Doctor Who Fic: they burn roads too
notes: for captaincatapult! ♥! anna, i adore you, bb.
they burn roads too
it’s hard, still, to look at him. the worst part, she’ll never say, is living too comfortably in her own memories. doctor who. rose tyler. rose/nine. rose/ten. rose/alt!ten. spoilers for journey’s end, various seasons. 3,368 words, pg.
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It’s hard, still, to look at him.
The light from the kitchen seems weary, stumbling into the bedroom as it spills in between them. It creeps slowly, unsettlingly, thickening the knots in her stomach as it colors faintly over the blankets and sheets that obscure themselves over the bed. It’s as if the room is acknowledging the bits that she’s not ready to talk about; instead, too, there’s a definite oddness to the unfamiliarity of the space, from the lack of pictures to the clothes that have gathered dust as nothing more than odds and ends.
But even harder to grasp, is the strange way they stand facing each other. He keeps to one end, letting the papers in his hand spit over the bed - Pete dropped them off for him earlier in the day. To settle him in, he said, and the Doctor - what else is she to call him? - looked at Pete like he was dropping a prison sentence on his head with the word settle. She can’t blame him either. After two years, the word still makes her uneasy too.
She’s on the other side though, her shoulders slumping as she peers over the mess of papers. They’re haphazard and almost grey, the Torchwood logo blazing across the top of names and numbers, identities, and the premise of possibility. She doesn’t like it. But it’s not hers to like. It’s been more than clear that this is home now, as it first was when she arrived at the beach two years ago.
“You’re still Rose Tyler,” he says quietly, still thoughtful, and draws his fingers under the arch of his jaw.
She ignores the gesture. Her name opens one of the corners of a piece of paper. Of course, she thinks. Although, really, it’s just a piece of paper. She still finds herself staring at it with some distain, the very distain that he seems to be fond of carrying.
You’re still Rose Tyler - what is that supposed to mean? She wonders if it’s a light dig or not; a bit of a reminder, if anything, that she’s really out of practice. If out of practice is something she can claim to hold. It’s confusing. It’s frustrating. And she really doesn’t know what to make of the situation.
The mantra feels like a fumble, if anything more - she doesn’t know how many times she can tell herself this.
“And you are?” - there’s a little bit of a bit, in between meaning it and not, and she looks up at him, unsure but softening her gaze.
His eyes are kind though, thoughtful even, and she isn’t quite sure how exactly she’s supposed to take the different shifts. He’s not the Doctor, but a Doctor, and even that seems to sink away. It’s the most frustrating part of him being here; everything is palpable, certain instead being lazy and going between the sentiments of what she should be feeling and what she shouldn’t be. Maybe, she’s a little angry. Maybe, she isn’t.
She just doesn’t know.
“John Smith,” he says finally, and then again, for the reassurances, “I’m John Smith. Not a complete wanker either - It’s what John Smith sounds like, yeah?”
Rose scoffs, rolling her eyes. “S’alright just to say John Smith.”
There’s a little bit of a smile, something akin to amusement. He completely catches her gaze too, holding it steadily. It makes her confused and her throat starts to warm, tightening as she feels herself succumb to a bit of a blush. The heat on her cheeks drifts between shame and awareness, as if she’s cheating but not really cheating.
It’s scary, she thinks, how easy this is beginning to pick at her.
But his gaze stays firm. “Where’s the fun in that?”
The rooftop is kind of hard to forget. They seem to be nostalgic, every once in awhile, under the guise of coming home and popping a hello out for her mum and Mickey.
The Doctor is oddly quiet today, fingering the ends of his jacket as his gaze breaks over the tops of the city. She follows, out of habit, and the smells of smoke and crowds seems to bring an odd pleasure of familiarity to her. She can say this is home and while her excitement seems to unfold more and more with the cycles of her travels, she’s starting to quietly appreciate the sensation.
A little bit too, she’s coming to believe, has to do with him. Seeing the world through his eyes. People are becoming different. Sights and smells - all the things that she would’ve warranted a lazy insignificance to are suddenly facing her head on. Rose feels bolder, braver, and a little bit frighten. Things are changing. She’s letting this happen - it’s more than just change now.
