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It Isn't Home Without You, TenII/Rose, (PG)
What will he do without her hand to hold?, 3962
They are silent most of the way from Bad Wolf Bay back to the Tyler mansion. Rose spends most of the journey staring out the window, the back of her hand pressed against her mouth. Their hands are still linked, but hers is limp and passive in his. He tries to withdraw once or twice, but each time he does her grip tightens and refuses to let him go.
This confuses him even more than her distance, but seeing the pain written in every corner of her face, he knows he cannot refuse her. He - they - have done enough to her. He can refuse her nothing ever again. She doesn't seem to want him, but she still needs him, and he tries to take comfort in that.
It's Jackie who ends up filling the silence, first in the zeppelin, then in the car, chattering on about life in this universe and Pete’s business successes and Tony’s antics. At first he tries to stop her, tempted to tell her to shut up, Jackie, can't you see that Rose is trying to deal with something here, just give us all some time to think.
But then he glances up and catches the look on her face. It's a look he knows all too well, one that says I know what you're going through, and I am so, so sorry. He lets her keep talking after that.
When they reach the mansion, Rose decides to go straight to bed, and Jackie takes him to a guest room a couple of doors down from Rose's bedroom.
They follow several steps behind Rose, and though he responds to Jackie's attempts at conversation with noncommittal monosyllables, he is grateful that she is trying to accommodate him and make him feel welcome in this life that feels so very alien to everything he has ever known.
But as he gazes at the back of Rose's head and resists the urge to stride forward and grab her hand, he can't help the despair that washes through him. He had thought for a while on that beach that he was going to have someone to share this new life with. He had thought that he would have someone to help him become all that he could be, all that he was supposed to be.
What will he do without her hand to hold?
When Rose opens the door to her room, he can't help turning to catch a glimpse inside. What strikes him is its bareness. There are no clothes strewn on the bed, no knick-knacks or photographs or personal items scattered on the dresser, no gadgets or electronics lying on the floor.
As the door closes without Rose saying another word, he realises that she had never meant to come back to this life. She had always intended to find him - the other him - so they could go back to being the Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS. And now she has been left here, in a universe that isn't even her own, with a man who is and isn't the one she tried so hard to find.
A dark, heavy feeling settles over him. Whatever he had intended to give her, whatever he can give her now - it was never what she had wanted. He was never what she had wanted.
* * * * * * *
One afternoon, Jackie catches him standing at a window, watching Rose play with Tony in the garden. She stands beside him for a minute in silence, and he is careful to smooth away the sadness on his face when he feels her looking at him.
"She'll come 'round, you'll see," she tells him quietly.
He watches Rose laugh with Tony and the sound of it is like something sharp tearing through his chest.
"She made her choice." His voice sounds weak and strangled, so he sniffs and shoves his hands in his pockets to cover over the moment.
"Yeah," Jackie agrees, and if his voice was unnaturally unsteady, then hers is unnaturally gentle. "But she chose the Doctor. And that's you, too."
Placing a reassuring hand on his arm, she adds, "You might be different, but you're also the Doctor. Underneath it all."
He looks down at her and is surprised by the depth of empathy and understanding in her eyes. But as she pats his shoulder and walks away, he realises that of course she would understand. She's the woman who married a man who is and isn't her husband.
As the door shuts behind her, he turns back to the window. The dying sunlight glints off Rose's hair as she darts forward to catch a giggling Tony, and he finds himself smiling despite his melancholy thoughts.
Different, but still the Doctor. He thinks that maybe he can believe that. He wonders if Rose ever will.
* * * * * * *
He's not surprised when Rose comes home one evening and announces to the family (carefully avoiding his gaze, of course) that she's going to move out. She's been living a temporary life in this universe ever since the first time she was left here, and he cautiously takes it as a good sign that she has decided to make it a permanent one.
He tries to ignore the voice in his head that whispers that she is doing this because she has to, not because she wants to.
The day after she finds a flat, he offers to help move her things and all the extra furniture and appliances the Tylers insist on giving her. He adds "If you want," and inwardly cringes at the reminder of that day on the beach when he had offered her his life and thought she would take it.
She accepts his help. He suspects it's because she has no-one else to ask, with Pete at work all the time and Mickey gone, but then she attempts to give him a smile, the first since they left Bad Wolf Bay, and he decides it doesn't matter.
