Fic: By Any Other Name, chapter 2
Title: By Any Other Name, Ch. 2/3
Author: meself, fid_gin
Beta: unfolded73
Pairing: It's Loved 'verse, so overall it's Ten II/Ten/Rose. And, eventually, there will be Rose/Rose. Yeah, that's right, I went there.
Rating: Exposition chapter, we'll call it Teen for some insinuation of sexy tiems, but nothing graphic.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: She felt territorial towards a perceived intruder (even if it was herself), but also, for the first time since this younger version had appeared before them and quickly explained the rescue plan, she felt curious…
Notes: So, I'm continuing the (hopeful) trend of posting chapters on Sundays while the kiddo is napping. Because nothing says 'I'm being a responsible parent' like posting (eventual) porn on the internet, amirite?
Sadly, no porn this chapter, but a whole lot of Meaningful Conversations, and Ten II dressed a bit different than the norm. ;)
Chapter 1
The Doctor had no sooner turned to make his way back to the TARDIS when he heard the unmistakable whoosh of materialization behind him. He whirled back around and there they were: his Roses and his double, right there before him where Rose had vanished only seconds before. The joy he felt at their return quickly dissipated as he saw that the other Doctor was being carried by the two Roses - the younger Rose holding his ankles and the older Rose hanging on to his arms. The two of them seemed barely able to keep him off the ground, and his...black? suit was in danger of being dragged against the filthy pavement.
He rushed over to them, his sonic screwdriver out in seconds, ready to scan the other Doctor for injuries. “What is it, what's happened to him?” he asked, panicked. The women gently lowered him to the concrete ground.
“Dimension-hopping” and “Crossing parallels” they both said at the same time, then gave each other a wary-but-amused look before the younger Rose continued.
“It causes, um, sort of like motion sickness,” she said, standing back. “It can be pretty bad if you're not used to it. I think he just passed out.” The Doctor knelt next to his duplicate, relieved but no less concerned. “He looks just like you. God, that's weird.”
“He is me,” the Doctor said, not looking up. His eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What's on his face?”
“Eyeliner,” the older Rose answered without hesitation.
“What?” the Doctor squeaked. “Eyeliner, what's he wearing eyeliner for? What were you doing?”
“Blending in,” she snapped back at him.
“Where were you, Universe of the Goths?”
“You two want to help me carry him back to the TARDIS, or would you rather sit here and argue in the street?” the younger Rose asked, obviously annoyed. “Because two sets of identical twins shouting at each other in the middle of London isn't strange or anything.”
She had a very good point, the Doctor had to concede. Gathering up his duplicate's considerably long legs, the two Roses each took an arm and they carried him as gently as possible to the TARDIS. At one point, the Doctor now in black murmured and opened his eyes, looked up at the two Roses above him, and shook his head before closing them again.
Inside, they laid him on the grated floor and the Doctor rushed to the console to send them into the Vortex, anxious to get away from that thin, dangerous patch of reality. “Rose...” he heard the other Doctor murmur in his sleep. “Rose, where's your corset? The guards are coming.” Raising one eyebrow, the Doctor in brown looked over at the older Rose, who in turn glanced down at her own scarlet and very revealing dress.
“You wouldn't believe it if I told you,” she said. He couldn’t help but grin at her, at the situation and with relief at having them all back with him.
“He looks just like you,” the other Rose was still repeating. “I mean, he's you. Doesn't that freak you out?” She was, the Doctor noted, very determinedly not commenting on her own double standing a few feet away, almost ignoring looking at her altogether; the Doctor wondered if her fixation on the two Doctors might be her way of coming to terms with the other Rose. Right then, the other Doctor's eyes flew open.
“Rose,” he gasped to the younger Rose. “Rose are we...”
“Safe,” the older Rose said, moving to his side. Even in this tense moment, the Doctor couldn’t help appreciating the way her legs moved in that ridiculously short excuse for a dress. “Yeah. 'Course we are.”
