Doctor Who Fanfic: To Be With My Love on Christmas Day
To Be With My Love On Christmas Day
By: Anne (cookie2697)
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Ten/Rose; minor Jackie/Pete
Setting: Post-VotD, but before seeing VotD. Mention of Titanic and Astrid, but that’s it.
Author’s Note: This is a Christmas present for my best friend, missalee. I wanted to do something for her that actually required an effort on my part, and, well, it’s been a LONG time since I actually wrote a complete fanfic worthy of posting. And I did promise her back in the summer that I would write her a Doctor Who fanfic. Just a little fluffy Christmas plot bunny that came to me thinking about the Stowaway as an actual reunion initiator after VotD. This is unbetaed, because, well, frankly, I didn’t have anyone to beta it. And it’s also my first real effort at WRITING Doctor Who fic, AND I wrote it all today, so please forgive me if I don’t have the Doctor down quite yet. Ack! My first Doctor Who fic! *is nerve-wracked*
Beg, borrow, or steal
I’ll find a way
To be with my lover
Next Christmas day
The cold, December air bit at his nose, as the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, pulling the door swiftly shut behind him. It was Christmas Day, yet again, the second Christmas day this week, for him, but after the madness on the Titanic, and losing Astrid, like he lost Jack, and Martha, he felt a need to be somewhere familiar. With people he loved. Even if it was completely impossible, since the people, or more specifically, the person he wanted, was trapped in another universe.
Still...there was something to be said about the familiarity of a place at the holidays. And so it was that the Doctor found himself materializing in that old familiar alley at the Powell Estates, on the evening of Christmas Day, very nearly two years after he lost Rose Tyler into a parallel universe.
The Tyler family flat was still there, of course. The Doctor couldn’t bear the idea of cleaning out their lives, or leaving Mo or another member of their extended family to do it, so he set up an account, paying their monthly rent out of his own funds. Someday he would have to deal with it, cancel the lease and move them out of the apartment and into a storage room on the TARDIS, but for the time being an empty apartment, a ghost town, waited for him upstairs, along with memories of times he could never regain. He knew it was a bad idea to let himself wallow in his losses…but something still was drawing him into this place that he swore he would never return to. Not without Rose.
A light snow was gently falling as the Doctor made his way out of the alley, idly glancing up, looking for the familiar, dark windows of the Tyler flat. He searched the floors above, seeking out the only place besides the TARDIS that had felt like even remotely like home since the Time War, and suddenly froze.
There was a light in the window. A bright, friendly, flickering light that spoke of warmth, and happiness, and better times.
The Doctor stood there and stared at the window for a long moment, his mind lost in past memories of paper crowns, turkey dinners, and ash falling from the sky like snow.
He forced the memories away and focused again on that light, an anger sweeping over him. There was only one explanation for this. The management rented the flat. Two years of paying for an unoccupied flat, and now the building management had taken it from him. All of Rose’s possessions, her life with Jackie…all gone. Even this, the one place he still wanted to call home, was lost to him.
The Doctor knew he should turn and go back to the TARDIS, just like he knew that he shouldn’t have come back here in the first place. But his anger was making him irrational. He knew it was wrong, but he had to know. He needed to see it for himself. So he hurried to the building and started to climb the stairs to look into the eyes of the people who had taken from him the last bit of Rose Tyler that remained.
A nervous energy had overtaken him, and he rolled back and forth on his feet as he stood in front of a door that he hadn’t seen in two years. Who would be waiting inside? Probably some idiot, who certainly didn’t know that they had stolen someone’s last cling to a lost past. More likely than not, the place would in no way resemble the home it once was. He sucked a long breath into his lungs, and then, before he could give in to the cowardice lurking inside his hearts, he quickly knocked twice on the door.
The Doctor was hit with an array of sensations the moment the door swung open. There was an explosion of light, and the smell of a freshly roasted turkey, as a hand grabbed him around the wrist and tugged him inside of a flat that looked identical to the one he had once thought of as a home.
“There you are! I was beginning to wonder if you’d actually make it!”
“Wha…” He was speechless, looking into eyes that were glowing with happiness at the sight of him. Rose Tyler’s eyes. Eyes that the Doctor honestly believed he would never see again.
“He said that you’d be coming today, and that it was important that I was here this Christmas. But then he took off, and I was stuck waiting. I began to think you weren’t going to come!”
“Don’t just stand there!” Jackie Tyler’s voice burst in. “Get your coat off and get in here. Dinner’s been ready for nearly an hour! Honestly, Rose...he is the rudest man we have ever known. Don’t aliens know not to keep people waiting on Christmas Day? The nerve of him.”
“You...” he stammered. “...here...but how?”
Rose released his wrist and moved behind him, sliding her hands up his back to the collar of his coat, which she began to pull off his shoulders. “Mum...he doesn’t understand. He’s not the same one.” He turned his head and met a pair of mischievous, grinning eyes as he shrugged his shoulders to help her remove his coat.
