Forty-Eight Years

When Rose Tyler first realized what the Doctor had done, any calm or composure that she was graced with was shattered.

She was standing by the TARDIS on the streets of Idun, a city of the country of Argonne. Neither the city nor the country existed in her time, though the place was sandwiched somewhere among the many lands of Europe. If Europe was still called Europe, many centuries removed from any familiarity from Rose's time. Newspapers never seemed to change no matter how much time passed, and it was a newspaper Rose clutched in her hands now, crushing the edges in white-knuckled hands.

Forty-eight years. Forty-eight years. The date on the newspaper was forty-eight years ahead of the last newspaper she had held in her hands, which, for her, had only been a few minutes ago. Still, a few minutes ago, she had expected the paper to be dated only two days ahead. Forty-eight hours, not forty-eight years.

The Doctor had screwed up gravely.

Trembling with shock, Rose's eyes moved along the street. It was nearing winter, she could see. Two days ago it had been closer to spring. The street had changed a bit, but she still recognized it as the same one. The TARDIS was nestled between ancient brick apartment buildings, covered in shadow where, as the Doctor often said, people would hardly notice it.

She didn't know exactly what she could be expecting. The Doctor, perhaps, walking down the street from the highly-acclaimed Italian restaurant they had visited eight minutes or forty-eight years ago, depending on their perspective points of view. Naturally he wouldn't have aged much. Maybe he would be wearing different clothes and a sheepish look on his face. Oops, he might say, just to sum it all up in one word.

Or it might be a lot worse than that. Forty-eight years was a long time. Even for the Doctor. Perhaps especially for the Doctor, who liked every moment to be filled with action and purpose. He would have had to hang around this area for forty-eight years, waiting for the TARDIS to reappear one day…

A lot could happen in a half-century. Maybe one of these people walking from one direction or the other could be the Doctor. Regenerated from whatever accident or trauma he had faced while he had been stranded. Unrecognizable.

Swallowing several times, Rose backed into the TARDIS, shut the door, dropped the newspaper, put her hands over her ears, and shrieked a very bad word.

She lowered herself to her knees and leaned over, taking deep breaths. All right. This was not the first time the Doctor had gotten the flight wrong. This was, however, the first time he had gotten the flight wrong without being on the flight! Of all the stupid--!

A few minutes ago, for Rose, it had been nighttime in Idun. All she and the Doctor wanted was to satisfy an urge for tomato sauce and cheese. The Doctor remembered a wonderful Italian place nestled in a picturesque little city in the country of Argonne. A homey little place, they made their own cheese and grew their own tomatoes and bought beef and sausage locally, he'd described enthusiastically. And the food had been wonderful. Heavenly, a huge pan of steaming, cheesy lasagna shared between the two of them.

Then, a bit of trouble found its way to their ears on threads of the conversation of diners. There was a sickness spreading just on this street, a sickness the Doctor recognized. A virus that didn't belong on this planet, at this time.

"I'll deal with it," he said with a flat firmness and added, "You're not coming with me this time," when she opened her mouth automatically to protest. With a hard expression he said, "Listen to me, Rose. It's in the air. All you'll have to do is breath it, and you'll be bleeding from your mouth, nose, and eyes. Your blood will grower thinner and thinner and will never clot again. You'll bleed to death before my eyes."

She had shut her mouth, and right now, forty-eight years removed from those events, she sat on the floor of the TARDIS. For her, the Doctor had been here only moments ago. And she had understood what he had meant to say with that last sentence.

It was one thing for her to be at his side while they saved lives and fought monsters, but quite another to stupidly risk contacting a deadly and painful disease just to be stubborn.

And still, worse yet, as he stood staring into her eyes to get her promise that she would stay on the ship until he returned, she could now guess clearly what he had been thinking. She had no regard for Rule One. Had blatantly disobeyed him on many occasions. They were friends, partners, even family, and something else, something deep and connected, an entwining kinship for which she had no name. But he was not her boss and in the end, she would do what she liked, whether it was following his lead or doing what she thought best.

It was this in his mind, Rose knew, when he suddenly grinned and bounced over to the controls. "I know!" he said. "Perfect solution! No need for you to hang about here, with nothing to do but wait. So!" He dashed around the consol, flicking switches and pressing buttons. "There we are. Two days ought to be enough for me to set things right, and you won't have to wait around here being bored."

