As promised, a nice, long chapter, chock full of fun.
Once again, un-beta'd.
Chapter 3 - What Comes Around Goes Around
"It's us," Rose whispered.
The Doctor couldn't help the feeling of elation at her choice of words. Not, "It's him", but, "it's us".
He didn't need to look over his shoulder or ask what she meant. The whole point of them coming here was so that she could meet his former self, now, on his own terms.
He had, admittedly, been rather nervous. He'd wondered what she would think, seeing the two of him together. Would she want him to change back - again? Had she ever really gotten over that? Had she really accepted that he's the same man?
Is that why he had been hesitating so long with his proposal?
She'd said "us", he thought happily.
"What're ya playin' at?" Rose whispered sharply across the table at him, snapping him out of his musings.
The Doctor sat back from her, actually scraping his chair across the floor in his surprise.
He'd seen the look in her eyes before, but never directed at him. That look was reserved for funeral directors with wandering hands, princes who thought harem girls made fun toys for half-starved wild animals, would-be suitors who upset her Mum - utterly heedless of looming Abzorbaloffs.
"What?" the Doctor asked, defensively. "It's fine."
Rose glanced over her shoulder, and the Doctor saw their past selves ordering chips at the counter.
He smiled a little wistfully, remembering their "first date", as they'd dubbed it.
His Rose whipped back around to face him, and he quickly schooled his features. "It's not fine," Rose told him emphatically. "What happened to all that about paradoxes and Reapers?" she demanded. "An' you said it's worse when there's two pairs of us!" There were tears starting in her eyes, the complete opposite of what the Doctor had intended.
"That's different," he answered quietly. He moved to cover her hand on the tabletop with his own, but she snatched it back and gripped the edge of the table. "Honest, Rose, this is completely different. We're not causing a paradox, we're just in one."
She raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him, then ducked her head as their younger selves passed by the table to find seats by the front window.
"Really, it's not that bad," he persisted, tentatively reaching a hand across to her.
She slowly released her grip on the table and returned her full attention to him. "How's it not?" she asked, allowing him to take her hand.
"I told you before, I've run into myself loads of times," he told her, comfortingly. "It's a little bit easier when it's two or more different regenerations." He rethought that statement. "Well, maybe not easier, a little trickier, actually -" Rose glared at him. "What happened to living dangerously?" he deflected. "Besides," he finally admitted, "I remember us being here. Everything we're doing already happened."
He saw her anger and fear instantly take a back seat to curiosity. He couldn't help but smile at that. She was amazing.
"Explain," Rose told the Doctor slowly. She wasn't entirely sure he wasn't just making it up to get out of trouble.
"It's a circular paradox," he said, his thumb tracing a distracting little circle at the base of her own. "Something that only happens because it's already happened."
She narrowed her eyes. She had been paying attention during his lectures on causality, whether he believed her or not. "That doesn't make -"
He cut her off with a wave of his free hand. "You're worrying about causality," he said. "Doesn't apply here. Timelines can get a little wibbley-wobbly when you've got a TARDIS, but it's alright. Time Lords can tell the difference and see when it's safe or when something's really off. And," he added, "I'm at the right end of it to not only recognize the circular paradox, but to know just how it closes."
She wanted to believe him, she absolutely did. When she'd realized what had happened with her Dad, that had been awful. And that was just because of a childish whim. Which brings up the point, she thought, "Why're we here, then?"
"Then, or now?" the Doctor asked, grinning.
Rose sighed, allowing a small smile. He couldn't really be this comfortable if there were something terribly wrong. "I mean, now," she clarified. "Why're you bringin' me back here to when we're sittin' there over our first plates o' chips?"
He released the hand he'd been holding and sat back, giving her a cryptic smile. "Because you asked," he said, simply, crossing his arms.
She had learned by now to recognize when the Doctor was through giving hints. Rose rolled her eyes, but took the opportunity to really look over at her old, younger Doctor and herself.
She was first embarrassingly struck by her younger self's appearance: not only incredibly young-looking, but eyes drowning in mascara; dark roots clearly showing in her fashionably-layered, bleached hair. She fingered her own hair, cut evenly, just below her shoulders, done to the roots and in much softer tones. She glanced down at her outfit, so much more practical and in line with her own tastes than the popular clothes on the nineteen-year-old across the chippy from her. When had all this happened? She didn't remember changing.
But speaking of changes, she shifted her gaze to the Doctor. He was so different from how she remembered that him. This wasn't the man she had gotten to know so well, this was the alien who had only just asked her to take a ride because she'd saved his life. All of his burdens were still bundled up and hidden away. He hadn't yet tried and failed to save the Gelth, tried and failed to kill what he thought was the last Dalek, taken her hand so many times under so many suns and moons and made her fall hopelessly in love with him...