The metacrisis Doctor’s eyes moved between the two women. “Those clothes,” he said, nodding down at the younger Rose's outfit. “I remember them.” There must have been so little time to explain when she retrieved them, the Time Lord realised, that the Rose who had just found him hadn’t had time to rehash her most recent jump into their universe; had probably just shown up, grabbed them and hit her button. The Doctor’s hearts broke just a little for his other self, and what he knew he was feeling at the recognition of the younger Rose and when she must be in relation to their timeline.
“Yeah,” she said, looking almost embarrassed. “I guess I've found you too early. Or...too late,” she added, her brow furrowed.
The Doctor watched his half-human self lay back down on the floor, rubbing one eye with his fingers and smearing his eyeliner, his head cradled in one arm. “Well,” he said grimly, “isn't that just wizard?”
***
After leaving the two Doctors in the medbay (where, among other things, they were presumably sharing a proper hello), Rose found her younger self in her room, their room. The other woman stood in the middle of the area, looking around slowly. “Feels weird, bein' back here,” she said as Rose entered, turning to face her. “You've changed it.”
“Yeah, well...I've changed, I guess.” She sat on the bed, feeling like a stranger in her own skin; the Doctor in brown had given she and the other Doctor only a brief explanation of the other Rose’s presence here, and she was still wrapping her head around it. The other Rose sat next to her.
“How long have you been back with him? Them, I mean,” she corrected herself, shaking her head. “Two Doctors; still can't believe that. How is he? The other one?”
“He's fine,” Rose answered. “The Doctor, the first one I mean, says he'll just bit a bit woozy for awhile, but his vitals are good, heartbeat's strong, all that.”
“Both working?” the younger woman asked with a shy smile.
“Oh, um...just one, actually. He's part human, 'cause of the whole metacrisis. Did the Doctor tell you...?”
“Sort of.” They were silent again for several long moments, and Rose realised she had no idea what to say to herself. Was this how the Doctors had felt at first?
“I'm not sure,” she blurted out suddenly. To the other woman's questioning look, she clarified: “How long it's been, I mean. You know how time is on the TARDIS, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Another uncomfortable silence.
“How are you?” Rose asked her younger self. “I mean, after the whole crossing-dimensions thing: I remember it was awful.” She rubbed at her own temples, trying to fight off the impending headache from their last jump.
The other Rose shrugged. “Physically, just tired. Mentally, I have no idea,” she answered. “I thought...when I saw the Doctor, I thought 'That's it, I've done it, I found him.' But it's all wrong, 'cause he's got you.” She heaved a shuddery sigh. “I kind of hate you right now.”
Rose barked a laugh, unable to stop herself at the absurdity and accuracy of that statement. When the other Rose looked confused, she tried to explain herself. “Sorry, it's just...if you could've seen the Doctors when the three of us were first travelling together, they were at each others' throats. S'odd, being on the other end and feeling what that's like.”
The other Rose looked nervous. “You should know that when I first came back, me'n the Doctor...” Her voice trailed off.
“Oh.” Rose left it at that. She had no response really: she wasn't surprised and she felt she had no right to be angry, but she was. Once again, the irony and the polarity of her current situation against that of the Doctors was not lost on her. What had it been like for her part-human Doctor, in those first days when she and the Doctor were sleeping together again? She had never been able to truly empathize with how painful that must have been for him, but she could now.
“So how does it work,” the younger Rose asked, “with the two Doctors? Are you, y'know, shagging both of them?”
She smiled. “It's a bit more complicated than that.”
“How? I mean, it's not like I'm going to remember any of this anyway, right? D’you have a schedule or what?”
Rose took a deep breath, unsure how to explain the intricacies of her love life to an outsider, even if that outsider was herself. “It's all three of us,” she said. “Me, and the Doctors. It's...what I guess you would call a threesome. I've never thought of it like that, though, because they are the same person, except they're really not and...” She raised her hands from her lap, then let them drop again. “I dunno. It's hard to explain. But they love me, and they love each other, and it's brilliant.”
The other woman was quiet for a moment as she took this in. “Are you saying that the Doctor is shagging himself?”
Rose laughed. “Sort of, yeah.” Her other self returned her laughter.
“That's very him.” They giggled for a moment, savouring the hilarity of their shared understanding of the Doctor's vanity. “Okay,” the other Rose said as her laughter died down, “now I really hate you.”
