DW Fic - Simmer Dim (18/18)
Title - Simmer Dim (18/18)
Author - joely_jo
Characters - Ten/Rose, Mickey, OCs
Rating - R (for language and adult content)
Summary - With the events of Doomsday just a distant memory, Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith make a discovery that they cannot leave alone. But what they find will take Rose on a journey she never expected. Will she come to terms with what she’s faced with, or will the carefully constructed life she’s built for herself come crashing down?
Author’s Notes - I confess to a little recycling with this fic. The idea for this story actually began with the fic I wrote for the OSK Summer Lovin’ Ficathon, The Storm Inside, which in turn was inspired by watching the episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood. I thought it would be interesting to look at what happened to Rose post-Doomsday, but also to try to portray what I perceive to be the unconditional attraction between the Doctor and Rose. I swore I was going to scale down my DW writing after Myths and Legends, but here we are again… It’s another long one, so I hope you enjoy it!
Many thanks to my betas sensiblecat and most especially aibhinn without whose reassurance I may never have worked up the guts to post this.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
There had indeed been much to say. The initial exhilaration of the afternoon had waned into an evening of quieter revelations and remembrances, each one tinted with the gravity of what had happened, until darkness fell and Jonny’s battles to stay awake began to become futile. The Doctor watched as Rose bundled her sleepy son up the stairs, ruffling his unruly hair and smiling at his yawns and protestations, then found himself alone. He could hear the soft sounds of a regular bedtime routine through the floorboards - water running, teeth being brushed, slippers hitting the floor.
He stood and walked to the fireplace. Several silver framed photographs decorated the oak mantelpiece, and the Doctor picked out the image of a tired but overjoyed Rose holding a tiny bundle of pink flesh and flyaway brown hair, a picture of Mickey and a toddling Jonny messily eating ice creams topped with Cadbury Flakes, and another more recent one of Jonny standing next to the nameplate of the HMS Victory. It was family life, he realised as he stared; the sort of pictures that charted the memorable moments of her day to day existence. Normality.
Suddenly he was struck by how different her life was now. Everything was in its place and she had everyone around her who really mattered to her. There was nothing remotely alien or unusual in those pictures, and the most unpredictable thing was the wobbliness of Jonny’s ice cream as he slurped happily at his treat. It was a far cry from life in the TARDIS with him.
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs broke into his thoughts. Rose appeared in the doorway, dressed for bed and smiling. “Out like a light,” she explained.
The Doctor nodded. “And you’re tired as well,” he noted, indicating her pink cotton pyjamas with a tilt of his head.
“It’s been a busy day.”
Silence, then; stilted and a little uneasy. The Doctor shifted his feet uncertainly. There were a hundred reasons why he should say something, anything, but words were suddenly beyond him. In the space of six hours, everything had changed between them and he wasn’t sure how to reconcile what they were now with what had gone before. Finally, Rose spoke, her voice determinedly brave. “Come to bed with me?” she asked.
He looked up from the floor. He looked at the photographs, then at her dark, hopeful eyes. “Yes,” he said, simply.
****
It was a vast and barren plain. Wind howled from nowhere and a terrible cold gripped his bones. He worked the bicycle pump in a state of panic, peering at the viewscreen monitor and seeing nothing but emptiness. Darkness curled like burnt paper at the edges of his vision and he could feel the plummeting as the TARDIS spun towards oblivion, out of the Vortex, towards the barrier.
His hearts pounded as he heard his ship groaning with the strain of breaking through the Vortex. A sound like bone scratching against metal filled his ears as something gouged into its sides, clawing and grabbing as if the very energy that rippled in the Vortex was coming alive, malevolent and desperately trying to hold him back.
But he kept on. One glance at the instruments on the console told him things were worse than his calculations had anticipated. In the years he’d worked for this, planning and preparing and searching, he’d never thought that he could have underestimated so wildly. He wheeled around, leaping sideways to slam a lever down and jiggle a switch. “Come on, come on,” he chanted.