But up here, he turns to her. There’s a little bit of an odd smile, not quite that crooked grin of his and not quite something serious. He gives her an affectionate nod, letting his fingers squirm across her wrist.
“I don’t like the word forever.”
She frowns. It comes over the height of the traffic, the city reawakening to glares of the early evening and that ever-present need to go home. She finds herself almost affectionate with the sounds, but inching closer to the Doctor as her attention stretches to him.
“Why?” and she asks simply, of course, ready to be sated with some sort of large, definite answer. It’s almost scary how he knows.
The odd smile stays though. He glances at her briefly and then away, looking down into traffic of feet and cars. His fingers skim slow circles around the brick.
There’s a swallow. “Never sounds right.”
She doesn’t understand. Everything feels heavier.
“I don’t know about John Smith.”
He means it too much too. Gone from standing to sitting, Rose watches as his fingers crunch against the papers, picking them up again. One by one, he folds all of them into a tight pile and settles them on the table by the bed.
She brushes her hair from her eyes. “No?”
“Do I look like a John to you?”
Briefly, she lets herself engage in amusement - it’s almost shy, unsure of how it should be on the surface of things. She does shrug though and he looks at her as if she’s completely missed his point. She’s still going back and forth, weeks after, with trusting him and not trusting him. Maybe, it’s unfair. Maybe, she’s still holding onto the things that she should’ve let go of. Maybe, she should’ve known it was going to be another goodbye.
The thing is, if it’s going to be about truth, all of this makes it harder. It’s not about going back and forth, reminding herself that this is him and then this isn’t him. But he looks the same. He feels the same. And even now, here, for a moment, his eyes are still large, still wild, and buzzing with a crisp excitement. It’s pulling at her, tempting her, and the tears are never far from the inevitably of the surface.
It kind of scares her.
“No,” she murmurs. “an’ Mickey’s not around for you to be his long lost brother or something.”
“Or something.”
There’s a faint smile on his part and a little on hers, the tugging of her lips feeling strange and new all over again. She lets her fingers roll against the sheets as a distraction, aching for a little bit more than this is my room dancing around in her head. They’ve been back and reconnecting feels so out of place, making her vulnerable to everything else. The expectations that she had - well, it remains clear in this room. She didn’t think she was coming back. But then again, she wasn’t expecting total change either. She went into this blindly. Without thinking - something the Doctor would do.
But he’s watching her too. Whether he understands or not, it doesn’t matter. She still feels the thickness of his gaze, unreadable to her in the moment. It weighs. It softens. And remains as if he wants to touch her. That scares her too. More than she can admit.
“That would be funny,” he adds.
It’s an odd feeling, standing still.
Her fingers loop around his again, her palm pressing lazily over his as she cocks her head back up into the sky. The snow seems softer, spreading over her shoulders and into his jacket as she burrows a little closer. But it’s the stars, really, that re-conquer the stretch of attention that she’s given them all these days and she feels herself smile, almost understanding.
She misses them too.
“I feel -” she’s hesitant, all of the sudden, blinking back the silence as he leans closer. She doesn’t know though - there’s a bit of a shift and a long tightness, shifting back and forth between mourning and moving on.
Is she letting go? He’s still here, still in front of her, still holding her hand. It’s just that she hasn’t completely processed everything and, perhaps, she really never will. But she takes everything in - the firm grip of his hand, the way they drift just a little bit closer. She’s not imagining things. And maybe, she’s prone to the assumptions all over again. Will this be different? Is he really different too?
But he tugs at her hand, grinning a little. “Hungry?”
She laughs easily, shaking her head. The sound is a comfort, warm as he follows. She has to get used to his laugh. It seems lighter, thickening as he presses closer to her. He grins wider and she finds herself blushing as he lets his mouth graze her hair.
She shakes her head. “No, not hungry.”
