Everything slowed and her name stayed the same. On the Doctor's lips he said just two words: "Rose Tyler."

"Right then, Rose Tyler, you tell me. Where do you want to go?"

"Rose Tyler. I was going to take you to so many places."

"And you, Rose Tyler!"

"Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth..."

"Rose Tyler—"

The last two words of him were her name. So important. So controlling. ROSE TYLER. Everywhere. She was him. ROSE. TYLER. She was his last, final word. She was feeling—

Done. Oh, not today. She was feeling done. Never again would she not have control. No more dreamless sleeps, no more hospitals, no more stitches, and definitely no more old men in book shops with specs and pinstripes. It was her and Alec, like it should. Now it is was them two against the world, and she definitely liked her odds.

"Rose?" Alec asked looking at her just as strangely as she looked at him. "Are you alright?"

She nodded but then paused and scrunched up her nose, saying: "Kind of hungry, actually."

"Hungry, yeah?" he laughed, assured she now was fine.

"Yeah," she nodded, sticking her tongue between her teeth.

"Then to the chips?" he pointed for her to start walking so he could follow.

"Yes, Inspector," she saluted before walking off.

He scrunched up his nose and followed her. "Oi, I don't think I like being called that."

"Too official for you?" Rose quipped.

"I dunno, just weird, I guess," was his only reply.

"You know," she drawled, "you could just say you prefer me to call you Alec. You don't have to be all cagey about it."

Hardy huffed under his breath. "Oh, but cagey's my middle name."

"Mine's Marion," she told him.

He looked down at her at that. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, Rose Marion Tyler. And you're Alec Cagey Hardy?" she smirked.

"Michael."

"Alec Michael Hardy," she hummed. "I like it. All two syllables; even."

He hadn't really given much thought on how many syllables that was. "Yeah?"

"Mine's one, three, two. All awkward, 'course." Rose was beginning to ramble.

"Just like you, hm?" he nudged her shoulder with his upper arm.

She took that brevity of contact as an invitation, so she linked her arm with his before he could even notice. "Don't be such a prat, Inspector."

He almost tripped over his feet when Rose bound her arm with his. Then, blushed profusely when she emphasised the word 'Inspector' with a drawl of 'n' that was horribly suggestive.

Rose began to notice rather quickly that the people passing them by were noticing her and Alec, some openly staring. "Do people know I'm...?" she asked him while still keeping an eye on the crowd they passed through on the way to the booth, letting her question falter at the end.

"Hm?" He looked the direction she was looking to and indeed saw the several festival-goers who were watching the couple with peaked interest. "Oh, no. They're all interested because of me."

"Well," Rose laughed, turning to look at him, "aren't you a bit vain?"

"They're interested because I'm me and you're you," he attempted to explain.

"And what's that mean?"

"It means that a grumpy old Detective is seen at a festival wearing jeans and trainers no less with a gorgeous blonde from out of town. It's gossip gold for this bloody small town," he bit.

"Gorgeous, hm?" she repeated, batting her eyelashes at him. Of course that was the only part she seemed to hear. The part he shouldn't have said.

"W—well yeah," he sputtered.

Rose laughed as he struggled, which he thought was quite cruel. "Oh, I'm only giving you a hard time. Besides, I think you're handsome as well."

"Yeah?"

"Oi, don't get a big-head, now," scolded Rose.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

She scoffed. "Mhm, sure you don't."

#

He had followed her after he had refused to let her buy her own chips to a bench far off from all of the festivities, sitting not too far from where her family was staying. (He secretly wished she would have grabbed hold of his hand on the way over.)

"Can I ask you a question, since we never properly ended our game yesterday?" she asked him while unfurling her newspaper that held the chips.

Hardy nodded. He had so many more questions he wanted to ask her.

She took a moment to continue, watching the lights on all of the booths down the road slowly begin to turn on as the sun sank deeper into the water. "Why don't you like chips?"

Chips? He had never told her he had hated them in the first place. "I do like chips," he replied.