“Not the same...” he stopped, and tried to clear his head, glancing around the room and taking in the couch, the telly, the Christmas tree loaded with presents beneath, and a table set for four. “Rose, what’s going on here?”
She led him into the kitchen where Jackie held a young boy in her arms, and Pete Tyler was pulling a turkey from the oven. Pete...so it wasn’t the past, at least. The whole getting-trapped-in-a-parallel-universe thing did happen. Unless this time around it was the Doctor that had been sucked into another reality. One in which the Tyler family was intact and all was well. And if he was in an alternate universe where all his dreams were reality…would he want to go back?
“I should think you’d have figured it out by now, Doctor. We’re back. Home. In the proper universe.”
“But how?”
“Plenty of time for that later,” Pete interrupted. “For now, sit! Eat! Enjoy yourself, for once, Doctor. The rumor is that you’re in need of a bit of a break.”
Pete set the turkey in the center of the table, and gestured the Doctor to a chair, which he obediently slipped into. Pete began to serve them, while Jackie wrestled her son into a high chair. Rose sat down in the chair beside him, and he took a moment to turn his attention and his focus onto the girl that he hadn’t seen in so very, very long.
“Hello,” he greeted her softly, as their eyes met. Her lips curved up into a slow smile, and the Doctor felt himself mirroring her, as her presence alone allowed him the freedom to relax a bit. This might be a dream, or a hallucination, or some sort of psychic alien attacking him through his own subconscious desires, but for now the Doctor didn’t care. It felt real, and Rose’s smile was as infectious as it always was.
Her hand was resting on the table between them, and the Doctor found himself staring at it, remembering what it felt like to have those fingers entwined with his own. He wanted to reach out and take it, but he was afraid that the mere act of initiating physical contact might break the hallucination, and he’d find himself being tortured in some alien lab or something. Still, the temptation was too much to resist, so he reached out and slid his hand over hers.
It was solid. Warm. Real. She turned her hand and slid her fingers between his, and he just stared at the two linked hands, amazed, barely believing that it could possibly feel this normal, this right, if it were really a dream. She squeezed his hand tightly, rubbing a thumb over the back of his hand comfortingly, and that was all it took. If this was a dream, then the Doctor didn’t want to wake up.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Doctor was lost in a state of bliss. The food was heavy in his stomach, and he was mesmerized by Rose’s smile, the sound of her voice. She told him stories of her baby brother’s antics, with interjections from her mother and Pete, and when the Doctor laughed, it was a rush of energy through his entire body, like it used to be, when he used to know how to laugh, back before he lost Rose. His face actually hurt from smiling so widely for so long, muscles out of practice for nearly two years. Everything seemed so bright, so fresh, so real...like it did when his body was brand new, when he was utterly enchanted by everything that Rose had brought to his life.
The Doctor knew at some point he’d have to come down from this. At some point he’d need to find out how this was possible, if there was a hole in the universe for him to fix, if it was his own mistake causing a rip in reality. There had to be something wrong here. But he couldn’t bring himself to care quite yet.
After the food had grown cold, and Rose’s brother was tucked away in bed, the Doctor found himself sitting on the couch, Rose’s presence warm at his side. Jackie and Pete were clearing up in the kitchen and finally he could focus all of his attention entirely on her.
She didn’t look much older than the last time he saw her. No more than a year had passed since that day on the beach, surely. Her hair was a little bit longer, still blonde. She still dressed basically the same, and still wore a little too much makeup. There were no new lines on her face, no difference in the feel of her hand. It was as if Rose Tyler had taken a brief interlude in an alternate universe, and then a year later came back to him, by magic.
“You’re staring at me,” Rose pointed out.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he reminded her. “I didn’t come here expecting all of this. I thought I’d be spending this Christmas alone, with ghosts of the past. Memories.”
“Yeah, well, surprise!” Rose grinned.
Her smile was addictive. He couldn’t help grinning back. “Yup!”
“You’re dying to know, aren’t you?” she asked him. “How this is all possible. Why we’re here?”
“Yes, and no. It’s in my nature. Aside from that, I need to know so that I can fix it if there’s a hole in reality. But I don’t want to ruin it.” He wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. “Not yet, at least.”
Rose nodded, studying his face very seriously. “If it will ease your curiosity, there’s no holes in reality. I’m sure of it. You can relax and enjoy it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He let out a long breath. “Good. I’d have driven myself crazy if the earth was destroyed simply because I was too selfish to take the time away from you to save the world.”
“It’s okay to be selfish once in a while.”
“Not for me,” he pointed out sadly, thinking of Martha traveling the world alone to stop the Master, of Jack and his year of being systematically killed over and over again, of Rose and the void and his selfish desire to keep her with him, and how close she came to getting sucked into hell instead of an alternate reality. “When I get selfish, people tend to pay for it.”
“Not this time.”
Jackie breezed back into the room in a flurry of energy, Pete close behind. “All done in there! Now who wants presents?”