The older Rose laughed heartily, but it felt false, and the other woman appeared to sense it, giving her a questioning look. “It's great,” she started to say. “Really. I mean, they’re the same but they’re also really different, andI love them both so much and, well, the sex is great too, I won't lie. It's just sometimes I feel...I dunno, left out?” She glanced around quickly, unnecessarily checking that they were alone; she'd never discussed these feelings with either of the Doctors before, and it felt like an act of betrayal voicing them out loud. “They understand each other better than I ever could. They remember their planet and 900 years of travelling and only a few of those years were with me, and sometimes it's like these looks just pass between them and I just feel like an outsider.” She sighed, feeling almost like a weight had been lifted from her chest. “And of course, they're both men and, y'know, they know what each other likes and...”
Rose trailed off as the implications of what she'd been saying sunk in. It occurred to her that now, things were even between her and the Doctors, and she felt closer to them than she perhaps ever had, feeling as if she understood them and the strange predicament they found themselves in every day. Another woman...not just any other woman, but herself. She felt territorial towards a perceived intruder (even if it was herself), but also, for the first time since this younger version had appeared before them and quickly explained the rescue plan, she felt curious…
The Doctor was almost a welcome distraction, appearing at her/their door. “Rose,” he said, then glancing between them, added a “...ses,” to make it plural. He sounded apologetic and vaguely confused, and she had to admit it was amusing seeing the tables turned on him like this.
The younger Rose stood, tugging at the front of her jacket. Steeling herself. “It's time to go?” she asked, sadly.
“No,” the Doctor said, drawing the word out. “No need to run off right away! Besides, your hopper needs at least another 8 hours to charge completely.”
She shook her head. “It only needs...”
“Ah,” he interrupted, looking embarrassed. “That's my fault. Increased power means bigger battery equals longer charge time. You're stuck for a bit. Which reminds me, actually, you'll want to watch your next few jumps - much more sensitive now: parallels, alternates, bubble universes, they're all fair game. You might end up somewhere that never even really existed!” He looked overjoyed at how interesting that sounded, and the older Rose saw the frightened look on her younger self's face and cleared her throat angrily, shaking her head, indicating the Doctor should shut up.
“The other Doctor…?” The younger Rose let her statement trail off into a question.
“Good. Fine. He’s good.” The abrupt words and the way his eyes drifted around the room and didn’t quite meet theirs confirmed, for Rose, that a proper ‘hello’ had indeed been exchanged in her absence, mostly likely in the form of this Doctor on his knees in front of the other. She found it endearing that the Doctor was apparently slightly embarrassed about the nature of his relationship with his other self, in the presence of this Rose. “He’s gone to wash the make-up off of his face.”
The other Rose turned to her older self. “Do you mind if I go find him? Not to...I just want…” She flapped her hands in frustration, but Rose understood what she was trying to say: this younger Rose needed to reassure herself that the other Doctor was the Doctor, as much as she had needed to reassure herself with a visit to her old room. She had no intention of getting him alone and seducing him, she just wanted to speak with him.
“Sure, yeah,” Rose said, giving what she hoped came off as an understanding smile.
When the younger woman had gone, the Doctor pulled her to him in a crushing hug. “I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered against her ear, kissing her neck. When he pulled back, she saw that his eyes were moist. “I thought I’d lost you both.”
“Couldn’t’ve been too upset, though,” she muttered, stepping back out of his embrace.
The Doctor’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What...what’s that mean?”
Rose sighed, not wanting to have this conversation right now but unable to set aside the revelation from a few minutes ago. “She told me. Other Rose, she told me about when she first got here.” Weary from this day of jumping across universes and from, literally, talking to herself, she crossed her arms and looked down at her feet - they were blurry with unshed tears that would fall if she blinked.
“Rose,” the Doctor said softly, very carefully not touching her. “She’s you. You understand that.” He spoke the last as if there were no question, which she understood that there shouldn’t be. But, she wondered, if it were so clear to her, why should she feel so...so jealous? “It happened because I missed you, because I love you.”