They work mostly in silence at first, punctuated with innocuous comments about the heaviness of the couch or instructions about where to place the chairs. And then she uncovers a flat-packed shelving unit. As they puzzle over the instructions and fiddle with all the different parts, laughing as they take turns trying to fit the bits and pieces together, something shifts between them and it's almost like old times again.
"I think that bit goes here," he says. As he reaches for the part, their hands brush.
Rose jerks her hand back as if she's been burned, and though she looks down and pretends she only did so to pick up a screw, he feels the energy between them shift back. His heart sinks and they go back to working in silence.
At the end of the day they stand in the living room, looking around at the furniture and empty boxes and anywhere except at each other. It's impossibly sad and terrifyingly awkward, and when Rose mentions that she's tired and has an early start at Torchwood tomorrow, he leaves without calling her on her feeble excuse.
When he gets back to the Tyler mansion, he leans in the doorway of Rose's empty room and breathes slowly, in and out, focusing on the beating of his single heart and trying not to think about the look of pain that had blossomed on her face when he had touched her.
* * * * * * *
Without Rose, the mansion feels vast and empty and constricting all at the same time. He feels like he has been imprisoned behind four walls and a door, and his feet itch to run again.
Pete finds him work, and he becomes a kind of freelance consultant on all things alien. He travels all over the world to places where Torchwood has no jurisdiction or influence, solving problems and warding off invasions.
It's not quite the same without the TARDIS or the sonic screwdriver. It's not quite the same with his half-human body, which tires too quickly and needs so much more of all those things he'd never needed much of in that other body - food, water, sleep. But mostly it's not the same because Rose isn't with him, and she was supposed to be running by his side.
Even with all the travelling, he bases himself at the Tyler mansion, partly because he has nowhere else to go, and partly because he knows it's the only way he can be sure to stay in contact with Rose. And in truth, he has become fond of the Tylers in their own right. He loves them because they knew him as he was, but they accept him as he is, something that Rose seems incapable of doing.
She comes over for dinner every weekend, sometimes more. On the days when those visits coincide with when he is between trips, they make forced, polite conversation and pretend that their stiffness and feigned indifference doesn't hurt. She never stays alone in his presence for more than a minute and avoids looking at him for very long. He knows that the mere sight of him is still too painful a reminder of the other self who walked away from her all those months ago.
As much as he still loves to see her and hear her voice, he begins to dread her visits. Now that he is living some semblance of his own life, there are times when he feels like himself - not just the Doctor, but something more, something new and unique and yet still him. Sometimes he's out on a job and he's running and running, and he can believe what Jackie said to him so long ago, that he is Different and the Doctor all at the same time.
And then he comes back to London and Rose looks at him like he has broken her heart merely by existing. He knows that she thinks about his other self every time she looks at him. When he is with her, all he feels is Different.
It begins to turn him sad and bitter, and soon there are more and more days when the people he is sent to help end up dealing not with the Doctor but with the Oncoming Storm.
* * * * * *
One Saturday evening after dinner, while Pete's taking a call and Jackie's putting Tony to bed, he wanders into the sitting room and finds Rose standing by the window with a glass of wine in her hand. She's gazing up at the stars, and he is suddenly reminded of a night in Versailles when he stood in exactly the same position. He can't see her face, but he's sure her expression mirrors the one that he imagines must have been on his face that night.
Her wistfulness saddens him because once upon a time he had been the one she turned to when she was feeling lost and lonely, but this is a loneliness his presence can't fix. He's about to slip away when she speaks.
"If he came back for you, would you go? Back home to the TARDIS, that other universe?"
He thinks about it, and maybe it's because he's tired of tiptoeing around her, or maybe it's because she's not facing him, but he's able to answer with total, painful honesty: "It wouldn't be home without you."
It might be his imagination, but he thinks he sees her shoulders sag just a tiny bit, and her body angle slightly towards him. He wonders if telling her once more that he loves her and needs her is enough to melt the distance that has been frozen between them since Bad Wolf Bay. He wonders if it's enough for her to let go of that other man and discover the one waiting patiently behind her with his one heart, one life, in his hands.
But he can't help turning her question back at her, because if nothing else, the last several months have taught him not to trust in hope.
"Would you go back with him?"