Rose turned to him with a smile. “We opened some this morning for the baby. These are just what are left over.”
Jackie took a seat in the arm chair beside the couch, and Pete brought a chair from the kitchen and settled himself next to the tree.
“It’s so nice having Pete around to play Santa. Mickey was fine for all those years, but he spoiled Rose silly.”
“Ah, yes, where is Mr. Mickey these days?”
“Oh, he’s well settled back in the other world. Got a boyfriend and all before we even got there. Didn’t bother to tell us until after you were gone, thank you very much. If Rose wasn’t so hung up over you, I might have been worried that he’d break her heart, but no, she barely even noticed that Mickey wasn’t even interested in girls anymore.”
“Mum!” Rose interjected, shooting her mother a dark look. “Seriously, do you have to?”
“What, he asked!”
Pete pulled their attention from the subject at hand by passing around a present to each of them. A box was set handed to the Doctor, and he stared at it in confusion.
“You have presents for me?”
“Well, we knew you were coming, didn’t we?” Jackie informed him. “The other one said to expect you. It’d be rude to have no presents ready. It is Christmas after all.”
“But I don’t have anything for you,” he argued. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Pete cut him off. “Christmas is about giving, not receiving.”
“Anyway, the other one spoiled us this morning. You’re off the hook.” Jackie shot back.
“The other...”
“Don’t worry about it.” Rose cut him off. “I’ll explain it all later.”
“Right.”
Soon the room was filled with the sound of ripping paper, and the Doctor found himself the proud owner of a new silk tie, chocolates and other sweets, and a new pair of Chucks. He sat happily observing the Tyler women, while Rose admired her new scarf and sweater, and Jackie fingered a gold necklace from Pete.
“Rose,” Pete interrupted suddenly, bringing the room to a silence. “Did you give it to him yet?”
Rose froze, the smile sliding from her face. “No. I promised him I wouldn’t until he asked.”
“He needs to know. And after all, it is a Christmas present, of sorts.”
Rose hesitated, turning to meet his eyes nervously. He watched her cautiously, waiting to see what she was going to say or do. They both barely noticed as Jackie and Pete quietly extracted themselves from the room.
“All right,” he cut in, trying to keep his voice light. “It’s time for that, then. Let’s have it. The story of how you’re back.”
Rose nodded, and then shifted enough to reach into the pocked of her jeans, pulling out an envelope that she had folded in half and stuffed in her pocked. She unfolded it, trying to flatten out the creases a bit, before finally handing it to him.
“This is for you,” she told him.
“Who is it from?”
“It’s from you...from your future. Y’see, Doctor, that’s why I know there isn’t a hole in reality. We didn’t break through the void and come back on our own. You came to get us.”
“The other one...” the Doctor murmured, understanding sinking in. “The other me. That makes sense. I jumped forward into my own future so that I could be here at Christmas. I had a Christmas up there, above the Earth. I wanted to have one down here as well. There’s nothing like London at Christmas.”
Rose nodded. “I know. The other you, he told me about the year that never was, and the Titanic right afterwards. I know how hard it’s been for you...and that you’re alone right now. But you won’t be for long. You’re going to come for me. Soon. That letter has some clues that the future you wanted you to have, to point you in the right direction. He said that once you read it, you’ll know what you need to do.”
The Doctor fingered the seal of the envelope, but Rose placed her hand over his, stopping him from opening it.
“Save it until you leave. There’s nothing in there that can’t wait until you’re alone again. The other you, he said that this is what kept you going. Coming here, spending this holiday with us, and then preparing yourself to come and get me.”
“Is he coming back?” the Doctor wondered, knowing that he should be more worried about being caught in a time loop with a future version of himself. He needed to get out of here before his future self returned, as much as the thought of leaving pained him.
Rose nodded. “In the morning. He’s gone right now. He knew when you’d come and when you’d leave, obviously.”
“Are you…” the Doctor hesitated before finishing the question. There were so many things he wanted to know. About their relationship, about their future. But he knew he had to wait and see. “Are you traveling with him?” he finally asked.
Rose nodded. “Of course. Mum and Pete, they’re living here at the estate. We come back and visit sometimes, like we did before. But I told you, Doctor. I want to stay with you forever.”
“Good.” The Doctor nodded, “Because once I get you back, I don’t plan to let go of you.”
“Good,” Rose replied. “Because I don’t want you to ever let me go.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Doctor couldn’t wait for their version of forever to start. He knew it wasn’t an actual forever. He still had a handful of regenerations worth of life to go, and Rose was still human, but it would be their forever and that was all that mattered to him.
But in order for it to start, he needed to walk away. Just long enough to open that letter, and figure out what he needed to do in order to bring her back to this reality.
It was very late by the time the Doctor accepted that it was time for him to leave. Jackie and Pete had long since gone to bed, and he could see by her drooping eyes and wide yawns that Rose wasn’t going to stay awake much longer. They had talked for hours. He had wanted to know everything about the year that they were apart for her, and Rose was quite happy to provide him with the details. Apparently, when he came for her, he didn’t ask many questions. She said that at the time she thought it was odd, but now it made sense. He didn’t need to ask for things he already knew.