"At the chippy," she explained, "you hardly touched your food, and you didn't get any tonight. You're rather a piss poor Scot."

He chuckled at that. "No, I do like chips, it's just…"

Rose raised her eyebrows and popped a chip into her mouth.

"I wasn't allowed to eat them for a while, you see."

"Oh, diet?" she scrunched up her nose.

He could tell her right now. He could tell her about everything, and he'd knew she'd listen. Listen better than anyone else in the entire world. Because that's what Rose Tyler did. She cared about him, and she listened. And, he wanted to. He wanted to tell her so badly. But, she didn't need to worry or fuss or become like his incident with Becca Fisher. No, that couldn't happen. He hated fussing and judging. People seeing him as weak. However, he knew Rose could never be that. He saw something so kind in her eyes, that even after only a few days of knowing her, he trusted her. He felt like he knew her. Knew how she'd react: cool, calm, and collected. Maybe a crushing hug or a wide smile and nod. And she'd of course worry, because in Hardy's mind (fantasy) she loved him, so of course she'd worry about him. But, she'd never let him know that.

It might be his only chance to tell her, and he'd sure kick himself later if she found out from Ellie. "Yeah," he answered her question dryly. "I…" he gulped, "I actually would like to tell you something."

"Yeah?" She gave him that smile and nod and he knew he was right.

"I had to stop eating chips a couple years back because I found out I had, uhm, arrhythmia."

Arrhythmia? Wasn't that when someone's heart didn't beat right? Rose really wasn't sure. "Yeah?" she pretended like she knew exactly what he meant.

"You don't know what that is, do you?" he grinned, knowingly.

She giggled and shook her head. "Not exactly."

"The heart is like a machine, yeah? And it has these electrical impulses going to it, signaling it when to beat. But my impulses didn't work properly. Sometimes they'd make my heart beat too fast or too slow."

"And," her voice faltered and she put down the chip she had been holding in her finger since he had first told her, "are you alright now? Or are you going to be alright?"

"I got a pacemaker this past year," he tapped his index finger on the chest over his heart. "It'll do the job."

"No," she shook her head and set her chips down next to her on the bench. She moved to sit closer to him and put her hand where his finger just was. "I asked if you were alright now."

He cut his eyes down to where her hand rested on his chest. "Well, like I said I got the—"

"No," she repeated. "How do you feel?"

"I feel fine."

"Fine isn't an emotion, Inspector."

"Alec. Call me Alec," he breathed.

"Only if you tell me it made you feel. And you tell me if you're alright now."

He shifted on the bench. "What? You want me to cry to you, Rose? Is that it?"

"I want to carry it with you," she murmured.

"Carry what?"

"Your prison."

His eyes shot up to meet hers, wide. "I felt like I was gonna die. Die before I could make things right. And that just about killed me before my heart could."

"And how do you feel now?" she moved her hand from his chest up to cup his face.

A pause. "I feel sad."

"Why?"

"Because nothing's changed. I'm still here. My daughter still hates me—just a bit less now. I'm still alone. I still haven't eaten chips…"

Rose quickly took her hand off of his face (not before rubbing his beard briefly with her thumb) and turned to pick up a single chip in order to offer it to him. "If you eat this then two of those things will be different."

"Two?" he glanced between her and the chip.

"You should know by now that you're not alone," she smiled wryly.

"No," he shook his head, plucking the chip out of her grasp. "'Course not."

"How long's it been since you ate one of those?" she asked as she watched him twirl it around in fingers.

"About four years, give or take," he squinted at the golden-fried bit.

"How do you remember it tastin'?"

Alec looked up at her and laughed. "Salty."

"You'll have to tell me if tastes the same as it did in your head," she cut her eyes down to the chip.

He smiled softly and looked at the chip for a while long, before bringing it up to his lips and taking a bite. Rose watched him with interest as he chewed.

"Well?"

"It's still salty," he replied after swallowing.

"No!" she tilted her head back and laughed. "Is it better than it was in your head?"

