It was only a matter of time until the paparazzi became curious about the strange man that, quite literally, dropped into Rose Tyler's life. The Vitex heiress was mysterious enough on her own, with her seemingly random appearance, her seeming lack of a social life, and the fact that no one actually knew what she did for a living. There was theories of course, some more believable than others. Some said that she was a school teacher, though there was no proof of that. Some said that she worked from home, though there were no clues as to what she did. Yet others still claimed that she worked for a semi- underground agency dealing with the protection of the country from aliens, but that idea was preposterous.
Long story short, she hadn't given the tabloids much to gossip about after the first month and a few interviews. So when Dr. John Smith, a man that they had known nothing about, suddenly appeared at her side, they had a heyday.
"Excuse me, just…" She elbowed a few photographers, trying to make it through the crowd to rescue the man that was stuck in the middle of it.
Lights flashed around them as the paparazzi worked away on their cameras. "Mr. Smith! Can you tell us-"
"No, he can't." Rose cut in, grabbing his arm.
"Miss Tyler! Is this the man you said-" A microphone was shoved into her face.
"No comment!" She said before the question could be finished, pulling the slightly terrified Doctor into the flat and closing the door – or rather, slamming it – quickly.
"Blimey…" He muttered, peering out the peephole in the door to look at the suddenly upset people out front of their door. Then he turned to her and smiled slightly, an unspoken 'thank-you' for rescuing him from the crowd.
" 'Man you said' what?" He asked a few minutes later, as she was glancing out the window. The crowd was quickly dispersing, thankfully. "You talked about me? Him?"
Rose shook her head, closing the blinds anyway. "You." She replied quietly, collapsing onto the rather uncomfortable couch. (Maybe she had already accepted him to be the Doctor, or maybe she was pretending that he was.) "Should have warned you."
"I'm still alive." He grinned slightly, sitting in the chair in the corner and watching her.
"Yeah, you are. The milk didn't make it, though?" She asked, as if suddenly noticing. He shook his head. "We'll go get some tomorrow."
They sat for a short while, the silence neither stifling nor comforting or anything bad or anything good until Rose finally broke it.
"You can come to Torchwood with me tomorrow, if you want." She offered. "There's some people who I'd like you to meet. And you can raid the storage for stuff to plant the TARDIS."
"No one will mind?"
She shook her head, and the silence resumed.
And so the next morning, the Doctor found himself putting names to the faces on the picture on Rose's wall.
The day after that, they planted the small piece of coral in the only place that had enough room, where no prying eyes would find it, and where they could make a bit of a mess and no-one would care – the attic of the Tyler mansion.
xXxXx
On the seventh day, he cracked.
Rose couldn't sleep- which wasn't distinctly unusual, she rarely slept much and that rang even truer now that he was here.
She found him sitting on the porch, staring out beyond the fractured horizon, towards the buildings that rose beyond it. The last of the stars were being wiped from the sky, strands of pinks and oranges bringing the sun. His legs were flung out over the edge, hands on the wrought-iron railing, holding so tightly that his knuckles were white. His eyes were wet and wide and unblinking, mind racing and heart pounding and breaths coming in shallow, quick gasps that waivered and sent his body trembling. His lips moved in unknown words, silent and indistinguishable.
"Doctor?" She reached up and placed her own hand on his, feeling the way his fingers were shaking. This seemed to break him from his trance just enough for those intangible words to become horse whispers that weren't in a language she could understand. "Doctor." Rose said a bit more forcefully. His head shot to look at her, eyes not quite focusing. " 'S alright, Doctor," she reassured him, gently prying his fingers from the cold rail and taking them into hers.
"I can't do this." He stood abruptly, dashing out the front door before she could even blink.
xXxXx
"Pete, I think the Doctor's on his way over." She paused, listening to the confused questioning of her step father as she grabbed a coat and dashed out the door.
"What? Why? What's going on?"
"I don't know. Some sort of nightmare, I think. I'll be there in a few minutes." She hung up before anything more could be said, digging he keys out of the pocket of her jacket and prying open her car door.
xXxXx
"Can't do what?" She asked quietly, peeking her head into the dusty room, finding the Doctor's hunched form quickly. He turned slightly, and suddenly she was remember all the times when an adventure didn't end well and the Doctor would just stand, just like that, looking at her with those sad eyes that were usually so bright. His hands would be in his pockets, long coat flung back and she would wrap her arms around him because that's the only thing she knew how to do. They would say nothing and yet say everything, and then he would force a smile and they'd move on, they'd run away. And that's what he was trying to do now, trying to run away from something that was following at his heels.
"Six months. If I can make a sonic screwdriver. If not, then…I don't know."
Rose pulled herself into the attic, lingering near the small hatch that lead downstairs, confused. "What?"
"The TARDIS. She'll be flight worthy in six months, thanks to that stuff from Torchwood. As long as I can get my hands on a sonic. Otherwise, it might be years. Too many years." (She wondered if he meant too many years for them to still be alive, or too many years for him to deal with being stuck here.)
"Can't do what?" She asked again, not allowing him to lead her away from this conversation like she might have before. He looked away, staring at the slightly pulsing light growth light from Jeniviron that he had modified for the TARDIS.
"I don't know. Everything. All of this." He fell silent for a second. "One heart. No TARDIS. No Sonic, no psychic paper. Be domestic."
She inched closer, crossing half the distance between them. "Are you okay?"
"No."
She hadn't expected the truth. (She never expected the truth from him, really. He lied too much for her to.)
Rose was standing beside him now. " You have a TARDIS. You will, at least. And you can make a sonic, yeah?"
"Maybe. I don't know if this universe will have the right parts, or if I'll be able to get the ones I need from here."
"As for the heart…you're wrong." She lifted her hands to his chest, right where his hearts had been. Under one was the dull thub-thump of a human heart. The other was empty. When he lifted his hands to hers, she pulled one over her own heart. "See? It's right there."
The Doctor smiled sadly. ( Because that really was so very accurate. She had stolen his heart long ago, though, before all of this.)
"Always has been. You remember that, alright?"
And he wondered if he should kiss her then. ( It was very nearly a confession, a confession that he shared. A confession that they had both said but both were pretending they hadn't. ) But he didn't. Instead, he pulled her hands from hers and shoved them into the pockets of his pajama pants, keeping the forced smile on his lips. "I should go apologize. I think I woke Jackie up."
She could almost see the brown coat swishing behind him as he left. ( He was trying so very hard to run away.)