His unspoken without me hangs precariously in the air.
She stiffens and sips her wine. Her silence tells him everything he needs to know.
* * * * * *
He begins to make excuses not to return to London between jobs. Every few weeks Jackie calls and asks if he's coming back to visit, but every time he tells her he's tied up or busy or has to leave the next day, and soon she stops asking.
He becomes the lonely traveller once more, roaming, nomadic, from place to place. If he hasn't got another job lined up, he wanders whatever country he happens to be in until Pete calls with a new assignment. He refuses to accept help or let anyone come with him on his journeys. He becomes reckless and foolhardy, making challenges instead of peace and ignoring instructions to do whatever he feels is best at the time.
I'm better off alone, he thinks. If she doesn't want me, then that's fine. I don't need her. I don't need anyone.
His human heart bubbles and boils with too many emotions - anger, loneliness, loss, despair - and it is only a matter of time before it all spills over and threatens to wipe him out completely.
The moment comes during what should have been a routine inspection of alien tech for the tiny branch of UNIT located in Australia. He discovers that the five small silver globes that UNIT uncovered near a satellite crash site are actually fully-weaponised security droids stranded on Earth after an engineering fault caused them to be jettisoned from a passing Abodreen ship.
Left on Earth with no knowledge of the surroundings, the droids resort to default: defence. And in this case, defence means destroying every unfamiliar life form they come across.
He tries to stop them, he tries so hard, but despite his best efforts, two people end up mortally injured and several others are rushed to hospital. All his efforts to shut the droids down remotely have failed and now there's nothing left to do but trap them in a nearby abandoned textiles factory and find some way to destroy them.
While the remaining UNIT soldiers set the explosives, he paces the perimeter, angry at his failure, angry at Rose for letting him walk away and deal with all of this on his own, angry at his whole life.
He's so tired of running on his own. He's tired of pretending he's okay with the way that his life in this universe has turned out.
The turmoil of negative emotions distracts him from the hole in the defences. It's the shattering of glass and the scream of terror that snap him back to the present, and then he's grabbing the detonator and running, hoping against hope that this will not be yet another failure to add to his growing toll.
A droid has managed to burst through one of the technologically-thickened windows and is facing down one of the soldiers, a girl named Jen. He races over to her, taking up a discarded piece of pipe as he goes, and yells at her to run, just get out, get everybody out. He leaps forward and deflects the jab of a three-pronged blade just in time while Jen cowers behind him.
"Didn't you hear me?" he shouts, taking another swing at the droid. "You have to go now! I have to get this thing back inside and detonate the building before they all escape!"
"But if you stay here, you'll -"
He manages to knock the droid forcefully back against the wall, and as it recovers he turns to Jen, nothing but fury on his face.
"Get out," he roars, and with a final terrified glance at both him and the droid, she scrambles away, speaking rapidly into her communicator and calling for retreat.
He manages to lure the droid back inside the factory and soon he's surrounded by all five of them. As he holds up the detonator, he thinks absently that this is the moment when he would normally make some kind of grand speech or witty quip or at least offer one more chance for surrender.
But he decides it doesn't matter this time. Nothing matters. Because he's pretty sure he won't get out of this one, and to his surprise, he doesn't care.
The explosives are small, but effective - the sound is deafening, and suddenly, the whole building is crumbling around him and droids are being knocked down and crushed by the debris.
Despite his dark intentions, some deeper self-preservational instinct kicks in and he finds himself running, stumbling, trying to find an exit.
He's almost clear when a falling beam swings down and knocks him like a rag doll into a pile of rubble.
Pain tears through his arm and his side, and people are yelling his name now, and as he slips into unconsciousness, he thinks that Donna was right: he does need someone. He's always needed someone.
The last thing he thinks before everything goes dark is Rose.
* * * * * *
When he wakes up he's in a hospital bed. The nurse informs him that Pete found out what happened almost immediately and arranged for him to be flown back to London. He has a broken arm, extensive bruising down his left side, several grazes, and a few minor burns. He's very lucky not to have more serious injuries, and his family have made sure that he will have the best of care.
He decides not to ask who's included in his 'family'. He's afraid of the answer.
When he's released from the hospital, Jackie and Pete insist that he move back into the mansion while he finishes recovering. He doesn't object. He would never admit it, but he's missed them, even Jackie and her nagging.