Popping the rest of the chip into his mouth, Hardy thought about it. "I think it was better in my head," he finally said.

"Why?"

"Because in my head it was one of the things I couldn't have. And the grass is always greener."

"You're right," Rose nodded. "It really is." She took the package of chips and moved in order to place it between them. "A few more wouldn't hurt, would it?"

He shook his head and reached down to take some in his point. "I've been able to eat them for a while now."

"Then why haven't you?" she asked.

"I dunno, I guess I was hesitant to."

"Because you hadn't had 'em in so long?" she offered before taking a bite out of a chip.

He chewed on the chip he had placed in his mouth and shrugged.

"So," she began, swallowing her bite, "What else could you not have?"

"Anything 'unhealthy', really."

"So no fast food, then?"

"Nope."

"Oh hell," she laughed, "I would've died if it were me."

"You and your chips," he shook his head.

"Are soulmates," quipped Rose.

Alec snorted. "Oh, and couldn't drink that much."

"What's your alcohol of choice?" she asked before popping several smaller chips into her mouth.

"Alcohol of choice?" he grinned.

"Oh sod off, copper," she replied with a full mouth.

"I used to drink Heineken at the pub rather regularly."

"Hm, yeah you do seem like a beer kinda bloke."

"What sort of bloke is that?" he laughed.

"You know, the kind of bloke who hasn't heard of a razor," she joshed.

"Oi," he rubbed his beard with his hand, "You don't fancy it?"

"Eh, it's growing on me," she had to admit, letting her eyes roam over his face.

He played nervously with the chip he had just grabbed. "Can I ask you a question?"

Rose shrugged. "Uhm, sure. I mean, it is your turn."

"Right," he half-smiled. "Rose…uh—what I want to know, is—" He wanted to know what the Doctor was like. He wanted to know if the Doctor was like him. He didn't know how Rose'd react. though. If she'd take offence, or cry, or tell Hardy exactly what he wanted to hear: that he was nothing like the Doctor and that she loved them both with all of her heart (he more-so than the other lad, of course). "What was he like?"

She immediately looked down at the chips sitting between them and swallowed thickly. "The Doctor?"

Hardy didn't answer her, because he knew that she knew who he was referring to.

"He…he was very bright." A pause. "And brave." Another pause, then a smile. "He wasn't quite like you. He didn't have the beard." She chuckled.

He weakly smirked.

Alec had told Rose of something extremely personal, and she never could tell him her secrets. Nothing of the Time Lords or the Tardis or the fact that the Doctor really wasn't dead. But, she had to give him something. Something of equal value. Something just as personal. "We were never together. Like that. I wanted to but…it was complicated on his end. He wasn't the domestic type."

That shocked Hardy. He had assumed they were. "But you travelled with him."

"As friends," she replied. "My very best friend." She added, softly: "But we lost our chance."

"If he were still here, do you think you'd be with him?"

"Actually, I believe it's my turn," she grinned, looking up at him—refusing to answer such a question.

He realised as soon as he said it that he had gone too far, and caused to her retreat.

"If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?" Rose asked him.

Anywhere, as long as you were there, a love-struck Hardy immediately thought. Oh bloody hell, he was beginning to disgust himself. "Canada."

"Canada?" she gaped. "Why?"

"Nice and quiet there, I'd think."

"So, you want to live in the middle of nowhere, eh?"

He chuckled. "You should know by now I'm not overly fond of crowds."

"I've always liked crowds," Rose wondered.

"Really?"

"You're never alone in a crowd. It's pretend company. You can look at a complete stranger and never feel lonely."

"That's not the way I see it," Hardy shook his head. "I see a crowd of strangers that don't know my name. That'll forget my face as soon as I walk past."

They were silent for a time after that. Just eating chips and watching the crowds of the festival move about the booths and the beach. By then, the sky was murky near the ocean, with the only light coming from the orange of the clouds.

"When you go back to London, what are you going to do?" he finally said.

