A Heart Between Us
By Literary Litany
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, nor any characters therein, I would, however, appreciate credit should anyone like to borrow any story ideas I have.
Yes, the Doctor thinks slowly to himself, he's alright. He's tired though, drained as only a thorough emotional haranguing can drain a man. Especially a Time Lord beginning to feel old with all the grieving he's done.
He runs a hand along the TARDIS' main console, feeling his time ship's gentle song of reassurance flow into his mind. He wants to stand there and listen to her song until the hurt and tired goes away, but he's not sure he's ready to heal the wound left by Reinette yet. He's not sure it's fair for her to wait her whole life missing him, if he only grieves her an hour.
So he steps away from the comfort of his beloved and wanders down her corridors to his room to sleep and to grieve. First though, he hears Rose's voice in one room and peers in, putting on the best grin he can manage.
It's one of the spare bedrooms, and she's explaining exasperatedly to Mickey about not needing a telly in his room with the universe floating around just outside.
"Just, you know, to keep up with the matches back home every once in awhile… Got my teams to look after." Mickey mutters, but the Doctor can tell he's just arguing to distract Rose. She looks surprisingly like he feels, and he wonders why.
Five and a half hours of waiting perhaps?
A flicker of guilt topples onto the growing heap in his stomach, and his voice is even more haggard when he speaks. "Rose." Her head whirls in his direction, cutting off the snappy reply on the tip of her tongue. "I could use some sleep. Don't muck about with anything important." He pins Mickey with a warning glance, "The TARDIS screen is not a telly. There's to be no match-watching on it." They both smile faintly and nod, though Rose is searching his expression and he knows she knows, but before she works up the nerve to ask he's gone and she can't remember what she was going to tell Mickey.
"It okay if I leave you to unpack a bit?" She asks, and her voice is already unsteady. He puts a comforting arm around her shoulders and for once she doesn't brush him away or fake a smile. She can see the accusation in his eyes, and knows who it's really aimed at. Rose shakes her head sadly. "Not what you think. I just sort of… realized something." She leans against him, and Mickey thinks that maybe this is it. Rose will finally come back to him, to being all his again. "Something I need to talk to someone about."
He tightens his arms around her and thinks he's won. "I'm here, Rose."
She shakes her head again, beginning to pull away, and his heart breaks. "No, I'm sorry. There's just one person who'll understand right now. I'm so sorry, I've got to…"
"Talk to the Doctor." He finishes, his tone full of bitterness. She looks up at him, eyes so full, looking infinitely wiser than him, but also infinitely lost. She shakes her head, a negative, for the third time and he frowns in confusion. "Who then?"
"My heart." She whispers so quietly he's not sure she's spoken at all until she's vanished out the door as well. He's left alone with confusion.
Rose stumbles down the hall, toward her heart, her thoughts jumbled in a rush as she wonders if Mickey will understand and forgive her. She wonders if she cares.
She doesn't too much now, but she might later.
When she reaches the console she sags against it, a sob making it past her lips, just one. After that it's just silent tears as she slips onto the floor grating and rests her hands and forehead against the cool metal-plastic. The TARDIS sings in her mind, explaining away her fears, but shattering a few hopes as well.
Reinette loved him. Yes.
He loved her. In a way.
I love him. More than anything. I saw that.
He loves you. As he loves himself, though sometimes that isn't much.
And me?
There is silence for the longest time. She hears the song, and it comforts, but no more understanding seeps into her through the feel of the time ship against her face. She wants to understand what she is in the complicated web of guilt and love, grief and healing that has become life with the Doctor. She wants to at least know, even if it hurts. So the TARDIS sings her the song.
The Doctor, our Doctor, has two hearts. He is Gallifreyan, and that is how his people are. You called me your heart, and that is all the more true for him. I am one of his hearts. But he has two hearts, and his other heart had always been his people. He was devoted utterly to being a Time Lord, though sometimes his view of what that meant was different from others of his kind. When they died, he lost a heart.
Rose thinks she understands now. The Doctor has given away many little pieces of himself throughout his 900 years. He's running out of pieces to give, and Rose remembers Reinette and thinks a woman like that might be able to steal one without him knowing. What had he said? The most accomplished woman of her time?
Rose was just a shop girl from London who'd been in the right place at the right time.
But the TARDIS wasn't done with its song.
So he clung to the shadow of that love for being a Time Lord, this heart steadying him as he threw himself into danger as he always had, protecting earth most of all because it was like a second home, and he couldn't bear to lose another. He refused all company, until he grabbed the hand of one human girl. He said 'Run!' and she ran. She saw the danger and still she asked for more, following after him, saving his life for reasons he couldn't fathom. So he took her with him, and bit by bit she picked up the broken pieces of his heart. It still wasn't quite whole, but she taught him to love even with that broken heart.
Rose blinks her eyes open and gasps. She knows the TARDIS won't, can't lie to her, but her heart clenches in denial anyway. Any girl worth half her weight would have been able to do the same. Be just brave, just stupid, just perceptive enough to know what not to do without having to think about it too much. That was simple.
