Beta: natural-blues
Day Two: Songs in the Rain
The monitor beeped steadily in the background, slightly muffled by the pounding of rain against the windowpanes behind the plastic curtain. Rose was sitting in a black chair perched at the head of a hospital bed, where an elderly man with flyaway grey hair was lying down, snoring softly. Rose gripped his bony hand, and his eyes fluttered open.
A smile broke out over her face as his brown eyes flicked over to her. "Hello," Rose said warmly, reaching over with her other hand and pushing a lock of hair behind his ear.
"Hello," he replied weakly, but he didn't return her smile.
Her face fell. Biting her lip, she said quietly, "You don't know who I am, do you?"
He was quiet for a full minute. Then he said, "No."
They sat in silence, listening to the rain for a bit. Chewing on her lip, Rose broke the silence by saying, "D'you know where you are?"
"The hospital," he said earnestly.
Rose nodded. "That's right."
John frowned, the wrinkles in his face prominent. Then, in a small voice, he whispered, "Am I dying?"
Tears welled up in her eyes, and her grip on his hand tightened as she lowered her head into her lap. "Doctor—"
"I am dying," John wheezed. His frown disappeared slowly. "I've lived a good life with you, my Rose." Her head snapped up, to see he was looking at her with the gentle smile that he'd always worn, when he was big ears and leather and when he was still a Time Lord, and then when he was simply hers. "Been so happy," he mumbled, making a happy noise in the back of his throat until he was overcome with a coughing fit.
"Me too, my Doctor," Rose smiled through her tears.
John's frown returned. "Why are you crying?"
His memory in the past four years had always been wonky, but this past week it'd degraded more and more quickly. Now he could barely keep one solid fact in his mind before it flitted away. This was why John's face suddenly bloomed with what could only be described as pure terror. "Are… are you leaving?" he whimpered.
"Wh—?" was all Rose managed to get out before John grabbed her arm and hugged it to him, holding on for dear life. Had he been healthy, he probably would have been hurting her, but his grip was barely a whisper.
"Don't leave me, Rose," he wailed, tears streaming over his face. "I'll do better; I'll make you happy…"
Rose hoisted herself onto the bed, leaning his head into the crook of her neck and wrapping her arms around his frame. He clung to her, crying into her chest, sobs slowly turning into whimpers as she rocked him and crooned out the Gallifreyan lullaby he'd taught her, until he fell asleep again.
John died in her lap ten minutes later.
"Lay back and rest now; you're safe, child of Time
Sleep under this burning sky
Dream of a new dawn in red, gold and lime
And I'll stay with you as you lie…"
Rose bounded forward, sucking in a rattling breath only to panic when she couldn't take in air around the painful lump in her throat. She swallowed and tried again, relaxing a bit when she gulped in a gratifying lungful of oxygen. With one trembling hand she wiped off the fresh tears and sticky remnants of partially dried old ones from her face. Biting back a new wave of tears, Rose rolled over in her too-big bed and snuggled into what was once John's side, holding the duvet up to her nose to see if she could find any trace of his scent lingering— which, after two years and a hundred washes later, was fruitless.
Huffing a ragged sigh, Rose threw the duvet away and clicked on the light before slinking out of the covers, dropping to her knees on the ground and pressing her ear to the floor as she reached under the bed. Pulling out an elegant oak chest with a gold plaque inscribed Johnathan Noble, Rose ran her fingers over the font and tried to work up the courage to open it at last. Since John had first gotten sick, he'd forgotten several things — including what Torchwood was, that Jack Harkness was no longer travelling with them and that Gallifrey, which he'd described to her in detail when he learned of his imminent death, was destroyed in the Time War — but one thing he never forgot was his decision to place little mementos of each day in the next year inside the chest Rose was currently hugging. A week before he died, John had told her where he'd hidden it and instructed her to open it when he passed, but two years later Rose hadn't gathered the nerve to open it. She thought maybe things would be different, having the Doctor in the next room, dressed in John's clothes and unaware that one day he would be split into two men and one would marry her, but she was still as frightened as ever as to the contents of John's box.
Sighing and wiping her eyes a second time, Rose replaced the box underneath the bed and looked at the clock for the first time. It was barely three a.m. and there was no way in hell she was going to get back to sleep. It was then that she noticed the thing that had probably triggered her dream.