A roaring began to fill the TARDIS, and the wind broke inside, and suddenly, it felt as if he was being blasted with sand, pushing him backwards and down. The Doctor grabbed onto the console and yelled against the gust, his head feeling as if it was crushing in on itself. On the viewscreen he could see the plain widening out, growing darker and disappearing into infinity. The barrier glittered ahead like a string of crackling energy - he had to get through it, had to, had to. There was no way back now.
There was a groan and then the TARDIS pitched, sending him crashing to the floor. A klaxon sounded. The Doctor glanced up and saw smoke pouring from the console; the ship pitched again, rolling and then plummeting. Panic gripped him. The ship was falling. Oh, Rassilon, his ship was dying.
He woke with a start. His skin was on fire; sweat coated his body in a sticky sheen and he was gasping for breath. His head echoed with vague images of the destructive power of the barrier between the universes. Abruptly he realised where he was - the smell of clean linen, lilac room freshener and that sweet, musky scent that was definably Rose filled his nose - and he froze. The house was silent, save for the occasional creak and the soft hush rush of her breathing as she lay beside him, apparently undisturbed by his terror.
Rolling his head towards her, he saw that she was curled up on her side, her arms crossed in front of her chest in an obviously protective gesture. Her eyelids fluttered in a chaos of dreams, but unlike his, hers were clearly pleasant, judging by the faint smile on her lips. She looked so different from before; older, yes, but also softer, gentler, as if she was comfortable with her life. He supposed that was what happened when you had children. Or at least, what happened if you were human and had children.
That thought caused him to release a breath that felt like it had been building for hours. He was a father. And this time it was much more than a simple donation of genetic material for the Looms. This time there was Responsibility.
He rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb her, and stared at the room he was in. It was all creams and pale blues and understated elegance, nothing at all like the pink, teenage, youthful room Rose had kept aboard the TARDIS. A dressing table held a triptych mirror, a number of coloured glass perfume bottles, an ebony jewellery box and a set of old-fashioned silver hair and clothes brushes; in other corners of the room were a large wardrobe, an overflowing bookcase and an antique chair. A low bench nestled beneath the sash window and he sat down on it, sighing as he looked down on the perfectly manicured lawn with its Wimbledon stripes.
While his eyes had been closed, everything had changed. As if the edges of reality had twisted and distorted. He glanced back to the woman lying in the bed, someone who he had once known so well he could have pointed out the position of every freckle on her body, but whom he now felt was only a familiar stranger. A businesswoman and a mother: she’d done exactly what he’d told her to do - she’d lived a fantastic life. And what place did he have now in such a life? For all the effort he’d gone to, what had he got to show for it? He was a lost man in somebody else’s life.
He sighed. Gathering up his clothes from the chair, he dressed, and then with quiet steps he moved to the doorway and stood there for a moment, one hand on the frame, looking back at her slumbering form. Rose twitched in her sleep but did not stir. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m really sorry.”
And then he left.
****
There was no telling what exactly woke Rose. It could have been a number of things, from the soft click of the front door to the sound of retreating footsteps on the driveway. Later she would consider whether it had been some super-sensory perception of his absence, like the hollow sensation that had descended on her after his image faded on that Norwegian beach. But, whatever it was, she found herself awake in the blink of an eye and staring at a wide expanse of empty mattress beside her.
It took her a moment to orient herself and realise that the sheets were cold and she was alone. Listening, she realised that the house was now utterly silent. Night coated her bedroom in an eerie combination of moonlight and the artificial amber glow from the streetlamp outside the window. She rolled out of the bed and stood. His shoes and clothes were missing from the back of the dressing chair he’d laid them on before they’d retired and she realised instinctively that he was gone, and it was somewhere further than the back garden for a breath of fresh air.