Suddenly, the Doctor's last comment seemed to penetrate her consciousness. "Because you asked." What had she asked? She hadn't asked for chips; this would be a real stretch for that, anyway. She hadn't asked to see herself; had she asked to see the Doctor? This Doctor?
Ah.
She had asked, she had wondered what it would have been like to have gotten her hands on the last him's hair, hadn't she? Last night? Before he came up with his surprise adventure and left her at her door...
She could feel her Doctor's eyes on her.
Had he really brought her here so that she could... He was grinning. And she was getting the distinct impression that he had.
"You said you remember us bein' here?" she asked. He nodded. "What do you remember?"
"Hmm?" the Doctor asked, innocently.
She wasn't sure which surprised her more: the fact that he'd actually planned all this, or the fact that she was actually considering going along with it. "So anythin' I do," Rose asked, "I've already done, and it won't affect any timelines, or bring down any Reapers, or anythin'?"
"I can absolutely and unequivocally assure you of that. Perfectly safe," he told her.
Rose glanced back over as her younger self stood and excused herself to use the loo. She remembered this. She remembered hiding in the stall and trying to calm her fears and excitement, amazed that this man had come into her life. She remembered a sudden panic that she'd let him out of her sight for too long, and that he'd probably be gone by the time she got back to the table. She remembered coming back and finding quite an odd expression on his face. Now, she was pretty sure it was exactly what it had looked like, no alien misinterpretation involved.
Now or never, Rose told herself. Watching her present-day Doctor out of the corner of her eye, she got up and walked determinedly over to the other Doctor.
He glanced up at her as she came to a halt beside his bench seat. "Rose?" he asked. Rose supposed he was surprised that she'd returned from the loo so quickly. She was rather pleased that all of the differences she'd spotted between herself and her younger self didn't seem to immediately register with the Doctor.
She waited just a heartbeat until it was clear from the almost imperceptible widening of his eyes that the realization had struck that she was a different, future Rose. Before he could question her - or she could lose her nerve - she climbed in beside him on the bench, grabbed the lapels of his leather jacket (a much more noticeable widening of the eyes, here), and snogged him for all she was worth.
She knew she had to stay focused, that she only had a limited window here before another Rose was due to come back and finish their chips (after the Doctor would tell her he wasn't hungry for chips), but the Doctor wasn't making it easy. She had expected some surprise or hesitation on his part, but he had almost instantly complied with her rather obvious intentions.
Some part of her realized that she was kissing this Doctor more desperately and passionately than she'd ever kissed her Doctor - yet, she hoped. She supposed it was in part due to the freedom of the circular paradox, in part due to her guilt over ever having made him regenerate (no matter how much he insisted it was his choice), in part a response to how fresh she knew the pain of the Time War was for this Doctor, and in part a secret desire to try (circular paradox or not) to kickstart their closer relationship just a bit earlier.
More out of habit than because of any plan she had made, she actually did manage to get her hands quite thoroughly on his hair.
Finally regaining some measure of focus and composure, Rose eventually broke the kiss.
"Rose," he gasped, as she sat back, and he opened his eyes to meet hers.
She took a moment to re-memorize that blue gaze, then leaned in to quickly kiss him once more, just briefly. "Thanks, I needed that," she whispered in his ear, then hastily disentangled herself from him, and fled the chippy before her counterpart could discover her.
When he'd run into a future Rose, so soon after first meeting her in his own timeline, the Doctor had assumed that at some point in his future she would leave him, or he would have to leave her. The meeting in the chippy actually inspired the emergency programs he'd recorded, and he'd thought he was fulfilling the circular paradox he'd spotted back there when he sent her home from the GameStation.
Since her return, the Doctor couldn't imagine ever sending her away like that again, and not in any way since his blessedly foiled attempt at sending her to Pete's World.
The only thing he could think of, then (and he tried not to think of it too often), was that he was doomed to lose her sometime, somehow, completely against his will.
Hence, his immense relief when she unwittingly suggested this very meeting, now, with him. He was the one who would take her back to meet himself. He wouldn't have to lose her; she was just stopping by to say hello. And they would continue their life together, unencumbered by supposedly fated separations.
Of course, as he watched his Rose dash out of the door to the chippy just as young Rose emerged from the loo, there was a small part of his ego that was still a bit concerned. Now that he thought about it, his Rose hadn't ever actually kissed this him anything like the way she was just kissing his Ninth self.