“I know,” she said. “I know that in my head, just...not in my heart, okay?” Struggling to articulate the conflict she felt about her other self, she swept her hair out of her eyes - the other Rose had it pinned back; when had she stopped doing that, she tried to remember? “I wish she’d never come here,” she said finally, honestly, “but…”
“But you don’t want her to leave,” the Doctor finished, his voice barely more than a whisper.
“Yeah,” she said.
He enveloped her in another hug, not saying out loud but still conveying that he understood how she felt, probably better than even she did.
***
The part-human Doctor regarded his face in the mirror above the sink, a piece of tissue slathered with some of Rose’s cold cream in one hand, poised to wipe the now very-smudged eyeliner from around his eyes. It wasn’t such a bad look, he thought. Perhaps the black eyeliner was something he could revisit - it went well with his tattoo. The leather trousers, however, were a bit much. He glanced down at his skinny legs, encased in the tight, shiny material.
“They sort of suit you,” a voice spoke from behind him. The Doctor looked back up into the eyes of a younger Rose, reflected in the mirror from where she stood in the doorway to the bathroom.
“Really?” he asked, looking down at himself again, stretching out one leg and cocking his hip to the side, missing Rose’s smirk entirely.
“Reminds me of that winter ball on that moon, the Shakespeare one?”
“Oberon!” he exclaimed, smiling broadly at her in the mirror. “They were a bit...um, oddly formal, weren’t they?”
“What, you mean the regulation skin-tight spacesuits?” Rose asked, laughing. “I didn’t know how I’d ever get mine off again!”
“Wellll,” the Doctor purred, grinning at her in the mirror with his tongue against the inside of his teeth, “you had a bit of help if I recall.” The younger Rose cleared her throat and looked down, and the Doctor chastised himself inwardly; it had to still have been strange for her, hearing such intimate details from the mouth of someone who looked like the Doctor, but whom she wasn’t perhaps convinced was the Doctor just yet.
“So you have all of his memories,” she said, changing the subject. The Doctor returned to removing the black from around his eyes.
“And then some,” he said. “You haven’t met Donna Noble yet, but what she knew about celebrity gossip…” He paused, stricken both by how he’d blurted out a name from Rose’s future (he had always presumed that her jump into Donna’s brief, alternate universe was her last before finding him), and by how he had referred to Donna in the past tense. Knows, he reminded himself silently. What she knows.
“Who’s Donna Noble?” Rose asked, having caught his little slip-up.
“What about you?” he said quickly. “You’ve never said much about your adventures before you found me.” She shrugged, and he knew not to press it any further.
Rose watched him removing make-up in the mirror for several minutes in silence, and the Doctor knew he shouldn’t break it. This Rose had sought him out for some reason, and he should let her announce it when she was ready. He was content to enjoy her reflection in the mirror, looking just as he remembered her running toward him on that ruined London street so long ago. Yet, he couldn’t leave it at that. He understood Rose, his Rose, the one he saw every day, well enough now that he didn’t need to ask the question anymore. But a reaction to this Rose… some long disused, almost instinctual impulse forced the words from his mouth before he was hardly aware he was speaking them: “What are you thinking?”
“He told me he loved me,” she said, tentatively stepping closer behind him. “The Doctor.” He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “He’s never said that before.”
“It’s true,” the part-human Doctor said.
“You’ve… done something to him. You and the other me. He’s different now.” The Doctor had a flash of memory: he, Rose and his other self, their minds connected as they made love - so soon after the Time Lord Doctor had begun to open up and express his hearts to both of them, and the thought from Rose’s mind that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t comfortable with that. Of course, it would be strange for this Rose.
He turned to her, laying his tissue aside. “It won’t happen overnight,” he said. “It takes time. He’ll try to push you, to push us away.” So strange, he thought, to comfort her by reassuring her that her lover would, in fact, still be an ass when she found him again. “But don’t let him. You won’t let him, because…” He shrugged, grinned at her. “Because you’re Rose.”
She nodded, reached out and laid a hand on his chest over his one heart. He closed his eyes as she stood, quietly, feeling it beat. After a moment, she reached up, brushed her lips against his, and left the room. Whatever question she had been trying to ask, that seemed to be answer enough.
