A/N: Nothing you recognize belongs to me! Quotes taken from "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead!" Check out my teaser for the sequel to "The Long and Winding Road," if you haven't. It's called "The Straight and Narrow Road," and it's my rewrite of season 5 with Rose. :D
Chapter Forty-Seven: Deceptions and Dreams
After a breathless dash down aisles and through corridors, the Doctor skidded to a halt. Rose dropped his hand and leaned against the bookcases, breathing heavily. She was used to running for her life, but they'd been going flat-out for what seemed like hours. The swarm-in-a-suit, the thing that used to be Proper Dave, moved faster than she thought possible, especially after its first halting steps. She shuddered. Her instincts had been right on target—the Library was a tomb and a den all rolled into one.
The Doctor pulled out his sonic and buzzed it at one of the lamps overhead. Anita, Other Dave, and Mr. Lux were in much the same condition as Rose, worse, actually, as they were not used to so much running. River recovered relatively quickly and moved to assist the Doctor in manipulating the lamps. "Trying to boost the power," he told her. "Light doesn't stop them, but it does slow them down."
"So," she asked as she turned her own sonic screwdriver on another lamp. "What's the plan?" She seemed to think better of her words. "Do we have a plan?"
"The Doctor?" Rose asked incredulously. "Plan? I think he's got some kind of anti-plan gene."
Said alien, however, was more interested in River's sonic device. "Your screwdriver," he said slowly, "looks exactly like mine."
River shrugged. "Well, with some improvements. It is yours. You gave it to me."
"I don't give my screwdriver to anyone." His voice was soft and certain.
"You've given it to me," Rose pointed out. "And your psychic paper."
He rolled his eyes. "You aren't anyone."
"Neither am I," River replied. "I didn't take it from your cold, dead fingers if that's what you're thinking." She pocketed the screwdriver after the light brightened. "What's the plan?"
He looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but he refrained. Whether it was because they were in a great deal of danger, or because he had finally realized that River wasn't going to give him any answers, Rose wasn't sure. "I teleported Donna back to the TARDIS," he explained. "If we don't get back there in under five hours emergency program one will activate."
Rose frowned at him. "You've still got that?"
He sighed. "Rose, when we're back in the TARDIS I will fight with you all night, if you'd like, about my emergency programs, but let's make sure we're alive to do that, all right?"
River glanced back the way they'd come. "We need to shift," she said urgently. "That thing's still out there."
He held up the sonic with a frown. "She's not there." His eyes were wide. "I should have received a signal. The console signals me when there's a teleport breach."
"Could the coordinates have slipped?" Rose asked. "The equipment here is at least a hundred years old."
The Doctor dashed to the end of the aisle, where one of the statues sat, its faceplate turned away. "Donna Noble," he demanded. "There's a Donna Noble somewhere in this library. Do you have the software to locate her position?"
With a soft whirring noise the statue came to life, and the smooth white plate turned to face the Doctor. He turned pale and took a step back. Donna's face was staring at him from the top of the statue.
"Donna Noble has left the library," the statue told him in her voice. "Donna Noble has been saved."
"Donna," he murmured, as the statue continued to repeat the two sentences. River's eyes were wide with shock, and Rose covered her mouth with her hand—a futile attempt to smother her gasp. She liked the ginger woman. Donna was funny and brave and had saved their lives on more than one occasion. And now she was dead.
They didn't have long to mourn. Another voice echoed from the shadows behind them. "Hey!" the swarm-in-a-suit cried. "Who turned out the lights!" Anita, Other Dave, and Mr. Lux broke into a run. The Doctor appeared as if he hadn't heard. He stood in front of the statue, grief radiating from him like heat from pavement on a summer's day.
Rose pulled at his hand. "Doctor, come on!" she said urgently. "We need to go!"
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'm so, so sorry." And then they ran.
They came, however, to a dead end. A shadow-that-wasn't-a-shadow crawled across the floor, blocking the end of the aisle, and the swarm-in-a-suit came at them from the other direction, boxing them in.
"What are we going to do?" River asked the Doctor. He did not answer. He was staring from one end of the aisle to the other, like a caged animal.
