A/N: Sorry for the few days' delay. Got a bit sidetracked this weekend. Here we are, though... chapter 9-ish. You'll notice the signifiance of the next chapter's number when I post it. Actually I'll tell you now: it's "Chapter 10 -- Rose." If you happen to get it, let me know :) I'll send some jelly baby love your way.
Thank you all SO much for your encouraging reviews:)
It took a year and a half to find a ripple that was the right size, and the time she spent with the Doctor was strangely lonely. It wasn't so much that it wasn't exciting or that they didn't have adventures or get along famously… but it was that it simply wasn't the right mix. Tardis couldn't help but envy Rose on that point. No matter who she was with, Rose had managed to fit, which explained why so many people felt drawn to her – even fell in love with her.
Hell, even a Dalek crumbled under the strength of her compassion.
Tardis had no qualms about her own significance in the world, but she did at times feel dwarfed and tiny in the presence of her sister's memory. Rose had told her for years about the Doctor, never seeming to recognize her own importance in the tales. Now, with her echo humming in the TARDIS, with the Doctor bouncing with newfound hope (though she suspected he fairly bounced anyway), and a visit to Jack Harkness (Captain Jack Harkness, thanks), who kissed everyone in sight and nearly beat down the door of the TARDIS because he wanted to come too, Tardis couldn't understand how Rose had managed to belittle her own role. And she'd begun to understand why Martha and Donna had really taken their leave of absence. Individual quality had nothing to do with it. You could be the most brilliant, witty, beautiful person in any universe ever (and the Doctor would argue that by saying that, you were really just talking about him). In this universe, with these people, you would still pale in comparison to the common, bleached-blonde, caked-on-make-up-wearing chav who'd never done her A-levels.
The Doctor, while enthusiastic and over friendly, kept himself carefully detached from her, and after all, she wouldn't blame him. She dismissed it as a by-product of her similarities to her sister, but in the end, she couldn't help but wonder that if she had found a John in his Tenth form, he wouldn't have liked her. Looking for an example in Rose was no help, as she got along with everyone well enough as said. Tardis knew the Doctor watched her at times, and she wasn't surprised. She had Rose's big eyes, expressive eyebrows, and wide mouth. She hadn't bothered with styling her hair, though, being far too busy as a child (and now, as an adult) to care. It was tied out of her face in a no-nonsense way, and it was much darker than Rose's. Her face wasn't nearly as round.
These were all characteristics that she knew the Doctor had mentally checked off in an effort to differentiate. She had a tendency to nag like her mother, though. Years as Pete's daughter, and more arguments with John than she could count, had taught her to clamp her mouth shut as much as possible when the urge struck, but all too often she found herself nagging away at the Doctor. She'd been accused of being Jackie's daughter by John enough that when the Doctor finally blurted it out one day, she knew to take it as an insult rather than delude herself for the next couple of weeks.
And deluding herself was something that Tardis was very good at. While, all in all, she and the Doctor became friends, there was something, some catalyst in their relationship that was missing. This was exactly what Tardis dismissed with an easy explanation. She was happy, and she enjoyed the Doctor's company. She accepted his superficial friendship at face-value, and thus, they both had a blast with each other.
It took seventeen months in total for them both to full realize the consequences of a failed transfer, of never finding the right ripple. Unlike Rose, she would not be able to pull her affections onto the next model relatively easily. She missed John, and she was far too much a cross between her mother and Donna to even remotely resemble Rose in the Doctor's eyes. As much as Rose had been unable to label her relationship with the Doctor (for even 'soul mates' couldn't quite cut it), Tardis found herself equally unable to label the… comfortable uncomfortableness that she found herself happily occupying with the Doctor. For a while, she'd settled on brother as a sort of safety net, but that always sat uncomfortably with her. It was more as if he belonged to someone else… someone else's brother? No. More off-limits romance-wise. Eventually she had slapped a large "Brother-in-Law" on it and called it quits. They were siblings-in law… without the balancing presence of the connecting sibling.
No sooner had she done so, than one of their adventures had had a mishap that had turned things to fatal, and when Tardis came to some days later, she and the Doctor had taken a long time-out and simply stared at each other.
Under different circumstances, they might have been the best of friends. But this relationship was one, they were realizing, that had a definite end.
And they'd both grown tired of waiting for it.