Five Conversations the Doctor and Rose Had (And One They Didn't)

Author: TravelerOfTheWays

Rating: T/PG-13

Spoilers: Journey's End

Summary: Cohabitating a cozy house in Chelsea isn't quite the same as cohabitating a TARDIS. As they adjust to an old/new Doctor, linear time and wallpaper, there are a few things Rose and the Doctor need to discuss.

Disclaimer: Not mine, and I'm not making any money. Just the joy of playing in the sandbox.

Author's Note: Huge ginormous apologies to all. Right as I was gearing up to write Conversation #5, something very sad happened and totally extinguished my muse for awhile. And then school started up again. Well, enough of the excuses, here are the final two parts!

Conversation #5

Rose wanted to cry.

She had come home one too many times to find the Doctor staring vaguely off into the distance, whatever he might be holding in his hand dangling loosely from his fingers. He would jump about a million miles when she touched him or said his name, look lost for a moment, and then revert back to his usual upbeat self. Too many times she woke up in the middle of the night in the bed they shared to see him propped up one elbow, staring out the window into the starry night sky.

He wasn't consciously hiding anything from her, she knew. They had talked about that one. If he knew that something was wrong, he couldn't say what it was, and she was not even sure that he was aware of the changes in his behavior. Though he had settled on working for Torchwood as a consultant, he pushed himself harder than any full-time employee, spending as much time as he could with aliens and alien artefacts and losing himself in hypotheses and calculations. At one time, Rose had found herself more and more often understanding the wild theories he jabbered on about, but now it was like his mind was working at ten times its usual speed.

And his body was suffering for it. He'd never had much meat on his bones, but now his knees and elbows and collarbones stuck out sharply from his limbs, and when Rose touched him, she thought she could feel a strange heat burning beneath his pale skin. He ate as much as he ever had, but it seemed to melt away from him.

She could not have pinpointed the date when this had started, but a few months after she had started pressing extra helpings of dessert on him, she noticed that the atmosphere in their little house was changing by increments. Between his manic bursts of activity and spells of inward speculation, he wasn't smiling as much. She had loved his smile from the very beginning, even before he looked the way he did now. It could break so unexpectedly upon that face, like a new star in the night sky, warming her down to her toes.

Losing that silly grin was bad enough, but it was worse when he stopped licking things, stopped telling stories in funny voices, stopped taking her hand for no reason. He was never cool to her, exactly, because whatever else was changing inside him, he still loved her, but now that he wasn't laughing, she wasn't either.

She made a decision.

One day, he came home from work to find her, with a resolute cast to her jaw, unceremoniously stuffing socks into a small suitcase. So intent was she upon her task and upon keeping her face composed, that she did not hear him enter the house. She had counted out seven pairs of socks and was hovering over his sock drawer, wondering if she should pack any more of them. It was such a little thing, another pair or two of socks, but the enormity of what she was doing struck her like a hard slap when she reached in for another pair, and she fell, weeping, on to their bed.

He rushed inside then, sparing half a glance for the half-filled suitcase lying open beside her. For all that he had changed recently, his first instinct was to wrap Rose in his arms, and for that she was dimly grateful through her grief. He held her silently as her body shook with grief, and when she finally stilled, he brushed her hair back behind her ears and gave her a quizzical look.

"What is it?" he asked, "What's wrong?" She sniffled as he glanced around the room. His eyes widened, and she thought she saw a note of fear creep into his expression. "Rose, what is all this?"

Another sniffle, and she judged that her voice wouldn't crack too much when she spoke. "It's not what it looks like," she began. Her voice wavered, but she forced herself to continue. "It's for you. I…" Her chest heaved again, and she buried her face in his shoulder.

"Whatever it is," he said as he stroked her hair, "I'll fix it, Rose. I promise. Just tell me what's wrong, like you always do." His voice sounded muffled to her ears.

Taking hold of herself once again, Rose looked up at his thin, earnest face. "That's the thing, Doctor. I don't know what's wrong." She nodded toward the suitcase she had been filling and then glanced away quickly. She knew that she was doing the right thing, but the very sight of that valise hurt her. "You're not the same anymore. Half the time you're working like a maniac, staying all night at the office, and the other half of the time it's like you're not even in your body. Like you're far away or…" She felt her voice crack. "Or like you wish you were."

A multitude of emotions passed over his face, too numerous and too fleeting for her to identify them. "Rose, I…" He stopped and shook his head, as if clearing it. "I'm just… it's Donna and it's one heart and it's one world, and... I'm adjusting." His eyes were wide and entreating. "It-it'll get better, I promise."

Rose wanted nothing more than to believe him, but she recognized that tone, though it was one she'd never before heard from him. He was trying to convince himself just as much as her, and he was failing badly. She shook her head. "Not here, it won't. You've been trying too hard, and I can't watch it anymore." Her voice held steady as tears streamed down her face. "You have to go. To… to find something. To find yourself, maybe."

She took a deep breath. "And I can't be a part of it. You have to do this for you, you understand?" She reached across the bed and dragged the suitcase over the duvet. "Take it," she whispered. "Please."

He shook his head stubbornly. "I'm not leaving you, Rose. After the Time War, I was… I was hollow. I was so empty, and then I took your hand." A wisp of the smile she loved ghosted across his face. "And it fit."

A choked laugh bubbled out of her. "Yeah, it did. And then you blew up my job."

As the smile faded from his face, he took her hand and clutched it. "I only have one heart now, Rose." He gripped so hard her fingers ached. "If it breaks, I'll have nothing left."

She grabbed his collar with her free hand, pulled him close, and squeezed him tightly. "I'll keep it safe," she whispered. "But you have to go. If you stay, it'll just crumble, one piece at a time."

They stayed that way for a long time, holding on to one another for dear life. She couldn't have said whether minutes or hours passed, but suddenly they were standing at the door. His eyes were wet and rimmed with red, as she was sure hers were. Somebody grasped somebody, and his lips were on hers, bruising and tinged with salt.

She tore away and crumpled to the ground, huddling against the lintel as sobs wracked her body. She didn't hear or see him leave, and when she looked up again, he was gone. Her hand fell from where it was wrapped around her shoulder, to land on a chunk of something angular and crystalline. Something in the faint glow it emitted, despite the shadows that were falling around her, tickled at her memory. She stuck it in her pocket and stared into the distance.

He was out there somewhere, and he was so fragile. She been right to send him away, but at that moment, she hated herself for it.