Rose grabbed the blaster that was holstered to River's side and pointed it at the bookcase across from her. She pulled the trigger and an off-center square hole appeared in front of them. "Everyone, this way!" she barked. "Move! Now!" She wasn't speaking as Rose Tyler, the Doctor's companion, she was speaking as Rose Tyler, Torchwood agent, and they obeyed almost without thought. She waited to go last, and then pressed the digital rewind button. She handed the blaster back to River, and then turned to glare at the Doctor. "The next time we're in Cardiff," she informed him, "you're going to apologize to Jack for ranting at him about his gun, as it came in quite handy then, and now." He managed to look abashed, but she didn't for one minute believe he actually was.
Donna Noble sat on a neatly made bed in a tidy room. She was wearing blue and white plaid, flannel pajamas, and had no idea how she'd gotten where she was. The last thing she remembered was standing on the teleport platform while the Doctor tricked her—tricked her!—into going away. From what, she couldn't remember. She tried, she really did, but it all got fuzzy after that. There was someone else there, a blonde girl, Rose—her memory supplied, but beyond that and a feeling of kinship and general fondness for her, Donna was unsure as to who she was.
The room looked a little like a hotel room, but more like a room in a girl's dormitory. There were personal possessions scattered on various surfaces: her nightstand, the window ledge, the small table next to the comfy chair in the corner. The curtains were open and it was raining outside. There was a knock on her door and a tall, bald, black man in a suit stepped into the room. Donna stood and kept back from him warily.
"Hello, Donna," he said. He seemed friendly enough, and reassuring in the way that a kindly father or uncle would be.
She was not convinced. "Who are you then?" she asked sharply.
"I'm Dr. Moon," he replied. "I've been treating you since you came here two years ago."
She stared at him for a moment, and then gave a little laugh. "Oh," she said. "Doctor Moon! I'm so sorry." She rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. "What's wrong with me? I didn't know you for a minute." As soon as he spoke memories from the past two years came flooding back, and she relaxed. She was in her room, the room she'd had for the past two years. She was safe. She's suffered a sort of nervous breakdown—started having wild dreams that she'd believed were real. It had taken a lot of hard work and therapy, but she'd started to put all of that behind her.
He smiled at her. "And then you remembered. Shall we go for a walk?"
Donna blinked, and they were striding across the short green grass in front of the place she now called home. Dr. Moon was wearing a long black coat, and she sported a puffy burgundy jacket. It had stopped raining, and the sun was shining brightly down.
"No more dreams, then?" he asked, "about the Doctor and Rose and the blue box?"
She glanced about, confused. "How did we get here?"
Dr. Moon looked back at the looming building. "We came down the stairs and out the front door. We passed Mrs. Ali on the way out," he replied patiently.
Once again, as soon as he told her she remembered. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, we did. I forgot that."
"And then you remembered," he agreed. "Shall we go down to the river?"
She blinked again, and there were ducks quacking energetically. The wind was cold against her face and bent the cattails that clustered about the edge of the water. "You said 'River,'" Donna asserted, "and suddenly we're feeding ducks." Something was off. She was about to continue when another voice cut through the air.
"Doctor Moon!" a dark-haired man carrying an assortment of fishing gear called. "Good morning."
"Donna Noble," Dr. Moon said, "Lee McAvoy."
She promptly forgot what she was worrying about, because Lee was, well, gorgeous. He had thick, curly dark hair, brown eyes that twinkled with mischief, and a wide, generous smile. "Hello, Lee," she said coyly.
"Hello, D—d—d" he tried, but succeeded only in flushing with embarrassment.
"You've got a bit of a stammer there," she teased. "Bless." He took a deep breath and tried again, with the same results. "Oh, just skip to a vowel," she told him warmly. "They're easy." He laughed.
Once again she blinked and Lee was gone. She and Doctor Moon were back at the main building just outside the door to her room. Donna caught his arm with her hand as he turned to go. "How did we leave it?" she asked. "Him an' me, I mean."
"I got the impression he was inviting you 'fishing' tomorrow," Dr. Moon replied.
And then Donna was opening the door to Lee, who was dressed for a long day of sitting in the rain whilst she was dressed for a night on the town. Donna had never been fishing before, and she supposed that she would have been bored stiff, if Lee wasn't there. He had an umbrella, at least, and she perched on the cooler with their lunch while he occupied a collapsible stool.
"D—d—d," he tried, but she interrupted him.
"Gorgeous and can't speak a word." She grinned at him. "What am I going to do with you?"
Apparently she was going to marry him. The memories were there, and she ceased to be surprised when life moved in spurts and jumps, skipping over Sundays and Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings to get to Saturdays and Fridays and Monday evenings. It reminded her of something, of a dream that was like a memory from her childhood, but life was moving too quickly and she pushed the feeling aside.
