Doctor Who - Ten/Rose Fic - Part 2 of 6
Title: The Six Stages of a Human Time Lord Biological Metacrisis (Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Frosting)
Author: Gowdie
Spoilers: Journey’s End, obviously.
Rating: Teen, but Stage Four may be Adult, if the Doctor lets me.
Summary: You may have heard this one before. The Doctor learns to adapt. This time with the help of a few fights, a baby TARDIS, love and, eventually, sex.
Stage Two - The Oncoming Tantrum
“Pete! Pete Tyler! Good to see you.” The Doctor shook the older looking man’s hand with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which was quite a lot, really. He liked Pete, admired him even, but still, seeing him standing in the foyer of this particular mansion was a concrete reminder that things had turned out very differently than the Doctor could have imagined twenty-four hours ago. “You fixed up the old place. Looks smashing. Through really, everything considered, would be hard not to improve on the last time I was here, I suppose.”
Apparently choosing to ignore the remark, Pete smiled in welcome. “Doctor, always happy to see you. Though I’m surprised. Jacks said you were coming, but we all thought…”
“What?” the Doctor interrupted. “That I’d keep your daughter all to myself on the other side of the void?” He clicked his teeth. “Can’t say you’re alone there.” Three faces stared at him agog. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “So…”
“Just leave him be,” Jackie muttered, brushing passed him to kiss her husband. “I’m expecting his head to start spinning around at any moment. Now, where’s Mummy’s boy?”
A small head, covered in blonde hair, peaked out from behind Pete’s legs. The child was instantly swept up into Jackie’s arms, to have his face covered in noisy kisses. Once the giggling subsided, the Doctor leaned forward. “You must be Tony,” he said, reaching out a single finger in greeting. “Tony Tyler. Good name. I’m the Doctor.”
Tony peered at the Doctor with wide brown eyes for a moment, before hiding his face in his mother’s neck. Jackie shifted his weight on her hip. “He’s just playing shy. He does that with strangers.”
“So he doesn’t take after you, then?”
The swat to his shoulder was swift, but friendly. “You get some rest. Your jaw will be right sore in the morning.” She pulled on a reluctant Pete’s arm. “Come on, love. Lot’s to talk about.”
Either choosing not to argue with his wife, or accepting the fact that an appearance by the Doctor always came with more questions than answers, Pete nodded his assent. He gave Rose a quick squeeze, the Doctor a last appraising glance, before following his new family up the stairs.
The Doctor turned to face Rose. They were now, for the first time in years, alone. And nothing, not a single detail of the entire situation, was anything like fantasies he may or may not have entertained about a reunion. Which he hadn’t. Because that would have been a ridiculous waste of time. Especially when other companions were sleeping and he was left to tinker about the TARDIS. Alone. For hours.
Hmmmmm. Where to start? He tried an affectionate smile. “Hello.”
Her lips twitched upward in a tiny acknowledgement. “Hi.” Rose reached forward and fingered one of the buttons on his jacket. “Blue?”
“What’s wrong with blue?”
“Nothing.” She bit her lip. “S’just different.” Her eyes traveled over him, finally landing on his face, searching for something. The way her brows crinkled together, he wasn’t sure if she found it or not, but she took his hand again, and led him up the stairs. Thankfully, he noticed, in the opposite direction than Jackie and Pete.
The Doctor was quiet, his head filled with a conversation from long ago. All anyone really needs in the universe is a hand to hold. Now, it seemed, Rose holding his hand was all he had.
He hated it. Loved the feel of her delicate digits, the sweat of her palm, her thumb absently stroking over his own, absolutely, but hated feeling suddenly so lost, so dependent, so, so, help him, needy.
His stomach twisted. His throat burned. He didn’t have long now, a meltdown was aggressively imminent, and he had no idea what form it was going to take. There was a distinct lack of ignorant conquering hordes to be lectured to or righteously shouted at. Or blown to smithereens.
Rose opened a door. “Here we are.” They both stood on the threshold, looking in. “It’s Mickey’s old room. Hold on,” she turned to him, “do you sleep now?”
He tugged on his ear, frowning. “I don’t know. I suppose so.”
“Well, if you do, there should be some pajamas in one of the drawers.”
His lip curled and he blurted, “Could I maybe have some of Pete’s pajamas?” before even really thinking about it.
“What’s wrong with Mickey’s?” Rose asked, a little indignant.
“Well… they’re… Mickey’s,” he answered, as though it were perfectly obvious. Which is should be.
“Don’t be stupid,” she replied, giving him his first genuine Rose smile. Something about the exchange put her at ease, and she stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”
When she let go of his hand, he felt himself panic, just a little. “Rose?”
“I’m not leaving you. I’m right across the hall, see?” Rose opened the door opposite to prove her point.
“Yeah.” He nodded. He looked back at the room, still not moving inside.
“Doctor?” He turned. “I… I love you.”
This time it was his turn to lunge forward and grab her. The Doctor’s hands were in her hair in an instant, dragging her mouth towards his. The kiss was desperate, his lips greedily moving over her mouth, until she finally, blissfully, opened and he slid his tongue inside. He stumbled forward, nearly bending her in half. Her hands were clutching at his neck, his hair, his suit, as she struggled for balance under the assault, but she was equally as aggressive, sucking on him hard, and teeth nibbling his lips. He pulled his body back upwards, lifting her off her feet.
