Bonds 7: contentment
The Doctor sat in the doorway of the TARDIS, his legs dangled out into the nothingness, watching the swirly colors of a nebula. He was deep in thought. One part of his mind was enjoying the light show; another part was analyzing all of Rose's test results so far.
The changes in her physiology were happening so slowly, and he wondered, not for the first time, just how long it had been for her since Canary Wharf. That train of thought led down darker paths, full of self hatred. Before he could start down one of those paths, the object of his thoughts entered the console room.
"I thought you were asleep," the Doctor commented.
"Mind doesn' wanna sleep," she told him.
"Ah," he replied. He knew how that was.
"You looked like you were in deep thought. Wha' were you thinkin' abou'?" she asked.
"Oh, you know, the usual, life, the universe, and everything," he replied.
"Oh, is tha' all?" Rose teased. She sat down beside him in the doorway and swung her legs out into space. She kicked her legs back and forth.
"Dunno if I'll ever ge' used to this," she commented. "I 'ope not."
"I hope you don't either," he agreed.
"Are you?" she asked. "Used to it, I mean," she clarified.
"Yeah," he replied.
"Do ya ever lose the wonder?" she asked.
"Yeah," he told her, "quite often." He sighed. This was something he didn't really want to discuss, but it needed to be talked about. He'd been far too neglectful in other things. "We make all of time and space our backyard, Rose. Eventually, you're just going to have a backyard. You can still enjoy it, but it's not the same as when it was new."
Rose stared at him sadly and said, "oh."
"Now don't get me wrong," he reassured her. "The universe has still got one hundred trillion years after your time, plus a good trillion years before your time, and so many millions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars. There's always something to get excited about."
The Doctor watched her processing this information. She was still getting used to the idea that she'd live a long time. He was certain that the enormity of what happened to her still hadn't sunk in yet.
"Is that why you bring people with you?" Rose asked. "To see the wonder again through their eyes?"
"Sometimes," he replied. She knew that feeling already. She'd asked a few people on board before. Of them, only Jack had worked out, and he'd been a time traveler on his own before meeting them. Not everyone was cut out for their way of life.
They sat there for a couple minutes in silence. She watched the nebula, still kicking her feet. He watched her and wondered what was going on in her mind. Neither of them were deliberately making any sort of mental connection, but through their close proximity, he could feel her melancholy. That feeling was interrupted by a short burst of mild amusement that felt like a mental snort.
"Penny for your thoughts?" the Doctor asked, wondering what was so amusing.
"You know, even a month later, every time I wake up, I expec' to not be here," Rose said in a low voice after a moment.
"Where do you expect to be?" he asked.
"In another universe. Maybe 'm wandering the multiverse still. Maybe 'm locked up inna mental hospital, 'cos I gotta be mad," she replied. She sounded like she thought all of those things were a distinct possibility.
He took her hand and squeezed it. "You're right here," he confirmed, "and you're definitely wandering, though not through the multiverse, but what makes you think you've gone mad?"
She gave him an 'are you kidding me?' look and pointedly glanced back at the console, then turned and looked out at the nebula. "Really?" she asked.
"Oh, right," he chuckled, which caused Rose to roll her eyes and smile.
"How long has it been for you, since that day with the Daleks and the Cybermen?" he asked, taking advantage of her allusion to the time they had spent apart.
Rose let out a deep breath and thought for a moment. "I don't know," she admitted. "Different universes are, well different. I could be stuck in one for a couple weeks and be back in just thirty minutes. Then there were the times I used my Vortex manipulator." She paused. "Wait a minute. You don't know?" she changed the subject. "I mean I've seen you look at a person and just know how old they are."
"I make it a point to not look at the timelines of those I'm close to," he told her. "How would you feel if you knew that most of the possibilities of a friend's life were tragedy?"
"Good point," she agreed, then leaned in. "Could you look at my past to see? You know, without the future?"
The Doctor rubbed his neck nervously. "Um, well, I can't," he admitted.
"I've got nothing to hide. You'll learn it all eventually," she assured him, not understanding.
"No, I mean I literally can't with you," he explained. "Even if I wanted to, I can't."
Rose stared at him, brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"I can't see one moment of your timelines, past included," he explained. "When I first saw you, I saw a glimmer of a bright and shining life, but then, when I wound up at your flat, from then on, there was nothing."
"Why's that, then?" Rose asked.
"I was never sure, and I wonder if it's just me, or all Time sensitive beings," he replied. "Your best guess on how long?" he asked, trying to get the best answer possible out of her.
"Okay, I know four and a half years went by for Mum an' everyone," Rose replied after a moment. "Not long after I got the Vortex manipulator, I'd occasionally jump to the future, so tha' was maybe another year? After we got the dimension cannon workin', then maybe two and a half for me during the jumping." She thought again. "Yeah, that's probably about right," she affirmed.