She pulled on fresh underwear, then picked her jeans and running sweater out of the cupboard; trainers were nudged onto her feet, the laces tied hastily, and she headed down the corridor. A glance in at Jonny’s room told her he was fast asleep. For a moment she stood torn between two options: manhandle him out of bed and take him with her, his inevitable sleepiness and lack of cooperation slowing her down, or lock the house up and leave him here with a note and a key on the kitchen table, in the hope that he would sleep on unawares. Perhaps she should ring Mickey? She laboured for a moment. It wasn’t the sort of decision she liked to make, but she couldn’t let the Doctor walk away from her again.
Jonny grunted in his sleep and pitched onto his side, his face half buried by the duvet and, in the flash of a moment, Rose made her decision. She pulled his bedroom door partway closed, and headed down the stairs. There would be an end to this, and she would make sure of it.
****
There was something magical in the reflection of the moon on water. It didn’t matter that he knew every fact about the ever-present celestial body, from its size and circumference to the patterns of its many craters and rift valleys, its beauty never failed to draw him. Its loneliness up there in the wide night spoke to him, and he felt a certain kindred with it. He, too, was seemingly tied to this planet, orbiting it forever, exacting his own pull upon its inhabitants.
And it was going to be difficult to extract him from that orbit. Surgery would be required. But it was for the best. Rose had built a life for herself here in this town and she had proved, ten times over, that she could live happily and comfortably without him. She didn’t need him. And, like always, he was better off alone. That was the way things were, and he’d been foolish to think that they could be otherwise.
His boat was exactly where he’d left it that morning, still moored up alongside the jetty at the sailing marina, looking out of place next to the expensive dinghies and shiny white yachts. If someone had chanced to be walking down the harbour road in the dead of night, they would have taken one look at him in his worn jeans and checked shirt and seen a lonely fisherman, heading off for the day. The irony was palpable: to a stranger he fit right in here.
He took a deep breath to calm his confused and desperate hearts and loosened the mooring ropes, the heavy weight of them somehow comforting in his hands; pacing the length of the boat, he made the final checks for disembarking, then braced himself on the side to jump aboard.
But footsteps made him pause. The marina was so quiet; the only sounds the clinking of sails in the vague and gentle breeze; that the footsteps seemed louder than they ought to be. He turned. Behind him, about ten paces away, stood Rose, her hair unbrushed and her cheeks a little flushed. She came to a halt and her dark eyes settled on him. Her face was impassive.
“So, Doctor,” she said, in a voice preternaturally calm. “Leaving me on a beach again?”
She could not have chosen more poignant words; they flew to his ears and sank into him like the cold blades of an assassin. He felt the blood drain from his face. His discomfort was obvious, but Rose made no move towards him. Instead she pierced him with her gaze and waited for him to respond.
“Rose, I…” He paused, lip quivering. Running away from moments like this had ruled his entire life; emotions were unwieldy things at the best of times, and right now he felt like he was being held hostage by them. Silence measured out the seconds. “Rose, I can’t stay here,” he murmured finally. “This isn’t me. This life you live here… this fantastic life… it’s not who I am.” He shook his head. “Twelve hours ago, I was John Smith, a fisherman from Lerwick. Now I’m this intergalactic Time Lord. Neither of those roles fit very comfortably here.”
“Doctor…” she began, but he cut her off with another shake of his head.
“Let me finish,” he said. “While you were sleeping, I was thinking: if I had stopped and thought for just a few minutes about what I might have found here, I’m not sure I would have made the same choices I did. But I was so swept away with my own feelings, and what I wanted, that I never stopped to consider the possibilities.”
Her eyes were boring into him and he lowered his gaze, looking down at the jetty. “You don’t need me. You’ve got everything you ever wanted.”
There was a long pause. Rose looked away, blinking as if tears had already sprung to her eyes. When she spoke again, there was anger in her tone: “Okay… all right… that’s fine. But let me ask you something, Doctor… When you were getting this all straight in your mind, did you ever stop and ask me what I wanted?” She looked back at him and, yes, it was clear now - there were tears in her eyes. “I’ve lived my life here for ten years without you, and yes, I’ve done well. I’ve got a lot of wonderful things; I’ve loved and laughed and made my life worth living. But in all of that time, I’ve never stopped wondering what I was missing because I didn’t have you with me.” She paused, wiping her eyes. “I meant what I said on that beach: I love you. I’ve loved you for a very long time, and I swear… I swear if you leave me again, I don’t know what you’ll leave behind.”
