Right about now if I'd found the right words to say I'd tell you you're safe and take hold of your hand
"So before you say anything," Donna says, "explain to me why it's Torchwood, who apparently is obsessed with aliens, who needs to find Sam and not the police."
Oh. Rose looks at the Doctor. The Doctor looks at Rose. Admitting they work for Torchwood is one thing. Telling Donna that her employer is an alien is another.
Rose waits. She's going to let the Doctor handle this one. He knows Donna better than she does, and if this Donna is anything like the other one, he'll know what to say.
The Doctor waits. He has no idea what to say. Will Donna believe them?
What if she leaves in a huff and goes to the police?
What if she believes them and stays?
He's saved from this dilemma by the ringing of his mobile.
"Gotta take this!" he says quickly, grabbing at his phone like it's a lifesaving device and he's drowning at sea. "Very important! Very, very important."
Rose rolls her eyes as he leaves the room. Coward.
"So, seriously," Donna says, aliens and Torchwood forgotten for the moment, "you and him?"
"Yes," Rose says firmly.
"The only one for you? Really?"
Really."
"No one else, ever? You never dated anyone else?"
Rose hesitates. "I dated, yeah. Nothing serious."
"Not one rich and famous man, ready to carry you off into the sunset?" Donna doesn't recall ever reading anything about Rose Tyler and other men, but surely there had to have been other men. She's rich and young and beautiful - how could there not have been hordes of men lining up?
"No one else for me, I'm afraid," Rose says. "Since I was nineteen. I fell in love and never stopped."
"Nineteen, yeah? I've had a hundred boyfriends since I was nineteen," Donna says wistfully. "He's a fair bit older than you, isn't he? He must have been robbing the cradle when you met."
She doesn't quite understand the look of amusement on Rose's face. "He's a bit older. It's not the problem it used to be, though."
"And your parents are all right with this?"
"My mum wasn't happy at first," Rose admits. "But then we stopped traveling and came home, so she's happy."
"Traveling where?" Donna asks swiftly. "All that time you weren't here, you were with him?"
"Not...exactly," Rose hedges. The story of her life before this one is not quite public knowledge, and she's reluctant to say anything that might contradict that.
Donna is not about to be fobbed off so easily, not when she's right here with the mysterious Rose Tyler, but the Doctor comes back.
"Are you ready?" he asks Rose. "We need to go."
Rose glances at Donna. "Go where? We just got -"
"That was Janet," he interrupts her. "She wants to meet with us. Come on," he says to Donna. "You, too."
"Why me?" Donna asks, even as she stands up to follow them.
"You'll see," the Doctor says briskly. "She asked for you by name."
"By name!" Donna sputters. "How does she know who I am?"
Janet de Lancie is waiting at the coffee shop on the corner for them.
"Hello," she says cheerfully. Today her hair is pushed back behind her ears. She's wearing a black blouse under a denim jacket and a pair of black trousers. She's no longer in disguise. She looks much better without the black coat.
"How did you get my number?" the Doctor demands before they've even sat down.
She gives him a pityingly look. "I have my ways." She switches her attention to the two women. "Hello, Rose."
"Hello, Janet." Rose slides in the booth across from her. "How are you?"
"Well, thanks." Janet looks up at Donna, still standing uncertainly beside the Doctor. "And you're Donna! Please, sit down." She moves over to make room for Donna.
Donna sits down. "How do you know my name?" she asks.
"And how did you know she'd be with us?" the Doctor asks. Rose takes his hand and tugs him down to sit beside her.
"Didn't you read your horoscope today?" Janet asks in surprise. "You'll meet an old friend today."
"What's that got to do with it?" Donna asks.
"Just an old joke," the Doctor says hastily.
"Ha ha," Rose says lamely.
"It was meant for you, actually," Janet says to Rose with a smile. "Although the readings were a bit...unclear. I kept thinking 'old friend', but I wasn't getting that exact impression."
Rose glances at Donna. "Well, there are old friends and there are old friends," she says.
"Fair enough. Have you found anything out about Sam?" Janet asks.
"Not yet," the Doctor says cautiously. "We've just...met Donna and were asking her."
"I work for Sam," Donna explains.
Janet's eyes sharpen upon her. "At the studio."
"Yeah."
"Did you notice anything unusual lately? Before he left?"