Without warning she wrenched her mouth away with a distinct pop, and rested her forehead against his, her fingers still tracing lightly over his ears. They were both gasping as he set her back down. Rose backed away, steadying herself with a hand on her door. “G… Goodnight.”
And she was gone.
~ ~ ~
Inside his room, scratch that, inside Mickey’s room, the Doctor paced back and forth frantically. Kissing, it turned out, did absolutely nothing to quell one’s rampant emotions. Quite the opposite, in fact.
It wasn’t passion that was stirring him, though, it was rage. Left alone, his thoughts, all the ones he’d been holding back for hours, had finally run unchecked through his mind. One after another. All the things he had. Everything he didn’t have. How blastedly insecure he felt. How furious he was with himself over so, so many things.
His blood was thrumming through his veins, and it was entirely possible he was about to hyperventilate. He definitely didn’t want to vomit again. That had been quite the horrific experience and once was enough, thank you very much.
He didn’t know what was happening to him. Well, he did. It as a combination of androgenic hormones and adrenaline causing his one, pathetically singular heart to race. But these chemicals, he should be able to control them. Tramp them back down where they belonged. Emotions were nothing new, but he’d never been so overwhelmed, like his entire body was wracked with fury through every cell, every vessel. This, this, this feeling was going to drown him. If he didn’t explode first.
The Doctor’s skin was prickly hot, so he stripped off his jacket, bunching and twisting it in his hands before throwing it aside. He went to the large mahogany cabinet along the wall, deciding to look for Mickey the idiot’s stupid pajamas. When he opened the door, though, instead of reaching inside, he found himself slamming the wood closed again, with as much force as he could.
Oh! That felt good.
He wrenched the door open and shoved it with all his might over and over. The sound of the heavy crashing wood was wonderful. Kicking added a whole other dimension of satisfying pain as well. This was brilliant. Sweat was pouring off him, his hair stood in all directions, his heart pounded, his shoulders heaved, his jaw was clenched. Brilliant! He was seriously considering pulling the whole monstrosity to the ground and smashing it when Rose appeared in the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He was breathing heavier than he ever had in his life. “Rose, you should go.”
“Never gonna happen.”
“Get out.”
She walked towards him, determination set in her features. “You don’t scare me.”
He said her name, “Rose,” wanting it to be order, but realized it sounded more like a plea than anything else.
“You might destroy an entire alien race with the flip of a few buttons, but you’re never gonna hurt me. Now come on.” She reached, again, for his hand.
“Where are we going?”
“Outside,” she answered, without further explanation.
He didn’t budge. “Why?”
“Shift!”
The walk down the stairs, out the back door and across lawn was silent. Rose, apparently, was in no mood for conversation, and he was warring with a horrible mix of shame and lingering rage. Finally they reached an old barn, and she lifted the latch, opened the door and dragged him inside. She lit a few electric torches, revealing a dilapidated jeep in the middle of a dirt floor.
The Doctor was just beginning to really worry about why he had been brought here, when he felt a heavy wooden handle placed in his hands. “What’s this?” he asked, looking at the tool in confusion.
Rose raised her eyebrows and answered as though it were perfectly obvious, “A sledgehammer.”
He looked back at the vehicle, still confused.
Rose explained, “There were aliens. It got blown up. Mickey said it was beyond saving, but he wanted to keep it for spare parts.”
“And you want me to smash it?”
“Yes.”
“And why is that, exactly?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because I’m saving your life. Better that car than Mum’s furniture.” Rose gestured to the door. “I’ll… I’ll be out there. You do what you have to do.”
The Doctor stopped her with a hand on her arm. “What about Mickey?”
Rose gave him a sad smile. “He’s not here anymore, is he?” she answered, before she stepped outside.
Well, now he just felt foolish. A grown man, even a recently grown man, shouldn’t need to destroy a whole jeep because of a few anger management problems. Still, though, he sucked in some air and made a few clicking noises, it was tempting.
Holding the sledgehammer upside down, the Doctor pinged the heavy end against the frame a few times experimentally. Hmmm. He hefted the weight above his head, oh, heavy, and prepared to swing. He brought it down with a triumphant, “Ha!”
Screeching metal crunched, something popped inside, and a part fell to the floor with a rewarding clatter. “Oh yes!” This was going to be good. Maybe even marvelous. He swung away.
Daleks. Stupid bloody Daleks! The cockroaches of the universe, they always survived when everyone else, everyone else died, or were ripped away. And who the hell was he? Accusing himself of genocide? Something had to actually count as a species in order to qualify as genocide, and the Daleks were nothing but a nightmare. Hadn’t he done the same? Now he was some holier than thou god, doling out sentences. Sure, he’d refused on the game station - but it wasn’t because of pity for the Daleks. He’d spared the humans. He had sacrificed his own people, and yet the Daleks survived. He wouldn’t take the same chance with the human race as well.