It was raining.
The Doctor woke in an unfamiliar bed wearing unfamiliar clothes, and for a moment he panicked— had he been abducted? Then he remembered Rose and he relaxed, rubbing at his eyes. It'd taken him ages to get to sleep, what with the lack of the TARDIS's humming in the back of his mind and the jimjams smelling of a mixture of Rose, her husband and dust. Obviously Rose hadn't lent out John's things to other blokes. That brought up a slight feeling of satisfaction, although he couldn't quite place why.
Glancing at the tiny alarm clock on the bedside table, he gaped when he saw he'd been sleeping half the morning— it was nearly nine. Hoping he hadn't made Rose wait for him, the Doctor bounded out of bed, snatched up an ensemble of beige trousers, a white Oxford and his own jacket (there were some things he wasn't willing to part with) and heading into the loo to shower quickly. Feeling pleasantly funny when he emerged smelling of Rose's shampoo, the Doctor dressed and hurried out into the living room, prepared to put on his best 'oops' face for sleeping late. Unfortunately, he found the living room devoid of her presence. Frowning, the Doctor headed down the hall, hesitating before knocking on her door and hoping dreadfully that he wasn't bothering her. When she didn't answer, he peeked inside only to see her room empty as well.
Though the rude, curious side of him was itching to look through Rose's things to try and better understand her, the Doctor restrained himself and closed her door. He headed back into the living room, intent on searching the whole mansion for her, but he didn't have to— he spotted her through the French doors, standing in the pouring rain on a white swing hanging from the willow tree. Irritation mixed with worry panged him suddenly— what the sodden hell was she doing? She was going to make herself ill!
Opening the doors and hurrying out into the rain, he opened his mouth to shout and demand that she return inside, but his voice failed him and his hearts deflated when he heard her singing.
"Lay back and rest now; you're safe, child of Time
Sleep under this burning sky
Dream of a new dawn in red, gold and lime
And I'll stay with you as you lie."
Her voice was gorgeous, but that wasn't what had him frozen in the rain, unable to find his voice— it was the song itself, and the fact that after the English-translated verse she lapsed into chiming Gallifreyan, everything spoken correct from the verb tenses to the syllables. When he was finally able to speak, all he could choke out was, "Rose, what on Earth are you doing?"
She turned around, hair plastered to her head. "Swinging."
"It's the middle of a downpour," he scolded her as he covered her trembling arms with his jacket. His hearts lifted a bit when she giggled at the celery stalk close to her face, but they crashed again when he remembered her singing. Swallowing hard, he said, "How do you know that song?"
Rose blinked at him. "You taught it to me." He gawked at her, almost forgetting he was still walking her back to the house until he nearly ran into the doors. "Why, is it important?"
Monumentally important. "Oh, not really," he lied instead, before abruptly changing the subject. "What the hell were you doing out in the rain?"
A flicker of something passed over her face before she grinned. "I like the rain." As much of a lie as that obviously was, he let it go despite his curiosity clawing at him. "Don't you?"
"It's lovely," he said bitterly, making her laugh.
"I'm sure you think so," she said, before shrugging off his coat and handing it back to him. "'M gonna shower then make breakfast, 'kay?"
"No, you'll shower and I shall make breakfast," he said gallantly, giving her a stern look that lost its charm when Rose looked at him amusedly.
"You can cook?" she said disbelievingly.
He turned his nose up in the air. "What makes you so certain I can't?"
"'Cos I've lived with two of you," Rose said. "The first time I met you, you couldn't even make toast without burning it, and after you regenerated you were able to make macaroni and cheese, although it took a few tries 'cos you couldn't keep your attention on it longer than six seconds."
The Doctor flushed when she collapsed into nostalgic giggles, a little offended though he was glad to hear Rose didn't have problem with his regenerations as most of his companions did. "Well, this time I can cook," he sniffed. "The TARDIS may sabotage my meals occasionally, but Tegan and Turlough always enjoyed them when—"
He fell silent, hearts getting lodged in his throat at the mention of his friends. Guilt flooded through him when he realised that, in the hype that was Rose Tyler's life, he'd all but forgotten them. She was either fantastic at cheering people up or he was an awful friend. Perhaps both. The Doctor was so caught up in his internal monologue he didn't realise Rose had stepped closer to him until she was hugging him tightly, and to stop from looking like an idiot he hugged back, only to discover that hugging Rose Tyler was something he enjoyed immensely and tightening the embrace. She was soaking wet but smelled like their now mutual shampoo and the dusty scent of rain.