"Just the usual stuff. Nothing, really."
Janet frowns and looks at the tabletop.
"You're a friend of Sam's," Donna says suddenly. She knows this is inappropriate, hardly the time and place, but she charges on ahead. "From home?"
Janet looks up, alarm in her eyes.
"Yes, from home," the Doctor says, interceding on her behalf.
"So you're from Cornwall, too?"
"Cornwall. Yes." Janet smiles faintly. Clearly it's part of her own personal cover story. "Nocklyn. Yes. Sam and I grew up together. A long time ago. I haven't thought of Cornwall in a long time."
"And you're still good friends?"
The Doctor looks at Donna curiously. What information could she possibly be fishing for here?
"We are. We came to London around the same time." Janet looks closely at Rose. "You've been doing something with your hands. Something...something clever."
The Doctor clears his throat uncomfortably.
Janet looks his way and blushes. "No," she says hastily. "Nothing like...like that."
Rose eyes the Doctor and makes a note to ask him, at the soonest possible time, what that was all about. Janet's psychic abilities appear to be working a bit too well.
"Knitting," Janet says. "I see yarn and sharp needles. And I sense frustration and anger."
"Yep, that's Rose," the Doctor says cheerfully. "She's not taken to knitting the way she's hoped."
"Oooh, do you knit?" Donna asks interestedly. "Me too. Have you tried that nice yarn shop down by Fulham Road?"
"Uh, no, I haven't," Rose stammers.
"Don't give it up," Janet murmurs. "It is a skill you will need."
Rose doesn't know what to say to this. Knitting is not a skill she plans to keep cultivating.
"I have to go," Janet says before Rose can respond. "Call if you find anything out."
"We'll wait for you to call," the Doctor says, "since you know our numbers already."
She smiles at him. "See you soon, Doctor."
"Does everyone call you 'Doctor' like you're the bloody surgeon general or something?" Donna wants to know.
The Doctor rubs his eye and sighs. "Some of them do."
"So tell me about Sam." Donna flags down a waiter and orders a coffee and a croissant. Rose places an order for herself and the Doctor as well.
"Do you have time?" Rose asks her. "Don't you have to go to work?"
"The studio's closed for a few days," Donna says evasively. "So talk."
"Sam's disappeared," the Doctor says, speaking rapidly and in a low voice. Rose and Donna have to lean in to hear him. He may have, unintentionally, purely just as an experiment in voice resonating, lowered his voice even more to encourage Rose to slide in closer. "Several of his associates have as well. We believe there's a connection, but we haven't proven anything yet."
"What's the connection?"
"Classified," he says quickly. "Sorry. We're still looking into it."
"This affects me!" Donna says indignantly. "Personally! Sam is a friend and if I lose my job..."
"We're working on finding Sam," Rose hastens to assure her. "And then we'll know what's going on."
Donna finishes her coffee and wraps up her croissant in a napkin. "I have to go. I'll talk to you soon."
"Just like that?" the Doctor asks.
"I'll see you soon," she says.
"Let me drive you back to your car," he offers.
"I'll catch a taxi," she says. Donna goes to the register and pays, and before she leaves Donna looks down back at John Smith. There are things he's not telling her, and she's going to find out what they are.
Rose and the Doctor are left in the booth. There is silence for a few moments.
"So are we gonna tell her about the aliens?" Rose asks.
"Not yet. There may be no need, and the less people who know the better for everyone."
"It might not be easy."
"Well, it never is, is it?" he asks, taking a sip of his drink. "No reason this should be any different, eh?"
"Ready for work?" Rose says finally.
He nods, not looking at her. "Okay." He wants to say the words he needs to say, but he can't bring himself to. So many reasons not to right now.
Sam Lively's disappearance, and Donna Noble's appearance, and a hundred other things happening.Things at home and at Torchwood and with the TARDIS. Rose seems to agree with him and they continue on with this strange dance of avoidance, of being together but not really being together. They have lunch together and discuss when and where to meet Sally to look at houses and do everything they always do except talk about what's wrong.
"What's wrong with you two?" Anna asks that afternoon.
"What?" The Doctor has been trying to resonate the alien rock with a new piece of alien/Torchwood tech, with little success. Anna is there for observatory purposes. And for company. Most of the other scientists are a little wary of him, never knowing whether he'll destroy something or come up with the next big discovery.
