"You think I'm what?"
John's face was as blank as a fresh sheet of paper. Rose didn't blame him, really—she knew how it felt to go through learning that aliens are real.
She spoke gently and carefully. "I don't think, I know you're the spaceman from your dreams. Those dreams aren't made-up stories, they're events from your life, your real life. You're from a planet called Gallifrey and you're different species from human, called a Time Lord. You call yourself the Doctor, and you travel through time and space. The Family we encountered back there, they're not mistaken—you have been hiding from them by taking human form. The disguise was so important even you couldn't know who you really were. And now, you have to change back into your Time Lord self so you can stop them taking over the planet."
His eyes narrowed in anger and what looked like hurt. "This isn't funny in the least, Rose—I would have thought you much more mature. I'm sorry if whatever you want to tell me is unpleasant but I'm afraid messing about isn't going to relieve you of the obligation. I have a right to know."
Rose paused to make sure she had her composure. Disbelief, lack of understanding—those she'd expected, but his air of betrayal she hadn't and it was hitting her where she lived. She knew she had to settle herself in for the long haul—they'd barely even begun.
She felt Joan's hand wrap around hers and had to fight even harder to keep back tears.
"I'm afraid it's true, John," Joan said calmly. "Once you've had a chance to digest it I can tell you how I know, but I do know."
Rose decided that of all the looks she'd ever seen on the Doctor's face, the one he now held was her least favourite: a kind of disbelief so intense it belonged on the face of a person who was reconsidering everything they'd ever thought they knew about another person, questioning that person's sanity and the advisability of having them in their inner circle. She wanted to punch him and cry, repeat as necessary.
At least John was also peering at Joan as if he'd never seen her before. Rose felt better, not being the only one.
It was such a shame. When John had woken a few minutes ago he'd been nursing a pleasant buzz. Fuzzy short-term memory had made the edges nicely blurred and he'd managed to relax. Now his agitation seemed to have overridden any of the morphine's euphoria and he looked ready to spring from the bed and escape.
"You're helping with this perverse little joke?" he accused the Matron. "What has happened toeveryone all of a sudden?"
"I'm afraid it's not a joke."
"It's certainly not the truth!" he exclaimed. "There is an earthbound explanation for what's happened tonight and if either of you actually believe anything you've just told me, you'd really best examine yourselves. Though it may not be entirely your fault—women's constitutions can't always handle events of this nature. It's got to be the excitement of the moment, the fright from a serious injury or having been at the whim of madmen—it's made you flighty!"
Joan glared flatly. "John, in our entire acquaintance when have you ever known me to be flighty?"
John had no reply, and Rose had to fight off a smirk—Joan was quite an ally to have.
"That's exactly what I can't understand," John said with an honest abandonment, and Rose no longer felt like smirking. "You're one of the most soundly-balanced, level-headed women I've ever met and you..." He turned to Rose and simply stared as though he didn't know where to begin. "Before today I would have trusted either of you with my life and now...now you're telling me this...this..." His mood turned to rage in the space of a heartbeat. "...this BOLLOCKS!" He turned fiery eyes to Rose. "This is what you had to tell me? This idea was what was going to keep you from marrying me?" Out of the corner of an increasingly-teary eye, Rose saw Joan flinch just slightly. "Is this seriously your notion of letting me know what's going on?"
Rose abandoned victimhood and rose to her feet in anger. "What about what you saw back at the dance?" she rallied, ignoring tears. "Guns that shoot green light? That woman who exploded and disappeared?"
"I don't know what I saw in there!" he shot back, flinching and gritting his teeth as his agitation moved his arm. "And neither do you," he managed to grind out. "But whatever it is there's a perfectly reasonable explanation!"
"Oh, but I do know what I saw back there. Those green lights? Those are called lasers," Rose said, not really knowing if that was the technical name—being that they were built by aliens—and wishing for once that the man in front of her would contradict her and go off on a rant about how much she didn't know. "They're useful for all sorts of things—eye surgery, scannin' your groceries, light shows. They use 'em like mad back home, in London 2010, where I'm from!"
