CHAPTER THREE

It'd been a few months now, but Rose still hadn't quite given up hope that the Doctor would be back. He'd taken Mickey along with him again, after all. At least that proved that he didn't completely ignore everything she'd said to him that day out of anger with her.

It wasn't as if she'd tried to call him or anything. It'd be different if she'd phoned him to ask him to come back for her and he refused, or just plain didn't pick up. That'd be a sure sign that it wasn't ever going to happen.

She ignored the fact that the reason she still hadn't tried to call him was that she was just a little bit afraid that he would do just that. She especially ignored the fact that those thoughts sounded like empty justifications even to her.

Just as she'd said to him, she'd told herself that she would be all right with it, if he didn't want her along with him again. She was moving on with her life. She had a future now, even if it wasn't with him.

She'd left the job she'd taken up before he arrived with Madame de Pompadour in tow, all apologetic but oblivious. It was a step up from Henrick's – secretarial work in a nice firm. But she was fairly certain, with her sketchy background and lack of experience in the field, that the only reason she got the job is because her interviewer, and her superior once she'd started there, fancied her. Even though she appreciated the opportunities the job opened up for her, she'd wanted a role where the most appreciated thing was her hard work rather than the curve of her arse.

A few years ago, she wouldn't really have cared. She might have even eventually had it off with said superior, since he'd been nice enough to look at. She'd changed since she first ran into the TARDIS, so young and naive. She really did think it was a change for the better, no matter how often she had nightmares of the horrors she'd seen during that time.

Since changing jobs, she'd always sort of expected that she'd be at work when and if the TARDIS finally materialised again. After all, UNIT knew all about the Doctor, and they kept an eye out around London for the sudden appearance of mysterious blue police boxes. If nothing else, the Doctor showing up was a good indication to them that things might be about to go pear-shaped, and quickly. The Doctor attracted trouble like no one else Rose had ever even heard of, let alone met.

But it wasn't at work that she heard the vroop-vroop-vroop sound of her once home-away-from-home reappearing. It was when she was visiting her Mum on the Powell Estate one evening after work. Her Mum was in the middle of complaining that she didn't see Rose often enough now, and that Rose had forgotten all about her poor mother. ("That's not true, Mum, I swear. I'm just busy, is all. I'll try and come 'round more often.") She'd been mid-sentence, and there it suddenly was in the distance. That sound used to mean that new worlds were just outside the door waiting for her. Now it meant that her old world might have come back to her, if she was very lucky.

Mickey was already nearly inside the building by the time she collided with him, wrapping herself around him in a gleeful hug.

"Hey babe," he said casually into her hair, but he wasn't fooling her. He was gripping her just as tightly as she was hanging onto him.

"I missed you," Rose whispered, and knew she'd been missed in return by at least one of the most recent occupants of the TARDIS. Mickey might have grown up a lot in recent years, but it seemed that they'd sort of managed to grow in the same direction, because he was even more of an open book to her than he'd been back when they were still dating.

Mickey pulled back and smiled at her. "Still at the Estate, then? Thought you'd have taken over the world by now. I know you've got plans."

"Oh, they're in progress. I put complete world domination at about the year 2020. Just give me time," Rose teased, returning the smile. "And I'm just here for Mum. My flat's across town now. Closer to work. Nicer area."

"Rose Tyler, movin' up in the world."

"Better believe it," she said.

"You don't need him to be a force to be reckoned with, then, do you?"

Rose's smile fell and she went quiet. She didn't need the Doctor, no. But that didn't mean she didn't want him. And right then, with him and the TARDIS so close that she'd been able to hear the sound of it before, she really wanted him right there with her, greeting her as enthusiastically as Mickey. Perhaps even more enthusiastically, if she was honest.

So where was he?

"Just home for a visit, then?" she asked, trying to prompt Mickey into supplying some information without coming right out with it and sounding desperate.

Mickey shook his head. "Nah. Got the Doctor to drop me off. I liked seein' the universe an' all, but I missed the garage and the boys. Don't tell 'em I said that, though."

Unlike Rose, Mickey was fairly comfortable with his position in life. He didn't have great ambitions, or what her Mum frequently referred to as 'airs and graces'. He liked being a mechanic. So a few months travelling the universe was just like a Gap year for him. He'd returned older and wiser and knowing that he'd proven himself, but he was willing to get on with life again all the same.

For Rose, travelling the universe was her life, and she'd never quite get over that, even if she never actually got out there and experienced that again.