Rose seemed to know she’d forced his hand, because she took a step towards him, so that just a couple of paces separated them. The Doctor stared at her, then shook his head. “You want me to stay here, and I can’t do that, Rose.”
She blew air out in a short huff, smiling wryly. “No, I never said that’s what I wanted.” She shook her head. “Once again, Doctor, you’ve rushed off headlong and assumed for me. Yes, I’ve got my son to think about, but I’ve also got the fact that he has a father now, and that father just happens to be you - in case you’d forgotten.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again when he realised he had nothing to say to that. “Your son needs you. I need you. And I came looking for you in the first place because nothing is more important to me than putting the pieces of this family back together. How we do that is not an issue. We can stay here, living this life I’ve lived for the last ten years, or we can go wherever you want to take us. I don’t care as long as we’re together.”
Silence stretched between them, pulled tight like a tripwire. The Doctor could feel his hearts thumping in his chest, so loud that it seemed impossible that she couldn’t hear them out loud. “You’d come with me?” he asked in a small voice.
“Yes.”
A beat, then another. Slowly, the Doctor smiled. He spread his arms and in one stride he was upon her, sweeping her up into his embrace, pressing his face to her neck. His relief and joy were so much that they bubbled up out of him in a breathless laugh. Rose brought her hand up to the back of his head and pressed him against her, the laughter infecting her as well. “Oh, Rassilon,” he murmured against her skin. “What did I do to ever deserve you?”
She pulled away from him just far enough to look back into his eyes. “You came looking for me.”
And that was it. That moment was the reason for it all. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, stepped into her mind again, and became her.
The End.
(I honestly can’t thank people enough for all the support that’s come with this fic - I am truly blown away by the response. You are all far too good to me.)
Author - joely_jo
Characters - Ten/Rose, Mickey, OCs
Rating - R (for language and adult content)
Summary - With the events of Doomsday just a distant memory, Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith make a discovery that they cannot leave alone. But what they find will take Rose on a journey she never expected. Will she come to terms with what she’s faced with, or will the carefully constructed life she’s built for herself come crashing down?
Author’s Notes - I confess to a little recycling with this fic. The idea for this story actually began with the fic I wrote for the OSK Summer Lovin’ Ficathon, The Storm Inside, which in turn was inspired by watching the episodes Human Nature and Family of Blood. I thought it would be interesting to look at what happened to Rose post-Doomsday, but also to try to portray what I perceive to be the unconditional attraction between the Doctor and Rose. I swore I was going to scale down my DW writing after Myths and Legends, but here we are again… It’s another long one, so I hope you enjoy it!
Many thanks to my betas sensiblecat and most especially aibhinn without whose reassurance I may never have worked up the guts to post this.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
There had indeed been much to say. The initial exhilaration of the afternoon had waned into an evening of quieter revelations and remembrances, each one tinted with the gravity of what had happened, until darkness fell and Jonny’s battles to stay awake began to become futile. The Doctor watched as Rose bundled her sleepy son up the stairs, ruffling his unruly hair and smiling at his yawns and protestations, then found himself alone. He could hear the soft sounds of a regular bedtime routine through the floorboards - water running, teeth being brushed, slippers hitting the floor.
He stood and walked to the fireplace. Several silver framed photographs decorated the oak mantelpiece, and the Doctor picked out the image of a tired but overjoyed Rose holding a tiny bundle of pink flesh and flyaway brown hair, a picture of Mickey and a toddling Jonny messily eating ice creams topped with Cadbury Flakes, and another more recent one of Jonny standing next to the nameplate of the HMS Victory. It was family life, he realised as he stared; the sort of pictures that charted the memorable moments of her day to day existence. Normality.