John looked away as though disgusted; Rose didn't falter. "And what about this, then?" She pulled the sonic screwdriver from her dress, held it up for his inspection. "What's your reasonable explanation for this? You saw what it did."
"I didn't see anything for sure," he sniffed stubbornly.
Rose fought the urge to slap him. "This happens to be yours. You built it."
Joan's eyebrows rose in timid curiosity. "What is it? What does it do?"
"He calls it a sonic screwdriver. And it does just about anything, really. It's practically his magic wand."
Joan's eyes widened—the explanation seemed to set her brain off in a flurry. "If it can do anything..." she began, nodding at John's now-wrapped arm.
Rose's heart leapt at the same time she wanted to kick herself in the head. "Of course! Stupid!" She succumbed to the urge to smack herself in the forehead with her palm, then extended said palm toward John in amazement. "And you even showed me the setting!" She set about pushing the sonic's buttons furiously. "Sorry, m'just not used to bein' in charge of this thing..." She found the setting she wanted and knelt down beside the bed, starting to unwrap the bandage. When the sonic waved close to it John recoiled. "I thought you hadn't seen what this thing did," Rose taunted. John scowled.
Joan came closer for a better view while John watched uneasily. "What are you going to do?"
"Give you some undeniable evidence," she replied. Soon she had the wound uncovered and upon seeing it, John sucked in a horrified breath through his teeth, his face gone ashen.
Rose realized John had been out when Joan had peeled away his shirt sleeve. "Weapons on Earth don't make wounds like this, do they?" she asked softly. John's Adam's apple moved as he gulped. Rose placed a hand atop his and to her surprise he turned his hand to interlace their fingers, gripping hard. "John...if I can heal this, would that make you believe me?"
If she hadn't been watching for it, she wouldn't have been able to detect his nod.
She sat back, aimed the sonic and discreetly gulped as well: she didn't have the world's keenest memory for settings.
Rose pressed the button and the impossible happened: John's flesh began to replenish itself—very slowly, but perceptibly—starting with the tissue at the bottom of the stomach-churning chasm in his arm. Strangled muscle became smooth and sleek, and the other desiccated tissue plumped and grew red with blood. John choked in a huge breath of shock and wonder—Rose stopped immediately. "Does it hurt?" John shook his head, apparently the only communication he could manage.
Rose carefully restarted the sonic and the three of them watched. Joan's face was a mask of fascination, her expression nothing short of child-like. John's pallor managed to deepen, despite the fact he was regaining blood flow. After a minute or so Rose paused in her not-yet-finished task to let them all catch up to what had happened. "Well?" she asked avidly, a little breathless. "John?"
John's reaction was not one Rose would have ever predicted.
His eyes filled with tears.
"I'm not real," John rasped hoarsely, his first words in what seemed an eternity.
"You are very real," Joan said quietly from his bedside, his hand firmly cradled in both of hers. She patted his knuckles gently. "I have the evidence right here in my hands."
John's voice was rough from crying; Rose had held him for endless minutes while he sobbed out confusion and fear, simply rocking and holding him, letting him purge it. When he had finally quieted she had turned to retrieve the sonic and resume healing the arm, but somehow the prospect of her doing so threatened to revive his sobbing all over again. It was decided that Joan would finish the task while Rose retrieved a maid's dress to give her something fresh and more suitable to wear—John wasn't the only one looking wan and wilted.
Healing the rest of John's wound with the sonic—not just healing it, but erasing it—was a breathless thrill Joan didn't expect ever to forget. The idea that medicine might one day incorporate something like this form of magic...it was humbling just to be a part of it.
But now she performed one of the other duties of nursing: sitting with a man feeling staggered and betrayed by fate. "None of my memories are real," John spat bitterly. "Events I thought made me the man I was, that I thought shaped my morals and deeds...none ever happened. I'm nothing but a story!"
Joan's look did not scold, but implied she knew he was wiser than that. "John...we're all of us just stories in the end."
He pondered that a minute, then looked around wretchedly. "So is that what this is, then? My end?"
Joan realised she knew the answer to this question as though she'd been studying for it, which, in a way, she had. "Decidedly not." She turned in her chair to face him and straightened into a posture that expected his attention, which he gave. It was sweet and sort of rueful, how the attitude of a man in his position wasn't all that dissimilar to a boy on the first day of school—feeling suddenly smaller than he'd thought he was, needing something maternal to steer him to solid ground.