That seemed more likely by the second. Mickey's reference to being 'dropped off' didn't exactly give her hope that she was about to pack her bags and run off to 67th century Mars or some such any time soon.

"Oh," she replied, still trying to sound nonchalant. "So ... the Doctor'll have left already then, I suppose. Busy man. Places to be."

She apparently wasn't any better at fooling Mickey than he was at pulling one over her.

"He's still there," Mickey said. "He's waiting, I think."

"For what?"

Mickey gave her a 'are you actually that stupid or are you doing this just to annoy me' look. He'd clearly been hanging around the Doctor too long.

"For you, sweetheart," he said softly. "He's not gonna come to you. You know him. Still, I think he needs you right now."

"Madame de Pompadour ..." Rose started, but trailed off at seeing Mickey's expression. "She's dead?"

Mickey shrugged. "Sort of. We dropped her back in France in her own time, so she's long since dead now, anyway. And the Doctor can't go back for her again, so she might as well be dead to him."

"When?" Rose asked.

"When did we take her back?" Mickey clarified, and Rose nodded. "Just three days ago."

So Mickey was leaving him just on the heels of Reinette's departure from the TARDIS. The Doctor was all alone again, after having a relatively full TARDIS, with people to occupy his attention all around.

He must be so lonely, she realised, and he wasn't going to be the one to do anything about it. He tended to suffer in silence, the Doctor. It took someone else coming in and forcing themselves on him to break that cycle. So even though she'd said it was his choice to come back for her, perhaps he'd come far enough after all. Perhaps it was up to her to take that last step that separated them. He'd made it countless years and miles to breach the gap. The least she could do was make up the last hundred feet or so.

And the worst he could do when she showed up was throw her out again. For the opportunity to see him again, and maybe even comfort him a little, she'd take that chance.

Once Mickey had indicated the direction in which she'd find the TARDIS and given her a knowing look, she didn't take off at a run, exactly. It'd been years since she'd ever walked quite that fast, though.

She still had her key, of course, since the Doctor hadn't asked for it back and she was never going to be the one to offer it up voluntarily. It still hung about her neck like a constant reminder.

She could use it if she wanted to.

She didn't. It wasn't fair on him to not give him the choice of whether to invite her inside. So she knocked.

The door swung open immediately. Rose thought that maybe the TARDIS didn't share her opinion that the Doctor should get that choice. He was clearly not the one who'd let her in, since he was nowhere in sight, and there was no one else in the TARDIS at the moment who could have done it either.

"Thanks girl," she whispered. The TARDIS had always seemed to like Rose, sure, but she was the Doctor's ship in the end, and she was unlikely to take Rose's side over the Doctor's. Rose wanted to let him decide, yes, but it was fairly clear to her that if the TARDIS was taking active steps to get Rose inside, the Doctor must really need her.

Need someone, Rose reminded herself. It didn't necessarily need to be her. Thinking any differently was a trap that would only further raise her hopes, and she wasn't sure she could take having them dashed down from an even greater height.

"Doctor?" she called. The lighting in the console room was the same as always, she was sure, but somehow the space still seemed just a tinge darker. It was a little melodramatic to think so, but perhaps the TARDIS might be mourning along with the Doctor.

It hurt Rose just a little to think that even the TARDIS had been that attached to Reinette. Just how long had the Doctor travelled with her before he'd returned her to her own time, anyway? Mickey hadn't looked much older than the last time she'd seen him, but perhaps she should have asked him how long he'd been away this time. Appearances could be deceiving, after all.

"I'm here," the Doctor called, and Rose found him sitting on the grating on the other side of the console, blocked from the view of the doorway, with his back leaning against a strut of coral. He seemed completely unaware of the obvious discomfort he must have been in sitting on the floor like that.

"Hey," she greeted softly.

"Hi," he responded tiredly.

She sat beside him, quiet for a moment. "So UNIT's probably settin' up surveillance 'round here right now," she said, apropos of nothing. She needed to break the tension with something uncontroversial, and that seemed as good to her as anything at that moment. "Did you know they track you whenever you're on Earth?"

The Doctor eyed her. "Yes, I did. The question is how you know that."

Rose shook her head wryly. "It's a long story, and there's a lot of red faces involved, let me tell you. But the short of it is that I needed a job, and Mickey'd done all that research on UNIT when he was lookin' for you when I was missin' that one time, so I decided to go get a job with them. I rocked up there and wouldn't take no for an answer. Apparently they already had a file on me anyway, what with the Sycorax invasion and all, so it wasn't hard to catch their attention. And I hope you don't mind, but your name tends to open doors there."