"Go on then, Mister," Rose said, giving him one last squeeze before letting go. "Make me the best breakfast ever so you can gloat."
As she sauntered off down the hall, he watched her with something warm and fuzzy growing in his chest, and for some reason he had to make an extra effort not to stare at her bum like some kind of randy human teenager. Snapping himself out of it and blushing a bit at his own idiocy, the Doctor proceeded into the kitchen and began indulging his nosy side, rummaging through her spice cabinet and sniffing at each of the contents. Sneezing over the rosemary, the Doctor smiled when he came across an alien spice that he recognised as aronite, a delicacy in three galaxies found only on the planet Valkani. Of course a former companion of his would have alien spices in their cabinets, especially one as significant as Rose Tyler.
He set down the aronite and pushed the rosemary back as far as possible before taking out a package of chives and pepper and setting out to make Rose Tyler the best omelette in the whole multiverse. Luckily for him, Rose was taking extra long to get ready (as did most of his female companions) so he had time to throw out the first omelette he burned and pout before having another go at it. The sound of the door opening and the overpowering scent of her perfume hit his nose just in time as he was flicking the second omelette onto a plate. Rose emerged dressed in another expensive but lovely ensemble, hair partially wet and curling naturally over her shoulders.
"Wow," she gaped, making him grin smugly. "You actually made something without turning it black."
"Thank you, I think," he said, beaming like a child being praised when she gave his arm a squeeze in thanks before taking her plate and seating herself at the bar.
"Want to go and see if the TARDIS is done being angry with you?" Rose said through a mouthful of eggs. "S'my day off, so we can do whatever we want today."
He nodded. "Perhaps she'll tell me what I've done."
"Just make sure you ask before you try and open the door, else you'll find yourself with burns," Rose said knowingly.
"Indeed," he muttered, flexing his presently unburned fingers.
They put their empty plates in the sink before Rose grabbed an umbrella and heading out into the humid air— the Doctor was pleased for some reason when she accepted his bashfully outstretched hand and didn't let go, giving him an excuse to hold her hand the whole while they walked on the grassy path. The prospect of sharing an umbrella gave him another reason to stay closer to her than deemed normally appropriate.
"How were you able to get into the TARDIS?" he asked almost conversationally, remembering the way she had simply barged in.
With a sideways smile, Rose stuck her thumb into her blouse — making him blush and scold himself in his mind for thinking inappropriately — and hooked it around a chain, pulling out a key he recognised to be a TARDIS key. "I have a key, you know. You gave it to me."
He nodded contemplatively, before switching to his next question. "Why don't you age?"
She looked for a moment like she was debating whether or not to tell him. Then she replied, vaguely, "You were in danger, an' you sent me away in the TARDIS. So I looked into her heart."
"You did what?!" he yelped, fuming at her as best he could still holding her hand. "Rose, don't you know that's immensely dangerous and—?"
"And don't you think I've heard all of these arguments from you before?" Rose grinned, tongue between her teeth, and he felt his angry expression slip off his face involuntarily as his eyes were drawn to her tongue. "I had to save you, y'know, an' I don't regret it. All it did was alter my physiology a bit."
He opened and shut his mouth several times, well aware that he probably looked like a fish. Then he flushed and glared at his feet. "Do you do things like that often?"
"Y'mean become all-knowing entities and dissolve fleets of Daleks into dust?" Rose said airily, smirking a bit when he lifted his head and gaped at her. "Not often, no."
At this they shared a laugh before heading onto the Tube. The fellow passengers gave them a few odd looks at the way they were blatantly flirting with each other, and one person even mumbled, "Just snog already, yeh idiots," which thankfully Rose wasn't able to hear, although the Doctor could and spent the next five minutes deflecting about why his face was red.
They emerged from the Tube giggling like idiots, laughter stifled when they reached the TARDIS. "Here goes," said the Doctor dramatically, before mentally asking the TARDIS if he was forgiven. She mentally stuck her tongue out at him (Oh, how very mature, the Doctor thought bitterly) and ignored his further questions.
