Fic: One Month, Redux
Title: One Month, Redux
Author: meself, fid_gin
Pairing: alt!Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: Getting to know the new, new Doctor
Notes: Needless to say, spoilery for Journey's End. A companion piece to one of my oldies: One Month. I suggest reading that one first, just so the choice of phrases makes a bit more sense. If it doesn't break your heart, that is.
It's a mutual decision. She needs some down time, some alone time after Davros, after the Crucible, the exhilaration & the love & the pain of finding and then losing the Doctor all over again and the ambiguous victory of finding herself paired with him, and he is still coming off of his creation, a bit weak and confused and elated and out of sorts. Some time to learn himself - this body grown from a severed hand, a siphoned regeneration and a certain special redheaded Earth temp guided by Destiny itself. The only thing he does know for certain about himself is that he loves Rose, and he'd wait the entire span of his suddenly brief life, if that's what she needs.
They agree on a month - a period of time special to her for reasons he doesn't admit he remembers and she won't discuss. They shake on it, and he wiggles the fingers of his non-fightin' hand against her palm, tickling her.
She doesn't smile.
***
One of their first long walks, holding hands. She shows him the landmarks of her life here on this parallel world - the rooftop where she'd go to be closer to the sky when she was missing the Doctor, Torchwood, a picnic bench facing the abandoned Cybus warehouse where she comes to think. The Doctor stares across the water, remembers holding her here, desperately wants to again but instead just grips her hand a little tighter as they walk. Remember this. Remember me. Rose threads her fingers through his after several minutes, and when he looks over at her she's staring at him in that slightly dazed way he's come to recognize as her trying to process this. To process them.
It's a start.
***
Not afraid to tell her he loves her, not anymore. First at Bad Wolf Bay, and then every chance he gets when he's relatively sure he's not freaking her out. “Rose Tyler,” he always says. “Have I told you I love you?” and she'll sort of blush and stammer Yeah and change the subject...but she never tells him to stop.
There comes a day when she phones him on her mobile to arrange a location to discuss the exit strategy of a peaceful race of very small, very grabby aliens who've been groping the whole of London for the last week, and before she hangs up she says “I love you.” Pause. “Doctor.”
And he's grinning so hard he can barely form the word: “Wizard.”
***
It rains the last night of the month, but this time they stay indoors.
She knows him a little now, knows he likes the sound of his voice, knows his odd tendency to taste inanimate objects - in other words, knows enough to recognize that he's the same man she always knew, the same man she fell in love with with a few vocal eccentricities and a penchant for Pringles and celebrity gossip magazines. His hair, run through her fingers, is the Doctor's hair. His lips are the Doctor's lips, and she finds once she starts kissing them that she can't stop. He pulls away finally, breathless - no respiratory bypass now, either - his eyes, dark and half-lidded, search hers.
“One month?”
And Rose smiles. “S'close enough.”
He stays. Tomorrow, it begins. Anew.
Author: meself, fid_gin
Pairing: alt!Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: Getting to know the new, new Doctor
Notes: Needless to say, spoilery for Journey's End. A companion piece to one of my oldies: One Month. I suggest reading that one first, just so the choice of phrases makes a bit more sense. If it doesn't break your heart, that is.
It's a mutual decision. She needs some down time, some alone time after Davros, after the Crucible, the exhilaration & the love & the pain of finding and then losing the Doctor all over again and the ambiguous victory of finding herself paired with him, and he is still coming off of his creation, a bit weak and confused and elated and out of sorts. Some time to learn himself - this body grown from a severed hand, a siphoned regeneration and a certain special redheaded Earth temp guided by Destiny itself. The only thing he does know for certain about himself is that he loves Rose, and he'd wait the entire span of his suddenly brief life, if that's what she needs.
They agree on a month - a period of time special to her for reasons he doesn't admit he remembers and she won't discuss. They shake on it, and he wiggles the fingers of his non-fightin' hand against her palm, tickling her.
She doesn't smile.
***
One of their first long walks, holding hands. She shows him the landmarks of her life here on this parallel world - the rooftop where she'd go to be closer to the sky when she was missing the Doctor, Torchwood, a picnic bench facing the abandoned Cybus warehouse where she comes to think. The Doctor stares across the water, remembers holding her here, desperately wants to again but instead just grips her hand a little tighter as they walk. Remember this. Remember me. Rose threads her fingers through his after several minutes, and when he looks over at her she's staring at him in that slightly dazed way he's come to recognize as her trying to process this. To process them.
It's a start.
***
Not afraid to tell her he loves her, not anymore. First at Bad Wolf Bay, and then every chance he gets when he's relatively sure he's not freaking her out. “Rose Tyler,” he always says. “Have I told you I love you?” and she'll sort of blush and stammer Yeah and change the subject...but she never tells him to stop.
There comes a day when she phones him on her mobile to arrange a location to discuss the exit strategy of a peaceful race of very small, very grabby aliens who've been groping the whole of London for the last week, and before she hangs up she says “I love you.” Pause. “Doctor.”
And he's grinning so hard he can barely form the word: “Wizard.”
***
It rains the last night of the month, but this time they stay indoors.
She knows him a little now, knows he likes the sound of his voice, knows his odd tendency to taste inanimate objects - in other words, knows enough to recognize that he's the same man she always knew, the same man she fell in love with with a few vocal eccentricities and a penchant for Pringles and celebrity gossip magazines. His hair, run through her fingers, is the Doctor's hair. His lips are the Doctor's lips, and she finds once she starts kissing them that she can't stop. He pulls away finally, breathless - no respiratory bypass now, either - his eyes, dark and half-lidded, search hers.
“One month?”
And Rose smiles. “S'close enough.”
He stays. Tomorrow, it begins. Anew.