His half-smile was heartbreaking, because she was used to seeing unstoppable grins on that face, and this seemed forced. He never used to have to force smiles with her. Or at all, since his regeneration. She didn't think she'd seen him that sad since he'd stood opposite a Dalek with a massive gun lowered and effectively admitted just how devastated losing his people had made him.

Had losing Reinette been on par with losing his planet? Rose certainly hoped not, for his sake as well as her own.

"You wouldn't be the first to find an in with UNIT because of me," the Doctor admitted. "Rose Tyler, defending the Earth from aliens. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Better you than most of the humans out there, I'd say."

Rose scoffed. "Not defendin' anythin' so much. Haven't even got my A-levels yet, have I? I'm just a research assistant."

"But you'll climb the ranks and be running the place in no time," the Doctor said, sounding absolutely confident in that fact. As if he couldn't imagine a future in which she wasn't doing just that.

Rose's heart felt like it'd dropped into her stomach. He wasn't planning on taking her with him, then. He was expecting her to stay there with UNIT for the foreseeable future, building a career with them instead of a life with him.

Breathe, she reminded herself, breathe. She could do this. She'd set up that job and this life for herself for a reason, in preparation for having to stay on Earth. She'd considered that possibility a lot, though she'd never let herself believe that it was definite. She could manage. There were a lot of good things tying her to Earth that would ease the way, especially now that Mickey was back.

It would do her no good to let the Doctor see her distraught over losing him, anyway. She wanted him to remember her as strong and independent, not some whining child who was upset over not getting her own way.

"Yeah, one day I'll be right up there in UNIT," Rose agreed. "And then maybe I can do somethin' about all those guns they wave about at the drop of a hat."

The Doctor's smile seemed more genuine at that, which pleased her inordinately. "Rose Tyler, you really are brilliant."

Then take me with you, if I'm so brilliant, she thought.

"Yeah," she said instead, and lapsed into silence.

The TARDIS, bigger on the inside though it might be, suddenly seemed claustrophobic, with the two of them not quite knowing what to say to each other. Their relationship had once been so easy. She thought, with the benefit of hindsight, that that might have been partly because they ignored many of the things that really mattered in favour of being light and easy with each other. There was no need for awkwardness if they just always talked around the uncomfortable subjects, was there?

She knew, though, that if this was their last chance to talk to each other like this, they could no longer avoid talking about the really important stuff. She couldn't let him fob her off like he usually did. She thought about bringing up Madame de Pompadour, who was dead in every way that mattered, and the walls seemed to close in on her.

But never let it be said that Rose Tyler was afraid of confrontation.

Strangely, she didn't even get the chance to bring it up, because he did it all on his own. That was different, she thought. Normally he fought tooth and claw against talking about anything personal unless they were stuck in some life-or-death situation.

"You were right," he said. "About Reinette. I nearly got her killed."

She was quiet, allowing him to continue at his own pace. She did, however, find his hand with hers and interlace their fingers comfortingly. He looked down at their two hands, which still fit so well, and sighed a little.

"I showed her the stars for a few months, just like I promised. Tried to keep her away from big historical events and real danger. But you know how rubbish I am at that."

It was those times that they'd found themselves in the middle of a proverbial snake pit that Rose had enjoyed the most about their travels, though. She'd missed running for her life, and even being tied up in dank prisons with seemingly no way out. Rose Tyler and the Doctor, in the TARDIS, saving the universe. That, to her, was perfection, even if she kept nearly dying all the while. It wouldn't have been nearly as worthwhile travelling the universe if he'd actually succeeded in keeping them out of trouble.

But Reinette only tolerated the monsters for sake of the Doctor, rather than wanting to seek new and terrifying creatures out for their own sake. The danger and horror wouldn't have been her idea of paradise at all. Also, while Rose didn't like to think of herself as any more expendable than Reinette, the world could probably cope quite all right if Rose Tyler died facing off with violent aliens. History would be far more dramatically altered, though, if Madame de Pompadour died millions of years after her own time on a planet that 18th century France was unaware even existed.

"She's all right, though," Rose said. "Reinette. She's fine." She knew this from Mickey, so it wasn't a question. It was a reassurance.

"She would have died five years later," the Doctor said. He really was in mourning, Rose realised, seeing the expression on his face. "She was far too young to die."

