Thanks for the lovely reviews, keep them coming x
I'm not sure how I reply to reviews (I'm new) so I thought I'd put it here; I have finished writing this. It's 4 parts long.
The Doctor's jaw fell almost to the floor of the TARDIS, while Donna's mouth appeared to have been parted by an explosive of some description as she gasped in pleasant surprise
The Doctor's jaw fell almost to the floor of the TARDIS, while Donna's mouth appeared to have been parted by an explosive of some description as she gasped in pleasant surprise. Martha however seemed to be appalled; if this was true, her already pathetic chances would amount to nothing. Annihilated; that was if they weren't so at present.
"THIS IS SICK!" Donna was quick to bellow, as Martha buried her face in her hands. Having listened to the Doctor's endless mentions of Rose, she'd concluded that now wasn't the best time for him to see that the news had been devastating to her; an earthquake in a fledgling country, with what could scarcely be branded an economy. "YOU KNOW HOW GUTTED HE WAS TO LOSE HER, AND YOU COME STORMING IN HERE WITH YOUR CHARM AND ANNOUNCE SHE'S HAD YOUR JOB OFF OF YOU!"
Jack quickly protested, desperate to maintain credibility; basically banished already; and the Doctor's friendship, which he'd struggled to obtain in the first place. That was down to Rose in the end, he resolved. "I'm serious! Telling me this is sick; you're not the one who's had your job pinched by a 22 year old!"
"Ok Jack, cut it out," The Doctor spoke up meekly, not daring to believe the Captain's words to house one shard of the truth. "If she's back, then where is she? Just tell me that."
"Got a problem?!" asked a scornful Donna as Jack looked to be submerged in thought before them. "She doesn't have work today; at home maybe?" Jack believed that he had suggested this helpfully and in good faith, but something in the back of his mind told him that the Doctor would not have the patience for fractured information. He'd hoped that the Doctor would be capable of determining her whereabouts through simply being acquainted with her for so long, but it appeared not. Either Rose Tyler was in the flat, or it was curtains for his friendship with the time lord.
The Doctor slid one foot in front of the other repeatedly and moved out of the TARDIS without uttering another word; barely audible or otherwise. The door slammed to a close in his wake, only succeeding to ricochet within the mind of the Captain and to increase his terror at the prospect of there failing to be a reunion between the two time travellers.
"Jackie," started the Doctor pleasantly as the interior of number 48 came into his eye line. He struggled to keep his rush of emotions at bay, but did so; not allowing himself to emit a beaming smile. Rose could have moved on, have simply lost interest in the prospect of travelling in time once again, or have stayed on the parallel world to which he had regrettably lost her. If ever there was an appropriate use for the word, it was for them. "Is Rose around?" he asked her courteously and politely, yet boldly.
As if a trademark of Jackie Tyler, her hand quickly met with the side of the Doctor's face with an almighty force driving it.
"What was that for?!" he hissed quickly in response to the unceremonious greeting which Jackie had given to him seconds previously.
Pete made his way to the door as Jackie huffed. She slammed a foot down onto the untidily tiled floor as if far from a model child, and glared at the Doctor. Pete's face froze in an unchallenged degree of shock as the Doctor came into his eye line. He seemed to be almost unconscious for several moments, before his lips broke out into a small smile.
"Doctor, good to see you," he smiled to him. Jackie meanwhile spun on her heel, her expression implying that she had just experienced a rather unpleasant encounter with a ghost. "Pete, tell me you're joking!" she barked, looking ready to banish the Doctor from her very doorstep.
Pete scowled at his wife, having now married her in reality and not continuing to rely on the fact that a parallel existence of himself had married her as he had married the parallel Jackie. "Jacks, I'm not joking; like it or not, she loves him," Pete stated sternly, resuming eye contact with the Doctor for a brief period which could not have exceeded several seconds in duration. Gesturing for the Doctor to enter, he restrained Jackie through initiating a stern, inescapable and yet not remotely vicious grasp around her wrist. "Nice to see you again, Pete," he uttered graciously as he accepted the invitation into the flat.
"Wish I could say the same," Jackie scowled back as Pete led her away from the door and the ability to grasp the Doctor.
Pete quickly interjected his wife's scornful tones, and glanced at her with a faint distaste. "Someone wants to see you, Doctor. She hasn't stopped talking about your adventures; I guess it was her way of trying to keep alive the thought that one day she'd see you again." Pete recalled honestly, his voice laced with sincerity, nodding knowingly in a way of expressing that he'd correctly anticipated the Doctor's following question. "In her bedroom; go on through," he said, turning his head to indicate the relevant doorway.