He frowns a little, his eyes dancing in amusement - a mass of contradictions, she remembers, always and forever. He pulls back, their hands linking again as he starts to swing them. He hums in amusement and the snow crunches under the two of them as he swings her around. She laughs. He laughs. And she supposes, if anything, it’s got to be all right. It has to be. Because he’s the Doctor. Somehow, he’s still her Doctor too.
“Well?”
It’s a gesture of trust, if anything, something to sooth over the wrinkles of her second-guessing and her doubts. She has to smile at that too - he’s standing, holding her still, and making sure she’s closer. Just so she understands.
Her voice is soft. “Small.”
She never expects the nod, but it happens. It’s slow, there, and a smile reappears, reassuring and warm.
He gets it too.
But really, what is this about?
They’ve been worked into the city, locked away from the memories of the beach. From time to time, her fingers still ache with sand and dirt. Or she’ll hear, behind her, the sudden moans of familiarity from the water. She doesn’t stop walking though and that, really, is a habit from her years alone, from her fight to understand all of the things that have happened to her.
Still though, she can’t help but feel incredibly selfish. She hasn’t asked him yet about how he really feels and finds herself skirting around thin conversation. She understands that he’s unsure too and even though there’s that connection, getting back there is almost too intimidating, if getting back there is what they need to do.
He coughs. “I -”
She looks up curiously, watching him as he sits down across from her. His limbs are almost clumsy, his legs dangling awkwardly over the edge of the bed. It’s too small for them. But they manage. Or he manages. Or she does. Rose really isn’t ready to be sure.
But he sighs. “I don’t think I wanted to do this.”
“Do what?”
He’s staring at her and she knows he means him not him; it’s shaky, the semantics between them, and it’s as if she’s starting to relearn him again. It’s different too. She’s had her own journey and, incredible as it was, there’s a lack of romanticism like the one the shared before. Well - she remembers, rather, her and the other Doctor.
But is it wrong for her to want, even just a little bit of what was before - it changed her life and she doesn’t think that very many people understand how that weighs on her and how, after everything, there really wasn’t a proper goodbye after everything. She still had things to say.
“Oh,” she breathes, faint and weary.
The implication is there and whether he’s defending his other self, she’s doesn’t pay too much attention to. It’s not something she should. But there’s more. He’s watching her, he’s really watching her, picking apart every rush of movement her hands return to or the way she suddenly ducks from the heat of his gaze.
Her lips purse tightly and she has no idea what he’s doing, what he’s really trying to say or look for; the weight on her shoulders is too familiar again. It’s not his fault. It’s not hers either. And perhaps, even within the moment, it’s not the Doctor’s fault either.
It doesn’t stop her throat from starting to burn.
She has to look away from him, from the fact that he knows and possibly, even understands what she’s trying to avoid. Her fingers tremble over her knees and she tightens her hands into fist, briefly, as if to push her away from the situation for a moment. She needs to breathe. But the reality is much more complicated than that.
She doesn’t want to look away. A little part of her, a tiny thread seems to be winding itself up to the surface - she’s afraid, you see, more than a part of her is afraid he’s going to go too.
“It’s okay,” he tells her, reaching for her hand. “You can be angry at me too, you know.”
They don’t say anything.
Things have happened before, prophecies and misfortunes. Everything is never completely written and she finds herself clinging to that notice, to the inclination that time is, if anything, a complete surprise. But the TARDIS seems lonely, even after the fact, writing over the heaviness of their last couple weeks together.
The Doctor’s been pensive ever since they landed - in betweens are always a bit of a break, and he’s also been watching her too. It’s as if he’s worried that she might disappear, taking the words to heart that, sometimes, he so casually brushes off as if he were hiding from acknowledgment. It frustrates her. It makes her angry too. But, if anything, she’s come to understand this is how he is.
They move though, his hands moving restlessly over controls and buttons, settling them into a stop. He motions for her to follow him, swinging back the doors of the TARDIS and letting them step out to greet their brief destination.
It’s one of those odd scraps of middle planets. Everything is completely still and silent, almost unfolding eerily. There are no cities or population, just the litter of trees and grass. There’s a secondary wave of curiosity that follows her, as she steps out with him, and she’s greeted by another extraordinary sight.