Genocide? Genocide! What was he supposed to do? Negotiate a peace treaty? Ha! If there was one thing about Daleks that he had learned, it was they were probably already out there, piecing themselves back together. Oh yes! Give them a year, a century or two, and they’d be back. Who the bleeding hell did he think he was?
The tirade went on and on. The jeep was reduced to a deeply satisfying pile of unrecognizable scrap. His muscles and bones, on the other hand, were screaming in anguish. The Doctor stumbled back from his work, and landed, admittedly, without any grace whatsoever, on his bottom.
His hands were burning. He lifted them to inspect the damage and was rather surprised to see he was bleeding. A painful gash was left behind between his right finger and thumb, where the skin had been rubbed away.
The Doctor was within the first twenty hours of his regeneration cycle. Such a cut should have healed instantly, but it didn’t. It never would again. He was half. Half of what he used to be.
He watched the blood drip down his hand with something like exhausted fascination. He would have to be more careful. This skin, this human skin, was paper-thin, and took so much care to heal. If some body snatching alien electrocuted him, he would die. If a witch, Carrionite, whatever, stopped his heart, he wouldn’t have a backup. If an Agatha Christie obsessed murderous bee poisoned him with arsenic, there could be no easy-bake cure of ginger beer, walnuts, anchovies and a shocking kiss from Donna Noble.
Oh, Donna.
He knew what would happen to her. What was probably happening to her right then. A Time Lord mind, safe inside a Time Lord brain, trapped inside a human body was one thing. A Time Lord mind inside a human brain was an entirely different, entirely brilliant, but entirely fatal matter.
Donna had been his perfect friend, and he would never see her again. Neither of him.
That’s when he started to weep.
It started slow. A hitching breath as the tears began to fall. Names and faces ran through his mind. Susan. Adric. Jenny. His own children. All of them. Everyone gone. Reinette. Joan. He’d grieved for them all before, but grief had never felt like this. Ripping at his body, dragged up from somewhere deep inside and leaving him huddled and gasping.
The list of people he wasn’t supposed to lose yet. That he was supposed to have in his life for years to come, now torn away forever. Jack. Martha. Sarah Jane.
Even Mickey the idiot. No. Not idiot. Clever. A jealous frightened boy, who had grown into a strong independent man he was proud to call friend.
And Donna - who deserved so much more.
All gone.
And his ship. His true companion for over seven hundred years. Her constant presence, under his hands, inside his mind. Sure, Rose teased him of his physical affection for the TARDIS, but it was true. She was a living creature with moods, and moments of brilliance, and flaws. She was his friend. The one he could always rely on, to hold him together when everything else fell apart.
He would never hear her song again.
Great heaving sobs wracked the Doctor’s body. He was out of his mind, out of control. Grief, human grief, was agony.
At some point, he wasn’t exactly sure when, warm safe hands had gathered him up and pulled his upper body off the ground and onto a soft lap. Rose was rocking him, running fingers through his hair, and whispering soothing sounds of comfort against his neck.
When he came back to himself enough to move, the Doctor rolled onto his back, looked up at her and groaned, “My head, I think I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying,” she sniffed. “You cry this much, you get a headache.” Her eyes were red rimmed, puffy.
He reached up and touched her face. “You’ve been crying to.”
Rose nodded, a few fresh tears falling. “Can’t seem to stop.”
The Doctor took this in. He needed to do something. He wasn’t exactly sure what, yet. “Have you ever smashed a car?”
She chuckled a little, a funny watery sound. “Oh, I’ve ripped the heads off a few dolls in my time. Torn a few pictures.”
“It feels like it’s bursting out of me,” he admitted. “It’s dreadful. No wonder you people spend so much time making weapons.”
“Hey,” she ruffled his hair, “that’s your people now.”
Very quietly, almost afraid to say the words out loud, the Doctor confessed, “I don’t want to be like this. Pathetic, I mean. Violent.”
Rose leaned down and kissed his forehead. “You won’t be.”
“Gah!” He shot up to a sitting position, suddenly overtaken by frustration. “I feel like a… Like a… Like a bleeding toddler.”
“Well,” she surmised, “in some ways you’re only a day old. Maybe you are a toddler.”
He pondered this idea for a moment, pursing his lips. “Or a newborn. All pink and wrinkly, screaming in the nursery.” He stood to his feet, brushing his hands on his trousers. “I suddenly have a lot of empathy for those children, thrust out into a new world, confused and raw.”
“Yeah.” Rose lifted a hand for him to help her up.
As he pulled her to him, the Doctor asked sincerely, “How are you?”
“Don’t know,” she tried to smile, but frowned again. “I’m all cocked-up, really. I don’t know what to feel.”
Suddenly, the Doctor realized what needed to happen. There was a fight in the mix, and Rose needed to get it out of her system. “You want a shout?”
She looked at him, a bit shocked. “S’no point.”
He leveled his gaze at her. “Rose Tyler, you just handed me a sledgehammer and told me to destroy a car, and now you don’t understand the point of a shout?”
“There’s no point in shouting at you. You’re not the one that…” she cut off as though she’d admitted too much.
“What?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Nothing.”
