The penultimate chapter, everyone! Once again, thank you to the anon(s) and users have left reviews; you guys are awesome. As always, please enjoy!
Disclaimer: If there's one thing I believe in, it's that I don't own DW (but let it be known I also believe in Rose Tyler).
He stood, even though she'd told him to sit a dozen times. More accurately, he paced. It was easier to handle awkward situations such as these with the option to run wide open. He opened his mouth to start every other time he came close to the bed, but never quite got to it until he heard Rose sigh and say, "if you haven't got a point for keepin' me up, I'm going to sleep. Good night."
"No!" he yelped as she reached for the lamp on the night stand. He stopped in his tracks, tugging at his ear. "I mean, I do have a point."
"Could you get to it, then? I'm a bit sleepy over here." Her statement was then accented with a yawn.
"Last night," he started, finally, but it was tense and a bit nervous. She couldn't recall the last time she saw him unsure of anything, if she ever had in the first place. "Last night, you were crying in your sleep."
She sat up, leaning against the headboard, and let out a soft, "oh."
"Yeah," he said, tugging even harder at his wonky ear. "And you… well, that is to say, you kept saying my name."
Another soft "oh."
"I don't suppose you remember what your dreams were about? If they frightened you, I could help, you know," he tapped his temples, "take them away, if you'd like. I wouldn't want your dreams to make you scared of the universe. Some aliens are rather scary, sure – you've met the Daleks – but some are actually very friendly and I could help you decipher which ones are–"
"Doctor," she barked, drawing him out of his rambles.
"Right, sorry. Go on."
"I wasn' dreamin' a' aliens. Not in the way you think."
"You weren't?" His face brightened.
"No," she drew out, "but it had to do with aliens."
The Doctor frowned and began to pace again. "I'm confused."
She barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes and throwing back a quip, but instead she shook her head. "What I meant was that it involved aliens, but only one really was really important." When his eyebrows knitted together, she actually rolled her eyes. "I mean you, you daft alien." One eyebrow drew back and was halfway up his forehead in a split second.
"Me? Why me? Why would I make you cry in your sleep?"
"It's not your presence that made me cry in that dream. It was the opposite. You weren't there." He looked as if he were about to throw out an abundance of reassurances, so she held up a hand to stop him. "'t's one 'a those reacurrin' things. Usually the same. You tell me to wait with the TARDIS while you go off and save the world without me. Then these figure-less…things come and I scream and scream for you to come back, but…." her already soft voice trailed into nothing. She shook her head, eyes trained on her hands in her lap. "'t's stupid, I know."
Her words made his hearts ache. Dreams were a window into the true self, as they said, so did she really believe that he would just leave her? You have before, the voice reminded him. It was true. It had started with the Gamestation / Satellite Five, and only escalated from there. Reinette was the latest, and he knew, even though he told her five and a half hours, that it had truly cut her deeply. The knowledge that he'd left Sarah Jane behind could only make matters worse. She thought she was expendable, that he would just up and leave her on some planet god-knows where in the universe, never to be heard from again. His hearts clenched. "Rose," he breathed, moving forward to sit on the bed, sideways so he could face her. "I wouldn't– I couldn't–" he tried and failed to formulate just the right words to say to her.
She shook her head again, more forceful this time. "But you have," she whispered, hoarsely, "and I know you think it's for my own good and to save other people, but you haveand what's to say that the next time you'll actually come back? I don't hold it against you, but it doesn't exactly make me feel all warm and cuddly on the inside."
It hit him like a punch. He really was a daft alien. "Rose," he tried again, but this time she just cut him off completely.
"No, Doctor, you don't have to apologize for this – you don't get to. The things you do when you leave me behind are spectacular, it would just be nice to be given two weeks notice before you leave me behind. I'm not some child you can just lock away in a tower somewhere to protect me from all the bad in the world." She looked up, but not at him; no, she looked straight forward, carving holes into the wall with her eyes. "And then things like last night happen, where we get so close and are so comfortable with each other… It doesn't make sense, Doctor. How can you do things like…" she let out a frustrated grunt before she continued, "hold me when I sleep, and then just push me back to arms length? You're always remindin' me that you're not human and you're not like humans but what you did for me last night was human. It was a human gesture that said you cared for me, but I guess maybe it was alien for I'm sorry. I just don't get it, Doctor."
"Rose, I–"
"And you know what else I don't get? How you can always be huggin' me and tellin' me how much you love travellin' with me, and then run off with some blonde historical figure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought eighteenth century France was pretty fixed and she couldn't just disappear to come with us. I'm not stupid enough to believe that you didn't at least offer after you saved her." She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Honestly, I'm surprised you came back at all that time, what with the smashing time you had making the first banana daiquiri and all. You could've been perfectly content staying in France with her. More refined, anyway."
"Hey!" he exclaimed, frowning deeply. "Don't say that. If it was Cassandra who put that thought in your head, I swear I'll give her a much less peaceful death."
She looked at him in astonishment, though not the good kind. "It wasn't Cassandra, thanks for askin'. I'm from an estate, that's hardly a classy place to raise a child. People look down their noses at me all the time, not that you'd notice."
"Because I don't see an estate girl, I see Rose Tyler, brilliant Rose Tyler, the one who saved me, the one who amazes me more everyday, the one who keeps me in line. I see Rose Tyler, the dame, the one who doesn't back down, the one who's fiercely loyal, the one who would cross the universe to help someone. I don't see what everyone else sees, Rose. I see you."