The sky is wide, starless and cloudless, opening over them in a warm blanket of blue. It must be night because everything seems darker, quiet as if the life here were just content to sleep.
“S’nice, yeah?” he smiles quietly, sitting in what seems to be grass and patting the spot next to him.
It’s odd. His sudden shift in mood goes between familiar and unfamiliar, opening the patches of her worry. She doesn’t completely surface any of her curiosities - saying what’s wrong? brings a plague of avoidance. She hates when he does it too. But he prefers the other way around, somewhat solitary even with someone else.
Either way, she thinks, she loves him all the same.
“Uh-uh. Very blue.”
“Not really - there’s a bit of green too,” he shrugs, “or not. I think it’s green. It should be green. That’s what I remember. At least - or maybe, it is blue. I can’t decide. I should decide since -”
She laughs a little. “It’s blue.”
It earns his amusement, the crisp rise of a smile, and a certain satisfaction. This is why nothing is going to happen. She knows it. They’re going to be okay. They will be okay.
“Yeah?”
He looks away, but she’s nodding. The answer doesn’t really matter. Because they can do this.
“Yeah,” she murmurs.
They will do this. Like every other day.
“M’not angry.”
The confession is heavy-handed, slow, and thick as it rolls of her tongue. She means it. She doesn’t. The words remain with a funny taste in her mouth. It’s just as confusing as everything else, she thinks, with what kind of start she’s actually due.
“Not at you,” she continues quietly, looking up, “I - it’s not even anger anymore. ‘suppose m’a bit disappointed. Really disappointed. Sad too. But s’not you, all right? And I don’t want -”
But the words falter.
It’s frustrating because that’s all she seems to be doing. Faltering. After everything, everything she’s pushed herself to accomplish, a single conversation seems to take the crown as the most intimidating face of disadvantage she’s ever taken on.
She looks away. “I don’t know.”
What’s even worse is that he’s saying nothing.
He sits there, on the bed, his fingers swaying in circles around the sheets. Even then, he’s constantly moving. It scares and thrills her - thrills her more, she thinks, because then there’s a little bit of the same, a little bit of something familiar that she can reach out to.
But her honesty, first and in spurts, is something that she needs to get out. That needs to be out between them.
“I need time.”
It’s almost funny saying it to him.
It’s quiet.
The sand spreads into thick patches of grey, shouldering around the heels of her boots as she presses deeper into the sand. There are murmurs from behind her, from the truck and the others, but she keeps her gaze straight, pouring it into the water as she struggles to take a deep breath.
She still sees him - the warmth of his gaze slipping into the air, fading into the hazy air of the beach. Her mind is reeling, in between things that could’ve been said and what she did say; it falls heavily to memory though and her biggest fear, over inevitability, is that she’s going to forget the rest of this too.
“Rose!”
Her mum - family, she corrects herself. She’s not a name on a plaque. She’s not a statistic. But lost seems much worse of a fate to her than all of that. There was nothing, not even an inkling, of a proper goodbye. But she ignores her mum and Mickey too, leaning forward and letting her knees be swallowed in the sand.
Her sigh is soft. She won’t be coming back.
“Stop.”
It’s fierce, when he says, and lonely, just as lonely as she remembers him; semantics, now, are all relative and comforting or not, she can’t forget these new facts either. But it goes between sounding like him and not sounding like him, the distinct rise of a promise moving between them.
She’s surprised, though, when he reaches for her hand too. His fingers lace with hers and she watches quietly as he brings her knuckles to her mouth, pressing a light grin across her skin.
“We don’t -”
There’s a hesitation and he doesn’t look away. He doesn’t kiss her either, but it almost feels like it. The pressure of his words shifts from him to her lips, softening the course of her worries and misdirection. Her fingers tighten over his hand and he laughs softly, bowing his head as the bed loops under their weight. It’s a little bit closer and a little less heavier, seemingly adjusting the presence of uncertainty that she owns.
He tugs at her hand.