“Rose, he is me. I’m him. Shout.”
“No.”
“Do it.” He was almost desperate now. He raised his voice, might as well get the yelling started. “Don’t hold it in and start hating me next year.” He got right in her face. “Now shout!”
She shoved him. “You left me! You promised… Oh, god.” She grabbed her stomach and sobbed, practically choking on the rage that was bubbling through. He could see how hard she’d tried to hold it in, for his sake, but he’d insisted on wrenching the cork loose. “You promised I was the one you’d never leave. And you did! You just walked away. Like it was nothing!”
Now they were getting somewhere. He knew she had to be angry with him. “Not nothing, Rose. Everything.”
She was getting into it, moving even further back from him and yelling, “Do you have any idea how long I fought to get back to you? How far?”
He put his arms to his sides, and let the onslaught come. “No.”
Rose moved back to him again and pointed at his chest. “I thought it was what you wanted!”
“It was.” He rolled back on his heals. “Seeing you on that street … in nine-hundred and four years, I’ve never felt like that.”
Her voice broke as she asked, “Then how could you do it?”
The Doctor answered as steadily as he could, “When I made that promise, I thought I couldn’t live without you.”
“And now?”
He paused, knowing the pain he was about to cause, but it had to be said. “I learned that I could.”
She gasped. He could see the hurt slice through her. And he wasn’t surprised at all when she hit him, one small hand, then another and another beating against his chest.
“He wants you, Rose. More than anything in the universe, but no matter how long he had you, he would have lost you in the end, it was just a matter of when.”
He caught her wrists, stopping the onslaught to make certain she heard what he said next. “And you can’t ever die. Do you get that? For him, you can’t ever die.”
She snorted with disgust and pulled away. “Everything dies. You said so yourself!”
“Not you,” he insisted. “Losing you nearly ended me. According to Donna’s parallel universe, it might have done, if I hadn’t met her. You know that. You saw it happen. But I learned, we learned,” he huffed in frustration, fisting his hands in his hair. This wasn’t the time for an identity crisis. “He learned that he could go on as long as you are alive, and happy. But if you died…” He couldn’t finish that though, and let the silence speak for itself.
It seemed the fight was out of her, and he dared to step forward and touch her hair. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but the truth is, it was always going to come to this.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded, though there was a tone of wariness to her voice.
“Remember?” He tilted his head and implored her, “Christmas, 1860, it happens once, just once, and then it’s gone. But not for me, I could go back over and over again.”
“Make sense!”
“There was a choice I could never reconcile.” The Doctor swallowed and gathered his courage. “I told you I’d made it, because I wanted to, but I lied. I could keep you with me. Be blissfully happy, every day, for, maybe, if we were really, really lucky, sixty years. If we didn’t run into any more Daleks. Or I could send you away, keep you safe. Maybe visit every once in a while, and you could live on for centuries.” He tried to grin. “You see the dilemma?”
“You know I don’t.” She sniffed and pushed away from him again, her eyes giving away how betrayed she felt. “So you’re saying, all that time I was with you, you were deciding if that was the day you got rid of me?”
“No,” he said with all the sincerity he had. “You, Rose Tyler, you are a powerful happy patch of happiness. Most of the time I’d forget. Forget who I was. Most of the time I was with you, I felt like a bloke. A regular bloke, getting wrapped up in adventures, never quite making it to rock concerts, laughing all the way.” He took a breath. “But then, every once in a while, something would happen. Run into Sarah Jane. Lose the TARDIS. Some nasty little beastie in a deep dark pit. And it would come back.”
The Doctor wanted to hold her so much, but knew he couldn’t touch her with what he was about to reveal. “If you stayed with him, every crisis, over and over, he would break your heart and send you away.” He paused and swallowed. “If it kept you alive.”
Rose took that in, face crumpling and heaved a few breaths. After a moment she pulled herself together, wiped a few tears and regarded him with suspicion. “And you’re better?”
“I’m not afraid,” he said quietly. “Well, I say not afraid, big picture, I’m terrified, shaking in my chucks, but not of you. Not anymore. He thinks with his head. All I can feel is my heart.” He smiled for the first time at the idea, “My one heart.”
“And you,” she approached him, “you won’t send me away?”
“I can’t. I’m not that strong,” the Doctor admitted. “And he knows that’s what you wanted.”
Rose collapsed against him, buried her face in his neck and wrapped her arms around his back. This time is was his turn to whisper soothing sounds against her hair. She looked up and kissed him. It was very wet, considering what a mess they both were, but just as sweet nonetheless. When it was over he rested his cheek on her head and whispered, “For him you live forever. And I get to have you every moment.” He rubbed her back and added playfully, “It’s a bit like having your cake, and getting to lick the delicious pink frosting too.”
“That’s a bit,” she pulled slightly back and looked at him, “entendre-ish.”
He frowned, he hadn’t really thought of it that way, but, “Hmmm. It is indeed.”
Staying in his embrace, Rose moved her hands in front to play with his shirt. “I’m still cocked-up.”
“Me too,” the Doctor agreed freely.
“Okay, then,” she smiled, and kissed him again.
