i
Only wish that you were here
You know I'm seeing it so clear
I've been afraid to show you how I really feel
Admit to some of those bad mistakes I've made
And if you want it come and get it
For crying out loud
The love that I was giving you was never in doubt
Let go of your heart, let go of your head
And feel it now
Turning back for home you know
I'm feeling so alone
I can't believe climbing on the stair
I turn around to see you smiling there
In front of me /i
- Babylon, Nina Nesbitt
Chapter Two- Running Home
-
Bad Wolf Bay, Norway- Pete's World
It was strange, the last time she had needed him to convince her of who he was she had needed The Doctor to tell her of what they had been. This time, she had needed to hear words that told her what they could be. Words she was almost certain he would never be able to say. And she had almost understood why. Except her heart, her heart couldn't quite understand.
The Meta Crisis Doctor had looked into her eyes and she had seen him, The Doctor - just The Doctor- she knew so well staring back at her with such hope and then he had said it. Said he loved her. The words that she had been fighting to hear for such a long time. For all that time she had been strong, and right then she wanted to be weak. She wanted him. So she pressed herself into him, taking his lips with hers with a desperation that took the both of them by surprise. She could feel his human pulse beneath her fingertips and pressed closer still and he caught her in his arms in a way that felt like home. And it had been such a long time since she'd been home.
And in the midst of it all the Brown-Pin-Stripe Doctor had slipped away.
Now they are holding hands on a beach in Norway as they watch the square imprint left behind by the TARDIS being washed away by the ocean.
"I won't leave you, my Doctor. But if- but you are the same man, so you know I can't leave him either." He pushes a strand of hair behind her ear gently, and he is smiling at her so brightly, with just a touch of warm insanity that it takes her breath away with it's sheer familiarity.
"Rose Tyler, did you know that I'm brilliant?"
She grins, smacking his arm, unable to resist leaning into him. "Oh, shut up!" And a tongue-to-teeth smile breaks across her face.
The Doctor asks, "Do you trust me Rose?" She searches his eyes, looking for something. Apparently she finds it because when she answers its whole hearted and a little breathless. "Yes, Doctor, I do."
He breaks into a grin once more, "Quite right, too." and plucks a few strands of hair from her head making her flinch, more from surprise then from pain. Examining it, even tasting it for a moment before her bemused eyes. Well, if nothing else could confirm that he was the same man it was this, Rose muses.
"Good sample, that!" He places the golden hairs deep into his pocket and with that he takes her hand and they are running accross the beach past a bewildered Jackie, who is still holding the precious peice of TARDIS coral (and wondering if perhaps his type of aliens eat hair, or if it's part of some sort of mating ritual), they are running and laughing and Rose can't wait to see what's going to happen next.
-
On board the TARDIS, Inside the Time Vortex
The Time Lord Doctor is still facing the door of the TARDIS, unblinking. "Rose?" His voice cracks under the strain of the word.
Donna, still standing at the TARDIS console can feel the Oncoming Storm rumbling underneath the surface and it makes the fine hairs on her arms stand up on end. Even the TARDIS is uneasy, a slow rumbling groan of warning coming up from the very depths of her.
"Doctor." She watches him warily. She muses that the Rose Tyler she had been before she was torn away from him would never have ended up back on this ship. She would have done what she was told. Would have settled for her happily-human-ever-after with the Meta Crisis Doctor. But that wasn't her anymore. This Rose Tyler fought. And, she thinks fiercely, if anyone is worth fighting for it's her Doctor.
"What have you done?"
He is storming towards her with a desperate sort of fury in his eyes. Rose knows that nations have fallen beneath that fury but she doesn't step away from him. In that moment she knows exactly what to do. She steps forward and she takes his hands.
It shocks him into silence. It shocks him into the realization that he hasn't lost her. That she is standing right there in front of him.
Donna watches, silent, and it's like the moment a match ignites, sparks taking over an unresisting peice of wood. And sod it all, does she want to leave the control room and be anywhere else but right there at that moment. She's so distracted that she doesn't pay attention to the pain that is slowly building behind her eyes.
Rose is still holding the Doctor's hands and staring into his wild eyes. Sometimes, The Doctor realizes, you don't know how broken you are until you regain something- someone- you lost. He disentangles his hands from hers but doesn't stop touching her. His hands travel up, her wrists, her arms, her shoulders... her face. There is no Dalek to stop him from taking her in his arms this time, and he is kissing her and she is kissing him and it's pure desire and the sort of love that hurts and heals and is just what he has needed for such a long time.
The time for questions will come soon enough. For now he is selfish, no other universe can have her. No other version on himself can tear her away. He finds peace in that dream like second and he presses his forehead against hers and closes his eyes. Drinking in the moment.