They had two children, fraternal twins named Hazel and Arthur. For the first time in what seemed like forever, Donna was happy. Lee adored her and her children were challenging, but amazing at the same time. There was still something—off, like an itch at the back of her head, but she ignored it. She deserved to be happy, didn't she?
And then Dr. Moon came to visit, and everything changed. It was a normal checkup, until he went to leave. Hazel and Arthur ran through the house, and they talked about her life—how the kids were doing, where they were going for holiday, all the sort of meaningless chitchat that filled up every-day conversations.
He stood and wished her well—and then the Doctor appeared. He looked like a ghost, like a holographic projection, and he was holding the sonic screwdriver. "No," he said, "the signal is definitely coming from the moon. I'm blocking it, but it's trying to break through." His voice was hollow, like it was coming over a speaker system in an empty room, or from a long ways away. She stared, eyes wide, mouth open in shock. Then his eyes drifted forward. "Donna!" he exclaimed joyfully, and was gone.
Dr. Moon was back. He rubbed his stomach and made an excuse about 'Mrs. Angelo's rhubarb surprise,' but Donna didn't buy it.
"That was the Doctor," she whispered, and suddenly she was back in the Library. "I saw the Doctor!"
"Yes," Dr. Moon agreed. "And then you forgot."
And she did.
River aimed the blaster at the wall and poked her head into a large, circular, open room. Light pooled in the center beneath the massive skylight. "We've got a clear spot!" she called back. "In in in! Right in the center, don't let your shadows cross!"
The Doctor dropped to his knees and flashed the sonic at the shadows surrounding them. "Doctor?" Rose asked.
"I'm doing it," he replied evenly.
"Can you do it a little faster?" she inquired, glancing above them. "There aren't any lights here, and sunset's coming. We can't stay long."
He stopped scanning and shook the screwdriver. "Found a live one?" River asked.
"Maybe. It's getting harder to tell." He glared at the screwdriver. "What's wrong with you?"
"Anyone have a chicken leg?" she asked the others. Dave held up a foil-wrapped package. "Thanks," she told him, and gave it to the Doctor. He tossed it into the shadows. It was picked clean before it hit the ground. "We've got a hot one," she announced. "Watch your feet."
"They won't attack until there's enough of them," he declared, "but they've got our scent now. They're coming.
"Who are they?" Dave murmured as he watched Rose and the Doctor scan the rest of the shadows. Rose had River's screwdriver and found that it handled much like the Doctor's, although there were several settings she was unfamiliar with. That wasn't surprising, really, as it was from the future.
"You haven't even told us," Dave continued. "You just expect us to trust them."
River shrugged. "They're the Doctor and Rose."
"And who are 'the Doctor and Rose?'" Mr. Lux asked sarcastically.
"If you survive them, the only story you'll ever tell," she shot back. "The stuff of legends, and believe me, there are legends about them."
Anita took up the cause. "You say they're your friends, but they don't know who you are."
River's patience was wearing thin. "Listen," she said. Her voice was deadly serious, and there was a burning intensity in her eyes. "The only thing you need to know is this—I would trust them to the end of the universe, and actually, we've been."
"They don't act like they trust you," Anita observed. "Either of them."
"Small problem," River replied with a sardonic smile. "They haven't met me yet. But this is what they do." She gestured at the pair of them. "They're time travelers, and they haven't met me yet. All of my life—it's history for me, but it's the future for them." She left the others sitting in the light, and moved to the Doctor on the edge of the shadows. He was holding the sonic screwdriver next to his ear and frowning. "What's wrong with it?" she asked.
"There's a signal coming from somewhere," he replied. "It's interfering with it."
"Rose, are you having problems?" she called to the other woman. Rose shook her head. River turned back to the Doctor. "So use the red settings."
"It doesn't have red settings," he protested.
"So use the dampers," she continued, as if he was thick.
He stared at her. "It doesn't have dampers!"
She nodded to where Rose was working. "It will do."
He followed her motion. "So, one day I'll just give you my screwdriver."
River shrugged. "Like I said, you were alive and you let it go willingly."
"And I know that because?" he asked scathingly.
She sighed. "Listen to me. I know you've lost your friend. You're angry, I understand; but you need to be less emotional, Doctor!"
He frowned. "I'm not emotional!"