Next Chapter - Stage Three: A Few Bits and Bobs
Previous Chapter: Stage One: Babbling For Your Life
Author: Gowdie
Spoilers: Journey’s End, obviously.
Rating: Teen, but Stage Four may be Adult, if the Doctor lets me.
Summary: You may have heard this one before. The Doctor learns to adapt. This time with the help of a few fights, a baby TARDIS, love and, eventually, sex.
Stage Two - The Oncoming Tantrum
“Pete! Pete Tyler! Good to see you.” The Doctor shook the older looking man’s hand with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which was quite a lot, really. He liked Pete, admired him even, but still, seeing him standing in the foyer of this particular mansion was a concrete reminder that things had turned out very differently than the Doctor could have imagined twenty-four hours ago. “You fixed up the old place. Looks smashing. Through really, everything considered, would be hard not to improve on the last time I was here, I suppose.”
Apparently choosing to ignore the remark, Pete smiled in welcome. “Doctor, always happy to see you. Though I’m surprised. Jacks said you were coming, but we all thought…”
“What?” the Doctor interrupted. “That I’d keep your daughter all to myself on the other side of the void?” He clicked his teeth. “Can’t say you’re alone there.” Three faces stared at him agog. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “So…”
“Just leave him be,” Jackie muttered, brushing passed him to kiss her husband. “I’m expecting his head to start spinning around at any moment. Now, where’s Mummy’s boy?”
A small head, covered in blonde hair, peaked out from behind Pete’s legs. The child was instantly swept up into Jackie’s arms, to have his face covered in noisy kisses. Once the giggling subsided, the Doctor leaned forward. “You must be Tony,” he said, reaching out a single finger in greeting. “Tony Tyler. Good name. I’m the Doctor.”
Tony peered at the Doctor with wide brown eyes for a moment, before hiding his face in his mother’s neck. Jackie shifted his weight on her hip. “He’s just playing shy. He does that with strangers.”
“So he doesn’t take after you, then?”
The swat to his shoulder was swift, but friendly. “You get some rest. Your jaw will be right sore in the morning.” She pulled on a reluctant Pete’s arm. “Come on, love. Lot’s to talk about.”
Either choosing not to argue with his wife, or accepting the fact that an appearance by the Doctor always came with more questions than answers, Pete nodded his assent. He gave Rose a quick squeeze, the Doctor a last appraising glance, before following his new family up the stairs.
The Doctor turned to face Rose. They were now, for the first time in years, alone. And nothing, not a single detail of the entire situation, was anything like fantasies he may or may not have entertained about a reunion. Which he hadn’t. Because that would have been a ridiculous waste of time. Especially when other companions were sleeping and he was left to tinker about the TARDIS. Alone. For hours.
Hmmmmm. Where to start? He tried an affectionate smile. “Hello.”
Her lips twitched upward in a tiny acknowledgement. “Hi.” Rose reached forward and fingered one of the buttons on his jacket. “Blue?”
“What’s wrong with blue?”
“Nothing.” She bit her lip. “S’just different.” Her eyes traveled over him, finally landing on his face, searching for something. The way her brows crinkled together, he wasn’t sure if she found it or not, but she took his hand again, and led him up the stairs. Thankfully, he noticed, in the opposite direction than Jackie and Pete.
The Doctor was quiet, his head filled with a conversation from long ago. All anyone really needs in the universe is a hand to hold. Now, it seemed, Rose holding his hand was all he had.
He hated it. Loved the feel of her delicate digits, the sweat of her palm, her thumb absently stroking over his own, absolutely, but hated feeling suddenly so lost, so dependent, so, so, help him, needy.
His stomach twisted. His throat burned. He didn’t have long now, a meltdown was aggressively imminent, and he had no idea what form it was going to take. There was a distinct lack of ignorant conquering hordes to be lectured to or righteously shouted at. Or blown to smithereens.
Rose opened a door. “Here we are.” They both stood on the threshold, looking in. “It’s Mickey’s old room. Hold on,” she turned to him, “do you sleep now?”
He tugged on his ear, frowning. “I don’t know. I suppose so.”
“Well, if you do, there should be some pajamas in one of the drawers.”
His lip curled and he blurted, “Could I maybe have some of Pete’s pajamas?” before even really thinking about it.
“What’s wrong with Mickey’s?” Rose asked, a little indignant.
“Well… they’re… Mickey’s,” he answered, as though it were perfectly obvious. Which is should be.
“Don’t be stupid,” she replied, giving him his first genuine Rose smile. Something about the exchange put her at ease, and she stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”
When she let go of his hand, he felt himself panic, just a little. “Rose?”
“I’m not leaving you. I’m right across the hall, see?” Rose opened the door opposite to prove her point.
“Yeah.” He nodded. He looked back at the room, still not moving inside.
“Doctor?” He turned. “I… I love you.”
This time it was his turn to lunge forward and grab her. The Doctor’s hands were in her hair in an instant, dragging her mouth towards his. The kiss was desperate, his lips greedily moving over her mouth, until she finally, blissfully, opened and he slid his tongue inside. He stumbled forward, nearly bending her in half. Her hands were clutching at his neck, his hair, his suit, as she struggled for balance under the assault, but she was equally as aggressive, sucking on him hard, and teeth nibbling his lips. He pulled his body back upwards, lifting her off her feet.