Suddenly he was struck by how different her life was now. Everything was in its place and she had everyone around her who really mattered to her. There was nothing remotely alien or unusual in those pictures, and the most unpredictable thing was the wobbliness of Jonny’s ice cream as he slurped happily at his treat. It was a far cry from life in the TARDIS with him.
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs broke into his thoughts. Rose appeared in the doorway, dressed for bed and smiling. “Out like a light,” she explained.
The Doctor nodded. “And you’re tired as well,” he noted, indicating her pink cotton pyjamas with a tilt of his head.
“It’s been a busy day.”
Silence, then; stilted and a little uneasy. The Doctor shifted his feet uncertainly. There were a hundred reasons why he should say something, anything, but words were suddenly beyond him. In the space of six hours, everything had changed between them and he wasn’t sure how to reconcile what they were now with what had gone before. Finally, Rose spoke, her voice determinedly brave. “Come to bed with me?” she asked.
He looked up from the floor. He looked at the photographs, then at her dark, hopeful eyes. “Yes,” he said, simply.
****
It was a vast and barren plain. Wind howled from nowhere and a terrible cold gripped his bones. He worked the bicycle pump in a state of panic, peering at the viewscreen monitor and seeing nothing but emptiness. Darkness curled like burnt paper at the edges of his vision and he could feel the plummeting as the TARDIS spun towards oblivion, out of the Vortex, towards the barrier.
His hearts pounded as he heard his ship groaning with the strain of breaking through the Vortex. A sound like bone scratching against metal filled his ears as something gouged into its sides, clawing and grabbing as if the very energy that rippled in the Vortex was coming alive, malevolent and desperately trying to hold him back.
But he kept on. One glance at the instruments on the console told him things were worse than his calculations had anticipated. In the years he’d worked for this, planning and preparing and searching, he’d never thought that he could have underestimated so wildly. He wheeled around, leaping sideways to slam a lever down and jiggle a switch. “Come on, come on,” he chanted.
A roaring began to fill the TARDIS, and the wind broke inside, and suddenly, it felt as if he was being blasted with sand, pushing him backwards and down. The Doctor grabbed onto the console and yelled against the gust, his head feeling as if it was crushing in on itself. On the viewscreen he could see the plain widening out, growing darker and disappearing into infinity. The barrier glittered ahead like a string of crackling energy - he had to get through it, had to, had to. There was no way back now.
There was a groan and then the TARDIS pitched, sending him crashing to the floor. A klaxon sounded. The Doctor glanced up and saw smoke pouring from the console; the ship pitched again, rolling and then plummeting. Panic gripped him. The ship was falling. Oh, Rassilon, his ship was dying.
He woke with a start. His skin was on fire; sweat coated his body in a sticky sheen and he was gasping for breath. His head echoed with vague images of the destructive power of the barrier between the universes. Abruptly he realised where he was - the smell of clean linen, lilac room freshener and that sweet, musky scent that was definably Rose filled his nose - and he froze. The house was silent, save for the occasional creak and the soft hush rush of her breathing as she lay beside him, apparently undisturbed by his terror.
Rolling his head towards her, he saw that she was curled up on her side, her arms crossed in front of her chest in an obviously protective gesture. Her eyelids fluttered in a chaos of dreams, but unlike his, hers were clearly pleasant, judging by the faint smile on her lips. She looked so different from before; older, yes, but also softer, gentler, as if she was comfortable with her life. He supposed that was what happened when you had children. Or at least, what happened if you were human and had children.
That thought caused him to release a breath that felt like it had been building for hours. He was a father. And this time it was much more than a simple donation of genetic material for the Looms. This time there was Responsibility.
He rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb her, and stared at the room he was in. It was all creams and pale blues and understated elegance, nothing at all like the pink, teenage, youthful room Rose had kept aboard the TARDIS. A dressing table held a triptych mirror, a number of coloured glass perfume bottles, an ebony jewellery box and a set of old-fashioned silver hair and clothes brushes; in other corners of the room were a large wardrobe, an overflowing bookcase and an antique chair. A low bench nestled beneath the sash window and he sat down on it, sighing as he looked down on the perfectly manicured lawn with its Wimbledon stripes.
