Tiny Explorers
Title: Tiny Explorers
Spoilers: None.
Word Count: 1,191
Disclaimer: I do not claim any ownership of Doctor Who whatsoever.
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Summary: Written for the Then_There's_Us Challenge 91: AU. He's leaving, and she's staying, but he'll always come back home.
Masti: An infatuation with the world.
He was her age, but they were worlds apart. He had money and opportunity at his fingertips, so he traveled the world, and she stayed on the Estate.
…
He invites her to come along of course- he can be oblivious, but never cruel- offers to pay her way fully, jokingly calls her his companion. She laughs along with him, but the title, considering the expectations most had for girls of her class and breed, hits a bit too close to home and she politely declines the offer.
She wishes that she didn’t have quite so much pride, and could accept his charity, his act of kindness, but instead she smiles brightly and plays the responsibility card and claims that she needs to stay home for her mum. She is certain he can see through her façade, but if he does, he says nothing and they move on to safer topics of conversation; his schooling, her job, the weather.
So she goes to work every day, and when she gets off, she spends every night with him in dark, smoky clubs listening to him talk about all the things he’s going to do when he gets where he’s going- which to hear him talk, is everywhere.
She sits there and watches him, a finger lightly tracing the rim of her glass, around and around in the same pattern, never deviating from its course and wonders how it is possible that she is still falling more in love with this man. She is enchanted by the brightness of his eyes as he speaks, dodges his overenthusiastic hands as they wave about excitedly, and wishes again that she was going with him.
Instead, she helps him plan his trip insomuch that he will let her as he is determined to go where he pleases when he pleases. They borrow guidebooks and maps from the library and her fingers trace the curving lines across the worn paper wondering if he will be going along these paths, or if he will forge his own.
They flip through the guidebooks and read about the wonders of the world, from the monuments to the paella you have to try at that hole-in-the-wall in Barcelona. She brushes her fingers across the prints of famous paintings and wonders morosely if this is the closest she will ever get to actually seeing them.
But she is not jealous, it is not her nature. She is happy for him, that he will be going to these places, though she harbors the fear that amongst these great wonders and fascinating people he will undoubtedly be meeting, Rose Tyler, the girl from a London estate will be forgotten.
But she helps him pack his rucksack, carefully folding the small amount of clothes he will be carrying along, just one change, a blue suit that she does not prefer nearly as much as the brown pinstriped one he is wearing. They wedge in an extra pair of trainers in preparation of the walking he will be doing, and when he is not looking, she adds in five extra pairs of socks. The packing itself takes an absurdly short amount of time when compared to the amount of time he will be apart from her, which feels so vast that the oceans cannot compare.
She sees it now, the paths of their lives, as if they are visceral and wishes they were so she could reach out and entwine them together. Instead, she sees his: stretching out for miles across countries heedless of borders, affecting and changing so many different lives while occasionally looping back and intersecting back into her life.
Her own path on the other hand cannot really be considered a path, but rather a dot, a fixed point as she remains where she has always been.
This has never been more clear to her then as they stand in the lobby of the too-large airport being jostled by the people around them who have Things To Do and Places To Be and don’t have time to be bothered by silly inconsequential things like The Girl Who Is In Love and The Boy Who Isn’t.
She is knocked particularly hard by a man wearing a bad piece who looks at her as if it is her fault for being there, in his way. She stumbles but then is steadied when he grabs her arms and pulls her closer into him. She can feel his touch like a firebrand on her skin and she revels in the sensation that she knows will soon be a distant memory.
“So this is me.” He says huskily as they stand in front of the hallway leading to his terminal, a place where she can’t go, the hallway a sign that she will no longer be able to walk beside him.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” She replies uncomfortably, shifting her weight nervously as they dance around the one word they have somehow managed to avoid throughout this whole endeavor.
She doesn’t want to say goodbye, and she hopes that he feels the same way, and she thinks that she does as he puts an arm around her and pulls her into a tight hug. “Take care of yourself Rose.” He murmurs and then brushes his lips across her forehead in a gentle caress, and then he is gone, and she is standing alone surrounded by hundreds of people.
---
When the first envelope from him arrives a week after their separation she is elated while a tiny bit surprised. She had not expected him to write letters; he talked far too much and was far too impatient to sit down in one spot and actually pen down all those thoughts.
It turns out that she was right, instead of letters; she instead holds a photograph in her hands, taken over London obviously from his plane seat. She absently flips over the back not expecting to see anything, and her breath catches.
Home. I’ll be back soon.
It becomes a recurring theme, with her receiving a new photo every other day, every two days always from someplace new. They line the walls of her tiny room, a chronological timeline of where he’s been. They are of exotic places or of people she doesn’t know, and never will.
Basque country. Captain Jack. Not actually a captain.
Occasionally there will be a glimpse of him and she hungers for those rare moments so she can pore over his image, to make sure that he is alright, eating well, and wondering if he does change, will she be able to see it?
Paris. Reinette. A tour of Versailles. Were told we must come back when the gardens are in full bloom.
There are the woman. Reinette. Martha. Astrid. She considers being worried, but the fact that she is still receiving these photos, these missives is the proof she has needed for herself, that she has not been forgotten. Yet.
All she can do, and is doing; is wait. She will stay here and work, and he will travel but always come back.
She is home.