She looked over and was momentarily paralysed by the intensity of honesty in his eyes. She took a deep breath and looked away, chin quivering just barely. "Then why aren't you seeing me now?" she whispered.
"I don't–"
"No, no of course you don't. 't's aw'right. 's stupid anyway."
The Doctor gripped her shoulders and gently turned her to face him. "Whatever it is, I promise you I won't think it's stupid. I promise."
She wouldn't look him in the eyes, but he could see the tears there. Whatever it was was tearing her apart at the seams. His Rose didn't cry over nothing.
His Rose. First he was in love with her, now she was his. He wanted to yell in frustration. She wasn't his, not really. Never would be; never could be.
"The thing is, Doctor," she started, a bit stronger than before, "it terrifies me, losing you. It's the one thing in this whole stinkin' universe that scares me. I've stared down Daleks and chased down Slitheen and stopped Cybermen and almost been sawed apart by clock men and seen a glob of goo ruin an entire planet, but the only thing that really petrifies me is losing you."
He sat back, hands falling to hers. Unconsciously, he laced their fingers together and squeezed. He may not be the best with words in this body, despite the fact he knew quite a lot of them, but his tactility proved to be his saving grace, at least when it came to Rose. He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand as the first tear slid down her cheek. His free hand automatically reached up to brush it away. He couldn't miss the way she leaned into it. "I'm here now, I'm not going anywhere."
She drew back, shaking her head. "No," she choked, "you can't promise that. You don't know that for sure."
"I can promise you that I'll always come back for you, no matter how long it takes me to get there." She sniffed loudly, still unable to look him in the eyes. He reached out again and brushed his hand over the tear tracks that had carved their way down her face.
"How can you say that? After Sarah Jane and whoever else got left behind, how can you promise me that?" she whispered.
In that moment, his hearts nearly shattered, never to be repaired. "You're different, and that's not some line I stole from Jack. I've never had the same relationship with any of my other companions. Never had a connection like this." She finally – finally – looked at him, eyes shining and mouth inverting a smile. "You're not like the rest, Rose."
"How d'you mean? How am I so different? I saw the way you were with Sarah Jane 'n' wasn't so different from how you are around me."
He couldn't stop himself from pushing himself off the bed and pacing again. Truth be told, though, he didn't even try. He ran a hand through his hair and tugged at his ear and went through practically every nervous habit he'd had in every single regeneration. How could explain it to her without giving it all away? He couldn't. That was the easy answer. But he had to stretch for the hard answer, the impossible answer. He had to.
"See, you can't even answer that," she said, sounding defeated. "Well, if it makes any difference, I thought you were different, too. Different from anyone I've ever met, and I don't just mean that you've got a little blue box that travels through all of time and space or that you're an alien. I mean you're completely new and different and exciting and brilliant, and I've never met anyone like that, not all at once. I thought you'd be different from…everyone else, but I suppose I was wrong."
He stopped and stared at her. Had she implied what he thought she had? "What do you mean, everyone else?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes, it matters!"
She frowned and huffed. "It hasn't before," she bit back, "but if you must know, I love you. Or at least I thought I did. I thought you'd be different from the guys I've been with, but in the end I suppose you're not so different from them."
Once again, her words cut him like a knife, but the promise of the first sentence spurred him on. "Say it again," he demanded.
"Say what again?"
"Say it again," he practically growled.
"I love you." It wasn't the heartfelt declaration he'd so often dreamed of – it was far from it. It was a weapon, one that had the potential to destroy him from the inside out, and she used it that way, punctuating each word like one would yell at a petulant child. It made him angry and outrageously happy simultaneously. He crossed the room in two strides and was pressing her back to the headboard as he snogged her for all she was worth. She froze for a moment, tense up against his lips, but then she melted into it and responded as aggressively and passionately as he. Her hands wound their way into his hair and tugged and scratched and stroked while his held his weight on either side of her body.
She was the one to pull back, or rather turn her head so his lips fell to the line of her jaw. She gasped for breath, chest heaving as he sweetly pressed a kiss to the shell of her ear and sat back, hair effectively ruffled and lips slightly swollen from the power of the kiss. His gaze was still rather angry, but most of it had melted away, leaving room for adoration and devotion and a whole slew of other emotions Rose couldn't even identify. He licked his lips. "Say it again."
"I love you," she heaved, this time without the venom or frustration. This time it was the heartfelt sentiment he'd dreamed of, albeit a little more breathless than he'd anticipated. It made him lean forward once more and press a much softer, more loving, less harsh, kiss to her lips. He was more than pleased when she responded in much the same way.
This time, he pulled back to allow her air. He leaned forward so his mouth was beside her ear just so he could whisper, "quite right, too." Her soft laughter rang in his ear. He pressed a kiss to the shell of her ear. "And if you must know, I love you too."
It was a mutual thing to call it a night after a few more rounds of snogging and roaming hands, both utterly exhausted from both the day's work and the emotional roller-coaster they'd just stepped off. His grip was deliberate and firm that night as he held her close, her face tucked into the crook of his neck, as she slept. He may have been tired, but he stayed awake for hours, just marvelling at the miracle this little pink-and-yellow human was. And she was his, or as close to his as she could be. One could never simply own Rose Tyler; a woman of her calibre never could, and should never, be owned. But for the moment, she was his in his arms, freely and willingly giving herself to him. Just one more thing to check off on the list of things that amazed him about Rose Tyler.