After a particularly wide yawn from Rose, the Doctor leapt to his feet.
“Right!” he announced, offering a hand to Rose. “Uppity-up! Time for me to move on, I think.”
Rose nodded sadly. “Are you going to be okay?”
The Doctor gave her a smile, a half-smile, not his usual wide grin. He was about to respond with his typical, I’m always okay, when he stopped himself. Rose knew him better than that now.
“Now I’ve got something to keep me going,” he reminded her. “The promise of seeing you again. That’s all I need for now.” She took his hand and squeezed it for comfort, and the Doctor sighed at the feel of it, cherishing what he knew he’d be missing only for a little while now. He closed his eyes for a second, savoring the softness of her touch, before shaking the nostalgia away and grinning broadly at her. “I won’t have to wait too much longer now, but as for you, Rose Tyler! You’ll be seeing me in the morning, so what are you worried about?”
“True,” she said with a smile. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the TARDIS.”
The snow outside was no longer falling, but a thin blanket rested on the ground, as the Doctor and Rose made their way across the Powell Estate towards the TARDIS. Their hands locked, the Doctor once again found himself amazed at how normal this felt, how natural. It was as if he had been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, a gift to remind him of his happiest times. The only thing was, it wasn’t in his past anymore...it was his future.
They stopped outside of the TARDIS, and turned to face one another, the Doctor grinning broadly.
“Rose, I know you’re worried about me being on my own, but it’s all right. It won’t be long now. I know that. I have all of this to look forward to, and I know it is going to be fantastic.” He reached out and cupped her cheek, unable to resist touching her one last time. He was surprised to see tears forming in her eyes, and one suddenly escaped, dripping down her cheek. With a light brush he wiped it away.
“Don’t cry. I’ll be here in the morning, you know that.”
“I know,” Rose admitted. “I’m sorry, but sometimes this still seems surreal. I lived a year without you, and I thought I was never going to see you again, and then you were just there, walking up to the mansion like you had never left with that silly grin on your face asking me if I was ready to go home. It felt like a dream. Still does, sometimes.”
The Doctor chuckled. “Then you know how I felt when you opened the door tonight. You were the last person I expected to be spending my Christmas with.”
“Good surprise?’ she asked.
“Very good surprise.” He couldn’t resist tracing his thumb across her cheek one more time, and she shivered, leaning into his touch. He felt so much for her in that moment, and suddenly he just knew, even after all the time that had passed, that just this once, he could say it to her, and mean it completely.
“Rose...I love you too. I never got a chance to say it before, but I do. And I mean it. And I can’t wait until I get to see you again.” And before he lost his nerve, he leaned down and kissed her.
She responded naturally, like it wasn’t her first time kissing him, which made the Doctor smile against her lips, as her hand came up to the back of his neck, lightly brushing through his hair. He shivered at the feel of her lips against his, her tongue dancing out to meet his, the feel of her hand, the touch of her skin beneath his fingers, and in that moment the Doctor knew, without a doubt, that no matter what it was that the letter suggested, he would do it. Because he had to have Rose Tyler back in his life. This was something that he just couldn’t do without.
He was disappointed to have to pull away from her, but he knew it was time, and he had to go. Quickly, without meeting her eyes, he untangled himself from her and took a step away from her, leaving enough distance between them that they couldn’t delay it any longer.
“Time to go,” he reminded her. “But I’ll be seeing you soon, Rose Tyler.”
“Goodbye, Doctor,” she replied sadly. He drank in the sight of her one last time, before turning his back and slipping back inside his ship.
After the TARDIS doors closed, the Doctor hurried up the ramp and quickly took the TARDIS into the Vortex, forcing himself to physically distance himself from Rose, before he was tempted to rush back out there, kiss her again, and drag her back into the TARDIS with him. If he didn’t leave now, he’d never be able to leave her side, and if he never left her side, he’d never be able to find her to bring her back, creating a paradox and unraveling time and space as he knew it. Which would be bad. Very bad. Separation was necessary for now, but soon he’d have her back. Soon, it would all be over.
He reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out the letter. This time he did not hesitate before ripping the envelope open, pulling out the letter within, and quickly scanning through the Gallifreyan script within.
“Of course,” he whispered, the ideas dawning over him, as he carefully folded the letter and slid it back into his pocket. “I should have known.”
The Doctor fingered the letter in his pocket one last time, before turning and setting the TARDIS coordinates to Cardiff, Spring, 2008. If he was going to be reprogramming the TARDIS for travel between universes, he was going to need the help of someone nearly as brilliant as himself. And with the Time Lords dead, Jack Harkness was his best bet.
He needed to make this work, not just to get Rose back, but to ensure that she had this future Christmas with him.
It was all on his shoulders now.