"There are six people in this room, alive!" she exclaimed. "Focus on that! Dear God, you're hard work young! How did she ever put up with you?"
"Young?" he protested. "Who are you! You send Rose and I a message on the psychic paper, you claim to know us in the future, you somehow obtained my sonic screwdriver." He drew himself up and pulled the weight of his years around himself like a cloak. "Who are you, River Song?" he asked again.
She stared at him, eyes wide and perhaps a little frightened, but mostly terribly, terribly sad. "Doctor," she began, "one day I'm going to be someone that you trust completely, the both of you, but I can't wait for you to figure that out." She paused, regarding him solemnly. "And I'm sorry, I'm really very sorry." Then she put a hand on his shoulder, stood on her tip toes, and whispered something in his ear.
The effect her murmurings had on the Doctor was instantaneous and startling. He stared at her, eyes wide, his face set in lines that made him look far, far older than usual. There was knowledge in those eyes, knowledge that burned and she found herself unable to meet his gaze. "Are we all right?" she asked, her own eyes fixed on the floor.
"Yeah," he choked, as if his mouth was unwilling to move. "Yeah, we're good."
"Good," she said softly, and moved back to stand with the others. His eyes followed her, burning.
Rose watched the two of them. There was a tightness in her stomach that could only be fear—but it wasn't fear of the Vashta Nerada, it was the creeping, sinking terror that had permeated her when he'd left her stranded in the 51st century whist he ran off to save Reinette. It was the knowledge, the certainty, that something terribly important was happening and she wasn't part of it. It was a glimpse of the future—without her.
The Doctor seemed to shake off whatever mood had accompanied her words. "Know what's interesting about my screwdriver?" he asked loudly as he strode into the center of the light. "Very hard to interfere with. There's practically nothing strong enough—well—except for a few types of hairdryer, but I'm working on that. So! There is a very strong signal coming from somewhere and it wasn't there before—so what's new? What's changed?" There was silence. "Come on!" he demanded. "What's new? What's different?"
"I dunno," Dave replied, attempting to watch the Doctor as he paced in a circle around them. "It's getting dark?"
The Doctor shot him a disdainful glare. "It's a screwdriver. It works in the dark."
Rose glanced up at the skylight. "Moonrise," she noted.
The Doctor followed her gaze. "Yes!" he yelled, and everyone jumped. "Or no, but—yes! Moonrise!" He flashed her a grin. "Brilliant as usual, Rose Tyler." He turned to Mr. Lux. "Tell me about the moon."
"It's not real," the man replied. "It was built as part of the library. It's just a Doctor Moon."
The alien leaned forward. "And what's a Doctor Moon?"
Mr. Lux shrugged. "A virus checker. It supports and maintains the main computer at the core of the planet."
The Doctor aimed his screwdriver up and activated it. "Well," he mused. "It's still active. Still signaling. Someone, somewhere in this library is still alive and communicating with the moon—or possibly drying their hair." He brought the sonic closer to his ear and adjusted the frequency. "Nope. The signal is definitely coming from the moon. I'm blocking it, but it's trying to break through."
River turned and gasped. The image of Donna Noble stood in front of them. She was partly transparent, like a bad hologram. "Doctor!" she gasped.
He turned. "Donna!" he exclaimed, but then the moon's signal overpowered the screwdriver, and she was gone.
"That was her!" Rose cried. "That was Donna! Can you get her back?"
He adjusted the sonic again. "Hold on, hold on! I'm trying to find the wavelength!"
Behind him, Anita was staring at the floor. A pair of teardrops spilled over her eyes and wound down her cheeks to drip off her jaw.
"Arg!" he yelled. "I'm being blocked!"
"Professor?" she asked shakily.
"Just a moment," River replied. Her attention, like the others' was fixed on the Doctor.
"It's important," Anita said, and looked up. "I have two shadows."
They froze for an instant, and then whirled around. "Alright," River ordered, "helmets on, everyone. Anita, I'll get yours."
"Didn't do Proper Dave any good," the girl observed.
River knelt and picked up the girl's helmet. "Let's just keep it together, okay?"
Anita laughed. "I'm keeping it together. I'm only crying. Under the circumstances, I don't think that's an overreaction." River slid the helmet on carefully and twisted it until it clicked into place. The Doctor approached cautiously and waved the screwdriver over the helmet's visor. It darkened immediately.
Rose gasped. "Have they got in?"
