Storm Remembering, a doctor who fanfic

Storm Remembering
by Camilla Sandman

Author's Note: I apologise in advance if I get something wrong - rather new to Doctor Who. Spoilers for "Parting of the Ways". Implied invented adventures before that. References to Jack, but no real appearance this time. I'm sorry, Jack. Maybe next time if you look very handsome.

The apes think of time as a hourglass, sand streaming from one end to another. Beginning to end. As apes know it, as they themselves live. But he is not them. He's never been them, for all he's sought their company. He's the Doctor, the last of the Time Lords, breathing time as others breathe air.

Time is a sandstorm, changing direction and planets and skin. Time is the storm ever raging and he stands in it, feeling what the storm shapes, what it did shape and destroy, what it could shape.

Sometimes, he brings the storm. Sometimes he chases it. But always, he knows it.

What was, what is, what could be.

He remembers.

She's laughing as they run, hand in hand, skin clinging to skin and holding on. Another mad dash to save life, time and his warm, comfortable jumper. It's almost become a habit, he thinks, and the world explodes behind them.

They fly; flames shining in her hair as he pulls her close and braces. He knows the fall won't really hurt her, but he will take all the pains he can for her. And one day, he will have to let her go to spare her the darkest pain of all.

The ground is hard as he lands, Rose on top of him, knocking the wind out of him as chunks of Figgerbrin the Devourer lands around them like rain.

"Ow!" she complains and stays on top of him, her elbows sharp against his chest.

"You whimp," he replies, earning him a sharp elbow to the side.

"'See the Universe with me, Rose'," she mimicks. "See the Universe. You forgot to mention most of the time it's the smelly, squishy parts we get to see."

"I thought this was a great sucess!" he protests.

"Say that to my hair. I'm gonna be smelling of Figfart..."

"Figgerbrin the Devourer."

"Fig the Whoever," she shoots back," for at least a bloody week."

He gently pushes a sticky part of Figgerbrin out of her hair, unable not to grin as he does.

"I think it becomes you."

Without looking away, she takes his now sticky hand and he can feel her heartbeat through his skin, a single, steady rhythm. A single life. Rose Tyler, as he always wants her to be.

Then she smears sticky remains of Figgerbrin all over his hair and cleans her hand on his sweater.

"Now it becomes you too."

"Rose!"

She laughs and bolts and he gets up to follow, trying very hard to look stern. He will catch her, he knows. Time tells him he will. But for now, he can chase and amire her legs while at it.

Another mad dash, laughing as they go.

He could get used to this.

"Do you ever get used to it?" she asks, watching TARDIS gather power and sound.

"Used to what?"

"The noise."

'Oh Rose, you don't know noise,' he thinks.

The burn of planets, the abscense of sound as rocks meets rocks in space, the metallic voices of millions of Daleks, the roar of the silent dead, the storm ever raging. That is noise. That is what he hears.

"Yes," he lies, "you get used to it."

"Why did you bring me, really?"

Rose Tyler, looking down at him, smiling, and he knows she's been wanting to ask the question for a long time.

"You have a fantastic swing on the ropes," he says and grins, feeling TARDIS jerk in agreement as he runs his sonic screwdriver over metal.

"That's it?"

"Where you expecting something like 'I saw you and couldn't let you go'?"

"Would have been nice."

"You'll have to settle for the swing."

"Tightwand," she says affectionately, and moves out of his field of vision, leaving him to his tinkering with TARDIS. He suspects she knows TARDIS doesn't quite need as much tinkering as it is given, but she's filed it away under 'must for blokes' with football, beer and shiny tools.

One of these days he's gonna have to bring her to a football match. Possibly the great World Cup finale of 2167, Brazil versus Commonwealth. They can jeer the referee together and he can hold her hand as the Commonwealth finally, finally wins again.

Good plan.

"Rose?"

"Mmm?"

"I saw you and couldn't let you go."

"I knew it!"