"You and Rose. What's going on?"
He looks up quickly at this, once again coming close to stabbing his cheek on the little metal sticks in her hair. "Ow!"
"I keep forgetting they're there," she says apologetically, removing her knitting needles from the untidy knot on her head.
"What are they doing there? Don't you have a bag or something to keep them in?"
"Of course I do. But this way I can knit if I have a free moment."
"You couldn't knit in a free moment from a bag?" he mutters.
"Shut up. So what's going on with you and Rose?"
"Nothing's going on," he says, setting the rock down. "Why? Did she say something?"
"No." Anna shakes her head and packs the rock up. "But you're acting oddly, that's all. The way Ian and I do when we're fighting."
His mouth falls open. "Rose and I aren't fighting." And they're not. No arguments have been taking place.
She looks at him pityingly. "You're trying too hard, aren't you? Acting like it's all fine but something's not. She came to knitting class last night."
"She's done that before."
"Yeah, but she's never wanted to before. Last night she didn't want to go home."
He looks at her, his gaze hurt and stricken.
Anna sighs. "You are such a man, even if you are an alien. Whatever it is, fix it."
He doesn't know how to fix it at the moment. That's the problem.
It's partly Donna and partly Rose, but he can't sleep. He was sleeping, actually, and then he was awake, shaking and in a cold sweat from a dream he can't remember. He fights for breath and tries to calm his racing heart - just one heart, it should be easier to calm down - and Rose wakes up beside him.
"Love? What's wrong?" She knows as soon as she touches him and she sits up to put her arms around him. He gives in to it and wraps his arms around her, holding her tight against him.
"Shh," she whispers, stroking his hair. "It's all right."
"I don't even know what it was," he manages to say, still holding her against him.
"Couldn't have been that bad, then," she teases.
He shakes his head against her hair. "Rose."
"It's okay," she whispers. Pulling away, she switches on the lamp and turns back to him. "Okay?"
He's calmer now, and he nods and leans back against the pillows. She leaves the lamp on for now and lies down beside him. Something impedes her and she reaches under the covers, coming up with a small black and white cow. She holds it up in the air between them.
"This new?"
He shrugs, looking shifty. "Maybe."
She tosses it off the bed and rests her head on his shoulder. His arm comes up and he tangles his hand in her hair. "Sorry I woke you."
"That's all right. Wanna talk about it?"
He brings his free arm up underneath his head. "I don't remember it. Just woke up."
The things it could have been hang between them - the Time War and monsters and his mirror image on another world in another universe, living the life that he was supposed to have. Rose doesn't bring any of that up.
"Are you worried about Donna?" she asks instead.
"She worked for him. I'll have to deal with her eventually. That'll be okay. She won't be too much trouble."
"You don't think so. Seemed like she was plenty of it last time."
"Yes, well, that was a different Donna."
"You hope so."
He's silent for a while, looking up at the ceiling. Rose leans over and turns off the lamp.
"On the beach," he starts, hesitantly, "I told you -" He stops and swallows hard.
"You told me a lot of things on the beach," Rose says. "You told me you loved me." He'd whispered that to her, and it was in that moment that she'd known a human Doctor would give her everything she'd never known she'd wanted until that very instant. So she'd thrown caution and what she'd thought she wanted to the winds and kissed him and hadn't been sorry for it. Not very much sorry for it.
"I did," he says instantly. "I did and I do and I will. Period. Full stop, end of sentence. End of story."
Despite the raw soreness that Rose has been feeling for the past few days, his words make her laugh. Some of her pain eases away.
"I've only got one heart and one life to live," he continues. "I can and will spend it with you, Rose Tyler. If you want."
"Of course I want," she says. "I'm gonna live with you forever."
He turns on his side to look at her in the darkness. His fingers brush her lips. "Swear it," he says fiercely.
"I swear it," she says softly. "I'm gonna spend my life with you."
He closes his eyes, the anguish and pain he's been carrying around starting to fade.
"I'm gonna spend my life with you," he tells her, and she smiles.
"Good."
The stress of the past few days has taken its toll, and though they might both want to celebrate their commitment in a more physical manner, they both fall asleep, there in each other's arms. Being in love can be quite exhausting.