He shook his head. "Just tinted the visor—maybe they'll think they're already inside."
River blinked. "You think they can be fooled like that?"
He shrugged. "Maybe. Don't know. It's a swarm, it's not like we chat." He glanced around the room, and motioned to Dr. Song. "Professor, quick word." He knelt at Anita's feet.
"What?" River asked.
"Before, you said there are six people still alive in this room," he began. She nodded. "So why are there seven?" Her eyes widened, and she turned. There was a fifth suited figure standing against the bookshelves in the back of the room.
"Hey!" the swarm-in-a-suit exclaimed, "who turned out the lights!"
"Run!" he yelled, and they took off through one of the corridors branching off of the room. The swarm followed them relentlessly.
Donna stared at the beds that had contained her children. It all started when the Doctor managed to replace Dr. Moon, somehow. She remembered now, the Library, and Rose, and the people they were trying to save. She remembered because what was left of Miss Evangelista—the badly transcribed remnant of a data ghost caught in the Library's wifi, had opened her eyes. And now that she remembered, her grip on this world, the world of CAL, was failing. Her children were gone, cut loose because she no longer believed absolutely in them. It wasn't real, none of it was real—but it felt real. Her life, this life, felt real and the Doctor and Rose and the TARDIS felt like a dream. She stared at the empty beds, frozen in shock. The world is wrong. She wanted to wake up.
The Doctor slid to a halt and released Rose's hand. "Professor," he called to River, "go ahead and find a safe spot."
"It's a carnivorous swarm in a suit!" Rose exclaimed. "You can't reason with it!"
"I've got to try," he replied. "Go with them, please."
"I'm not leaving you!" she protested.
"Please, Rose. Just this once."
He was looking at her with those kicked-puppy eyes, the ones she could never resist, and she groaned. "Fine, but you'd better follow."
"Stay with him, Dave," River ordered. "Pull him out when he's too stupid to live." And then they were gone. The door slammed open, and the swarm-in-a-suit took halting steps into the corridor.
"Hey!" it exclaimed. "Who turned out the lights!"
"Do you hear that?" the Doctor replied. "Those words are the very last thought of the man that wore that suit, before you climbed inside it and stripped away his flesh. That's a man's soul, trapped inside a neural relay going around and around forever." He was being forced back, walking backwards as the suit continued to draw near to him. "If you don't have the decency to let him go, how about this—use him to talk to me. It's easy," he continued. "Neural relay, just point and think."
"Hey!" the suit repeated. "Who turned out the lights!"
"Vashta Nerada live on all the worlds in this system but you hunt on forests." He frowned. "What are you doing in a library?"
Dave glanced about. "We should go, Doctor!"
The Doctor waved at him. "In a minute." The suit kept advancing, and he kept stepping back, keeping a good distance between them. "You came to a library to hunt, why? Just tell me why!"
The suit paused. "We," it began. "We did not."
"Oh," the Doctor replied with a predatory smile. "Hello."
"We did not," the suit continued.
"Take it easy," he advised the thing. "You'll get the hang of it. Did not what?"
Its speech was halting, like its first steps. "We did not come here."
The Doctor did not believe them—it. "Of course you did," he scoffed. "Of course you came here."
"We come from here," the suit asserted. "We hatched here."
"But you hatch from trees, from spores in trees," the Doctor pointed out.
"These are our forests," the suit declared.
"You're nowhere near a forest," he replied. "Look around you."
The suit's response did not change. "These are our forests."
The Doctor was losing patience. "But you're not in a forest! You're in a library! There are no trees in a—" And then he paused. His eyes widened in understanding. "Oh—the books."
"We should go, Doctor!" Dave repeated.
The Doctor was not listening. "You came in the books. Microspores in a million, million books.
Dave tried again. "We should go, Doctor!"
"Oh," the Doctor murmured and ran a hand through his hair. "Look at that. The forests of the Vashta Nerada, pulped and printed and bound. A million million books hatching shadows."
"We should go, Doctor!"
Something clicked in the Doctor's mind, and he turned to his companion. The visor of Other Dave's suit was inky black. "Oh," he said. "Oh, Dave, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The suits began to advance, and the Doctor maintained his position between them. "Thing about me," he told them, "is I'm stupid. I talk too much—just ask Rose. Always running my gob, she says. Want to know the only reason I'm still alive, besides, of course, that my beautiful companion would rather rip apart the universe than let me die?" He pulled out the sonic screwdriver. "Always stand near the door." Then he pointed it at the floor below. Two wooden panels opened and he fell through.
