Chapter 4

The next few months Rose could have sworn that Rose-Rosie was her new nickname. John fought it, yes he did, and he fought it hard. The problem was breaking the news to everyone else. The morning after the incident, the two of them decided it was time to resign from Torchwood. Rose wasn't worried about money—they had some saved—but she did realize that in time she may be the one working. Neither of them were about to accept handouts from Pete and Jackie, at least not yet.

John experimented with what his brain could handle—fixing stuff around the house and at the Tyler's, playing with the kids, and other dumbed-down tasks were fine. For the first year he could still tinker around in his workshop downstairs and focus on growing the Tardis, and he did spend a little more time trying to find some kind of cure for his own condition.

The problem was that the more he looked for a cure and thought about the various scientific results different procedures could have, the worse his condition became.

For awhile it seemed they had his haywire brain under control. They spent a lot of time as a family, just the four of them, taking Jackie and Alex places and playing games and having parties and date nights and visiting with the Tylers and little Tony. Those were things they could do. They didn't require much thinking. They were as human as life could get.

But before long, it got old because there was nothing interesting left to do for them, and Rose considered going part-time at Torchwood. The night watchman, however, was retiring and John decided to take up that position. He was gone at night and slept during the day, but it was something he could do and he still had plenty of time off for rest and spending with his family.

The job lasted nine months, when John took Rose aside on a Sunday afternoon. "I'm not sure I can be a watchman any more, Rose," he confided grimly. He didn't call her Rosie. He almost never remembered to now. "The other night I found a data readout somebody'd left on the floor. I was gonna put it back in the file cabinet. I didn't mean to read it," he swallowed hard. "I just looked at it by accident. I couldn't stop reading it. I must've read it a dozen times in a few seconds. I memorized it and it kept repeating in my head, over and over, and I couldn't stop it. All those numbers, over and over again, and all their roots and relations and derivatives—and there was no end to it."

Rose noticed he was struggling even as he spoke about the incident, and his face was visibly flushed with heat. She bit her lip, watching him with concern in her eyes.

"It kept going and going until I blacked out," he continued remorsefully. "I woke up; I don't even know how much later 'cause I didn't dare look at the clock after that."

"Why not?" she was confused.

"It has numbers on it!" he exclaimed sadly.

Rose's mouth fell open as realization dawned on her. If he couldn't even look at a clock any more—

"Torchwood can't have a night watchman who can't even look after himself," John concluded, his voice lower than Rose had ever heard it.

She started to tell him that it was okay, and they'd always known this day would come, and she'd just call her dad and let him know. But John had something more important to say.

"I failed you, Rose."

His eyes had hardened and grown old and she didn't like that look. John would be trying not to cry right now. This man was just spitting out facts like he did it every day.

"Nine hundred years and I'm still failing you," he continued, looking past her now, as if he'd forgotten she was even there.

"Y—you haven't known me for nine hundred years, John. Just a couple," she said, feeling nervous as she tried to figure out who the stranger was who had suddenly appeared in front of her, in her husband's body and voice.

"I've failed all my companions."

"I'm not your companion—I'm your wife."

Both of them had tensed up, and John—or what had been John—turned to her with narrowed eyes. "What is a wife—to a Time Lord?" His voice came out slow and thick.

"What are you talking about, John—stop it! You're scaring me!" she started to back away from him.

"Look at me!" he tried to explain, gesturing to her angrily. "I TRY and give you the world, Rose Tyler; but I fail you every time." He gritted his teeth in anger, not at her but at himself. "I thought I'd have to watch you die. And I finally come to terms with that, and think of what happens. I die! Every time! I'm the one who disappears! I turn around and run for the Tardis like a coward. Like the coward I've always BEEN!" He wrathfully shoved a pile of laundry off the table he was leaning on, scattering it on the floor.

Suddenly his face went ghost-pale and he weakly collapsed beside it, and she noticed the sweat glistening on his skin. Frightened more by this than his little speech, Rose ran to him, grabbing his hand and helping him stay sitting upright by putting her arm behind his back. It took her a moment to get her breath and decide what to say. "John?" she finally managed. "John, baby, I'm right here. Can you hear me? I—I'm right here."

He put a mostly limp arm around her neck and leaned his head on her shoulder as she rocked him, back and forth, on the tile floor.

Every week Rose and Marie still went shopping, but since John was at home (though carefully sheltered from numbers and intellectual papers or books of any kind) he would watch the four kids while the ladies had some time to themselves. The walk to town was a short one, so usually they didn't have to take a car.

"Aren't you ever going to get a Zepplin, Rosie?" Marie teased her one day, as they walked together, arms full of groceries. "My family's even got one now, and we're nowhere half as rich as your parents. Your Mum and Dad each have one, don't they?"

"I think Zepplins are useless," Rose rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "We take the kids up in Mum's or Dad's—usually Mum's—sometimes and they love it but think about it—what're you really gonna use it for?" She really didn't care for the Zepplins, mainly because they seemed to her like that one extra thing the universe had thrown into this world to make it different from the one she'd come from. No one had needed—or wanted— Zepplins in her world.

"They're good for storage space," Marie offered up lamely, and they both started laughing. Rose, of course, didn't have the heart to bring up the fact that they could never even afford a Zepplin, since now she and John were both at home, not working, and he was becoming less independent by the day.

Just then they started to walk by a familiar grassy lot, coated with a springtime blanket of flowers—the town cemetery.

Rose stopped where she stood, the smile disappearing from her face.

Marie watched her carefully as Rose faced the manicured graveyard, an unreadable expression on her face.

"I'm not gonna bury him, Marie," she said finally, her voice steady. "I'm NOT gonna bury him."

She didn't move for several more moments, and Marie finally shifted her grocery bags into one hand, leaving the other free to take Rose's shoulders and turn her gently toward the sidewalk. "Come on, hon," she said gently. "Let's get you home."