“We don’t have to stand still.”
They’ll write this again.
they burn roads too
it’s hard, still, to look at him. the worst part, she’ll never say, is living too comfortably in her own memories. doctor who. rose tyler. rose/nine. rose/ten. rose/alt!ten. spoilers for journey’s end, various seasons. 3,368 words, pg.
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It’s hard, still, to look at him.
The light from the kitchen seems weary, stumbling into the bedroom as it spills in between them. It creeps slowly, unsettlingly, thickening the knots in her stomach as it colors faintly over the blankets and sheets that obscure themselves over the bed. It’s as if the room is acknowledging the bits that she’s not ready to talk about; instead, too, there’s a definite oddness to the unfamiliarity of the space, from the lack of pictures to the clothes that have gathered dust as nothing more than odds and ends.
But even harder to grasp, is the strange way they stand facing each other. He keeps to one end, letting the papers in his hand spit over the bed - Pete dropped them off for him earlier in the day. To settle him in, he said, and the Doctor - what else is she to call him? - looked at Pete like he was dropping a prison sentence on his head with the word settle. She can’t blame him either. After two years, the word still makes her uneasy too.
She’s on the other side though, her shoulders slumping as she peers over the mess of papers. They’re haphazard and almost grey, the Torchwood logo blazing across the top of names and numbers, identities, and the premise of possibility. She doesn’t like it. But it’s not hers to like. It’s been more than clear that this is home now, as it first was when she arrived at the beach two years ago.
“You’re still Rose Tyler,” he says quietly, still thoughtful, and draws his fingers under the arch of his jaw.
She ignores the gesture. Her name opens one of the corners of a piece of paper. Of course, she thinks. Although, really, it’s just a piece of paper. She still finds herself staring at it with some distain, the very distain that he seems to be fond of carrying.
You’re still Rose Tyler - what is that supposed to mean? She wonders if it’s a light dig or not; a bit of a reminder, if anything, that she’s really out of practice. If out of practice is something she can claim to hold. It’s confusing. It’s frustrating. And she really doesn’t know what to make of the situation.
The mantra feels like a fumble, if anything more - she doesn’t know how many times she can tell herself this.
“And you are?” - there’s a little bit of a bit, in between meaning it and not, and she looks up at him, unsure but softening her gaze.
His eyes are kind though, thoughtful even, and she isn’t quite sure how exactly she’s supposed to take the different shifts. He’s not the Doctor, but a Doctor, and even that seems to sink away. It’s the most frustrating part of him being here; everything is palpable, certain instead being lazy and going between the sentiments of what she should be feeling and what she shouldn’t be. Maybe, she’s a little angry. Maybe, she isn’t.
She just doesn’t know.
“John Smith,” he says finally, and then again, for the reassurances, “I’m John Smith. Not a complete wanker either - It’s what John Smith sounds like, yeah?”
Rose scoffs, rolling her eyes. “S’alright just to say John Smith.”
There’s a little bit of a smile, something akin to amusement. He completely catches her gaze too, holding it steadily. It makes her confused and her throat starts to warm, tightening as she feels herself succumb to a bit of a blush. The heat on her cheeks drifts between shame and awareness, as if she’s cheating but not really cheating.
It’s scary, she thinks, how easy this is beginning to pick at her.
But his gaze stays firm. “Where’s the fun in that?”
The rooftop is kind of hard to forget. They seem to be nostalgic, every once in awhile, under the guise of coming home and popping a hello out for her mum and Mickey.
The Doctor is oddly quiet today, fingering the ends of his jacket as his gaze breaks over the tops of the city. She follows, out of habit, and the smells of smoke and crowds seems to bring an odd pleasure of familiarity to her. She can say this is home and while her excitement seems to unfold more and more with the cycles of her travels, she’s starting to quietly appreciate the sensation.
A little bit too, she’s coming to believe, has to do with him. Seeing the world through his eyes. People are becoming different. Sights and smells - all the things that she would’ve warranted a lazy insignificance to are suddenly facing her head on. Rose feels bolder, braver, and a little bit frighten. Things are changing. She’s letting this happen - it’s more than just change now.