"Yeah," Rose agreed softly, "she was." But it was history, and she didn't know what would happen if the Doctor tried to go back and save Reinette from an early death. Perhaps the Reapers wouldn't come. But Rose had foreseen how history might change for the worse without necessarily causing a paradox. Sometimes the world around them just adjusted to the change. But some adjustments weren't exactly preferable to the status quo. Like that time in Cardiff with the Gelth, they might have changed her past without necessarily making her fade away into nothing, but it wouldn't have been anything like a change for the better.

Maybe humans weren't always the smartest or most compassionate lot, but she loved her stupid planet the way it was. She didn't want them set back a hundred years or something. Not even France.

"I'm sorry," she added eventually. She knew the Doctor loved Reinette, even though she was trying very hard not to think about the nature of their relationship too deeply. If the Doctor and Reinette had ... well, then she didn't really want or need to know. She'd slept with Mickey that one time since the Doctor left her, and that had felt bad enough. She'd felt so guilty, both towards Mickey and the Doctor. It had helped her a little at the time, but not nearly as much as it had hurt her to think of in retrospect. And that wasn't some grand love affair like the Doctor and Reinette had. That was just comfort with a friend, who just happened to be an old boyfriend as well.

Not that the Doctor didn't have the right to have some grand love affair, she reminded herself. They weren't together that way, and never had been. They weren't even travelling together now. Rose had no real claim on him at all. And even though it felt like he did, she supposed he had no real claim on her either.

It didn't feel true, though, that they weren't somehow more to each other than just casual friends. Or maybe she just didn't want it to be true.

"I'm sorry, too," the Doctor said.

That was new and different for him as well. He didn't often apologise for anything. Move on and never look back, that was her Doctor. In that respect, this man with a new face was no different from the man she'd first met.

"For what?" Rose asked, genuinely curious.

"I yelled at you when I knew you were right."

"It's fine," Rose said, waving her hand dismissively at him.

The Doctor shook his head. "It wasn't. You should never put up with that."

She'd put up with a lot worse from him, and even worse again from men more generally. She'd understood at the time that he was on the defensive, anyway. So getting an apology from him made that barely-noticed slight seem more than worth it.

Still, no point in telling him that or he'd never apologise to her again out of self-awareness. Presuming they even saw each other again, that was. "Yeah, catch me lettin' you off the hook again," she said instead, poking her tongue out.

He smiled again. Each time it seemed to come more freely, as if it had been a while since he'd last done it and his muscles were just now slowly remembering how. But he'd only left Reinette days ago, and he'd been happy with her, so that was impossible.

"So, you're on your own again?" Rose asked, and nearly kicked herself for bringing up his loneliness. It was probably one of the most taboo topics that existed between them.

"Yeah," he said. If she didn't know him at all, she might have believed at that moment that he was truly all right with that. He was putting on a good facade, she'd give him that much.

That facade would only hurt him in the long run, though. Cracking through it, though it might hurt initially, would be better for him, even if it made him angry with her.

"You should find someone," she said. If she was going to discuss the hard things with him, then this was clearly one of the things they needed to talk about. She hated to think of him replacing her (again), but she hated thinking of him roaming sadly about the universe on his own even more. "You need someone with you, I think."

"I'm fine on my own," the Doctor said.

"No," Rose said simply. "You're really not."

The Doctor swallowed and looked away from her.

"Who would I even ask?" The Doctor's voice sounded strangely strangled, as if he was trying not to cry. Rose frowned. She didn't remember ever seeing the Doctor close to tears, let alone actually shedding them. "I never used to have to ask people along. They sort of stumbled into the TARDIS whether I wanted them to or not. Now I have to beg people, and even then they keep leaving me."

It might have been vain to think that they were talking specifically about her now, but Rose thought that she was at least a large part of that statement. It seemed too pointed, and a little too raw, for it not to be directed at her.

"But havin' to ask isn't the worst thing in the world, is it?" Rose asked. "At least that way you get to choose who to have on board."

The Doctor shook his head. "If I got to choose, really, then I wouldn't be alone now, would I?"

"I'm sorry Reinette had to leave," Rose said.

The Doctor looked at her once more, but this time he had that 'you stupid ape' look that was so reminiscent of her first Doctor that it practically made her see big ears and crew-cut hair superimposed over his current face. Oh yeah, Mickey had definitely learned that look he'd used on her earlier from the Doctor.

"Reinette was wonderful," the Doctor said. Rose nearly flinched, but she knew she had to hear him out no matter how difficult the Ode to Reinette might be for her to listen to.

"Yeah," Rose agreed.

"She was wonderful, and beautiful, and clever, and I missed you the whole damn time I was with her."