They both swear that Rose knows nothing about it, as she's been out of contact while on a remote assignment for Torchwood in Papua New Guinea for the past two weeks. He's relieved by this. He's not sure he could have handled finding out that she knew what had happened and yet had chosen not to come and see him.
It's still a surprise when, three days after being released from the hospital, he opens his door to go downstairs for breakfast and Rose is standing there, hand poised to knock.
"Rose," he breathes, his voice catching in his throat. He hasn't spoken to or seen her since that night when she'd asked him if he would leave.
She gives him a faint, wobbly smile and brushes some hair out of her eyes. "Hi."
It's obvious that she's nervous, the way her eyes flick from the sling around his arm to his face to somewhere past his left ear. It's contagious, and sets him on edge.
"What... are - are you here to see your parents? Pete's working, and Jackie's gone for some beauty appointment, so..." He trails off, because of course she knows all this; she's their daughter.
So that means she's here for him. Just to see him. He has trouble processing this information.
"I came to see if you're okay. Mum left me a message as soon as Pete told her what happened. I'm sorry, I'd've been here sooner, but I couldn't get away, and..."
"Rose. It's fine. You don't owe me an explanation." He shrugs and tries to tamp down the rising hopefulness deep in his chest. Rose is just being… Rose, he tells himself firmly. Caring about people, all people. Because that’s what she does.
"I'm alright, see?" He raises his good arm, presenting himself for her inspection, and tries to smile at her in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. "I'm always alright."
To his surprise, her eyes well up and she shakes her head slowly. "You're so... you," she whispers.
Brow furrowed, he asks too sharply, "What?"
Rose lets out a breath that is part sigh, part mirthless laughter. "He asked me to help you, to make you better, and I just let you go. I should've been with you, should've stopped you. I should've been with you all this time."
He narrows his eyes. "I'm not a puppy that needs constant looking-after."
"I know that." She blinks at him, hurt, and he wishes he knew how to react to her sudden openness with something more than apprehension and defensiveness.
"I just..." Rose sighs and brings a hand to her forehead, staring at the carpet beneath her feet. "He was right. He's... you. And you're... you're everythin' he was - is - and more. I should've seen that earlier." She looks up at him and lets her hand drop to her side. Everything about her posture, her expression, her voice is full of honesty. "I'm sorry."
He stares at her for a long time. He's imagined her saying these things a hundred times, but now that she actually is, he doesn't know how to feel. Because now, it's not enough that she simply acknowledges who he is and apologises for what happened between them in the past. He needs to know what is in their future - if, indeed, they have any kind of future as a 'they'.
Finally, he heaves a weary sigh and rubs his hand over his face. "What do you want, Rose? I just..."
She cuts him off by reaching out to take hold of his sleeve. This time, when her eyes travel upwards, they meet his steadily, and he is taken aback by the emotions in their depths.
"I spent all this time missin' him, and I missed out on you because of it. I don't wanna miss you any more. It's not the same, knowin' you're out there somewhere without me - and I don't mean him, I mean you. I know you're him, and I know you're different, and I just... I wanna know you."
He can't tear his gaze away from her. His heart is pounding in his ears, and all that hope he had tried to stamp down is clawing its way up his chest, demanding to be felt. He has to consciously remember to breathe.
"Rose-"
"Wait, let me finish," she interrupts. She lets go of his sleeve to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. "D'you remember the last time we saw each other? When you told me... when you told me you wouldn't be home without me?"
Of course he does. He nods mutely, swallowing, his whole body humming with apprehension.
"Come home, Doctor," she says softly. "I want you to come home."
They gaze at each other for one long second, and then he threads his hand through the hair at the nape of her neck, pulls her to him and kisses her.
She doesn’t hesitate, but kisses him back just as fiercely, her hands coming up to touch his neck, his face, to pull him closer. Now, with her lips searching his, he realises just how starved he’s been of her touch.
It is unlike any other kiss they’ve shared before, whether in this body or his other one. This kiss is something new, something they are sharing and creating away from the shadow of his other self. It is tender and passionate and emotional, a kiss that is so different and yet at the core of it, so very them.
His broken arm is pinned between their bodies, but he doesn't care because her lips are against his, and she wants him, she wants him, the man who is Different and the Doctor at the same time.