The door creaked open ahead of the Doctor as he edged silently into the room. Rose's possessions were strewn over the floor just as they had been in the TARDIS, when she either could not be bothered or had no time to push the garments back into her rather sizeable rucksack prior to the pair embarking on their latest adventure; this attached to the shared hope of it being just one in an extremely long line. He would never tire of having her on board, and she loved the travelling and his company which came attached to it.
Soft cries spilled out from the far corner of the room, which was bathed in pink. Drowned in it. Pink walls, pink duvet, pink curtains, pink carpet; the room was brimming with it, smouldered, saturated, encompassed. Carpets, the Doctor allowed himself to consider, remembering the adventure the pair had shared as the TARDIS had taken them to a sanctuary base situated in orbit beneath a black hole. Rose's blonde hair was knotted, strands of it hanging loosely down the side of her face; it barely concealed any of her tears, and was clearly much more than dampened by them as they continued to fall freely from her beautiful eyes, cascading like rivers down her pretty face.
"Rose?" The Doctor uttered with a suffocating gentility, cautious of his teary lost companion; how she might react extremely delicately to his return; her head submerged, buried and almost welded into her pillow.
Rose's cries, which pleaded for a way in which she could be reunited with her Doctor; ceased at once. Her breath hitched within her throat as she sniffed, and this was muffled by the pillow below her. She dared not to look up, for fear that she might be dreaming, having willed the voice to repeat itself within her mind during this process. Her hopes did not have to sustain her existence, for the voice repeated its loving call of her name, which it had first issued seconds beforehand. "It's me," offered the Doctor, extending his sentence; which cried out for her to simply look at him as she had done years beforehand.
"Doctor?" she reeled in a tone which remained muffled as she attempted rather feebly to brush away at least some of the falling tears with her pillow.
"Yeah; it's me, and I'm not going anywhere," he told her reassuringly, cursing himself at the next words which fell uncontrollably from his mouth, "unless you want me to…"
He'd said it now; all he could do was hope, hope and pray.
His caring, concerned and not remotely forceful tones played on Rose's mind as it spun from the enormous scale of the words which had recently met with her ear drums. They had provided a breath of fresh air; been music to her ears and sunlight in the darkened tunnel in which she found herself crawling through life, but filled her with concern, dread and fear. He'd have gone; she should have leaped into his comforting arms, and instead she'd remained enveloped in her duvet, barely conscious as the enormity of the reunion hit her.
"Doctor, I need you," she whimpered pathetically, turning onto her side as she prepared to catch sight of nothing but a pink wall, devoid of decoration, light and the one face she longed to see.
He grinned, kneeling so that he matched the level that the bed reached from the floor. Shuffling across it, he held his arms out, and leapt forward as he saw her heading for a collision with them. "I've missed you so much," he informed her sorrowfully as he enveloped her in a tight hug and she clung to him like a small child.
Rose Tyler felt exactly as she'd often feared she'd never feel again. Truly happy, content and at peace; for the only person she needed in the universe and within all the universes out there hugged her to him tightly. He pulled her head down onto his shoulder with a shocking gentility and let his tears of happiness fall onto her blonde strands as she tightened her grip on him, seemingly afraid that he would vanish at any moment; leave her all alone, disappear. "I'm never letting you out of my sight again," he reassured her, sensing her feelings as to his reappearance. Her lips parted, but no sound was emitted. Never before had the Doctor envisaged nor witnessed a Tyler at a loss for words.
The Doctor rocked his companion backwards and forwards steadily as she eventually found some words within her throbbing mind, within which thoughts continued to circulate at a speed she had never thought possible, and with such ferociousness. "Doctor.. I can't believe it .. I've waited so long for this, thinking that it would never come," she continued to sob in joy, craning her neck and looking into the Doctor's eyes.
"Hey, that's enough of that," the time lord assured her; his best friend, his one love. His eyes widened, unbeknown to his sobbing companion; as a thought suddenly collided with him like a truck. "I never got the chance to say; Rose Tyler, I love you so much," he told her sincerely, giving way to a comforting silence to fall over the two time travellers, like snowdrops over the ground.
"I love you," Rose quickly reciprocated with something of a squeal behind her words, which she seemed to have suppressed for some time.
This was better than the Doctor could have possibly dreamed, having spent night upon night longing for a reunion with his beloved Rose. She was here, she hadn't cursed him for not arriving sooner, and she seemed to be totally dependent on him. He hated to see her emotionally down, but this way he knew that he was in no danger of having to experience the indescribable heartache that would come attached to having to be separated from her again. "Nothing can hurt us ever again," he told her in a reassuring whisper.