"I'm gonna guess by the way you're scowlin' that she said no," said Rose, tugging him by their still intertwined fingers away from his petulant ship.
"Time Lords don't scowl," he defended, frowning further when she tossed back her head and laughed at that.
"Right," she said. "Just like Time Lords don't snore, or whine, or fall asleep with their mouths open on the couch with a book on their faces."
"They— we don't!" he spluttered, hoping to God he hadn't done the last thing Rose had mentioned, although he probably had.
"I have pictures of leather you asleep in the library with your mouth open and Othello on your forehead," said Rose with a smirk.
The Doctor went the colour of tomato soup and muttered something about not being accountable for anything undignified when exhausted, prompting another fit of giggles from her.
They puttered around parallel London for hours, Rose pointing out the differences between this world and their original world— for one thing, the London Eye was a square instead of a circle, but was still called the London Eye, which the Doctor ranted happily about how utterly ridiculous that was and earned several glares from tourists stubborn enough to visit the Eye in the downpour, but he really didn't care because Rose was roaring with laughter and that was all that mattered, really. He got excited when he discovered this universe's Charles Dickens had published three more books before his death, prompting him to drag Rose into a bookstore to buy them.
Soon it was lunchtime, so they got chips again and Rose positively beamed when he announced that 'too much fried food was going to kill them, Rose Tyler' making him certain he'd said something like that before. For somebody who hadn't seen him in over half a century, she acted as though she'd only seen him yesterday.
Rose suggested they return to the mansion to watch a film once it was nearly three p.m., and he agreed with a fluttery feeling in his hearts as he imaged them curled up on the couch together in front of some unknown film (which in his mind was black and white, for some reason). Rose bet him ten quid that he wouldn't be able to engage a fellow Tube passenger in conversation, which he grudgingly handed over after trying for twenty minutes to no avail, earning himself nothing but glares from the bloke and secret giggles from Rose Tyler. It was unbelievably easy to interact with her, which only made him wonder how any future version of himself could possibly send Rose away to live with some other bloke in another universe. He was already finding himself jealous of all the time 'John' spent with her, and he'd only known her for a little under two days.
"What film shall we watch?" Rose asked, plopping herself down on the couch and tugging him down next to her.
He made a mental note that this was now the fifth hour of holding Rose's hand, most likely a record for him for holding anyone's hand. "Something sophisticated. None of that girlish, silly nonsense."
"Speaking of silly nonsense, I happen to know you love the Muppet Movie," Rose grinned, giggling when he blushed embarrassedly. "What about Oliver Twist? In this version, instead of that Davies bloke, it was Jack Jenkins who played Oliver."
"No," he gawked like an old woman gossiping. "Put that on!"
Rose grinned, tongue between her teeth again (he tried hard not to stare) and popped it into the DVD player. He tried not to beam like an idiot when she plopped down on the couch so close to him that their legs were pressed together, despite the couch being big enough for four people.
… what the hell was wrong with him? Thankfully Rose couldn't see his frown, as she had her head on his shoulder and her eyes locked on the screen. The Doctor was never one to fawn over someone— anyone, for that matter, and yet here he was, forcing down a stupid grin just because Rose Tyler was sitting close to him. She'd come into his TARDIS without warning, having lost just as much as he had — maybe even more — willing to take him in, comfort him and knew things about him and his TARDIS.
Things like the TARDIS's MO when it came to her temper tantrums and like the same Gallifreyan lullaby his mother used to sing to him when he was a time tot.
And now she was making his head go loopy. Should he be suspicious? Perhaps she was wearing some kind of aphrodisiac that his system couldn't take. Leaning his head over with subtlety, the Doctor breathed in her scent, looking for any trace of an aphrodisiac.
He found nothing but her lovely, natural scent of vanilla and the artificial scent of her shampoo.
The Doctor's frown deepened, pretending to be engrossed in the film when Rose glanced at him curiously. Maybe she was a telepath, powerful enough to mask her telepathic signature and mess up his mind without his noticing. Hesitantly he reached out towards her mind with his, taking immense care not to slip too far into it and alert her, and did the mental equivalent of a tiny peek. Her mind had a slight telepathic signature, as though another telepath had looked into her mind (and no, that was not jealousy he just felt) but she wasn't giving off any signs of her own. Withdrawing from her mind, he wondered what else it could possibly be. Maybe there was something wrong with him. He scanned himself internally, to see nothing wrong except slightly elevated hormonal levels, and he hid yet another blush behind his hand.