"Huh?" Rose asked.

The Doctor turned his body more towards her and reached his free hand – the one not still caught up in hers – towards her face. He cupped her cheek, and her heart raced.

"I begged you not to leave. I never even ask normally, and there I was pleading over and over again, and you still left. Why did you leave?"

"I had to," Rose breathed.

"Because you thought you were second choice, right? But you never were, Rose. Never. I did try to tell you that, but you wouldn't believe it then. Please believe it now."

All thoughts of having to stay in London working at UNIT for the remainder of her future flew out the TARDIS door at that moment. How could she even think about leaving him when he was looking at her like that? She'd tie herself to the console if necessary, but she couldn't leave him alone again now. Not with those sad eyes on her.

His words might not have been 'I love you', but Rose thought it was so damn close in meaning that she just didn't care. She didn't need the words just yet. One day she'd like to hear them if she was going to stay with him forever, like she'd always wanted since meeting him. But for right at that moment, she thought the sentiment might be enough to be getting on with. The rest could come with time.

"Come with me," he said. "Please."

After all his talk about having to beg her, and how much that had hurt, Rose knew what that request cost him to say out loud yet again.

"Yeah," she said. "All right. I'd love to come." As if there'd been a question from the moment he'd admitted he'd missed her.

She pulled him into a hug, which turned out to be incredibly awkward with them still sitting with the grating digging into their backsides and their legs suddenly tangled together oddly in front of them. But all the same, she couldn't think of anywhere she'd rather be, and anything she'd rather be doing.

She found his mouth with hers and breathed in his sharply exhaled breath as their lips and their tongues met. She mapped out every inch of his mouth as efficiently as she could. She thought it was a good place to start in the quest to get to know the Doctor, physically and otherwise, more intimately than she'd been allowed the last time he'd been with her.

He wasn't anything like as aggressive in the kiss as she was, but he was far from pushing her away. His tongue traced hers with more caution than she showed, but the contact was no less sweet for that. She shuddered at the feel of him both accepting and returning the kiss.

When they pulled apart so she could breathe – damn him and his respiratory bypass, she thought – he looked dazed. His hair stood straight up, spikier than usual from where her fingers had run their way through it. He looked so thoroughly snogged and rumpled that Rose would have sworn he'd just gone several rounds in bed if she hadn't known better.

The kiss was not something she expected would immediately be echoed regularly between them. The Doctor was not that sort of man. She loved him the way he was, so she was all right with that. But with that kiss she thought she'd managed to break down a solid brick wall into rubble, and though that rubble still provided something of a barrier between them, individual rocks could be shifted over time. Whatever had happened between him and Reinette, or her and Mickey, ceased to matter quite so much with the knowledge that they weren't going to remain stuck in this limbo between friendship and awkwardly wanting more forever.

It was going to be a long road, but Rose was sort of all right with that. Drawing it out could be fun, after all.

She grinned at the Doctor and ran her hand over his jaw affectionately.

"Better go an' get my stuff, then. My flat's miles away, so you'll have to take us there in the TARDIS. And I'll have to let UNIT know I'm takin' off. I think they've been half expectin' it since I started there, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Though they will still have my phone number, so I'd be prepared for the occasionally emergency call if I were you."

He still looked a little too stunned to really comprehend what she was saying.

Wow, Rose thought, was she actually that good?

"But first," she said, "I'll have to tell Mum and Mickey. Don't suppose you wanna come up? Mum's been waitin' a whole year to slap you, and it might be better to just let her get it over with now."

He definitely had understood that well enough, because the Doctor suddenly looked horrified.

She laughed – the happiest laugh she'd managed since all the way back when they'd met Queen Victoria, she thought – and raced out of the TARDIS without waiting for a response, knowing just how much the Doctor was not looking forward to seeing Jackie again now. If Rose was lucky, she might even be able to restrain her Mum from bolting downstairs to bang on the TARDIS door, unwilling to wait until the Doctor brought Rose back for a visit to give him a nice handprint-mark on the cheek.

"I'll be back in a few minutes!" she called back to him, letting the TARDIS doors swing shut after her. The last few times those doors had closed with her on the outside, it had felt depressingly final. This time, she'd made a promise, and he'd as good as promised as well. She doubted that he'd be going anywhere without her for a good while.

Rose Tyler and the Doctor in the TARDIS. The whole universe in front of them. And a hand that fit perfectly to hold.

After all they'd been through, neither of them were likely to say no to that now.

~FIN~