But up here, he turns to her. There’s a little bit of an odd smile, not quite that crooked grin of his and not quite something serious. He gives her an affectionate nod, letting his fingers squirm across her wrist.
“I don’t like the word forever.”
She frowns. It comes over the height of the traffic, the city reawakening to glares of the early evening and that ever-present need to go home. She finds herself almost affectionate with the sounds, but inching closer to the Doctor as her attention stretches to him.
“Why?” and she asks simply, of course, ready to be sated with some sort of large, definite answer. It’s almost scary how he knows.
The odd smile stays though. He glances at her briefly and then away, looking down into traffic of feet and cars. His fingers skim slow circles around the brick.
There’s a swallow. “Never sounds right.”
She doesn’t understand. Everything feels heavier.
“I don’t know about John Smith.”
He means it too much too. Gone from standing to sitting, Rose watches as his fingers crunch against the papers, picking them up again. One by one, he folds all of them into a tight pile and settles them on the table by the bed.
She brushes her hair from her eyes. “No?”
“Do I look like a John to you?”
Briefly, she lets herself engage in amusement - it’s almost shy, unsure of how it should be on the surface of things. She does shrug though and he looks at her as if she’s completely missed his point. She’s still going back and forth, weeks after, with trusting him and not trusting him. Maybe, it’s unfair. Maybe, she’s still holding onto the things that she should’ve let go of. Maybe, she should’ve known it was going to be another goodbye.
The thing is, if it’s going to be about truth, all of this makes it harder. It’s not about going back and forth, reminding herself that this is him and then this isn’t him. But he looks the same. He feels the same. And even now, here, for a moment, his eyes are still large, still wild, and buzzing with a crisp excitement. It’s pulling at her, tempting her, and the tears are never far from the inevitably of the surface.
It kind of scares her.
“No,” she murmurs. “an’ Mickey’s not around for you to be his long lost brother or something.”
“Or something.”
There’s a faint smile on his part and a little on hers, the tugging of her lips feeling strange and new all over again. She lets her fingers roll against the sheets as a distraction, aching for a little bit more than this is my room dancing around in her head. They’ve been back and reconnecting feels so out of place, making her vulnerable to everything else. The expectations that she had - well, it remains clear in this room. She didn’t think she was coming back. But then again, she wasn’t expecting total change either. She went into this blindly. Without thinking - something the Doctor would do.
But he’s watching her too. Whether he understands or not, it doesn’t matter. She still feels the thickness of his gaze, unreadable to her in the moment. It weighs. It softens. And remains as if he wants to touch her. That scares her too. More than she can admit.
“That would be funny,” he adds.
It’s an odd feeling, standing still.
Her fingers loop around his again, her palm pressing lazily over his as she cocks her head back up into the sky. The snow seems softer, spreading over her shoulders and into his jacket as she burrows a little closer. But it’s the stars, really, that re-conquer the stretch of attention that she’s given them all these days and she feels herself smile, almost understanding.
She misses them too.
“I feel -” she’s hesitant, all of the sudden, blinking back the silence as he leans closer. She doesn’t know though - there’s a bit of a shift and a long tightness, shifting back and forth between mourning and moving on.
Is she letting go? He’s still here, still in front of her, still holding her hand. It’s just that she hasn’t completely processed everything and, perhaps, she really never will. But she takes everything in - the firm grip of his hand, the way they drift just a little bit closer. She’s not imagining things. And maybe, she’s prone to the assumptions all over again. Will this be different? Is he really different too?
But he tugs at her hand, grinning a little. “Hungry?”
She laughs easily, shaking her head. The sound is a comfort, warm as he follows. She has to get used to his laugh. It seems lighter, thickening as he presses closer to her. He grins wider and she finds herself blushing as he lets his mouth graze her hair.
She shakes her head. “No, not hungry.”