While his eyes had been closed, everything had changed. As if the edges of reality had twisted and distorted. He glanced back to the woman lying in the bed, someone who he had once known so well he could have pointed out the position of every freckle on her body, but whom he now felt was only a familiar stranger. A businesswoman and a mother: she’d done exactly what he’d told her to do - she’d lived a fantastic life. And what place did he have now in such a life? For all the effort he’d gone to, what had he got to show for it? He was a lost man in somebody else’s life.
He sighed. Gathering up his clothes from the chair, he dressed, and then with quiet steps he moved to the doorway and stood there for a moment, one hand on the frame, looking back at her slumbering form. Rose twitched in her sleep but did not stir. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m really sorry.”
And then he left.
****
There was no telling what exactly woke Rose. It could have been a number of things, from the soft click of the front door to the sound of retreating footsteps on the driveway. Later she would consider whether it had been some super-sensory perception of his absence, like the hollow sensation that had descended on her after his image faded on that Norwegian beach. But, whatever it was, she found herself awake in the blink of an eye and staring at a wide expanse of empty mattress beside her.
It took her a moment to orient herself and realise that the sheets were cold and she was alone. Listening, she realised that the house was now utterly silent. Night coated her bedroom in an eerie combination of moonlight and the artificial amber glow from the streetlamp outside the window. She rolled out of the bed and stood. His shoes and clothes were missing from the back of the dressing chair he’d laid them on before they’d retired and she realised instinctively that he was gone, and it was somewhere further than the back garden for a breath of fresh air.
She pulled on fresh underwear, then picked her jeans and running sweater out of the cupboard; trainers were nudged onto her feet, the laces tied hastily, and she headed down the corridor. A glance in at Jonny’s room told her he was fast asleep. For a moment she stood torn between two options: manhandle him out of bed and take him with her, his inevitable sleepiness and lack of cooperation slowing her down, or lock the house up and leave him here with a note and a key on the kitchen table, in the hope that he would sleep on unawares. Perhaps she should ring Mickey? She laboured for a moment. It wasn’t the sort of decision she liked to make, but she couldn’t let the Doctor walk away from her again.
Jonny grunted in his sleep and pitched onto his side, his face half buried by the duvet and, in the flash of a moment, Rose made her decision. She pulled his bedroom door partway closed, and headed down the stairs. There would be an end to this, and she would make sure of it.
****
There was something magical in the reflection of the moon on water. It didn’t matter that he knew every fact about the ever-present celestial body, from its size and circumference to the patterns of its many craters and rift valleys, its beauty never failed to draw him. Its loneliness up there in the wide night spoke to him, and he felt a certain kindred with it. He, too, was seemingly tied to this planet, orbiting it forever, exacting his own pull upon its inhabitants.
And it was going to be difficult to extract him from that orbit. Surgery would be required. But it was for the best. Rose had built a life for herself here in this town and she had proved, ten times over, that she could live happily and comfortably without him. She didn’t need him. And, like always, he was better off alone. That was the way things were, and he’d been foolish to think that they could be otherwise.
His boat was exactly where he’d left it that morning, still moored up alongside the jetty at the sailing marina, looking out of place next to the expensive dinghies and shiny white yachts. If someone had chanced to be walking down the harbour road in the dead of night, they would have taken one look at him in his worn jeans and checked shirt and seen a lonely fisherman, heading off for the day. The irony was palpable: to a stranger he fit right in here.
He took a deep breath to calm his confused and desperate hearts and loosened the mooring ropes, the heavy weight of them somehow comforting in his hands; pacing the length of the boat, he made the final checks for disembarking, then braced himself on the side to jump aboard.