Reinette probably would have done an even better job.
You did what no else can do, Rose Tyler.
"And what's that?" She whispers aloud, her voice almost bitter.
You were completely and utterly yourself.
He's alone in his room, or at least he can pretend he is, until he closes his eyes. Then he hears and sees.
First Reinette burns through his mind, the words of her last letter engraved on his mind so he'll never forget them. The voices of a thousand dying Time Lords follow hers into the growing abyss of his memories. Other voices, companions who'd left or been left behind. Susan, Barbara, Ian, Vicki, Steven, Katarina, Dorothea, Ben, Polly, Jamie, Victoria, Zoe, Liz, Jo, Sarah Jane, Harry, Leela, Romana, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Vislor, Kamelion, Peri, Mel, Ace, Grace, Jack, Mickey, Rose…
Rose…
She's always the last one he thinks about, and always the one to linger in his mind. She makes the voices fade until it's just her and her face that he remembers. She's always smiling. He tries to picture Reinettes's smile, and can only see that look of despair on her face as he sees her for the last time.
He reaches out a mental hand for the comforting feel of the TARDIS, only to find it already singing a song of comfort and reassurance. How does it know?
Except the TARDIS isn't singing to him.
The broken chords of another, sadder song filters through his link to the ship, and for a long moment he can't think what's happening.
When he gets up he grabs indiscriminately for the clothes he removed, shoving on the trousers and not bothering with the jackets as he struggles into the undershirt. He can feel the cool almost marble-like floor of the TARDIS under his bare feet as he pads toward the console room in confusion. Silence comes from rooms of both companions, which he takes to mean they've both followed his leave and gone to sleep. Both are human, so it can't be them talking to the TARDIS.
Who then?
He fiddles with the sonic screwdriver in his hand, not nervous exactly, but admittedly a little confused. He rounds the final turn into the main room of the TARDIS, and at first the room is completely empty and quiet. He moves silently around the center column and freezes in place at the sight of the figure curled against it.
"Rose…" The word slips out before he has time to process, and her head snaps up in his direction. The shimmering line of dried tears on her cheeks tells him what she's been doing, though not the now burning questions of how and why.
He realizes very quickly that he's got a few options open at this juncture. Retreat, Joke, Ignore, or… Face the music, so to speak.
Nervous beyond reason, he starts with a question to let her decide. "What are you doing?"
She makes quick work of the tear stains, managing minimal damage to already smudged make-up, and before he has time to think she's standing up as his brave Rose again. "Nothing." She sounds guilty, like she's been caught and awaits the onslaught of punishment.
"You were crying, Rose." He says gently, but looks up at her for confirmation. He waits for her to deny it so they can brush it off again. She remains deadly still, and he can't read the look that flits across her features as her gaze is drawn to where her hand still hasn't left the console.
"I was just talking…" She finally says, trailing off in a small voice he's rarely heard her use. It wasn't like Rose to be this hesitant.
"With the TARDIS." He finishes for her, and catches her wince at the harshness of his tone. It wasn't directed at her though, and he casts her an apologetic look. Seeing an opening, he seizes it. "I didn't think that was possible…" He muses quizzically, and Rose casts him a confused frown.
"I thought you talk to her all the time. You're always on about how she's alive and you're the best of pals and-" He cuts her off with an exasperated look and she crosses her arms over her chest. The tense atmosphere vanishes now that they have something else to focus on, and the Doctor sweeps over to stand next to her as the peer up at the Time Rotor.
"Of course I talk to her. She's in my head, she's…"
"Your heart?" Rose asks with a glint in her eye and the Doctor flashes her one of the smiles that still shows his agedness.
"Yep."
"So, why's me talking to her so weird?" The Doctor's brighter grin quirks at the sound of mild offense in her tone.
"You're human." He says simply. "Shouldn't have the telepathic equipment to hear what the TARDIS has to say on a conscious level." He eyes Rose with that puzzled look of fascination, but continues before she has a chance to phrase another question.
"Sure, I've had companions who can sense her mood occasionally, one or two who could communicate, but not…" He trails off in thought for a moment and she pokes his arm. He turns sharply and grins. "You had a whole conversation!" He throws a happy arm around her shoulders, but stops as he feels her tense.
"You heard?" She asks almost nervously, and the Doctor frowns down at her.
"Not the words, no." He looks between her and the main column again and scowls. "Why? Have you two been talking about me behind my back?"
The TARDIS' song as he brushes it with his mind is light and innocent. Rose doesn't fair so well, doing a poor job of hiding her mischievous but still sad smile.
The silence stretches out after that, and it's more of a confirmation than he feels comfortable with. He's tired of all the awkward moments. It's been getting worse since after the Regeneration. They're still the same, still have the bits where they laugh and life's great, but now there seems to be this big heap of embarrassment that comes out and he'd tired of it getting in the way.
"Rose, what's wrong. Tell me what's the matter; so I can understand. So I can help you understand." He takes her hands carefully and wraps them in his own, running a thumb over her knuckles as she composes her thoughts. He need to tell her, he decides.