Borrow or steal
I’ll find a way
To be with my lover
Upon Christmas Day
By: Anne (cookie2697)
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Ten/Rose; minor Jackie/Pete
Setting: Post-VotD, but before seeing VotD. Mention of Titanic and Astrid, but that’s it.
Author’s Note: This is a Christmas present for my best friend, missalee. I wanted to do something for her that actually required an effort on my part, and, well, it’s been a LONG time since I actually wrote a complete fanfic worthy of posting. And I did promise her back in the summer that I would write her a Doctor Who fanfic. Just a little fluffy Christmas plot bunny that came to me thinking about the Stowaway as an actual reunion initiator after VotD. This is unbetaed, because, well, frankly, I didn’t have anyone to beta it. And it’s also my first real effort at WRITING Doctor Who fic, AND I wrote it all today, so please forgive me if I don’t have the Doctor down quite yet. Ack! My first Doctor Who fic! *is nerve-wracked*
Beg, borrow, or steal
I’ll find a way
To be with my lover
Next Christmas day
The cold, December air bit at his nose, as the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, pulling the door swiftly shut behind him. It was Christmas Day, yet again, the second Christmas day this week, for him, but after the madness on the Titanic, and losing Astrid, like he lost Jack, and Martha, he felt a need to be somewhere familiar. With people he loved. Even if it was completely impossible, since the people, or more specifically, the person he wanted, was trapped in another universe.
Still...there was something to be said about the familiarity of a place at the holidays. And so it was that the Doctor found himself materializing in that old familiar alley at the Powell Estates, on the evening of Christmas Day, very nearly two years after he lost Rose Tyler into a parallel universe.
The Tyler family flat was still there, of course. The Doctor couldn’t bear the idea of cleaning out their lives, or leaving Mo or another member of their extended family to do it, so he set up an account, paying their monthly rent out of his own funds. Someday he would have to deal with it, cancel the lease and move them out of the apartment and into a storage room on the TARDIS, but for the time being an empty apartment, a ghost town, waited for him upstairs, along with memories of times he could never regain. He knew it was a bad idea to let himself wallow in his losses…but something still was drawing him into this place that he swore he would never return to. Not without Rose.
A light snow was gently falling as the Doctor made his way out of the alley, idly glancing up, looking for the familiar, dark windows of the Tyler flat. He searched the floors above, seeking out the only place besides the TARDIS that had felt like even remotely like home since the Time War, and suddenly froze.
There was a light in the window. A bright, friendly, flickering light that spoke of warmth, and happiness, and better times.
The Doctor stood there and stared at the window for a long moment, his mind lost in past memories of paper crowns, turkey dinners, and ash falling from the sky like snow.
He forced the memories away and focused again on that light, an anger sweeping over him. There was only one explanation for this. The management rented the flat. Two years of paying for an unoccupied flat, and now the building management had taken it from him. All of Rose’s possessions, her life with Jackie…all gone. Even this, the one place he still wanted to call home, was lost to him.
The Doctor knew he should turn and go back to the TARDIS, just like he knew that he shouldn’t have come back here in the first place. But his anger was making him irrational. He knew it was wrong, but he had to know. He needed to see it for himself. So he hurried to the building and started to climb the stairs to look into the eyes of the people who had taken from him the last bit of Rose Tyler that remained.
A nervous energy had overtaken him, and he rolled back and forth on his feet as he stood in front of a door that he hadn’t seen in two years. Who would be waiting inside? Probably some idiot, who certainly didn’t know that they had stolen someone’s last cling to a lost past. More likely than not, the place would in no way resemble the home it once was. He sucked a long breath into his lungs, and then, before he could give in to the cowardice lurking inside his hearts, he quickly knocked twice on the door.
The Doctor was hit with an array of sensations the moment the door swung open. There was an explosion of light, and the smell of a freshly roasted turkey, as a hand grabbed him around the wrist and tugged him inside of a flat that looked identical to the one he had once thought of as a home.
“There you are! I was beginning to wonder if you’d actually make it!”
“Wha…” He was speechless, looking into eyes that were glowing with happiness at the sight of him. Rose Tyler’s eyes. Eyes that the Doctor honestly believed he would never see again.
“He said that you’d be coming today, and that it was important that I was here this Christmas. But then he took off, and I was stuck waiting. I began to think you weren’t going to come!”
“Don’t just stand there!” Jackie Tyler’s voice burst in. “Get your coat off and get in here. Dinner’s been ready for nearly an hour! Honestly, Rose...he is the rudest man we have ever known. Don’t aliens know not to keep people waiting on Christmas Day? The nerve of him.”
“You...” he stammered. “...here...but how?”
Rose released his wrist and moved behind him, sliding her hands up his back to the collar of his coat, which she began to pull off his shoulders. “Mum...he doesn’t understand. He’s not the same one.” He turned his head and met a pair of mischievous, grinning eyes as he shrugged his shoulders to help her remove his coat.