Jack is late. Usually, this doesn't trouble the Doctor. But for once, he's feeling a moment of annoyance. Jack's out there adding another species to his dance card and Rose isn't even looking troubled.

She folds her arms and leans against the console, mimicking one of his poses and he isn't even sure she's aware of it.

"He'll come when he comes. We got time."

"Jack could make even a Time Lord run out of time."

She smirks slightly. "Who are you really jealous on behalf of, Doctor? Me or you?"

"I'm not jealous."

"Good. None of us are jealous and Jack is late, playing touchy-feely for the good of apekind."

She rolls her eyes slightly, stray hairs and the light of TARDIS framing her face.

"Jack's just... Friendly," she says. "You're friendly too."

"Not that friendly without at least three dates and the lady's permission to get touchy-feely."

"You touch me all the time," she protests, half laughing.

"Not that friendly," he says again, drumming his fingers against the rail.

"Maybe you should, then," she replies, and her tone is so even it terrifies him. Not a flirt, not a tease. An invitation.

Her cheek is a familiar touch to his hand, but as she closes her eyes, he dares a finger across her eyelids. Behind them, there is humanity and stupid ape and dreams.

What do Time Lords dream of? She'd asked him that once.

Dust and rocks. Dust and rocks and Gallifrey burning. What is. Stars being born, galaxies forming, his mother's voice singing, his father's hands lifting him. What was. Rose Tyler's skin clinging to his, her eyes closed as he kisses her, touches her, possesses her, makes love to her. What could be.

"I dream of everything," he says and leans forward, her lips burning as he touches them with his own.

He dreams of being human sometimes, being a stupid ape, courting Rose Tyler and living an all too short life with her. But if he knew nothing else, perhaps it would be long enough.

But she wouldn't love him as he would be then, he thinks. He thinks maybe she loves him as he is, even not quite knowing him. And he wonders if she would have come with any of the others, the ghosts of what he has been before. He remembers all they were, all they did and they could perhaps have offered her as much as he could.

And yet, he wants to think only him could have brought her. Not the others. Only him, as he is now.

He dreams of everything and she stirs in his arms, warm and skin and Rose and for a moment, what will be doesn't seem to matter.

What's always meant to be.

Bad Wolf. Rose. His Rose, having looked into the TARDIS and breathing time as others breathe air.

She has burned the Daleks to keep him safe. Her doctor, she said. He wonders just when she claimed him, when he let her claim him. Perhaps from the moment he took her hand and told her of the skin of the world. Perhaps even before.

And he's kissing her, taking away what made her understand him, be like him. It'll hurt her too much, burn her even more than he would. The oncoming storm of death.

He wants her to live.

But for one moment, TARDIS in her eyes, her lips on his, she knows him and he'll always remember that, as he always must. And in the moment where they're the same, the storm lulls and there is just her and him and the skin of time.

Maybe remembering it will be enough to love her all over again. He hopes so.

Oh, he hopes so.

Havliv spins through space under them, the clouds drifting above. There is a storm coming, he feels, but there is some time left yet and Rose is watching the ocean crash wave after wave against the land.

"I never thought I would have a conversation with a fish," she says thoughtfully.

"The fish probably thought he'd never have a conversation with an ape," he replies and she gives him a look. "They are very intelligent, more intelligent that your species is at this time. They're the dominant species on this planet."

"What happens to him and his people?"

The waves push forward and falls back. Push forward and fall back, a heartbeat of the sea. He can feel the future of it, silent and black and dying. And nothing he can really do without destroying much more in the process. What was must be.

"They die."

"Oh." She looks at horizon, her eyes a sea too. "I wish they didn't have to. I wish he didn't have to."

The first drop of the rain falls, but they don't move. The rain will soak them, but he can always dry them later.

"So do I, Rose Tyler," he says and takes her hand. She leans against him, and they sit still, Rose and the Doctor and oncoming storm.

All that was, all that is, all that could be, all that must be.

He'll remember. He always does.

FIN