"The Doctor found a very clever way to talk to someone who might protect him, in this case me. He's been doing so constantly for weeks. Frankly, I think you should be hoarse by proxy." She didn't wait to see if he smiled at that, though she thought it a shame if he didn't allow himself. "I've seen many of the Doctor's past adventures, his moods..." She fought back a shiver, which she fancied John did not miss. "He's nothing to be taken lightly," she warned.
She made sure John was looking at her squarely before she continued. "This is nowhere near your end—the Doctor is eternal, nearly immortal. He is a light and a force that refuses to be snuffed out, mostly because his power reaches too far for anyone to best him. He knows the stars like a family; he watches over them like a parent. He can feel the turn of a planet beneath his feet. He can guide time. When he's not righting chaos he's bringing it, and when he's not saving civilizations he's damning them. He routinely beholds unspeakably ancient wonders not glimpsed by anyone save their creator, and when he does he's only the only one who remembers their language. He's merciful yet grants no quarter. He loves until it's the death of him and grieves as though he invented it. He gives all of himself to everyone but himself, and it's a habit I do wish he'd break. He needs love and companionship like air and yet he holds his breath like a stubborn child. He will never run out of wonder or tenderness or joy or adventure. He is the universe's fallible, capricious and only true protector."
John was speechless for a long, reverent moment. "That's terrifying," he breathed finally.
Joan nodded, gazing into middle distance. "Isn't it?" Her focus came back to the moment. "So don't whinge to me about stories. I've been carrying that one in my head for weeks and it's not even mine."
John laughed softly despite himself, his startling blue eyes brimming, and graced her with a smile of thankful, intimate affection that made her chest constrict. She had learnt so long ago she mustn't read into things, and yet doing so now seemed irresistible...
And then John's eyes moved incrementally to look over her shoulder and she knew Rose had appeared as she watched the inevitable transformation of John's face. Even confused and hurt and mistrusting, he couldn't stop what she did to him.
Joan abruptly felt like thin air.
She couldn't look at him after the revelations of the previous moment, after the pouring out of a soul she'd carried for him. She could barely whisper to beg their pardons as she stepped outside.
"Will she be all right?" asked John, as Rose took Joan's former seat.
"I expect so." Joan had made it clear she did not want to be followed outside. Even though Rose suspected Joan could survive nearly anything, she would have liked to have gone with her for at least a moment, given her some comfort she didn't doubt Joan needed.
John sat up, beginning to reject his invalid's position since he was, after all, healed. She looked at John's completely healthy skin through the ruined shirt sleeve of what should have been a dead man. She shook her head; the sonic never ceased to amaze her.
"How does she know so much about… this Doctor?" John asked, almost grudgingly.
This time Rose pulled the watch from her apron pocket, an apron belonging to a different maid's dress but still, an arrangement of fabric that had become very familiar. Being near him in this particular dress—while he wore his chosen costume—was also very familiar. So much so that she almost wished she could take back all the revelations and have everything stay in place. Almost.
She ran her forefinger along the etched case, feeling the usual eerie humming. "The Doctor stored everythin' about his Time Lord self in this watch."
John's struggled to understand. "How does one store one's self in a watch?"
"Trust me, m'not the one to ask. You're the only expert." He flinched a little when she said that but Rose was not about to back down from such statements. He needed to understand his role in things. "But it's definitely there. You can…feel it's more than a simple object. At least I can—and Joan, of course. For yourself, you put a perception filter on it so it would never seem like anythin' worth noticin'."
He took the watch from her warily, rolling it over in his hands. "You're right," he said finally. "It certainly doesn't seem like anything special." The corners of his mouth began to twitch and tug downward.
She put on a hand on his to keep him focussed. "When it's time to change back, all you have to do is open it."
He looked at her in alarm, hastily put the watch on the nightstand. "Does that happen if anyone opens it or just me?"
"Just you. Joan's opened it a number of times, apparently. When she does it only makes it talk louder."