“Not the same...” he stopped, and tried to clear his head, glancing around the room and taking in the couch, the telly, the Christmas tree loaded with presents beneath, and a table set for four. “Rose, what’s going on here?”
She led him into the kitchen where Jackie held a young boy in her arms, and Pete Tyler was pulling a turkey from the oven. Pete...so it wasn’t the past, at least. The whole getting-trapped-in-a-parallel-universe thing did happen. Unless this time around it was the Doctor that had been sucked into another reality. One in which the Tyler family was intact and all was well. And if he was in an alternate universe where all his dreams were reality…would he want to go back?
“I should think you’d have figured it out by now, Doctor. We’re back. Home. In the proper universe.”
“But how?”
“Plenty of time for that later,” Pete interrupted. “For now, sit! Eat! Enjoy yourself, for once, Doctor. The rumor is that you’re in need of a bit of a break.”
Pete set the turkey in the center of the table, and gestured the Doctor to a chair, which he obediently slipped into. Pete began to serve them, while Jackie wrestled her son into a high chair. Rose sat down in the chair beside him, and he took a moment to turn his attention and his focus onto the girl that he hadn’t seen in so very, very long.
“Hello,” he greeted her softly, as their eyes met. Her lips curved up into a slow smile, and the Doctor felt himself mirroring her, as her presence alone allowed him the freedom to relax a bit. This might be a dream, or a hallucination, or some sort of psychic alien attacking him through his own subconscious desires, but for now the Doctor didn’t care. It felt real, and Rose’s smile was as infectious as it always was.
Her hand was resting on the table between them, and the Doctor found himself staring at it, remembering what it felt like to have those fingers entwined with his own. He wanted to reach out and take it, but he was afraid that the mere act of initiating physical contact might break the hallucination, and he’d find himself being tortured in some alien lab or something. Still, the temptation was too much to resist, so he reached out and slid his hand over hers.
It was solid. Warm. Real. She turned her hand and slid her fingers between his, and he just stared at the two linked hands, amazed, barely believing that it could possibly feel this normal, this right, if it were really a dream. She squeezed his hand tightly, rubbing a thumb over the back of his hand comfortingly, and that was all it took. If this was a dream, then the Doctor didn’t want to wake up.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Doctor was lost in a state of bliss. The food was heavy in his stomach, and he was mesmerized by Rose’s smile, the sound of her voice. She told him stories of her baby brother’s antics, with interjections from her mother and Pete, and when the Doctor laughed, it was a rush of energy through his entire body, like it used to be, when he used to know how to laugh, back before he lost Rose. His face actually hurt from smiling so widely for so long, muscles out of practice for nearly two years. Everything seemed so bright, so fresh, so real...like it did when his body was brand new, when he was utterly enchanted by everything that Rose had brought to his life.
The Doctor knew at some point he’d have to come down from this. At some point he’d need to find out how this was possible, if there was a hole in the universe for him to fix, if it was his own mistake causing a rip in reality. There had to be something wrong here. But he couldn’t bring himself to care quite yet.
After the food had grown cold, and Rose’s brother was tucked away in bed, the Doctor found himself sitting on the couch, Rose’s presence warm at his side. Jackie and Pete were clearing up in the kitchen and finally he could focus all of his attention entirely on her.
She didn’t look much older than the last time he saw her. No more than a year had passed since that day on the beach, surely. Her hair was a little bit longer, still blonde. She still dressed basically the same, and still wore a little too much makeup. There were no new lines on her face, no difference in the feel of her hand. It was as if Rose Tyler had taken a brief interlude in an alternate universe, and then a year later came back to him, by magic.
“You’re staring at me,” Rose pointed out.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he reminded her. “I didn’t come here expecting all of this. I thought I’d be spending this Christmas alone, with ghosts of the past. Memories.”
“Yeah, well, surprise!” Rose grinned.
Her smile was addictive. He couldn’t help grinning back. “Yup!”
“You’re dying to know, aren’t you?” she asked him. “How this is all possible. Why we’re here?”
“Yes, and no. It’s in my nature. Aside from that, I need to know so that I can fix it if there’s a hole in reality. But I don’t want to ruin it.” He wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. “Not yet, at least.”
Rose nodded, studying his face very seriously. “If it will ease your curiosity, there’s no holes in reality. I’m sure of it. You can relax and enjoy it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He let out a long breath. “Good. I’d have driven myself crazy if the earth was destroyed simply because I was too selfish to take the time away from you to save the world.”
“It’s okay to be selfish once in a while.”
“Not for me,” he pointed out sadly, thinking of Martha traveling the world alone to stop the Master, of Jack and his year of being systematically killed over and over again, of Rose and the void and his selfish desire to keep her with him, and how close she came to getting sucked into hell instead of an alternate reality. “When I get selfish, people tend to pay for it.”
“Not this time.”
Jackie breezed back into the room in a flurry of energy, Pete close behind. “All done in there! Now who wants presents?”
Rose turned to him with a smile. “We opened some this morning for the baby. These are just what are left over.”