River held her screwdriver loosely as she scanned the edges of the circular room they'd found. Anita stood behind her and Mr. Lux sat off to the side. Rose stood, arms wrapped around herself, staring back the way they'd come. She was waiting for the Doctor.
It was strange, seeing two people she knew so intimately like this. The Doctor and Rose that she knew were there, just below the surface. It felt like if she waited just a little longer she'd see them again. She knew she wouldn't. This was the last time. She'd known it was coming, but it still ate away at her. She loved the life they led, and she wouldn't change anything, not for the world, but she didn't want it to end.
"It's funny," she said softly, "but I keep wishing the Doctor and Rose were here."
"They are here, aren't they?" Anita asked. "The Doctor—he's coming back, right?"
River stood and faced her. She was tired, god she was tired, and she felt the weight of the time traveler's burden pressing down on her like a boulder from above. Was this how he felt when they went to Pompeii? "You know when you see a photograph of someone you know from years before you knew them? It's like—they're unfinished, they're not done yet. Well," she continued. "Yes, they're here. They came when I called, like they always do—but they're not my Doctor and Rose." A smile crept onto her face. "Now, the Doctor and Rose that I know—Time's Champion and the Bad Wolf—I've seen whole armies turn and run. I've seen them do the impossible over and over again—reorder time itself." She paused. "The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS, as it should be."
A hand closed over her shoulder and she spun around. The Doctor was there, his face bleak and his eyes burning. "Spoilers," he gritted out through clenched teeth. "The Bad Wolf is gone. I took it out of her—all of it."
River cocked an eyebrow at him. "Sure of that, are we? How long did you last with the Vortex in you, Doctor? And how long did she?" He frowned. "Not a coincidence," River informed him, but then Rose had caught sight of him and he was distracted, pulled away before he could ask her what she meant. Other Dave, she noted, was not with him, and her heart clenched. So many lost; death and the Doctor were old friends.
"How are you doing?" he asked Rose. She pulled him away, to the edge of the circle.
"What did she say to you?" she asked. "You didn't trust her at all, and then she whispered something and all of a sudden you do." She crossed her arms in front of her. "And that's not a little suspicious?"
The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "My name," he said finally. "She told me my name. My real, proper name." Rose stared at him blankly and he sighed. "Names—are important to Time Lords. Did you ever wonder why everyone calls me 'the Doctor?'"
She shrugged. "Figured it was a Time Lord thing."
"It is." His eyes were far away, but his tone was all business. "I chose 'the Doctor,' just like the Master chose his name and the Rani chose hers—haven't told you about her, have I?" She shook her head. "Not a pleasant person. But anyway, my name is the most powerful distillation of who I am, and there's power in knowing it. It's closer to what some people would call a 'true name' than the more everyday designation of 'the Doctor.' That, as they say, is 'old magic.' Really it's not magic, it's science, but it looks like magic because human beings aren't capable of channeling psychic energy like, oh say a Carrionite, who could use names to kill." He paused and shoved his hands in his pockets. He was tense, like there was something else, something unpleasant.
"So how does she know your name, if it's so dangerous?" Rose wanted to know.
He winced. "There's only one occasion when a Time Lord can reveal his name. Outside of that instance it's literally impossible." He swallowed. "Names are exchanged during the marriage ceremony. It's symbolic, you know, giving the other person yourself and all that."
Rose was silent for a long moment. She was clever, and he knew she'd made the connection. "So," she said finally, "she's your wife from the future." He didn't answer. There was no answer, not really. God, was this how Sarah Jane felt when she ran into them at that school? No, Rose realized, this is how Sarah Jane would have felt if she had run into her and the Doctor when Rose was hopping through time, attempting to get back. It was awful, but at the same time, she'd known. In the back of her head, she knew that even with her extended lifespan he would probably outlive her—she was too jeopardy-friendly by half. "That's good," she forced herself to say, even though it felt like her heart was breaking.
He reached out to her. "Rose—"
She shook her head. "That's good." She let his fingers slide down her arm until the twined with hers, and she rested her other hand against his face. "Don't be alone, Doctor. I never want you to be alone." The fear that settled at the bottom of her stomach hardened, a constant ache that pressed down on her chest and made it hard to breathe. Later, she could fall apart later. Now they needed to concentrate on making sure there was a later.