Author: meself, fid_gin
Beta: unfolded73
Pairing: It's Loved 'verse, so overall it's Ten II/Ten/Rose. And, eventually, there will be Rose/Rose. Yeah, that's right, I went there.
Rating: Exposition chapter, we'll call it Teen for some insinuation of sexy tiems, but nothing graphic.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: She felt territorial towards a perceived intruder (even if it was herself), but also, for the first time since this younger version had appeared before them and quickly explained the rescue plan, she felt curious…
Notes: So, I'm continuing the (hopeful) trend of posting chapters on Sundays while the kiddo is napping. Because nothing says 'I'm being a responsible parent' like posting (eventual) porn on the internet, amirite?
Sadly, no porn this chapter, but a whole lot of Meaningful Conversations, and Ten II dressed a bit different than the norm. ;)
Chapter 1
The Doctor had no sooner turned to make his way back to the TARDIS when he heard the unmistakable whoosh of materialization behind him. He whirled back around and there they were: his Roses and his double, right there before him where Rose had vanished only seconds before. The joy he felt at their return quickly dissipated as he saw that the other Doctor was being carried by the two Roses - the younger Rose holding his ankles and the older Rose hanging on to his arms. The two of them seemed barely able to keep him off the ground, and his...black? suit was in danger of being dragged against the filthy pavement.
He rushed over to them, his sonic screwdriver out in seconds, ready to scan the other Doctor for injuries. “What is it, what's happened to him?” he asked, panicked. The women gently lowered him to the concrete ground.
“Dimension-hopping” and “Crossing parallels” they both said at the same time, then gave each other a wary-but-amused look before the younger Rose continued.
“It causes, um, sort of like motion sickness,” she said, standing back. “It can be pretty bad if you're not used to it. I think he just passed out.” The Doctor knelt next to his duplicate, relieved but no less concerned. “He looks just like you. God, that's weird.”
“He is me,” the Doctor said, not looking up. His eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What's on his face?”
“Eyeliner,” the older Rose answered without hesitation.
“What?” the Doctor squeaked. “Eyeliner, what's he wearing eyeliner for? What were you doing?”
“Blending in,” she snapped back at him.
“Where were you, Universe of the Goths?”
“You two want to help me carry him back to the TARDIS, or would you rather sit here and argue in the street?” the younger Rose asked, obviously annoyed. “Because two sets of identical twins shouting at each other in the middle of London isn't strange or anything.”
She had a very good point, the Doctor had to concede. Gathering up his duplicate's considerably long legs, the two Roses each took an arm and they carried him as gently as possible to the TARDIS. At one point, the Doctor now in black murmured and opened his eyes, looked up at the two Roses above him, and shook his head before closing them again.
Inside, they laid him on the grated floor and the Doctor rushed to the console to send them into the Vortex, anxious to get away from that thin, dangerous patch of reality. “Rose...” he heard the other Doctor murmur in his sleep. “Rose, where's your corset? The guards are coming.” Raising one eyebrow, the Doctor in brown looked over at the older Rose, who in turn glanced down at her own scarlet and very revealing dress.
“You wouldn't believe it if I told you,” she said. He couldn’t help but grin at her, at the situation and with relief at having them all back with him.
“He looks just like you,” the other Rose was still repeating. “I mean, he's you. Doesn't that freak you out?” She was, the Doctor noted, very determinedly not commenting on her own double standing a few feet away, almost ignoring looking at her altogether; the Doctor wondered if her fixation on the two Doctors might be her way of coming to terms with the other Rose. Right then, the other Doctor's eyes flew open.
“Rose,” he gasped to the younger Rose. “Rose are we...”
“Safe,” the older Rose said, moving to his side. Even in this tense moment, the Doctor couldn’t help appreciating the way her legs moved in that ridiculously short excuse for a dress. “Yeah. 'Course we are.”