Here, in her arms, he is finally home.
Fin
What will he do without her hand to hold?, 3962
They are silent most of the way from Bad Wolf Bay back to the Tyler mansion. Rose spends most of the journey staring out the window, the back of her hand pressed against her mouth. Their hands are still linked, but hers is limp and passive in his. He tries to withdraw once or twice, but each time he does her grip tightens and refuses to let him go.
This confuses him even more than her distance, but seeing the pain written in every corner of her face, he knows he cannot refuse her. He - they - have done enough to her. He can refuse her nothing ever again. She doesn't seem to want him, but she still needs him, and he tries to take comfort in that.
It's Jackie who ends up filling the silence, first in the zeppelin, then in the car, chattering on about life in this universe and Pete’s business successes and Tony’s antics. At first he tries to stop her, tempted to tell her to shut up, Jackie, can't you see that Rose is trying to deal with something here, just give us all some time to think.
But then he glances up and catches the look on her face. It's a look he knows all too well, one that says I know what you're going through, and I am so, so sorry. He lets her keep talking after that.
When they reach the mansion, Rose decides to go straight to bed, and Jackie takes him to a guest room a couple of doors down from Rose's bedroom.
They follow several steps behind Rose, and though he responds to Jackie's attempts at conversation with noncommittal monosyllables, he is grateful that she is trying to accommodate him and make him feel welcome in this life that feels so very alien to everything he has ever known.
But as he gazes at the back of Rose's head and resists the urge to stride forward and grab her hand, he can't help the despair that washes through him. He had thought for a while on that beach that he was going to have someone to share this new life with. He had thought that he would have someone to help him become all that he could be, all that he was supposed to be.
What will he do without her hand to hold?
When Rose opens the door to her room, he can't help turning to catch a glimpse inside. What strikes him is its bareness. There are no clothes strewn on the bed, no knick-knacks or photographs or personal items scattered on the dresser, no gadgets or electronics lying on the floor.
As the door closes without Rose saying another word, he realises that she had never meant to come back to this life. She had always intended to find him - the other him - so they could go back to being the Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS. And now she has been left here, in a universe that isn't even her own, with a man who is and isn't the one she tried so hard to find.
A dark, heavy feeling settles over him. Whatever he had intended to give her, whatever he can give her now - it was never what she had wanted. He was never what she had wanted.
* * * * * * *
One afternoon, Jackie catches him standing at a window, watching Rose play with Tony in the garden. She stands beside him for a minute in silence, and he is careful to smooth away the sadness on his face when he feels her looking at him.
"She'll come 'round, you'll see," she tells him quietly.
He watches Rose laugh with Tony and the sound of it is like something sharp tearing through his chest.
"She made her choice." His voice sounds weak and strangled, so he sniffs and shoves his hands in his pockets to cover over the moment.
"Yeah," Jackie agrees, and if his voice was unnaturally unsteady, then hers is unnaturally gentle. "But she chose the Doctor. And that's you, too."
Placing a reassuring hand on his arm, she adds, "You might be different, but you're also the Doctor. Underneath it all."
He looks down at her and is surprised by the depth of empathy and understanding in her eyes. But as she pats his shoulder and walks away, he realises that of course she would understand. She's the woman who married a man who is and isn't her husband.
As the door shuts behind her, he turns back to the window. The dying sunlight glints off Rose's hair as she darts forward to catch a giggling Tony, and he finds himself smiling despite his melancholy thoughts.
Different, but still the Doctor. He thinks that maybe he can believe that. He wonders if Rose ever will.
* * * * * * *
He's not surprised when Rose comes home one evening and announces to the family (carefully avoiding his gaze, of course) that she's going to move out. She's been living a temporary life in this universe ever since the first time she was left here, and he cautiously takes it as a good sign that she has decided to make it a permanent one.
He tries to ignore the voice in his head that whispers that she is doing this because she has to, not because she wants to.
The day after she finds a flat, he offers to help move her things and all the extra furniture and appliances the Tylers insist on giving her. He adds "If you want," and inwardly cringes at the reminder of that day on the beach when he had offered her his life and thought she would take it.
She accepts his help. He suspects it's because she has no-one else to ask, with Pete at work all the time and Mickey gone, but then she attempts to give him a smile, the first since they left Bad Wolf Bay, and he decides it doesn't matter.