Without warning she wrenched her mouth away with a distinct pop, and rested her forehead against his, her fingers still tracing lightly over his ears. They were both gasping as he set her back down. Rose backed away, steadying herself with a hand on her door. “G… Goodnight.”
And she was gone.
~ ~ ~
Inside his room, scratch that, inside Mickey’s room, the Doctor paced back and forth frantically. Kissing, it turned out, did absolutely nothing to quell one’s rampant emotions. Quite the opposite, in fact.
It wasn’t passion that was stirring him, though, it was rage. Left alone, his thoughts, all the ones he’d been holding back for hours, had finally run unchecked through his mind. One after another. All the things he had. Everything he didn’t have. How blastedly insecure he felt. How furious he was with himself over so, so many things.
His blood was thrumming through his veins, and it was entirely possible he was about to hyperventilate. He definitely didn’t want to vomit again. That had been quite the horrific experience and once was enough, thank you very much.
He didn’t know what was happening to him. Well, he did. It as a combination of androgenic hormones and adrenaline causing his one, pathetically singular heart to race. But these chemicals, he should be able to control them. Tramp them back down where they belonged. Emotions were nothing new, but he’d never been so overwhelmed, like his entire body was wracked with fury through every cell, every vessel. This, this, this feeling was going to drown him. If he didn’t explode first.
The Doctor’s skin was prickly hot, so he stripped off his jacket, bunching and twisting it in his hands before throwing it aside. He went to the large mahogany cabinet along the wall, deciding to look for Mickey the idiot’s stupid pajamas. When he opened the door, though, instead of reaching inside, he found himself slamming the wood closed again, with as much force as he could.
Oh! That felt good.
He wrenched the door open and shoved it with all his might over and over. The sound of the heavy crashing wood was wonderful. Kicking added a whole other dimension of satisfying pain as well. This was brilliant. Sweat was pouring off him, his hair stood in all directions, his heart pounded, his shoulders heaved, his jaw was clenched. Brilliant! He was seriously considering pulling the whole monstrosity to the ground and smashing it when Rose appeared in the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He was breathing heavier than he ever had in his life. “Rose, you should go.”
“Never gonna happen.”
“Get out.”
She walked towards him, determination set in her features. “You don’t scare me.”
He said her name, “Rose,” wanting it to be order, but realized it sounded more like a plea than anything else.
“You might destroy an entire alien race with the flip of a few buttons, but you’re never gonna hurt me. Now come on.” She reached, again, for his hand.
“Where are we going?”
“Outside,” she answered, without further explanation.
He didn’t budge. “Why?”
“Shift!”
The walk down the stairs, out the back door and across lawn was silent. Rose, apparently, was in no mood for conversation, and he was warring with a horrible mix of shame and lingering rage. Finally they reached an old barn, and she lifted the latch, opened the door and dragged him inside. She lit a few electric torches, revealing a dilapidated jeep in the middle of a dirt floor.
The Doctor was just beginning to really worry about why he had been brought here, when he felt a heavy wooden handle placed in his hands. “What’s this?” he asked, looking at the tool in confusion.
Rose raised her eyebrows and answered as though it were perfectly obvious, “A sledgehammer.”
He looked back at the vehicle, still confused.
Rose explained, “There were aliens. It got blown up. Mickey said it was beyond saving, but he wanted to keep it for spare parts.”
“And you want me to smash it?”
“Yes.”
“And why is that, exactly?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because I’m saving your life. Better that car than Mum’s furniture.” Rose gestured to the door. “I’ll… I’ll be out there. You do what you have to do.”
The Doctor stopped her with a hand on her arm. “What about Mickey?”
Rose gave him a sad smile. “He’s not here anymore, is he?” she answered, before she stepped outside.
Well, now he just felt foolish. A grown man, even a recently grown man, shouldn’t need to destroy a whole jeep because of a few anger management problems. Still, though, he sucked in some air and made a few clicking noises, it was tempting.
Holding the sledgehammer upside down, the Doctor pinged the heavy end against the frame a few times experimentally. Hmmm. He hefted the weight above his head, oh, heavy, and prepared to swing. He brought it down with a triumphant, “Ha!”
Screeching metal crunched, something popped inside, and a part fell to the floor with a rewarding clatter. “Oh yes!” This was going to be good. Maybe even marvelous. He swung away.
Daleks. Stupid bloody Daleks! The cockroaches of the universe, they always survived when everyone else, everyone else died, or were ripped away. And who the hell was he? Accusing himself of genocide? Something had to actually count as a species in order to qualify as genocide, and the Daleks were nothing but a nightmare. Hadn’t he done the same? Now he was some holier than thou god, doling out sentences. Sure, he’d refused on the game station - but it wasn’t because of pity for the Daleks. He’d spared the humans. He had sacrificed his own people, and yet the Daleks survived. He wouldn’t take the same chance with the human race as well.