Jackie took a seat in the arm chair beside the couch, and Pete brought a chair from the kitchen and settled himself next to the tree.
“It’s so nice having Pete around to play Santa. Mickey was fine for all those years, but he spoiled Rose silly.”
“Ah, yes, where is Mr. Mickey these days?”
“Oh, he’s well settled back in the other world. Got a boyfriend and all before we even got there. Didn’t bother to tell us until after you were gone, thank you very much. If Rose wasn’t so hung up over you, I might have been worried that he’d break her heart, but no, she barely even noticed that Mickey wasn’t even interested in girls anymore.”
“Mum!” Rose interjected, shooting her mother a dark look. “Seriously, do you have to?”
“What, he asked!”
Pete pulled their attention from the subject at hand by passing around a present to each of them. A box was set handed to the Doctor, and he stared at it in confusion.
“You have presents for me?”
“Well, we knew you were coming, didn’t we?” Jackie informed him. “The other one said to expect you. It’d be rude to have no presents ready. It is Christmas after all.”
“But I don’t have anything for you,” he argued. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Pete cut him off. “Christmas is about giving, not receiving.”
“Anyway, the other one spoiled us this morning. You’re off the hook.” Jackie shot back.
“The other...”
“Don’t worry about it.” Rose cut him off. “I’ll explain it all later.”
“Right.”
Soon the room was filled with the sound of ripping paper, and the Doctor found himself the proud owner of a new silk tie, chocolates and other sweets, and a new pair of Chucks. He sat happily observing the Tyler women, while Rose admired her new scarf and sweater, and Jackie fingered a gold necklace from Pete.
“Rose,” Pete interrupted suddenly, bringing the room to a silence. “Did you give it to him yet?”
Rose froze, the smile sliding from her face. “No. I promised him I wouldn’t until he asked.”
“He needs to know. And after all, it is a Christmas present, of sorts.”
Rose hesitated, turning to meet his eyes nervously. He watched her cautiously, waiting to see what she was going to say or do. They both barely noticed as Jackie and Pete quietly extracted themselves from the room.
“All right,” he cut in, trying to keep his voice light. “It’s time for that, then. Let’s have it. The story of how you’re back.”
Rose nodded, and then shifted enough to reach into the pocked of her jeans, pulling out an envelope that she had folded in half and stuffed in her pocked. She unfolded it, trying to flatten out the creases a bit, before finally handing it to him.
“This is for you,” she told him.
“Who is it from?”
“It’s from you...from your future. Y’see, Doctor, that’s why I know there isn’t a hole in reality. We didn’t break through the void and come back on our own. You came to get us.”
“The other one...” the Doctor murmured, understanding sinking in. “The other me. That makes sense. I jumped forward into my own future so that I could be here at Christmas. I had a Christmas up there, above the Earth. I wanted to have one down here as well. There’s nothing like London at Christmas.”
Rose nodded. “I know. The other you, he told me about the year that never was, and the Titanic right afterwards. I know how hard it’s been for you...and that you’re alone right now. But you won’t be for long. You’re going to come for me. Soon. That letter has some clues that the future you wanted you to have, to point you in the right direction. He said that once you read it, you’ll know what you need to do.”
The Doctor fingered the seal of the envelope, but Rose placed her hand over his, stopping him from opening it.
“Save it until you leave. There’s nothing in there that can’t wait until you’re alone again. The other you, he said that this is what kept you going. Coming here, spending this holiday with us, and then preparing yourself to come and get me.”
“Is he coming back?” the Doctor wondered, knowing that he should be more worried about being caught in a time loop with a future version of himself. He needed to get out of here before his future self returned, as much as the thought of leaving pained him.
Rose nodded. “In the morning. He’s gone right now. He knew when you’d come and when you’d leave, obviously.”
“Are you…” the Doctor hesitated before finishing the question. There were so many things he wanted to know. About their relationship, about their future. But he knew he had to wait and see. “Are you traveling with him?” he finally asked.
Rose nodded. “Of course. Mum and Pete, they’re living here at the estate. We come back and visit sometimes, like we did before. But I told you, Doctor. I want to stay with you forever.”
“Good.” The Doctor nodded, “Because once I get you back, I don’t plan to let go of you.”
“Good,” Rose replied. “Because I don’t want you to ever let me go.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Doctor couldn’t wait for their version of forever to start. He knew it wasn’t an actual forever. He still had a handful of regenerations worth of life to go, and Rose was still human, but it would be their forever and that was all that mattered to him.
But in order for it to start, he needed to walk away. Just long enough to open that letter, and figure out what he needed to do in order to bring her back to this reality.
It was very late by the time the Doctor accepted that it was time for him to leave. Jackie and Pete had long since gone to bed, and he could see by her drooping eyes and wide yawns that Rose wasn’t going to stay awake much longer. They had talked for hours. He had wanted to know everything about the year that they were apart for her, and Rose was quite happy to provide him with the details. Apparently, when he came for her, he didn’t ask many questions. She said that at the time she thought it was odd, but now it made sense. He didn’t need to ask for things he already knew.