They work mostly in silence at first, punctuated with innocuous comments about the heaviness of the couch or instructions about where to place the chairs. And then she uncovers a flat-packed shelving unit. As they puzzle over the instructions and fiddle with all the different parts, laughing as they take turns trying to fit the bits and pieces together, something shifts between them and it's almost like old times again.
"I think that bit goes here," he says. As he reaches for the part, their hands brush.
Rose jerks her hand back as if she's been burned, and though she looks down and pretends she only did so to pick up a screw, he feels the energy between them shift back. His heart sinks and they go back to working in silence.
At the end of the day they stand in the living room, looking around at the furniture and empty boxes and anywhere except at each other. It's impossibly sad and terrifyingly awkward, and when Rose mentions that she's tired and has an early start at Torchwood tomorrow, he leaves without calling her on her feeble excuse.
When he gets back to the Tyler mansion, he leans in the doorway of Rose's empty room and breathes slowly, in and out, focusing on the beating of his single heart and trying not to think about the look of pain that had blossomed on her face when he had touched her.
* * * * * * *
Without Rose, the mansion feels vast and empty and constricting all at the same time. He feels like he has been imprisoned behind four walls and a door, and his feet itch to run again.
Pete finds him work, and he becomes a kind of freelance consultant on all things alien. He travels all over the world to places where Torchwood has no jurisdiction or influence, solving problems and warding off invasions.
It's not quite the same without the TARDIS or the sonic screwdriver. It's not quite the same with his half-human body, which tires too quickly and needs so much more of all those things he'd never needed much of in that other body - food, water, sleep. But mostly it's not the same because Rose isn't with him, and she was supposed to be running by his side.
Even with all the travelling, he bases himself at the Tyler mansion, partly because he has nowhere else to go, and partly because he knows it's the only way he can be sure to stay in contact with Rose. And in truth, he has become fond of the Tylers in their own right. He loves them because they knew him as he was, but they accept him as he is, something that Rose seems incapable of doing.
She comes over for dinner every weekend, sometimes more. On the days when those visits coincide with when he is between trips, they make forced, polite conversation and pretend that their stiffness and feigned indifference doesn't hurt. She never stays alone in his presence for more than a minute and avoids looking at him for very long. He knows that the mere sight of him is still too painful a reminder of the other self who walked away from her all those months ago.
As much as he still loves to see her and hear her voice, he begins to dread her visits. Now that he is living some semblance of his own life, there are times when he feels like himself - not just the Doctor, but something more, something new and unique and yet still him. Sometimes he's out on a job and he's running and running, and he can believe what Jackie said to him so long ago, that he is Different and the Doctor all at the same time.
And then he comes back to London and Rose looks at him like he has broken her heart merely by existing. He knows that she thinks about his other self every time she looks at him. When he is with her, all he feels is Different.
It begins to turn him sad and bitter, and soon there are more and more days when the people he is sent to help end up dealing not with the Doctor but with the Oncoming Storm.
* * * * * *
One Saturday evening after dinner, while Pete's taking a call and Jackie's putting Tony to bed, he wanders into the sitting room and finds Rose standing by the window with a glass of wine in her hand. She's gazing up at the stars, and he is suddenly reminded of a night in Versailles when he stood in exactly the same position. He can't see her face, but he's sure her expression mirrors the one that he imagines must have been on his face that night.
Her wistfulness saddens him because once upon a time he had been the one she turned to when she was feeling lost and lonely, but this is a loneliness his presence can't fix. He's about to slip away when she speaks.
"If he came back for you, would you go? Back home to the TARDIS, that other universe?"
He thinks about it, and maybe it's because he's tired of tiptoeing around her, or maybe it's because she's not facing him, but he's able to answer with total, painful honesty: "It wouldn't be home without you."
It might be his imagination, but he thinks he sees her shoulders sag just a tiny bit, and her body angle slightly towards him. He wonders if telling her once more that he loves her and needs her is enough to melt the distance that has been frozen between them since Bad Wolf Bay. He wonders if it's enough for her to let go of that other man and discover the one waiting patiently behind her with his one heart, one life, in his hands.
But he can't help turning her question back at her, because if nothing else, the last several months have taught him not to trust in hope.
"Would you go back with him?"
His unspoken without me hangs precariously in the air.