He frowns a little, his eyes dancing in amusement - a mass of contradictions, she remembers, always and forever. He pulls back, their hands linking again as he starts to swing them. He hums in amusement and the snow crunches under the two of them as he swings her around. She laughs. He laughs. And she supposes, if anything, it’s got to be all right. It has to be. Because he’s the Doctor. Somehow, he’s still her Doctor too.
“Well?”
It’s a gesture of trust, if anything, something to sooth over the wrinkles of her second-guessing and her doubts. She has to smile at that too - he’s standing, holding her still, and making sure she’s closer. Just so she understands.
Her voice is soft. “Small.”
She never expects the nod, but it happens. It’s slow, there, and a smile reappears, reassuring and warm.
He gets it too.
But really, what is this about?
They’ve been worked into the city, locked away from the memories of the beach. From time to time, her fingers still ache with sand and dirt. Or she’ll hear, behind her, the sudden moans of familiarity from the water. She doesn’t stop walking though and that, really, is a habit from her years alone, from her fight to understand all of the things that have happened to her.
Still though, she can’t help but feel incredibly selfish. She hasn’t asked him yet about how he really feels and finds herself skirting around thin conversation. She understands that he’s unsure too and even though there’s that connection, getting back there is almost too intimidating, if getting back there is what they need to do.
He coughs. “I -”
She looks up curiously, watching him as he sits down across from her. His limbs are almost clumsy, his legs dangling awkwardly over the edge of the bed. It’s too small for them. But they manage. Or he manages. Or she does. Rose really isn’t ready to be sure.
But he sighs. “I don’t think I wanted to do this.”
“Do what?”
He’s staring at her and she knows he means him not him; it’s shaky, the semantics between them, and it’s as if she’s starting to relearn him again. It’s different too. She’s had her own journey and, incredible as it was, there’s a lack of romanticism like the one the shared before. Well - she remembers, rather, her and the other Doctor.
But is it wrong for her to want, even just a little bit of what was before - it changed her life and she doesn’t think that very many people understand how that weighs on her and how, after everything, there really wasn’t a proper goodbye after everything. She still had things to say.
“Oh,” she breathes, faint and weary.
The implication is there and whether he’s defending his other self, she’s doesn’t pay too much attention to. It’s not something she should. But there’s more. He’s watching her, he’s really watching her, picking apart every rush of movement her hands return to or the way she suddenly ducks from the heat of his gaze.
Her lips purse tightly and she has no idea what he’s doing, what he’s really trying to say or look for; the weight on her shoulders is too familiar again. It’s not his fault. It’s not hers either. And perhaps, even within the moment, it’s not the Doctor’s fault either.
It doesn’t stop her throat from starting to burn.
She has to look away from him, from the fact that he knows and possibly, even understands what she’s trying to avoid. Her fingers tremble over her knees and she tightens her hands into fist, briefly, as if to push her away from the situation for a moment. She needs to breathe. But the reality is much more complicated than that.
She doesn’t want to look away. A little part of her, a tiny thread seems to be winding itself up to the surface - she’s afraid, you see, more than a part of her is afraid he’s going to go too.
“It’s okay,” he tells her, reaching for her hand. “You can be angry at me too, you know.”
They don’t say anything.
Things have happened before, prophecies and misfortunes. Everything is never completely written and she finds herself clinging to that notice, to the inclination that time is, if anything, a complete surprise. But the TARDIS seems lonely, even after the fact, writing over the heaviness of their last couple weeks together.
The Doctor’s been pensive ever since they landed - in betweens are always a bit of a break, and he’s also been watching her too. It’s as if he’s worried that she might disappear, taking the words to heart that, sometimes, he so casually brushes off as if he were hiding from acknowledgment. It frustrates her. It makes her angry too. But, if anything, she’s come to understand this is how he is.
They move though, his hands moving restlessly over controls and buttons, settling them into a stop. He motions for her to follow him, swinging back the doors of the TARDIS and letting them step out to greet their brief destination.
It’s one of those odd scraps of middle planets. Everything is completely still and silent, almost unfolding eerily. There are no cities or population, just the litter of trees and grass. There’s a secondary wave of curiosity that follows her, as she steps out with him, and she’s greeted by another extraordinary sight.