A breathy sigh slips past her lips and she looks up from their joined hand to meet his gaze for once. "I think I understand. Why you did it and all. She sort of explained it to me." Her voice falters and he gives her hand a reassuring squeeze. They have to get this out in the open. Have to face it.
"I just… I saw you go through that mirror, and I knew you were going through to save her." He hears the bitterness in her tone and almost interrupts. "But that was okay, yeah? I can deal with that. With it being for her. 'Cept all I could think about was that you'd left me. All I could think was that I wasn't important enough." Somehow her voice sounded more stable. "And that hurt."
He was silent for a long moment. "You are important, Rose." He started quietly, but with that rumbling force in his voice that defied contradiction. "Nothing I do will ever change that. You must understand that I…" He trailed off and looked down at their hands, a soft smile playing at his lips. "This new me is a bit impulsive. And I know that's gonna cause a lot of problems, but you've got to remember, Rose. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever change how important you are to me."
"How's that then?" She asks before she can think. She wants to hear him say it. Just this once. She doesn't care if he ever says it again, if they just keep on traveling as usual or he drops her back home. As long as she can hear him say it, just this once.
He smiles understandingly at the question, and for a moment she thinks he's not going to answer. But he takes her hands and places them against his two beating hearts. She can feel them thump beneath her fingers and the warmth reaches through her whole body. "You, Rose Tyler, are the reason these two hearts are beating. Every time I take a breath, it's because of you. You brought back to life the man who thought he'd died with his people."
She holds her breath as she can almost see the three words on the tip of his tongue. The words that will make her happy for the rest of her life.
"I'm sorry." He says finally, with all the sadness of a thousand dying suns, and she shakes her head in denial. "Because the man you brought back to life isn't the man you wanted. I can't give you that, Rose. No matter how much I want to, that's not me."
She thinks she can hear her heart breaking, but the sound is drowned out by the sudden flow of music into her mind. It's the only thing that keeps her upright for that split second that she thinks she wants to die. Then everything reorients and she's still staring at him in shock and confusion.
"Why?" She breaths with a voice that's surprisingly even. She's not sure if that's good or very bad. Neither is he.
He lifts one hand to her face, cupping her cheek gently as he coaxes her to look him in the eye. The passion, respect, affection, wonder, possession, and infinite sadness reflected there stops her heart before making it thunder in her ears. "Rose." The way he says her name makes her head spin even more and she wonders if he's always had the ability to make her melt like that. Probably.
"I want you to know you are amazing. If there was ever a woman in the entire universe who deserved everything she wanted, it's you." He begins, and she knows it's just a preamble, but she interrupts anyway.
"I only want one thing…" She's stopped by his thumb brushing her lips.
"I know. Believe me, if I ever let myself…" He trails off with a wistful smile, and she turns defiant.
"Why not?" It's a demand for an answer, and for once she won't let him dance around the issue.
The shadow that crosses his features almost breaks her resolve though. "Because it would destroy us both. Not just because you're Human and I'm Gallifreyan. Not just because I'm 900 and you're 19. Not just because you'll age and I won't." His eyes aren't just piercing her, but tearing through her. "I'm the Doctor. The Oncoming Storm. The Last Time Lord. All that jazz, and you'd think it wouldn't matter, but…" He closes his eyes and Rose isn't sure whether to be relieved or not. "It does. Everything I do has consequences, and I know what the consequences of this will be."
He opens his eyes again, and she thinks she can see that future in his haunted brown orbs. Death. Theirs for sure, and probably those of many others. "I want to be yours, Rose Tyler, more than anything. But I already have a promise I can't break."
"To who?" She asks, and manages a weak smile. She's beginning to try and understand. She doesn't want to, but she tries anyway.
He lets out a weary laugh. "To everyone. I've made so many over the centuries…"
"And the promise is?"
"To protect." He says without hesitation. "To be a guardian for justice. I do what no one else will. I'm a Time Lord."
"The universe's last Time Lord." Because he really was the universe's, and that meant he could never totally be hers.
She takes a shaky breath. "Can I still pretend some?" She asks, her hand seeking his. "My Doctor?"
He nods sadly, and lets go of her cheek, tugging her carefully away from the console which still hums its comforting tune. "It doesn't even have to be that. Everything I can give you is yours, Rose." He lifts the hand he's holding to his lips and flashes her a bright smile. "In fact, I think it's about time we stop pretending."
Finally.
They both hear the exasperation in that musical tone and burst into simultaneous laughter. For Rose though, there's one more message.
He won't say it, Rose, but even he can't stop himself from feeling it. Remember that.
A/N: I've been working on this fic, sort of lazily on the side of my other ones, and it shows. Not exactly themed to one thing per-say, more the strange child of my own bizarre Rose-Ten shipperness… Not much else to say about it really, other than it was a pain in the arse, but I hope you enjoyed it at least. Reviews are greatly welcome, even and especially critical ones.