"Eight years?" he nearly squeaked, shocked. Four of those years mostly alone. It had only been a few years for him. Knowing Rose's grasp on the passage of time, it was probably a little longer. His Rose was around twenty-nine or thirty.
"Yeah, I guess," Rose replied, not meeting his gaze. "Like I said, though, 's hard to tell."
They both sat there for a while, in companionable silence, holding each other's hand with their fingers laced. Rose absently drew little circles on his hand with her thumb. It was a comfort gesture of hers.
"So," he broke the silence after about five minutes. "I've still got that tea if you can't sleep. You may not need quite as much sleep as you used to, but your reaction if you don't get enough hasn't changed," he teased, bumping her shoulder. Rose glared at him for his cheek. He ignored the glare and gave her a big grin.
"Nah, I don' need the tea," Rose answered, shaking her head.
"So, what's got your mind going enough you can't sleep. You're tired, I can feel it," the Doctor pressed.
"'Sit weird that 'm worried about this bondin' thing?" Rose asked after about 30 seconds.
"No, it's not weird," the Doctor assured her. "I wonder, though. You've had the same mental link to me for a couple of weeks, what's got you nervous?"
"Well, we didn' exactly plan ours, did we?" Rose answered. "No chance to be a bit nervous."
"What I did then," he tried to explain, "that shouldn't have happened." Rose opened her mouth to interrupt, probably to tell him that she really didn't mind or that it wasn't his fault, but he held a finger up to stop her. "I'm the more experienced telepath, by centuries," he told her. "It's all on me. And what I did then, creating a bond without your knowledge, consent, or even talking to you about it beforehand carries very stiff sentences in almost every telepathic culture. Many of them include death, if that doesn't kill or permanently incapacitate the victim. You'd have to be out of your own control to not receive a sentence," he lectured her.
Rose's eyes were wide and her mouth open a little in shock. He nodded to let her know that it was true. He had kicked himself over it at first, but once he realized that it wasn't the permanent bond, he had turned his attention to other matters.
"It's good that you're nervous about it, though," he continued his lecture, moving from the uncomfortable topic of their unplanned bond. "A bond is not something that should ever be taken on lightly, even the weakest of them. Why are you two doing this?" he asked. They hadn't discussed the links between them much. Yet another oversight on his part.
"Many reasons," Rose replied. "There's the practicality of it. We'd be able to contact one another easier. I'd be able to tell when somethin' 'appens to 'im. More'n anything, though, 'e asked, and I love 'im," she explained.
"He asked? When?" he queried, surprised. He couldn't see himself asking for that. It was amazing now that he had it, but he couldn't see himself seeking it out. He'd feel too vulnerable.
"Yeah, the next day after we bonded," she answered. "He said somethin' about it changing on its own an' 'e wanted to control it?"
"You're using that connection for a lot more than it was intended for," he mused. "Yep, it's gonna wanna morph." He grinned at her, and proclaimed, "Rose Tyler, you're doing it for all the right reasons."
She grinned back, and said, "I know that, Silly." Rose glanced back toward the corridor and then back at him. "You know," she started. "It just hit me how very odd this is. I just sat here and told you how I love someone else."
"And I'd be completely jealous if that someone else wasn't also a version of me," he assured her. "Come'ere."
The Doctor pulled his legs into the TARDIS and sat sideways, putting his right foot against the other door, and his left went back out the door into space. He pulled Rose in to sit on his lap. She went willingly, settling down with her ear against his chest and his arms around her.
He allowed their bond to fully bloom and heard her audibly sigh when he did so. Rose had left herself open for him whenever he was ready. He felt her apprehension, which was quickly disappearing, be replaced with happiness.
Holding and feeling each other like this was more intimate than any physical act could ever be, and he found himself glad that their link to one another had settled, so that they weren't immediately ripping the clothing off of one another as soon as they had the chance. Not that that wasn't fun, he'd just felt a bit out of control before.
He felt an agreement from Rose, whose breathing had started to slow down a little. She loved listening to his heartsbeat. He'd known for a while that the rhythm calmed her, and he was happy to provide the service.
14 minutes, 35 seconds after he'd pulled her into his lap, her mind went into a sleep pattern. He chuckled to himself and shifted her so he could get up and take her to bed.
Once they hit the bedroom where his other self laid, he put her in bed next to him and pulled the covers up over her. He watched the pair of them for a moment, then made a decision. He undid his tie and started taking his many layers off. Once he was down to his pants, he climbed in and wrapped his arm around his sleeping love. Rose mumbled and scooted in closer, allowing him to get his other arm around her as well.
He drifted off to sleep, content, and did he dare say, happy?