"I haven't really thought much about it," she replied softly, seemingly embarrassed by her uncertainty. "I was in a hospital for three years." Rose shook her head. "I lost so much time. Years gone. Time I'll never get back. Sometimes it's strange how I'm suddenly in 2015, because it feels like just yesterday I was with him."

He pushed around the last stray chips on the paper with his finger. "When were you last with him?"

"Seven years and seven months, give or take the days. I tried to stop counting, you know?" she bitterly replied. "Sometimes it feels longer or shorter."

"It's your turn to ask me a question."

She looked up and turned her body to sit more towards him. "Am I your friend?"

"Well, I thought we were mates…" he was suddenly unsure of what they were. "Are we?"

"The best of friends?" Rose didn't know what she was getting at get.

Hardy shrugged. "I guess if you want to be. I'd like to be. Your best friend, I mean."

"Do you think I'm crazy? For being in a hospital and seeing ghosts and chasing after dreams…do you think I'm out of sorts for doing all that? Do you judge me?"

He noticed she fiddled with her hands while she spoke, and decided to try and her change in mood lighter. So, he chuckled and joked: "You only get one turn."

She didn't respond with a laugh, just looked at him—waiting for him to answer.

"I try not to judge you," he answered heavily, and truthfully. "But I can't help but judge you. Judging folks is my job. But, I don't think you're crazy. You were just too young."

"I was nineteen when I left," she nodded.

"Exactly, you were just a baby."

"And am I baby now?"

He gulped. What was she trying to say? Was she trying to be suggestive? With her wide eyes and full lips? "I…no?"

Rose's eyes cut to the festival afar, and her lips parted in an 'o'. "That a bonfire going?"

"Bonfire?" he scrunched up his nose, a bit dazed at the sudden change in conversation. Hardy turned his head to see, yes indeed, a tiny little bonfire burning beyond the tents, the flames looking like they were licking the top. "Oh, yeah, soon they'll light all of these cliffs around us," he said while gesturing.

Rose's head rotated back and forth to gaze at the cliffs. "Really?" Her voice was full of awe.

"Aye, I watched it last year from my chalet."

"Don't get out much?" she teased, her eyes on him.

"Not unless you're in town, apparently," he flirted unabashedly.

She couldn't help but smile bashfully. "Yeah?"

"Oi, now you're getting cocky, Tyler."

"We'll be cocky together, then."

Hardy nodded. There was a lull in the conversation before he asked the delicate question: "Why didn't you take your A-levels?"

She sighed, having already anticipating the question at some point. Her records showed that her father had struck money before she even went into secondary, so of course it would be odd to everyone she met that she had no A-levels with a father who could buy her into any college she wanted. Perhaps get her a cosy corporate job with an office with windows and a secretary and a mass of employees underneath her…Little effort on her part really. But, that led to the best excuse why she hadn't. To be her own person. So, that's what she told everyone. But not Alec. No, he was different. He deserved the truth. Not the whole truth of the Doctor and her Pete, of course. She could never tell anyone that story. Ever. That story was of fiction. That story was the one that kept her at the hospital for so long. The story of fiction. Never seemed real, anyhow. "I didn't think I was very bright back then," she scrunched up her nose. "I didn't have a lot of self-respect. You know, until I met him.

"But what about you? Hm?" she roughly changed the subject. "My question for you is…after your wife left, how did you get it back? The self-confidence?"

Hardy shook his head. "I still don't have it. I never had it."

"What are you talking about?" she smiled incredulously. "You solved that boy's murder! How'd you do that without self-confidence?"

"You don't what you're talking about," he hissed. "That man is free."

"If it weren't for you, he wouldn't have been there in the first place."

"Any other detective could've solved it. Probably even better."

"Yeah, perhaps," she shrugged. Then, she poked him hard in the chest. "But you solved it. That'll never change.

"You have it, you just don't trust yourself enough with it."

Hardy's eyes flicked up to meet hers. "You have it too, you know. Self-respect. Self-confidence. You know you deserve better than what you have. And you know you can do better."

