Thank you all so much for all the follows, favs and reviews! This chapter's a bit angsty, but I hope you enjoy it all the same :)
The Doctor ran a hand through his hair nervously. Who was Tony? And where had Rose gone? As soon as she'd left the room he became instantly uneasy. Being separated from her, even if it was only for a minute, made him start to doubt whether her appearance was real or whether he'd finally gone insane.
Rose rushed back into the kitchen, now clutching her phone – not her old superphone, he noticed – and looking slightly out-of-breath. If he had to guess, the Doctor would've said she'd ran back to him. Maybe the surreal feeling he got when they were apart was mutual.
She bounded over to his side and plopped down next to him, flicking through something on her phone as she talked. "So you remember that mum was pregnant, yeah?"
"How could I have forgotten?" He grimaced.
"Shut up," she elbowed him, but she was hiding her smile so he counted it as a victory.
"Anyway?" He prompted her, wondering where this was going.
"Yeah, well, five months after I saw you in Norway she had a baby boy, Tony."
The Doctor didn't miss the way Rose winced when she mentioned Norway, or the way her eyes softened when she said her brother's name.
"Here," she added, holding out her phone for him to see.
On the screen was a close-up of Rose beaming from ear-to-ear, cheek pressed against the cheek of a small blonde boy who looked about two or three and wore an identical grin.
The Doctor could stop the smile that spread to his own lips.
"Tony Tyler!" He exclaimed happily. "I like him already."
Rose tapped her phone and another photo replaced the first. This one was taken from someone walking behind them, and Rose was holding Tony's small hand as they walked through what looked like a park.
"I had Mickey transfer a few photos from the home computer to my phone," she explained as she tapped the device again.
The Doctor felt his breath catch in his throat at the next picture. Rose carrying a tiny baby, whom the Doctor assumed must've been Tony just after he was born, a look of absolute adoration on her face as she cradled him.
After a few moments of awed silence the Doctor realised that Rose was making no move to flick to the next photo. He glanced up to see her staring at the phone, eyes suspiciously bright.
"I'm never going to see him again, am I?" She whispered, her voice cracking.
Ah. He'd been expecting this. Rose had been taking everything so well that he knew the reality of the situation hadn't fully hit her yet. Although apparently it was quickly catching up.
He didn't answer, instead opting to pull her into a tight hug.
"I didn't even say goodbye to mum," she said brokenly, and the Doctor's hearts ached at the raw pain in her voice. More than anything he wanted to tell her it would be okay, but he knew that was a promise he couldn't keep.
He cleared his throat. "I've already asked the TARDIS to search for any way we to send through a message. We must have missed the hole that you came through, so maybe there are more gaps out there."
Rose's breathing hitched. "Pretty unlikely though, yeah?" She whispered against his chest.
It was a long shot, considering he'd already tried to find a way when he'd said goodbye to her a few months ago, but he felt awful crushing any hope she might have left. He thought about lying to her, but almost instantly dismissed the idea as stupid.
"Yeah. I'm so sorry, Rose."
She nodded and pulled back slightly. "If – if there is a way, how long…?"
"I'm not sure. It could take days, years, seconds. It took weeks to find a hole I could use to send a projection through to you in Norway."
She sniffed loudly. "God, I swear I never used to be this emotional."
"Well you've had a rough few days," he reasoned. "I think you've got a right to be upset."
"I suppose so," she sighed.
Silence stretched between them as Rose composed herself.
"Could we…" she began hesitantly. "Could we go somewhere?"
Slightly surprised, although straight away realising he should have been expecting the request, the Doctor leant back in his chair.
"Sure, where were you thinking?"
"I don't know, anywhere. Away from here. Someplace exciting!"
He sighed internally. How many times had he dove headfirst into a dangerous adventure on some new planet to escape from his problems? Far too many. And now Rose was going down the same path.
He didn't want to push her though, neither of them could afford for anything to come between them. The Doctor was the only person she had left in this world, and he was determined to be someone she could rely on to turn to, not to order her around. Promising himself he'd keep a close eye on her, even closer than he used to, he plastered on a smile.
"All of time and space at your fingertips, Rose Tyler!"
She bounced up and down excitedly and his faux smile morphed into a genuine grin at her enthusiasm. He'd missed her.
Rose's first night in the TARDIS was simultaneously one of the best and worst nights of the Doctor's very long life.
After staying up until she could keep herself awake no longer, Rose finally fell asleep against him on the lounge where they'd spent the night talking. The Doctor didn't want to move her for two reasons. The first was that he didn't want to disturb her. The second was he didn't think he could bear letting her out of his sight. He knew she would probably be more comfortable in her bed though, and Rose's comfort easily trumped his own feelings.