The sky is wide, starless and cloudless, opening over them in a warm blanket of blue. It must be night because everything seems darker, quiet as if the life here were just content to sleep.
“S’nice, yeah?” he smiles quietly, sitting in what seems to be grass and patting the spot next to him.
It’s odd. His sudden shift in mood goes between familiar and unfamiliar, opening the patches of her worry. She doesn’t completely surface any of her curiosities - saying what’s wrong? brings a plague of avoidance. She hates when he does it too. But he prefers the other way around, somewhat solitary even with someone else.
Either way, she thinks, she loves him all the same.
“Uh-uh. Very blue.”
“Not really - there’s a bit of green too,” he shrugs, “or not. I think it’s green. It should be green. That’s what I remember. At least - or maybe, it is blue. I can’t decide. I should decide since -”
She laughs a little. “It’s blue.”
It earns his amusement, the crisp rise of a smile, and a certain satisfaction. This is why nothing is going to happen. She knows it. They’re going to be okay. They will be okay.
“Yeah?”
He looks away, but she’s nodding. The answer doesn’t really matter. Because they can do this.
“Yeah,” she murmurs.
They will do this. Like every other day.
“M’not angry.”
The confession is heavy-handed, slow, and thick as it rolls of her tongue. She means it. She doesn’t. The words remain with a funny taste in her mouth. It’s just as confusing as everything else, she thinks, with what kind of start she’s actually due.
“Not at you,” she continues quietly, looking up, “I - it’s not even anger anymore. ‘suppose m’a bit disappointed. Really disappointed. Sad too. But s’not you, all right? And I don’t want -”
But the words falter.
It’s frustrating because that’s all she seems to be doing. Faltering. After everything, everything she’s pushed herself to accomplish, a single conversation seems to take the crown as the most intimidating face of disadvantage she’s ever taken on.
She looks away. “I don’t know.”
What’s even worse is that he’s saying nothing.
He sits there, on the bed, his fingers swaying in circles around the sheets. Even then, he’s constantly moving. It scares and thrills her - thrills her more, she thinks, because then there’s a little bit of the same, a little bit of something familiar that she can reach out to.
But her honesty, first and in spurts, is something that she needs to get out. That needs to be out between them.
“I need time.”
It’s almost funny saying it to him.
It’s quiet.
The sand spreads into thick patches of grey, shouldering around the heels of her boots as she presses deeper into the sand. There are murmurs from behind her, from the truck and the others, but she keeps her gaze straight, pouring it into the water as she struggles to take a deep breath.
She still sees him - the warmth of his gaze slipping into the air, fading into the hazy air of the beach. Her mind is reeling, in between things that could’ve been said and what she did say; it falls heavily to memory though and her biggest fear, over inevitability, is that she’s going to forget the rest of this too.
“Rose!”
Her mum - family, she corrects herself. She’s not a name on a plaque. She’s not a statistic. But lost seems much worse of a fate to her than all of that. There was nothing, not even an inkling, of a proper goodbye. But she ignores her mum and Mickey too, leaning forward and letting her knees be swallowed in the sand.
Her sigh is soft. She won’t be coming back.
“Stop.”
It’s fierce, when he says, and lonely, just as lonely as she remembers him; semantics, now, are all relative and comforting or not, she can’t forget these new facts either. But it goes between sounding like him and not sounding like him, the distinct rise of a promise moving between them.
She’s surprised, though, when he reaches for her hand too. His fingers lace with hers and she watches quietly as he brings her knuckles to her mouth, pressing a light grin across her skin.
“We don’t -”
There’s a hesitation and he doesn’t look away. He doesn’t kiss her either, but it almost feels like it. The pressure of his words shifts from him to her lips, softening the course of her worries and misdirection. Her fingers tighten over his hand and he laughs softly, bowing his head as the bed loops under their weight. It’s a little bit closer and a little less heavier, seemingly adjusting the presence of uncertainty that she owns.
He tugs at her hand.
“We don’t have to stand still.”
They’ll write this again.