Genocide? Genocide! What was he supposed to do? Negotiate a peace treaty? Ha! If there was one thing about Daleks that he had learned, it was they were probably already out there, piecing themselves back together. Oh yes! Give them a year, a century or two, and they’d be back. Who the bleeding hell did he think he was?
The tirade went on and on. The jeep was reduced to a deeply satisfying pile of unrecognizable scrap. His muscles and bones, on the other hand, were screaming in anguish. The Doctor stumbled back from his work, and landed, admittedly, without any grace whatsoever, on his bottom.
His hands were burning. He lifted them to inspect the damage and was rather surprised to see he was bleeding. A painful gash was left behind between his right finger and thumb, where the skin had been rubbed away.
The Doctor was within the first twenty hours of his regeneration cycle. Such a cut should have healed instantly, but it didn’t. It never would again. He was half. Half of what he used to be.
He watched the blood drip down his hand with something like exhausted fascination. He would have to be more careful. This skin, this human skin, was paper-thin, and took so much care to heal. If some body snatching alien electrocuted him, he would die. If a witch, Carrionite, whatever, stopped his heart, he wouldn’t have a backup. If an Agatha Christie obsessed murderous bee poisoned him with arsenic, there could be no easy-bake cure of ginger beer, walnuts, anchovies and a shocking kiss from Donna Noble.
Oh, Donna.
He knew what would happen to her. What was probably happening to her right then. A Time Lord mind, safe inside a Time Lord brain, trapped inside a human body was one thing. A Time Lord mind inside a human brain was an entirely different, entirely brilliant, but entirely fatal matter.
Donna had been his perfect friend, and he would never see her again. Neither of him.
That’s when he started to weep.
It started slow. A hitching breath as the tears began to fall. Names and faces ran through his mind. Susan. Adric. Jenny. His own children. All of them. Everyone gone. Reinette. Joan. He’d grieved for them all before, but grief had never felt like this. Ripping at his body, dragged up from somewhere deep inside and leaving him huddled and gasping.
The list of people he wasn’t supposed to lose yet. That he was supposed to have in his life for years to come, now torn away forever. Jack. Martha. Sarah Jane.
Even Mickey the idiot. No. Not idiot. Clever. A jealous frightened boy, who had grown into a strong independent man he was proud to call friend.
And Donna - who deserved so much more.
All gone.
And his ship. His true companion for over seven hundred years. Her constant presence, under his hands, inside his mind. Sure, Rose teased him of his physical affection for the TARDIS, but it was true. She was a living creature with moods, and moments of brilliance, and flaws. She was his friend. The one he could always rely on, to hold him together when everything else fell apart.
He would never hear her song again.
Great heaving sobs wracked the Doctor’s body. He was out of his mind, out of control. Grief, human grief, was agony.
At some point, he wasn’t exactly sure when, warm safe hands had gathered him up and pulled his upper body off the ground and onto a soft lap. Rose was rocking him, running fingers through his hair, and whispering soothing sounds of comfort against his neck.
When he came back to himself enough to move, the Doctor rolled onto his back, looked up at her and groaned, “My head, I think I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying,” she sniffed. “You cry this much, you get a headache.” Her eyes were red rimmed, puffy.
He reached up and touched her face. “You’ve been crying to.”
Rose nodded, a few fresh tears falling. “Can’t seem to stop.”
The Doctor took this in. He needed to do something. He wasn’t exactly sure what, yet. “Have you ever smashed a car?”
She chuckled a little, a funny watery sound. “Oh, I’ve ripped the heads off a few dolls in my time. Torn a few pictures.”
“It feels like it’s bursting out of me,” he admitted. “It’s dreadful. No wonder you people spend so much time making weapons.”
“Hey,” she ruffled his hair, “that’s your people now.”
Very quietly, almost afraid to say the words out loud, the Doctor confessed, “I don’t want to be like this. Pathetic, I mean. Violent.”
Rose leaned down and kissed his forehead. “You won’t be.”
“Gah!” He shot up to a sitting position, suddenly overtaken by frustration. “I feel like a… Like a… Like a bleeding toddler.”
“Well,” she surmised, “in some ways you’re only a day old. Maybe you are a toddler.”
He pondered this idea for a moment, pursing his lips. “Or a newborn. All pink and wrinkly, screaming in the nursery.” He stood to his feet, brushing his hands on his trousers. “I suddenly have a lot of empathy for those children, thrust out into a new world, confused and raw.”
“Yeah.” Rose lifted a hand for him to help her up.
As he pulled her to him, the Doctor asked sincerely, “How are you?”
“Don’t know,” she tried to smile, but frowned again. “I’m all cocked-up, really. I don’t know what to feel.”
Suddenly, the Doctor realized what needed to happen. There was a fight in the mix, and Rose needed to get it out of her system. “You want a shout?”
She looked at him, a bit shocked. “S’no point.”
He leveled his gaze at her. “Rose Tyler, you just handed me a sledgehammer and told me to destroy a car, and now you don’t understand the point of a shout?”
“There’s no point in shouting at you. You’re not the one that…” she cut off as though she’d admitted too much.
“What?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Nothing.”
“Rose, he is me. I’m him. Shout.”
“No.”