She stiffens and sips her wine. Her silence tells him everything he needs to know.
* * * * * *
He begins to make excuses not to return to London between jobs. Every few weeks Jackie calls and asks if he's coming back to visit, but every time he tells her he's tied up or busy or has to leave the next day, and soon she stops asking.
He becomes the lonely traveller once more, roaming, nomadic, from place to place. If he hasn't got another job lined up, he wanders whatever country he happens to be in until Pete calls with a new assignment. He refuses to accept help or let anyone come with him on his journeys. He becomes reckless and foolhardy, making challenges instead of peace and ignoring instructions to do whatever he feels is best at the time.
I'm better off alone, he thinks. If she doesn't want me, then that's fine. I don't need her. I don't need anyone.
His human heart bubbles and boils with too many emotions - anger, loneliness, loss, despair - and it is only a matter of time before it all spills over and threatens to wipe him out completely.
The moment comes during what should have been a routine inspection of alien tech for the tiny branch of UNIT located in Australia. He discovers that the five small silver globes that UNIT uncovered near a satellite crash site are actually fully-weaponised security droids stranded on Earth after an engineering fault caused them to be jettisoned from a passing Abodreen ship.
Left on Earth with no knowledge of the surroundings, the droids resort to default: defence. And in this case, defence means destroying every unfamiliar life form they come across.
He tries to stop them, he tries so hard, but despite his best efforts, two people end up mortally injured and several others are rushed to hospital. All his efforts to shut the droids down remotely have failed and now there's nothing left to do but trap them in a nearby abandoned textiles factory and find some way to destroy them.
While the remaining UNIT soldiers set the explosives, he paces the perimeter, angry at his failure, angry at Rose for letting him walk away and deal with all of this on his own, angry at his whole life.
He's so tired of running on his own. He's tired of pretending he's okay with the way that his life in this universe has turned out.
The turmoil of negative emotions distracts him from the hole in the defences. It's the shattering of glass and the scream of terror that snap him back to the present, and then he's grabbing the detonator and running, hoping against hope that this will not be yet another failure to add to his growing toll.
A droid has managed to burst through one of the technologically-thickened windows and is facing down one of the soldiers, a girl named Jen. He races over to her, taking up a discarded piece of pipe as he goes, and yells at her to run, just get out, get everybody out. He leaps forward and deflects the jab of a three-pronged blade just in time while Jen cowers behind him.
"Didn't you hear me?" he shouts, taking another swing at the droid. "You have to go now! I have to get this thing back inside and detonate the building before they all escape!"
"But if you stay here, you'll -"
He manages to knock the droid forcefully back against the wall, and as it recovers he turns to Jen, nothing but fury on his face.
"Get out," he roars, and with a final terrified glance at both him and the droid, she scrambles away, speaking rapidly into her communicator and calling for retreat.
He manages to lure the droid back inside the factory and soon he's surrounded by all five of them. As he holds up the detonator, he thinks absently that this is the moment when he would normally make some kind of grand speech or witty quip or at least offer one more chance for surrender.
But he decides it doesn't matter this time. Nothing matters. Because he's pretty sure he won't get out of this one, and to his surprise, he doesn't care.
The explosives are small, but effective - the sound is deafening, and suddenly, the whole building is crumbling around him and droids are being knocked down and crushed by the debris.
Despite his dark intentions, some deeper self-preservational instinct kicks in and he finds himself running, stumbling, trying to find an exit.
He's almost clear when a falling beam swings down and knocks him like a rag doll into a pile of rubble.
Pain tears through his arm and his side, and people are yelling his name now, and as he slips into unconsciousness, he thinks that Donna was right: he does need someone. He's always needed someone.
The last thing he thinks before everything goes dark is Rose.
* * * * * *
When he wakes up he's in a hospital bed. The nurse informs him that Pete found out what happened almost immediately and arranged for him to be flown back to London. He has a broken arm, extensive bruising down his left side, several grazes, and a few minor burns. He's very lucky not to have more serious injuries, and his family have made sure that he will have the best of care.
He decides not to ask who's included in his 'family'. He's afraid of the answer.
When he's released from the hospital, Jackie and Pete insist that he move back into the mansion while he finishes recovering. He doesn't object. He would never admit it, but he's missed them, even Jackie and her nagging.