John stared at it a minute, then abruptly looked her in the eyes. "What do you want to happen?"
"Me?" she sputtered. "Well...I don't know that what I want really matters."
"It matters to me. A great deal." His voice finally seemed to be taking on some strength. "What are we to each other, when I'm this Doctor?"
She looked down, abashed. "S'a very complicated question."
"Are we in love?"
She swallowed and nodded, not looking up. "We do love each other, yes."
His voice went soft and cautious. "But are we lovers?"
Rose very much hated the answer to this question. "No."
John looked outraged. "Why on earth not?"
Rose gave a startled laugh that was almost teary. "I ask m'self that every day."
His brow furrowed. "A few weeks ago I had one of my 'spaceman' dreams," he said with a touch of irony. "You and I were in a basement of some sort, with a battle going on outside and...and a table." His cheeks began to flush, and from the look on his face Rose knew the memory was arousing him. The idea made her ache to respond and very, very ready to cry. What if she never again got to act on that look?
"We were teasing each other," he continued after a pause. "You were trying to get me to prove I could dance, only it wasn't really about dancing...and I decided I wanted to put you in your place so I kissed you, and I pushed you back onto this table..." The dark hooded cast to his eyes was now unmistakable; it was all Rose could do not to squirm in her chair. "I was sort of...rough with you then, more demanding than I've ever—" A flash of bitter realization crossed his face. "—than I ever remember being with a woman before. Any woman today would call me an animal, but you..." His look became more enflamed than ever. "You very much liked it."
Both of them were breathing more raggedly. Rose couldn't decide if launching herself at him would be the perfect thing to do or the worst idea ever. "Sometimes 'animal' can be good..."
His eyes were glittering. "Did that happen?"
"No," she admitted, feeling excitement leave her as heartbreak moved in. She tried a rueful smile. "Hopefully you were dreaming of the future."
John frowned, frustrated and disbelieving. "You mean this Doctor actually doesn't want you?"
"I don't think it's that," she said. "I think it's just that...he's afraid to let it happen because he's been hurt so bad, and he feels guilty for things and responsible for so much, being the last of his kind and all. And he'll outlive me by so long—"
"I don't want to be that man," he interrupted urgently.
"But you are," she said, almost a whine.
"I'm not now, not while I'm like this." He leaned forward, urgency becoming fervour. "There must be a way I can stay like this. I can't lose you."
"I can't lose you either," she said, voice breaking. "But the Doctor is the only one who can keep the Family from destroyin'… really, everything. And we may not lose each other. Maybe now the floodgates have been opened, he won't want to go back."
"But that's a 'maybe,'" he argued in frustration. "That's not good enough!"
"No, it isn't! But we don't really have a choice."
"There's always a choice." His voice rang with that authority it had. "Do you really want this Doctor back?"
"Yes," she breathed, her eyes squeezed shut in a desperate release of emotion. "I've been carryin' all this on my own for so long and I'm so tired. He can fix it, he can fix anythin' and then we can go back to travellin', livin' among the stars."
His face shuttered closed. "You love him more than me, then."
"Don't be daft!" she exploded, making him blink in surprise. "You're the same man, you've always been! Everythin' I see in him I see in you, two sides of the same coin. He's the one with an encyclopaedia in his head and the alien-fightin' power but...you're the one's made every dream I ever had for the two of us come true." He stared at her in a kind of respectful wonder as she felt her tears finally spill onto her cheeks. "You're just him if he ever let me in."
John moved to sit sideways on the bed, pulling Rose into his lap and holding her. Rose melted into him gratefully, sniffling.
After a moment: "You said there's a chance I won't change my mind about us if I go back," he said softly. "So I assume that means I'll remember everything that's happened?"
"I dunno, may just be wishful thinkin'," she said, closing her eyes and absorbing his warmth and his smell. "Y'never told me one way or the other."
"I never told you?"
"No," she said, warming to his outrage.
"How could I not?"
"Well, there wasn't time but you can also be a right prat about that stuff. If I ever see you again I plan to smack you."
John chuckled and a minute later Rose joined him, feeling the absurdity so keenly she couldn't not. They both held each other tighter, a united two taking a small respite from the world.