“Do it.” He was almost desperate now. He raised his voice, might as well get the yelling started. “Don’t hold it in and start hating me next year.” He got right in her face. “Now shout!”
She shoved him. “You left me! You promised… Oh, god.” She grabbed her stomach and sobbed, practically choking on the rage that was bubbling through. He could see how hard she’d tried to hold it in, for his sake, but he’d insisted on wrenching the cork loose. “You promised I was the one you’d never leave. And you did! You just walked away. Like it was nothing!”
Now they were getting somewhere. He knew she had to be angry with him. “Not nothing, Rose. Everything.”
She was getting into it, moving even further back from him and yelling, “Do you have any idea how long I fought to get back to you? How far?”
He put his arms to his sides, and let the onslaught come. “No.”
Rose moved back to him again and pointed at his chest. “I thought it was what you wanted!”
“It was.” He rolled back on his heals. “Seeing you on that street … in nine-hundred and four years, I’ve never felt like that.”
Her voice broke as she asked, “Then how could you do it?”
The Doctor answered as steadily as he could, “When I made that promise, I thought I couldn’t live without you.”
“And now?”
He paused, knowing the pain he was about to cause, but it had to be said. “I learned that I could.”
She gasped. He could see the hurt slice through her. And he wasn’t surprised at all when she hit him, one small hand, then another and another beating against his chest.
“He wants you, Rose. More than anything in the universe, but no matter how long he had you, he would have lost you in the end, it was just a matter of when.”
He caught her wrists, stopping the onslaught to make certain she heard what he said next. “And you can’t ever die. Do you get that? For him, you can’t ever die.”
She snorted with disgust and pulled away. “Everything dies. You said so yourself!”
“Not you,” he insisted. “Losing you nearly ended me. According to Donna’s parallel universe, it might have done, if I hadn’t met her. You know that. You saw it happen. But I learned, we learned,” he huffed in frustration, fisting his hands in his hair. This wasn’t the time for an identity crisis. “He learned that he could go on as long as you are alive, and happy. But if you died…” He couldn’t finish that though, and let the silence speak for itself.
It seemed the fight was out of her, and he dared to step forward and touch her hair. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but the truth is, it was always going to come to this.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded, though there was a tone of wariness to her voice.
“Remember?” He tilted his head and implored her, “Christmas, 1860, it happens once, just once, and then it’s gone. But not for me, I could go back over and over again.”
“Make sense!”
“There was a choice I could never reconcile.” The Doctor swallowed and gathered his courage. “I told you I’d made it, because I wanted to, but I lied. I could keep you with me. Be blissfully happy, every day, for, maybe, if we were really, really lucky, sixty years. If we didn’t run into any more Daleks. Or I could send you away, keep you safe. Maybe visit every once in a while, and you could live on for centuries.” He tried to grin. “You see the dilemma?”
“You know I don’t.” She sniffed and pushed away from him again, her eyes giving away how betrayed she felt. “So you’re saying, all that time I was with you, you were deciding if that was the day you got rid of me?”
“No,” he said with all the sincerity he had. “You, Rose Tyler, you are a powerful happy patch of happiness. Most of the time I’d forget. Forget who I was. Most of the time I was with you, I felt like a bloke. A regular bloke, getting wrapped up in adventures, never quite making it to rock concerts, laughing all the way.” He took a breath. “But then, every once in a while, something would happen. Run into Sarah Jane. Lose the TARDIS. Some nasty little beastie in a deep dark pit. And it would come back.”
The Doctor wanted to hold her so much, but knew he couldn’t touch her with what he was about to reveal. “If you stayed with him, every crisis, over and over, he would break your heart and send you away.” He paused and swallowed. “If it kept you alive.”
Rose took that in, face crumpling and heaved a few breaths. After a moment she pulled herself together, wiped a few tears and regarded him with suspicion. “And you’re better?”
“I’m not afraid,” he said quietly. “Well, I say not afraid, big picture, I’m terrified, shaking in my chucks, but not of you. Not anymore. He thinks with his head. All I can feel is my heart.” He smiled for the first time at the idea, “My one heart.”
“And you,” she approached him, “you won’t send me away?”
“I can’t. I’m not that strong,” the Doctor admitted. “And he knows that’s what you wanted.”
Rose collapsed against him, buried her face in his neck and wrapped her arms around his back. This time is was his turn to whisper soothing sounds against her hair. She looked up and kissed him. It was very wet, considering what a mess they both were, but just as sweet nonetheless. When it was over he rested his cheek on her head and whispered, “For him you live forever. And I get to have you every moment.” He rubbed her back and added playfully, “It’s a bit like having your cake, and getting to lick the delicious pink frosting too.”
“That’s a bit,” she pulled slightly back and looked at him, “entendre-ish.”
He frowned, he hadn’t really thought of it that way, but, “Hmmm. It is indeed.”
Staying in his embrace, Rose moved her hands in front to play with his shirt. “I’m still cocked-up.”
“Me too,” the Doctor agreed freely.
“Okay, then,” she smiled, and kissed him again.
Next Chapter - Stage Three: A Few Bits and Bobs
Previous Chapter: Stage One: Babbling For Your Life