The only conclusion he could come to was that Rose Tyler fascinated him. Nothing more.
Soon, the ending credits were rolling on the screen and Rose was sighing happily at the ending, and once again the Doctor was wondering why he had to fight to keep a silly grin off his face. "Back in a mo', gonna pop off to the loo," said Rose, before bouncing down the hallway.
The Doctor waited two minutes before growing bored and deciding to be nosy again. He poked his way through knickknacks on the mantle, before spotting what appeared to be a leather-bound photo album. Hesitating and listening for signs that Rose was returning, the Doctor curiously opened the album and scanned the first array of pictures. The first couple of pages were mostly of smaller copies of the same photos on the mantle, but the Doctor froze when he came across one on the third page. It depicted Rose with far shorter hair, beaming like a thousand suns in the embrace of a man in mid-laugh, with stick-uppy brown hair and sideburns.
He'd seen this bloke before. The Doctor wasn't sure where, but he'd seen him. Shutting the photo album in astonishment, he quickly replaced it exactly where it had been and brought a hand to his mouth. He'd actually met Rose's dead husband, but for the life of him he couldn't remember where. His gaze turned to the hallway, where Rose had disappeared— should he tell her? No, there was no reason to alarm her or bring up painful memories.
As Rose re-emerged, the Doctor hurled himself onto the couch and pretended like he'd never left, warding away the look of panic with a bright grin. She returned his brilliant smile and he found it turning from fake to real. "Wanna watch another film? I could ring the shop and order something. Thai?"
"Ooh, brilliant!" he chirped, and Rose beamed and bounced over to the phone.
"I'm gonna have to work tomorrow," Rose told him, after they'd spent the last two hours watching the parallel version of Some Like It Hot and laughing over their food. She was putting the plates in the sink and he was seated at the kitchen island. "So you'll have to entertain yourself here for a few hours."
He tried not to pout and failed as they returned to the couch, plopping down inelegantly and pretending the way he leaned against her was natural. "What do you do?"
"I'm the Director at Torchwood," Rose said. "Took over after Dad died." At his look of confusion, Rose remembered, "You don't know what Torchwood is yet." Leaning her head back against the cushions, she explained, "It's an organisation of alien experts. In this universe, we're extremely popular— in the other universe, Torchwood is secret."
"Why weren't you working yesterday?" he asked.
The Doctor most certainly didn't miss the way her eyes flicked down to look at the ground before returning to look at him. "I took the day off," she shrugged, before abruptly changing the subject. "What were you doing before the TARDIS decided to take you to this universe?"
He stayed silent for a moment. "I was saying goodbye to Turlough. And refusing to let somebody travel with me."
Rose, who at first was looking sympathetic, frowned at him. "You refused to let someone travel with you?" When he nodded, her frown deepened. "You've never done that. Not even when you hated the bloke." The look of confusion changed to something that shocked him into rigidity— anguish. "It really hurt you, didn't it?"
Without letting him react, she reached over and pulled him into a hug. He hesitated almost a full minute, but since she didn't show any signs of letting go he gave up and accepted her comfort, wrapping his arms around her frame and pulling her into him, burying his face in her neck. Rose started to hum the Gallifreyan lullaby and he felt his hearts clench, and he spent the next ten minutes in her embrace fighting tears.
He fell asleep listening to her song, and she followed him a few minutes later listening to the rain.
"Lay back and rest now; you're safe, child of Time
Sleep under this burning sky
Dream of a new dawn in red, gold and lime
And I'll stay with you as you lie."
A/N: I can't tell you how bloody hard it was writing that lullaby. :p Anywho (Doctor who!) as I'm sure you've guessed, this story will be chalk full of angsty angst :3 but I can promise a happy ending, with an Eleven/Rose reunion. Special thank-yous go out to DeepBlue-sama, zeFluffleTruffle, Genesis Chi, bananas-are-good-9 as per usual ;p, wishbones (ofc), Kylaia78, natural-blues (you wonderful person you :3) jenn008, Greek-Whovian, a guest and the 3rd Doctor (sorry, River is most definitely NOT going to be in this fic, as she is awful :p) Thank you so much for reading and please leave a lil somethin' in the box for Vampi :3