They both swear that Rose knows nothing about it, as she's been out of contact while on a remote assignment for Torchwood in Papua New Guinea for the past two weeks. He's relieved by this. He's not sure he could have handled finding out that she knew what had happened and yet had chosen not to come and see him.
It's still a surprise when, three days after being released from the hospital, he opens his door to go downstairs for breakfast and Rose is standing there, hand poised to knock.
"Rose," he breathes, his voice catching in his throat. He hasn't spoken to or seen her since that night when she'd asked him if he would leave.
She gives him a faint, wobbly smile and brushes some hair out of her eyes. "Hi."
It's obvious that she's nervous, the way her eyes flick from the sling around his arm to his face to somewhere past his left ear. It's contagious, and sets him on edge.
"What... are - are you here to see your parents? Pete's working, and Jackie's gone for some beauty appointment, so..." He trails off, because of course she knows all this; she's their daughter.
So that means she's here for him. Just to see him. He has trouble processing this information.
"I came to see if you're okay. Mum left me a message as soon as Pete told her what happened. I'm sorry, I'd've been here sooner, but I couldn't get away, and..."
"Rose. It's fine. You don't owe me an explanation." He shrugs and tries to tamp down the rising hopefulness deep in his chest. Rose is just being… Rose, he tells himself firmly. Caring about people, all people. Because that’s what she does.
"I'm alright, see?" He raises his good arm, presenting himself for her inspection, and tries to smile at her in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. "I'm always alright."
To his surprise, her eyes well up and she shakes her head slowly. "You're so... you," she whispers.
Brow furrowed, he asks too sharply, "What?"
Rose lets out a breath that is part sigh, part mirthless laughter. "He asked me to help you, to make you better, and I just let you go. I should've been with you, should've stopped you. I should've been with you all this time."
He narrows his eyes. "I'm not a puppy that needs constant looking-after."
"I know that." She blinks at him, hurt, and he wishes he knew how to react to her sudden openness with something more than apprehension and defensiveness.
"I just..." Rose sighs and brings a hand to her forehead, staring at the carpet beneath her feet. "He was right. He's... you. And you're... you're everythin' he was - is - and more. I should've seen that earlier." She looks up at him and lets her hand drop to her side. Everything about her posture, her expression, her voice is full of honesty. "I'm sorry."
He stares at her for a long time. He's imagined her saying these things a hundred times, but now that she actually is, he doesn't know how to feel. Because now, it's not enough that she simply acknowledges who he is and apologises for what happened between them in the past. He needs to know what is in their future - if, indeed, they have any kind of future as a 'they'.
Finally, he heaves a weary sigh and rubs his hand over his face. "What do you want, Rose? I just..."
She cuts him off by reaching out to take hold of his sleeve. This time, when her eyes travel upwards, they meet his steadily, and he is taken aback by the emotions in their depths.
"I spent all this time missin' him, and I missed out on you because of it. I don't wanna miss you any more. It's not the same, knowin' you're out there somewhere without me - and I don't mean him, I mean you. I know you're him, and I know you're different, and I just... I wanna know you."
He can't tear his gaze away from her. His heart is pounding in his ears, and all that hope he had tried to stamp down is clawing its way up his chest, demanding to be felt. He has to consciously remember to breathe.
"Rose-"
"Wait, let me finish," she interrupts. She lets go of his sleeve to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. "D'you remember the last time we saw each other? When you told me... when you told me you wouldn't be home without me?"
Of course he does. He nods mutely, swallowing, his whole body humming with apprehension.
"Come home, Doctor," she says softly. "I want you to come home."
They gaze at each other for one long second, and then he threads his hand through the hair at the nape of her neck, pulls her to him and kisses her.
She doesn’t hesitate, but kisses him back just as fiercely, her hands coming up to touch his neck, his face, to pull him closer. Now, with her lips searching his, he realises just how starved he’s been of her touch.
It is unlike any other kiss they’ve shared before, whether in this body or his other one. This kiss is something new, something they are sharing and creating away from the shadow of his other self. It is tender and passionate and emotional, a kiss that is so different and yet at the core of it, so very them.
His broken arm is pinned between their bodies, but he doesn't care because her lips are against his, and she wants him, she wants him, the man who is Different and the Doctor at the same time.
Here, in her arms, he is finally home.
Fin