But footsteps made him pause. The marina was so quiet; the only sounds the clinking of sails in the vague and gentle breeze; that the footsteps seemed louder than they ought to be. He turned. Behind him, about ten paces away, stood Rose, her hair unbrushed and her cheeks a little flushed. She came to a halt and her dark eyes settled on him. Her face was impassive.
“So, Doctor,” she said, in a voice preternaturally calm. “Leaving me on a beach again?”
She could not have chosen more poignant words; they flew to his ears and sank into him like the cold blades of an assassin. He felt the blood drain from his face. His discomfort was obvious, but Rose made no move towards him. Instead she pierced him with her gaze and waited for him to respond.
“Rose, I…” He paused, lip quivering. Running away from moments like this had ruled his entire life; emotions were unwieldy things at the best of times, and right now he felt like he was being held hostage by them. Silence measured out the seconds. “Rose, I can’t stay here,” he murmured finally. “This isn’t me. This life you live here… this fantastic life… it’s not who I am.” He shook his head. “Twelve hours ago, I was John Smith, a fisherman from Lerwick. Now I’m this intergalactic Time Lord. Neither of those roles fit very comfortably here.”
“Doctor…” she began, but he cut her off with another shake of his head.
“Let me finish,” he said. “While you were sleeping, I was thinking: if I had stopped and thought for just a few minutes about what I might have found here, I’m not sure I would have made the same choices I did. But I was so swept away with my own feelings, and what I wanted, that I never stopped to consider the possibilities.”
Her eyes were boring into him and he lowered his gaze, looking down at the jetty. “You don’t need me. You’ve got everything you ever wanted.”
There was a long pause. Rose looked away, blinking as if tears had already sprung to her eyes. When she spoke again, there was anger in her tone: “Okay… all right… that’s fine. But let me ask you something, Doctor… When you were getting this all straight in your mind, did you ever stop and ask me what I wanted?” She looked back at him and, yes, it was clear now - there were tears in her eyes. “I’ve lived my life here for ten years without you, and yes, I’ve done well. I’ve got a lot of wonderful things; I’ve loved and laughed and made my life worth living. But in all of that time, I’ve never stopped wondering what I was missing because I didn’t have you with me.” She paused, wiping her eyes. “I meant what I said on that beach: I love you. I’ve loved you for a very long time, and I swear… I swear if you leave me again, I don’t know what you’ll leave behind.”
Rose seemed to know she’d forced his hand, because she took a step towards him, so that just a couple of paces separated them. The Doctor stared at her, then shook his head. “You want me to stay here, and I can’t do that, Rose.”
She blew air out in a short huff, smiling wryly. “No, I never said that’s what I wanted.” She shook her head. “Once again, Doctor, you’ve rushed off headlong and assumed for me. Yes, I’ve got my son to think about, but I’ve also got the fact that he has a father now, and that father just happens to be you - in case you’d forgotten.”
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again when he realised he had nothing to say to that. “Your son needs you. I need you. And I came looking for you in the first place because nothing is more important to me than putting the pieces of this family back together. How we do that is not an issue. We can stay here, living this life I’ve lived for the last ten years, or we can go wherever you want to take us. I don’t care as long as we’re together.”
Silence stretched between them, pulled tight like a tripwire. The Doctor could feel his hearts thumping in his chest, so loud that it seemed impossible that she couldn’t hear them out loud. “You’d come with me?” he asked in a small voice.
“Yes.”
A beat, then another. Slowly, the Doctor smiled. He spread his arms and in one stride he was upon her, sweeping her up into his embrace, pressing his face to her neck. His relief and joy were so much that they bubbled up out of him in a breathless laugh. Rose brought her hand up to the back of his head and pressed him against her, the laughter infecting her as well. “Oh, Rassilon,” he murmured against her skin. “What did I do to ever deserve you?”
She pulled away from him just far enough to look back into his eyes. “You came looking for me.”
And that was it. That moment was the reason for it all. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, stepped into her mind again, and became her.
The End.
(I honestly can’t thank people enough for all the support that’s come with this fic - I am truly blown away by the response. You are all far too good to me.)