"What do I have?" Rose questioned, clueless to what he was referring to.

He copied her previous action and poked her, however softly, in the chest. "Thorns in your heart. And you deserve better."

There was a slight pause before he continued. "Answer my question from before," he murmured. "If he were still here, would you be together? The way you wanted?"

A pregnant silence washed over the two as they stared at one another. She knew they wouldn't have been together, like that. It was such a simple answer, but one she never, ever, wanted to admit. Even though he loved her, it was something that would never have happened. Even if everything was perfect. They weren't. The Doctor loved her too much to condemn her to a life where she would spend her entire life never having a home, just like him. Everyone needs a home. Everyone needs that one thing they can attach themselves through—a constant in time and space. The Doctor had a prison sentence. He was chained to his Tardis for the rest of his life flying from place to place, tangling an entire web of things that in the end, wouldn't attach.

However, Rose still hadn't found her attachment. What attached herself inside a constant? Obviously not the Doctor nor her parents. Not London nor Tony. Not Torchwood or Mickey.

Was Alec in the Doctor's world? Did he exist? If she had stayed on the other side of that bloody wall, would she still have met him?

First you find your attachment, then you find your home. And, maybe she was looking at her attachment right then and there. With a horrid beard and set jaw. For all she knew, if she had stayed in her own world, they'd be sitting on the same bench.

"No," she finally shook her head. "It would have never been the way I wanted." The way she wanted. A time-lord Doctor that was still alien, but could grow old and never change face. That wouldn't die before or after her. That had no secret wives or children. That had no secrets.

That man, however, didn't exist. He'd never grow old, he'd never stop changing face, he'd die long after her, and he'd continue to have his secrets—never telling a soul.

But, oh, look at the man sitting in front of her that had a chance to grow old. He was beautiful. Something so ordinarily precious. And she wanted it.

Yet, it frustrated her. He had no idea how fantastic he was. Just by being so human. By being everything she had never had.

The Doctor had two hearts and Alec barely had one, and that was perhaps the best—most ironic—thing of all.

So, she changed her mind in that split second. And another parallel universe was created because of it.

"Rose, are you alright?" his voice sounded concerned. "You're…crying."

She pressed a finger underneath an eye and it came back damp. Rose laughed, wiping her eyes with her fingers. "These, Alec Michael Hardy, are happy tears."

"But, shouldn't you be sad?"

"Nuh uh uh," she tutted and shook her head. "You can only ask so many questions."

She could still tell that Alec had no earthly idea why she was so strangely happy all of the sudden. So, she crumpled up the empty paper that still sat between them and sat it on the other side of her. "Remember when you kissed me on the cliff?"

He nodded slowly.

"And you said you were no hero?"

He nodded again.

She grinned. "You were so wrong. You're the bravest man I know."

"Sorry, not following. What did I do?"

Rose moved across the bench, closing the space between them. "You saved a girl from being hit by a bloody car, found out that you looked just like her proclaimed soul-mate, followed her anyways, pretended to eat bloody chips with her family, asked her on a mate-date, kissed her, told her that it was because you needed comfort, played the stupidest game, listened to her talk about the irony of English Roses, wore jeans and a tee, told her something extremely personal, told her that she was thorny, and never thought for a second that she fancied you."

"Wait, what?" he leaned in like he was hard of hearing.

"You did all of that, and didn't know that I fancied you," she shook her head in amazement. "You went out of your way, thinking that I never would."

"How do you know that?"

"Because instead of pushing me towards you, solely on the fact that you look like him, like anyone taking advantage would, you were brave. And selfless. And such a hero. You wanted me to become a five so I could go back to London and never not be able to hear the word 'doctor' again."

"A five?"

"You wanted me to accept it. And I have. And I'm accepting you. You're my constant."

"Your constant?"

"Can you go somewhere with me?" She extended her hand towards him.

He grabbed her hand without knowing any more details. Would they have made a difference?