Rose blinked. "What?"

The Doctor pointed at a familiar lever. "When I leave, wait a minute or two and then pull this down and back up. I've got everything all put in, not complicated at all. You'll just disappear and then reappear back here, forty-eight hours later."

In all of her time on the TARDIS, he had been trying to teach her the equipment. Some things she understood quickly. The data on the monitors and how to access any information the TARDIS didn't automatically restrict. She helped drive all the time.

But only on the one other occasion had she ever traveled in the TARDIS without him. She had not thought this likely to happen again, and it was unsettling. It wasn't a liberating feeling, like when she was learning to ride a bicycle or drive a car. Because Rose knew, even when she was absorbing what he taught her, it was unlikely she would ever be able to operate the TARDIS. Not just because the technology was well beyond her, there was also the fact that the Doctor often needed to employ a hammer and various contortions and acrobatics to get where he needed to go.

Still, it was a flabbergasting moment, and she agreed. Part of her sort of was nostalgic for the feeling. The same feeling she had gotten when she was learning to ride that bicycle and her mother had let go for the first time.

Besides, perhaps he was right. Better to jump forward a little in time while he stayed behind and dealt with the problem. He was right, there was no sense in her hanging around bored. There was nothing to it. All she had to do was pull a lever.

But now, now, Rose could see something she hadn't thought of before. Now she understood, it wasn't just because the Doctor wanted to spare her a couple of days of boredom. No, it was because he knew her a touch too well. Knew how she would become anxious, worried, while she was waiting for him. That she might step out of those TARDIS doors too soon, go walking the streets looking for him, braving a potentially deadly virus floating in the air. Because she had never, ever proven that she could be trusted to stay where he told her to stay.

He'd made a mistake. Two days had ended up being forty-eight years.

But this wasn't really his fault.

This was all her fault.

Her fault, that he couldn't trust her to stay put. Her fault, that she didn't give him a hug and send him out on his mission with her promise to remain on the TARDIS as he said until he returned. Her fault, for not ignoring that lever and going to take a long bath and relax in her room with a few books from the TARDIS's library. That's what she should have done.

Because she knew, she knew and the Doctor knew that the TARDIS didn't always end up where he meant her to go.

Rose wiped her mouth and stood up. Forty-eight years. What should she do? Wait here, hoping he showed up? What if he didn't realize that the TARDIS had shot so far off the mark? What if he thought the police call box had been stolen, carted off--again--and had been running around looking for it? What if he was no longer in the area at all?

Apologizing under her breath to a man who couldn't hear her, Rose darted to her room. She dressed in warm clothes, put on a long coat, and grabbed a pad of note paper when she darted back out to the control room. She would leave the Doctor a note, she decided. In case he got here while she was out.

Scribbling rapidly on the note paper, she first wrote that she was sorry. Then added she wasn't going far, she was just going to ask after him on the street and to please just wait for her if he got back before she did. It wouldn't do if they were both ducking in and out looking for each other.

As Rose stepped out of the TARDIS, she took a deep breath of the clean, cold air, stuffing her hands in her pockets. She felt so lost, and was so glad to at least have the TARDIS for an anchor that she unconsciously patted the doors after closing them. But aside from that, she didn't quite know what to do first. She wanted to ask around, as she said in her note, but would it really be so reasonable to expect people to have seen him? What if he had regenerated, or if time had changed the man she remembered in enough subtle ways that they still wouldn't know the man she was describing as someone they knew?

With no better plan, Rose looking down the street and saw the place that had once been the Italian restaurant the Doctor had liked. It was no longer a restaurant. It was now a law office with the brick repainted white and cream yellow and the windows enlarged. She stared at the reformed establishment for a long time because it was truly proof that, although this was the same place, it was still not really…the same place. It was proof that she was not somehow mistaken, that this was not only the forty-eight hours later that the Doctor had planned for.

Rose swallowed, crushed down her worry, then took a deep breath and stepped out on the street, wishing she had a picture of him to show as she tried to decide where which neighbors to ask first. As she walked, she hoped with all her might to hear his voice behind her. Wait, Rose. Here I am, come back!

But he wasn't there.