And he could remember it like it was yesterday.
Like it was just a minute ago, actually.
The Doctor followed Rose from the shop, discreetly stealing a glance through the front window at their younger counterparts. Oh, the look on his face. He hadn't meant to be that obvious, but maybe Rose hadn't known him well enough back then to see it.
The Doctor turned the corner towards where he had parked the TARDIS, and caught sight Rose leaning against the blue police box. She looked up at him with a shy grin as he approached. "So that really happened?" she asked. "Before, I mean?"
"Oh, yes," he said, taking just a moment longer to revel in the memory.
"But you never said; ya never did anythin' about it," Rose said, as the Doctor unlocked the TARDIS. "'Though, come to think of it," she added as he opened the door for her, "ya did look like ya wanted to a few times."
Being a time-traveler, there is always the chance of meeting someone out of order, including complete strangers who kiss you seemingly out of the blue. Considering that they very well might become someone you'll want to be kissing or at least acquainted with, he had adopted as standard practice a polite response to such assaults. But with Rose, there had been something there already, something he'd been astounded to recognize after knowing her for such a short time, something that made him eagerly reciprocate when this Rose had appeared in the chippy.
Something that made him yearn for more than he thought he'd ever deserve.
"Well, it wasn't you, was it?" he asked, amazed that that something seemed to finally be within his reach. He followed her in and up the ramp. "I couldn't just -"
"What?" she prompted, turning to face him with just that little bit of tongue teasing the corner of her smile. She backed her way up the ramp as the Doctor closed the doors behind him. "I'm me now, Doctor," she invited, trailing a hand along the console when she came to it.
He grinned. No more waiting, he thought, and moved quicklly up the ramp after her, eager to accept her invitation, regardless of his own fears and mildly wounded ego.
Fortunately for said ego, he found that the enthusiasm of her earlier kiss was now rather seamlessly transferred to this him.
They were on the captain's chair. Actually snogging on the captain's chair in the console room of the TARDIS. It was just as wonderfully awkward as Rose had imagined, and she'd imagined a lot.
When his lips finally did leave hers, it was to kiss his way down her neck. "You could've," she breathed, somehow managing to answer his last, unfinished comment.
"I'm so glad you're still here," he said, between kisses.
"Where would I go?" Rose asked. When he was silent, she asked, "Whaddya mean? Doctor?"
He pulled back slightly, then rested his forehead against hers. She stroked the side of his face, until he looked her in the eye. "When I saw you back then," he said, "I couldn't guess how you were there. The best explanation I'd come up with was that you'd somehow gotten stuck in your past, and were just saying hello as I passed by. I thought you'd either left me on your own... or that I must have lost you," he admitted.
"So, all this time," she asked, shifting more upright once she had taken this in, "you've been waitin' for me to disappear?"
He nodded, guiltily, standing by the chair to allow her some space. But then he smiled, looking her in the eyes. "But you're here!" he exclaimed, and scooped her up, bridal style. He kissed her again, and she realized he was simultaneously initializing the dematerialization sequence. "That finally happened, and you're not stuck," he said, setting her back down on the captain's chair. He was absolutely beaming as he backed to the console to throw the last lever. "You're with me, and it's just about perfect."
Just about? Rose wondered as he put them into the Vortex.
As soon as they had dematerialized, the Doctor stepped away from the console, still beaming at her. His eyes had her fixed to the spot as he reached for something in his suit's breast pocket.
"Rose," he said, "marry-"
The TARDIS gave a tremendous lurch, and they were both knocked sideways and onto the floor as an alarm sounded.
"-ion Tyler," the Doctor continued, as he hurled himself back towards the console and twisted the scanner around to take a look.
Rose was almost completely certain, mostly, that that wasn't what he had originally intended to say.
"Distress signal, locking on," the Doctor explained, trying to operate about fifteen switches at once. "Can you get the..." he nodded his head, pointing with the toe of his Converse toward a yellow button just out of his reach.
"Got it," Rose answered, clinging to the console by one hand to reach the switch.
"Might be a bit of -" the Doctor began, before another jolt sent them both back to the floor. "Turbulence. Sorry," the Doctor concluded in the sudden stillness.
They grinned at each other, and Rose raced him to the doors. This was the life. "Ready to save the day?" she asked.
"As ever!" he replied.
They opened the doors together, to a blast of heat very much like a sauna gone mad.
To be continued...
Was that a proposal? Oh, so close! ;)
So, only three chapters to actually get to the start of the episode.
(Nine's perspective from the chippy can now be found in Chapter 12 of "Better Than That".)