After a particularly wide yawn from Rose, the Doctor leapt to his feet.
“Right!” he announced, offering a hand to Rose. “Uppity-up! Time for me to move on, I think.”
Rose nodded sadly. “Are you going to be okay?”
The Doctor gave her a smile, a half-smile, not his usual wide grin. He was about to respond with his typical, I’m always okay, when he stopped himself. Rose knew him better than that now.
“Now I’ve got something to keep me going,” he reminded her. “The promise of seeing you again. That’s all I need for now.” She took his hand and squeezed it for comfort, and the Doctor sighed at the feel of it, cherishing what he knew he’d be missing only for a little while now. He closed his eyes for a second, savoring the softness of her touch, before shaking the nostalgia away and grinning broadly at her. “I won’t have to wait too much longer now, but as for you, Rose Tyler! You’ll be seeing me in the morning, so what are you worried about?”
“True,” she said with a smile. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the TARDIS.”
The snow outside was no longer falling, but a thin blanket rested on the ground, as the Doctor and Rose made their way across the Powell Estate towards the TARDIS. Their hands locked, the Doctor once again found himself amazed at how normal this felt, how natural. It was as if he had been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, a gift to remind him of his happiest times. The only thing was, it wasn’t in his past anymore...it was his future.
They stopped outside of the TARDIS, and turned to face one another, the Doctor grinning broadly.
“Rose, I know you’re worried about me being on my own, but it’s all right. It won’t be long now. I know that. I have all of this to look forward to, and I know it is going to be fantastic.” He reached out and cupped her cheek, unable to resist touching her one last time. He was surprised to see tears forming in her eyes, and one suddenly escaped, dripping down her cheek. With a light brush he wiped it away.
“Don’t cry. I’ll be here in the morning, you know that.”
“I know,” Rose admitted. “I’m sorry, but sometimes this still seems surreal. I lived a year without you, and I thought I was never going to see you again, and then you were just there, walking up to the mansion like you had never left with that silly grin on your face asking me if I was ready to go home. It felt like a dream. Still does, sometimes.”
The Doctor chuckled. “Then you know how I felt when you opened the door tonight. You were the last person I expected to be spending my Christmas with.”
“Good surprise?’ she asked.
“Very good surprise.” He couldn’t resist tracing his thumb across her cheek one more time, and she shivered, leaning into his touch. He felt so much for her in that moment, and suddenly he just knew, even after all the time that had passed, that just this once, he could say it to her, and mean it completely.
“Rose...I love you too. I never got a chance to say it before, but I do. And I mean it. And I can’t wait until I get to see you again.” And before he lost his nerve, he leaned down and kissed her.
She responded naturally, like it wasn’t her first time kissing him, which made the Doctor smile against her lips, as her hand came up to the back of his neck, lightly brushing through his hair. He shivered at the feel of her lips against his, her tongue dancing out to meet his, the feel of her hand, the touch of her skin beneath his fingers, and in that moment the Doctor knew, without a doubt, that no matter what it was that the letter suggested, he would do it. Because he had to have Rose Tyler back in his life. This was something that he just couldn’t do without.
He was disappointed to have to pull away from her, but he knew it was time, and he had to go. Quickly, without meeting her eyes, he untangled himself from her and took a step away from her, leaving enough distance between them that they couldn’t delay it any longer.
“Time to go,” he reminded her. “But I’ll be seeing you soon, Rose Tyler.”
“Goodbye, Doctor,” she replied sadly. He drank in the sight of her one last time, before turning his back and slipping back inside his ship.
After the TARDIS doors closed, the Doctor hurried up the ramp and quickly took the TARDIS into the Vortex, forcing himself to physically distance himself from Rose, before he was tempted to rush back out there, kiss her again, and drag her back into the TARDIS with him. If he didn’t leave now, he’d never be able to leave her side, and if he never left her side, he’d never be able to find her to bring her back, creating a paradox and unraveling time and space as he knew it. Which would be bad. Very bad. Separation was necessary for now, but soon he’d have her back. Soon, it would all be over.
He reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out the letter. This time he did not hesitate before ripping the envelope open, pulling out the letter within, and quickly scanning through the Gallifreyan script within.
“Of course,” he whispered, the ideas dawning over him, as he carefully folded the letter and slid it back into his pocket. “I should have known.”
The Doctor fingered the letter in his pocket one last time, before turning and setting the TARDIS coordinates to Cardiff, Spring, 2008. If he was going to be reprogramming the TARDIS for travel between universes, he was going to need the help of someone nearly as brilliant as himself. And with the Time Lords dead, Jack Harkness was his best bet.
He needed to make this work, not just to get Rose back, but to ensure that she had this future Christmas with him.
It was all on his shoulders now.
Borrow or steal
I’ll find a way
To be with my lover
Upon Christmas Day