"Hello!"
The Doctor beamed enthusiastically as he appeared in the final and wildest part of his plan. He lowered his raised arms as he took in the screaming girl in front of him.
"Ah yes, I suppose this is a bit, well mad isn't it." The Doctor said, rubbing the back of his neck hesitantly.
Rose's feet were lead as she processed her initial panic. This definitely could not be happening, but it was. Either she was crazy or the world was, not really much she could do with that.
"Who are you? She questioned, or rather accused, shifting defensively like an enclosed wild animal. "How did you do that?"
"Rose, Rose Tyler." The man with the fez smiled again, more softly this time. "You know the answers to both those questions, you just don't know that you know." He gave a short laugh but his eyes conveyed a far more sombre mood.
He began to ramble, walking in small circles as hespoke about shit that didn't make any sense. None of this made any sense. The Roman's presence was brought to the forefront of her attention when he coughed pointedly.
"Yes, sorry don't supposethat would make much sense." He muttered, pausing to recollect himself. "I just need to ask you one more question and this will all start to become much clearer." He paused again before adding "Hopefully."
"Ask me what?" Her heart, that had been pounding since the mad man's arrival, started to slow. He was leaning more to the eccentric than psychotic end of the crazy scale. Still, she remained wary-these might be the most memorable moments of her life,
but she didn't want them to be her last. He took a step towards her, and she found herself leaning in despite all common sense.
"What is your star sign?" She blinked once slowly, not quite believing the build-up had been for that.
"Taurus. Why?"
"Because there aren't any stars!" He whooped, jumping with surprising enthusiasm at her short andclearly correct answer. "Look at the sky Rose Tyler and tell me how you can possibly have a star sign."
"I dunno," She shook her head and repeated "I dunno, that doesn't make any sense. There aren't stars, it must be from a fairy tale or somethin'."
The man with the fez laughed in delight and she felt annoyance bubble up.
"Look, who the hell are you? Seriously this is fucked up, you won't even tell me your name and how do you know mine? And why are you wearing a fucking fez, we're not in Turkey."
"You still believe deep down that there should be stars in that sky." The Doctor rushed his explanation, knowing how close he was between pissing her off entirely and getting her to understand.
"It's me you've been missing Rose. It's us and our adventures together. You're not meant to be stuck on this planet day after day." He glanced back to the chewing gum stand behind him. "No offence Rory, the last 2000 years were really some of the best,
well worth stickingaround for."
"You think my life is so boring because what? I've been needing a man? Some lunatic bloke, who hangs around with men wearing fancy dress in newsagents!"
The Doctor felt panic rise up as she started to back towards the shop door. Screw it.
"No Rose, I think you need a Doctor. I think you've needed one for a long time."
Rose felt a clawing at her heart as the words settled around her,like dust in the was impossible, everything was impossible. It was as if his words were a key and she was an intricately locked door. Slowly everything started to unravel,
this life wasn't hers. It wasn't meant to be like this, the details were fuzzy but the feelings smacked her in the chest. Freedom, danger, excitement and so much love. Then the heartbreak and sheer loneliness that made her gasp for air.
The angry girl in front of the Doctor, seemed to collapse inwards on herself. He stood, attempting to be patient, feeling like a hovering insect, too restless to stay still. Her eyes met his and he took a hesitant step forward. Then another and another.
When they embraced it was like fire. She knew this man that she had never met. Knew him so absolutely that it ran through her veins. He was the perfectly impossible, and with him she was everything she never thought she could be.
The night moved on, as it always was going to. The Roman, Rory, Rose corrected herself, had remained a silent observer for at least an hour, when he left abruptly, awkwardly referencing some sort of shift change at the National Museum.
The Doctor, for once in his life, seemed to be in no rush, sitting with her on the grimy floor as time continued to wear on. They revelled in each other's company, flitting from silences full to burstingand strangely shaped conversations about where
their lives had taken them.
The Doctor spoke of the mad adventures of Amelia Pond and her fiancé. She felt a pang as he mentioned the Daleks in the Blitz, both a monster and a place she irrationally had hoped were sacred. But this new face was one that she sensed found loneliness
intolerable, and so she could not deny him more of the friends and adventures she knew he loved.
She told the story of the Bad Wolf vandal in this world, who'd scribbled the words on their door every night for a month. She spoke of her Mum's paranoia that they were being 'marked' and subsequent battle with the "useless twats who call themselves the
police". Their laughter had been deadened by the memories that her Mum wasn't meant to be here, and in fact neither was she.
When the morning came, the Doctor stood, taking her hand and helping her to her feet. With an eerie calm that unsettled her stomach like a foregone goodbye, they walked out into the street.
The Doctor turned to face her, and fighting inevitable tears, she reached out to touch his shoulder reminding herself that he was here. Even if this was goodbye, at least he was here this time.
"This might be the last time I ever see you." The Doctor murmured the words that he could not put off forever. "If it is then I want you to know that you have been everything for me. I used to think I loved you. The old me did, I
it like he knew Gallifrey had two suns. But is it still love if it lasts three of my lifetimes, and two of yours? I think it must bemore now. I've been beyond my understanding of the universe many times, but you are the first time I've gone
beyond my comprehension of love." He paused for a long moment, the tears streaming down her face echoingthe ones filling his own eyes.
"In a few moments I'm going to go back to the moment I shouldn't really have left. I'm going to fix the cracks in the universe and I'm going to be stuck on the other side." He swallowed the lump in his throat at the painful irony, and continued. "And
I think, well I hope that maybe it won't be forever, because I told a little girl a bedtime story about the mad man in the blue box." He drew himself up a little as he tried to rally hope for her desolate expression.
"But this might not be the last time, because I've seen you laugh in the face of impossible odds. Literally." He added thinking of their too frequent encounters with Daleks. "Rose, I need you to stand here and look at the sun, I need you to really look
at it, for as long as you can and try to remember."
"Remember you?" Her voice was thick with emotion, incredulous at the idea of ever forgetting him again.
"Yes, try to remember me, and all the times that impossible odds haven't meant anything."
He kissed her forehead one last time, and taking a step back, carefully placed the fez lightly on her head. With a final smile, the man she loved was gone.
A/N-
Well this is a bad time to realise how hard it is to write fanfics. Apologies if its terrible.