With a sigh of regret, he scooped her up and carried her to her bedroom. His hearts stuttered as she instinctively leant into him while he walked.
He reached the room and placed her as gently as he could on the bed, carefully removing her shoes before pulling the sheets over her. He brushed a few strands of blonde hair out of her face and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, reluctant to leave.
He returned to the console room and scrubbed at his face, positive that like every other night for the past year he wouldn't get much sleep, albeit for the opposite reason this time. Rose was onboard the TARDIS.
He felt like dancing around the room and racing straight back to Rose's side and curling himself into a ball and sobbing for pure joy. He did none of it, however, and instead resigned himself to a night of tinkering with his ship, although he suspected he would be too distracted to get any real work done.
He was still at it a few hours later when he heard Rose start to shriek in agony. Terror stabbed him to the core and, fully convinced that she was dying from something he'd overlooked, he bolted down the corridor to her room, flinging the door open without a second thought.
She was thrashing in her sleep, blankets twisted around her. He was by her side in an instant and saw in alarm that the sheets were choking her. Swiftly unwinding them from her neck, he dodged her flailing limbs while she continued to scream in anguish.
"Rose, you need to wake up," he cried frantically, "It's only a dream, you need to wake up, Rose!"
Her eyes snapped open to focus on him but they held no recognition. The Doctor's stomach twisted in horror. This was so wrong. Rose's eyes, which were always warm and kind and compassionate no matter the situation, were filled with nothing but fear and pain.
She kicked out at him, and he felt her foot connect with his jaw.
"Rose it's okay," he tried to soothe, ignoring both the cold pit in his gut and the ache in his cheek. "It's me, it's the Doctor."
Sobs broke through her screams and he wasn't entirely sure that wasn't worse.
He saw something alter in her gaze though, as if she could see him now, and her shrieks gave way outright to the crying.
Finally able to pull the distraught Rose close to him without hurting either of them, he wrapped her in his arms and held her as she struggled to take in a lungful of air between the sobs that wracked her body.
"I'm here, I've got you, it's okay," he murmured repeatedly as he rocked her.
After an hour she'd calmed down a fair bit, and after two she was so silent he thought she must have fallen asleep in his arms.
It was only when he moved – his arm was getting pins and needles – and Rose whimpered that he realised she was still awake.
"Rose…" his ragged voice cut through the silence. He didn't know what to say. What words could possibly comfort her when she was hurting so much? The worst part was he didn't even know what exactly had caused it.
"Sorry," she whispered, sounding distressed. He knew her well enough to guess she was embarrassed at how completely she'd fallen to pieces, and it almost tore him apart.
"It's okay, you don't have to apologise."
"You shouldn't have had to deal with that. Thank you for staying, Doctor. I'll be okay if you want to leave now."
She gave his chest a gentle pat but didn't meet his eyes.
She was giving him a chance to run, he realised. Run away and refuse to look back like he normally did. She was trying to let him keep that, but he couldn't let her. He couldn't just shrug it off and walk away anymore. Not this. Not with Rose.
"I'm good here," he told her, sliding down so he was more lying than sitting, which resulted in her cheek resting on his chest.
Eventually she really did drift off but the Doctor remained wide-awake, listening to the peaceful in and out of her steady breathing. He spent the night marvelling at the fact that she was here with him and vowed to himself he'd do whatever it took to keep her safe, and that they'd never be split up again.
They didn't talk about it, per se, but after that night it became an unspoken understanding that they would sleep in the other's arms. When they did, Rose had no more nightmares, at least none the same calibre as the first, and the Doctor found that he was sleeping more peacefully than he had since before even the Time War.
He generally woke up before her – needing only half the amount of sleep she did – and spent his time either adding settings to his sonic screwdriver or watching Rose.
Worried that this was vaguely creepy, he brought it up with her and felt better when she told him that if anything it made her feel safer to know he was watching over her.
So they slipped into a routine, chasing after monsters during the day and protecting each other from more terrifying demons at night. The Doctor began to grow increasingly worried about telling Rose the truth of what he had done the day she'd arrived back onboard the TARDIS, but Rose was stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that anything was wrong.
The worst part was that he could almost convince himself that everthing was back to normal, from back before Canary Wharf and parallel worlds and words left unsaid. But of course it wasn't, and the truth would come out eventually. He only hoped he was strong enough to cope with the aftermath.
I'll be introducing the season rewrite aspect in the next chapter or two but I felt like it was important to set the foundations first. Let me know what you think!