The metacrisis Doctor’s eyes moved between the two women. “Those clothes,” he said, nodding down at the younger Rose's outfit. “I remember them.” There must have been so little time to explain when she retrieved them, the Time Lord realised, that the Rose who had just found him hadn’t had time to rehash her most recent jump into their universe; had probably just shown up, grabbed them and hit her button. The Doctor’s hearts broke just a little for his other self, and what he knew he was feeling at the recognition of the younger Rose and when she must be in relation to their timeline.
“Yeah,” she said, looking almost embarrassed. “I guess I've found you too early. Or...too late,” she added, her brow furrowed.
The Doctor watched his half-human self lay back down on the floor, rubbing one eye with his fingers and smearing his eyeliner, his head cradled in one arm. “Well,” he said grimly, “isn't that just wizard?”
***
After leaving the two Doctors in the medbay (where, among other things, they were presumably sharing a proper hello), Rose found her younger self in her room, their room. The other woman stood in the middle of the area, looking around slowly. “Feels weird, bein' back here,” she said as Rose entered, turning to face her. “You've changed it.”
“Yeah, well...I've changed, I guess.” She sat on the bed, feeling like a stranger in her own skin; the Doctor in brown had given she and the other Doctor only a brief explanation of the other Rose’s presence here, and she was still wrapping her head around it. The other Rose sat next to her.
“How long have you been back with him? Them, I mean,” she corrected herself, shaking her head. “Two Doctors; still can't believe that. How is he? The other one?”
“He's fine,” Rose answered. “The Doctor, the first one I mean, says he'll just bit a bit woozy for awhile, but his vitals are good, heartbeat's strong, all that.”
“Both working?” the younger woman asked with a shy smile.
“Oh, um...just one, actually. He's part human, 'cause of the whole metacrisis. Did the Doctor tell you...?”
“Sort of.” They were silent again for several long moments, and Rose realised she had no idea what to say to herself. Was this how the Doctors had felt at first?
“I'm not sure,” she blurted out suddenly. To the other woman's questioning look, she clarified: “How long it's been, I mean. You know how time is on the TARDIS, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Another uncomfortable silence.
“How are you?” Rose asked her younger self. “I mean, after the whole crossing-dimensions thing: I remember it was awful.” She rubbed at her own temples, trying to fight off the impending headache from their last jump.
The other Rose shrugged. “Physically, just tired. Mentally, I have no idea,” she answered. “I thought...when I saw the Doctor, I thought 'That's it, I've done it, I found him.' But it's all wrong, 'cause he's got you.” She heaved a shuddery sigh. “I kind of hate you right now.”
Rose barked a laugh, unable to stop herself at the absurdity and accuracy of that statement. When the other Rose looked confused, she tried to explain herself. “Sorry, it's just...if you could've seen the Doctors when the three of us were first travelling together, they were at each others' throats. S'odd, being on the other end and feeling what that's like.”
The other Rose looked nervous. “You should know that when I first came back, me'n the Doctor...” Her voice trailed off.
“Oh.” Rose left it at that. She had no response really: she wasn't surprised and she felt she had no right to be angry, but she was. Once again, the irony and the polarity of her current situation against that of the Doctors was not lost on her. What had it been like for her part-human Doctor, in those first days when she and the Doctor were sleeping together again? She had never been able to truly empathize with how painful that must have been for him, but she could now.
“So how does it work,” the younger Rose asked, “with the two Doctors? Are you, y'know, shagging both of them?”
She smiled. “It's a bit more complicated than that.”
“How? I mean, it's not like I'm going to remember any of this anyway, right? D’you have a schedule or what?”
Rose took a deep breath, unsure how to explain the intricacies of her love life to an outsider, even if that outsider was herself. “It's all three of us,” she said. “Me, and the Doctors. It's...what I guess you would call a threesome. I've never thought of it like that, though, because they are the same person, except they're really not and...” She raised her hands from her lap, then let them drop again. “I dunno. It's hard to explain. But they love me, and they love each other, and it's brilliant.”
The other woman was quiet for a moment as she took this in. “Are you saying that the Doctor is shagging himself?”
Rose laughed. “Sort of, yeah.” Her other self returned her laughter.
“That's very him.” They giggled for a moment, savouring the hilarity of their shared understanding of the Doctor's vanity. “Okay,” the other Rose said as her laughter died down, “now I really hate you.”
The older Rose laughed heartily, but it felt false, and the other woman appeared to sense it, giving her a questioning look. “It's great,” she started to say. “Really. I mean, they’re the same but they’re also really different, andI love them both so much and, well, the sex is great too, I won't lie. It's just sometimes I feel...I dunno, left out?” She glanced around quickly, unnecessarily checking that they were alone; she'd never discussed these feelings with either of the Doctors before, and it felt like an act of betrayal voicing them out loud. “They understand each other better than I ever could. They remember their planet and 900 years of travelling and only a few of those years were with me, and sometimes it's like these looks just pass between them and I just feel like an outsider.” She sighed, feeling almost like a weight had been lifted from her chest. “And of course, they're both men and, y'know, they know what each other likes and...”
Rose trailed off as the implications of what she'd been saying sunk in. It occurred to her that now, things were even between her and the Doctors, and she felt closer to them than she perhaps ever had, feeling as if she understood them and the strange predicament they found themselves in every day. Another woman...not just any other woman, but herself. She felt territorial towards a perceived intruder (even if it was herself), but also, for the first time since this younger version had appeared before them and quickly explained the rescue plan, she felt curious…
The Doctor was almost a welcome distraction, appearing at her/their door. “Rose,” he said, then glancing between them, added a “...ses,” to make it plural. He sounded apologetic and vaguely confused, and she had to admit it was amusing seeing the tables turned on him like this.
The younger Rose stood, tugging at the front of her jacket. Steeling herself. “It's time to go?” she asked, sadly.
“No,” the Doctor said, drawing the word out. “No need to run off right away! Besides, your hopper needs at least another 8 hours to charge completely.”
She shook her head. “It only needs...”
“Ah,” he interrupted, looking embarrassed. “That's my fault. Increased power means bigger battery equals longer charge time. You're stuck for a bit. Which reminds me, actually, you'll want to watch your next few jumps - much more sensitive now: parallels, alternates, bubble universes, they're all fair game. You might end up somewhere that never even really existed!” He looked overjoyed at how interesting that sounded, and the older Rose saw the frightened look on her younger self's face and cleared her throat angrily, shaking her head, indicating the Doctor should shut up.
“The other Doctor…?” The younger Rose let her statement trail off into a question.
“Good. Fine. He’s good.” The abrupt words and the way his eyes drifted around the room and didn’t quite meet theirs confirmed, for Rose, that a proper ‘hello’ had indeed been exchanged in her absence, mostly likely in the form of this Doctor on his knees in front of the other. She found it endearing that the Doctor was apparently slightly embarrassed about the nature of his relationship with his other self, in the presence of this Rose. “He’s gone to wash the make-up off of his face.”
The other Rose turned to her older self. “Do you mind if I go find him? Not to...I just want…” She flapped her hands in frustration, but Rose understood what she was trying to say: this younger Rose needed to reassure herself that the other Doctor was the Doctor, as much as she had needed to reassure herself with a visit to her old room. She had no intention of getting him alone and seducing him, she just wanted to speak with him.
“Sure, yeah,” Rose said, giving what she hoped came off as an understanding smile.
When the younger woman had gone, the Doctor pulled her to him in a crushing hug. “I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered against her ear, kissing her neck. When he pulled back, she saw that his eyes were moist. “I thought I’d lost you both.”
“Couldn’t’ve been too upset, though,” she muttered, stepping back out of his embrace.
The Doctor’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What...what’s that mean?”
Rose sighed, not wanting to have this conversation right now but unable to set aside the revelation from a few minutes ago. “She told me. Other Rose, she told me about when she first got here.” Weary from this day of jumping across universes and from, literally, talking to herself, she crossed her arms and looked down at her feet - they were blurry with unshed tears that would fall if she blinked.
“Rose,” the Doctor said softly, very carefully not touching her. “She’s you. You understand that.” He spoke the last as if there were no question, which she understood that there shouldn’t be. But, she wondered, if it were so clear to her, why should she feel so...so jealous? “It happened because I missed you, because I love you.”
“I know,” she said. “I know that in my head, just...not in my heart, okay?” Struggling to articulate the conflict she felt about her other self, she swept her hair out of her eyes - the other Rose had it pinned back; when had she stopped doing that, she tried to remember? “I wish she’d never come here,” she said finally, honestly, “but…”
“But you don’t want her to leave,” the Doctor finished, his voice barely more than a whisper.
“Yeah,” she said.
He enveloped her in another hug, not saying out loud but still conveying that he understood how she felt, probably better than even she did.
***
The part-human Doctor regarded his face in the mirror above the sink, a piece of tissue slathered with some of Rose’s cold cream in one hand, poised to wipe the now very-smudged eyeliner from around his eyes. It wasn’t such a bad look, he thought. Perhaps the black eyeliner was something he could revisit - it went well with his tattoo. The leather trousers, however, were a bit much. He glanced down at his skinny legs, encased in the tight, shiny material.
“They sort of suit you,” a voice spoke from behind him. The Doctor looked back up into the eyes of a younger Rose, reflected in the mirror from where she stood in the doorway to the bathroom.
“Really?” he asked, looking down at himself again, stretching out one leg and cocking his hip to the side, missing Rose’s smirk entirely.
“Reminds me of that winter ball on that moon, the Shakespeare one?”
“Oberon!” he exclaimed, smiling broadly at her in the mirror. “They were a bit...um, oddly formal, weren’t they?”
“What, you mean the regulation skin-tight spacesuits?” Rose asked, laughing. “I didn’t know how I’d ever get mine off again!”
“Wellll,” the Doctor purred, grinning at her in the mirror with his tongue against the inside of his teeth, “you had a bit of help if I recall.” The younger Rose cleared her throat and looked down, and the Doctor chastised himself inwardly; it had to still have been strange for her, hearing such intimate details from the mouth of someone who looked like the Doctor, but whom she wasn’t perhaps convinced was the Doctor just yet.
“So you have all of his memories,” she said, changing the subject. The Doctor returned to removing the black from around his eyes.
“And then some,” he said. “You haven’t met Donna Noble yet, but what she knew about celebrity gossip…” He paused, stricken both by how he’d blurted out a name from Rose’s future (he had always presumed that her jump into Donna’s brief, alternate universe was her last before finding him), and by how he had referred to Donna in the past tense. Knows, he reminded himself silently. What she knows.
“Who’s Donna Noble?” Rose asked, having caught his little slip-up.
“What about you?” he said quickly. “You’ve never said much about your adventures before you found me.” She shrugged, and he knew not to press it any further.
Rose watched him removing make-up in the mirror for several minutes in silence, and the Doctor knew he shouldn’t break it. This Rose had sought him out for some reason, and he should let her announce it when she was ready. He was content to enjoy her reflection in the mirror, looking just as he remembered her running toward him on that ruined London street so long ago. Yet, he couldn’t leave it at that. He understood Rose, his Rose, the one he saw every day, well enough now that he didn’t need to ask the question anymore. But a reaction to this Rose… some long disused, almost instinctual impulse forced the words from his mouth before he was hardly aware he was speaking them: “What are you thinking?”
“He told me he loved me,” she said, tentatively stepping closer behind him. “The Doctor.” He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “He’s never said that before.”
“It’s true,” the part-human Doctor said.
“You’ve… done something to him. You and the other me. He’s different now.” The Doctor had a flash of memory: he, Rose and his other self, their minds connected as they made love - so soon after the Time Lord Doctor had begun to open up and express his hearts to both of them, and the thought from Rose’s mind that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t comfortable with that. Of course, it would be strange for this Rose.
He turned to her, laying his tissue aside. “It won’t happen overnight,” he said. “It takes time. He’ll try to push you, to push us away.” So strange, he thought, to comfort her by reassuring her that her lover would, in fact, still be an ass when she found him again. “But don’t let him. You won’t let him, because…” He shrugged, grinned at her. “Because you’re Rose.”
She nodded, reached out and laid a hand on his chest over his one heart. He closed his eyes as she stood, quietly, feeling it beat. After a moment, she reached up, brushed her lips against his, and left the room. Whatever question she had been trying to ask, that seemed to be answer enough.