New fic: Disintegration 1/5?
Story: Disintegration
Author: WMR
Characters: Ten, Rose, more to come
Rated: PG (may increase)
Spoilers: All the way to Age of Steel
Summary: “You know this is goodbye, right? No visits. I don’t do that. If you leave now, Rose, this is it.”
With very many thanks to my wonderful BR,
dark_aegis.
Disintegration
Chapter 1: Selfish
“You’re absolutely sure this is what you want?”
He was standing at the console, hands busy with controls, his gaze on what his hands were doing. But then he’d barely looked at her since the end of the conversation in which she’d told him what she’d decided.
“Yes.” That came out too quietly, too unconvincingly. “Yes,” she said again, firmly, with a confidence she didn’t feel at all.
It was the right thing to do. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t what she really wanted. It was time. And anyway, if she left it much longer she wouldn’t be able to do it.
Their accidental visit to the parallel universe had been the catalyst. It’d shown her how selfish she’d been.
Mickey had chosen to stay there, where they would never see each other again, rather than come back to his own - their own - universe. Until then, she’d never quite realised how badly she’d treated him. The Doctor, too. Mickey’d said it himself: he was the spare part. The one they all forgot about.
She’d been taking him for granted. And the Doctor had only spared him a thought when it’d been necessary.
It wasn’t just Mickey. Her mum, too. Realising that had been the Doctor’s doing. She’d envied her parents in the alternate world - their huge house, the cars, the wealth they clearly had. She’d been imagining what it would’ve been like to grow up in that world. And they’d never had a daughter. She could have been their daughter. Then the Doctor had reminded her: Jackie and Pete Tyler of the alternate universe had each other - well, sort of, she’d discovered. And anyway, the alternate Jackie had died in the end.
But her mum only had her.
Her real mum. Who loved her and who didn’t treat her - or anyone - as if they were less than the dirt beneath her feet. Oh, her mum had a temper and could let fly with insults, all right, but she’d never, ever doubted that she was loved.
She was all her mum had. And she’d spent the last year running off to the other end of the universe, hardly ever remembering to call home, almost getting herself killed countless times. Ignoring the look of pain and grief in her mum’s eyes every time she left.
Selfish.
Christmas had shown her yet again how much her mum worried about her while she was gone. But, of course, she should have known that. Had known it, but had blithely assumed that her mum would just get used to it. Because she knew she was fine.
Okay, she made an effort - and so did the Doctor - to make sure she visited more often, not to leave gaps of months between visits, either in terms of her own time or time back at home. But it wasn’t the same for her mum, and she knew that.
Until recently, her mum had at least had Mickey for company. Until Mickey had asked to come with them in the TARDIS. And now Mickey was gone for ever.
Mickey’d been right, in those last few conversations they’d had - especially when he’d told her he was staying in the parallel world. Oh, he’d never actually called her selfish, but he’d thought it. She knew that. No-one else had mattered in her life for a very long time. Not since she’d met the Doctor. As long as she could be with him, nothing else mattered. Selfish.
It’d taken Mickey coming with them, though, to make her see that the Doctor was just as bad. She hadn’t been the only one ignoring Mickey, making him feel like a spare part - or the tin dog, as he’d called himself. The two of them existed in their own little world, where everyone else was excluded unless they were needed in some way.
So, yeah, the Doctor was just as selfish.
She’d wondered, in those few days after they’d left Mickey behind, whether if she’d treated him better he might not have wanted to stay there. But, even then, why should he have decided any different? He could almost have echoed those hurtful words she’d once said to him: there was nothing left at home - or with her - for him any more. He loved her, true. And she loved him but, as he’d told her, she loved the Doctor more. And in the parallel world he had people who needed him. People who wouldn’t treat him as a spare part. He had his gran.
In her world - in her orbit - Mickey had felt useless. She’d made him feel useless. As if he didn’t count. And she and the Doctor, both of them, had done that to him.
She’d been selfish again when he’d told her he was staying behind. What about me? she’d asked. What if I need you?
She missed Mickey. And how selfish was that, too? She’d treated him like a part of the furniture. Or an annoying tagalong. Now that he was gone, she wanted him back. She was a stupid cow who wanted it all.
She knew the Doctor blamed himself, too. They hadn’t talked about it at first. He’d taken one look at her when she’d walked back into the TARDIS and immediately started manipulating the controls. She hadn’t realised what he was doing until he’d told her to go outside and she’d found herself back home, in her mum’s living-room. With her mum. Alive. It was what she’d needed, and he’d understood that.
But, once they’d left again, a couple of days later, he’d asked her if she blamed him for Mickey leaving. She’d told him she didn’t, but that wasn’t really true. They were both to blame. But she more than him.
It wasn’t really Mickey, though. Or even her mum being alone. Those were part of the reason she was leaving, but not all of it.
She’d known for a while that she’d leave the Doctor one day. That it would be her choice. After meeting Sarah-Jane, she’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to end up in the same position. She wouldn’t let herself be left behind. She wouldn’t spend the rest of her life hoping and wishing that the Doctor would come back for her some day.
She’d leave, at a time of her own choosing, a clean break with no looking back. She’d make him say a proper goodbye and she’d send him on to live the rest of his long lives without her - to pick up new companions along the way, of course, until she became just a dim memory.
And this was the time she’d chosen. Sooner than she’d expected, sooner than she’d wanted, but it was the right time. Because any longer and she wouldn’t be able to do it.
So she’d told him. About two weeks after Mickey’d left, after a sleepless night when she’d been over and over how selfish she’d been, and everything else that’d been on her mind for weeks, she’d come to him in the control room and told him she wanted to go home.
He’d looked up and smiled at her. “Again? Weren’t we just there a couple of weeks ago?” But his hands had already been moving across the controls. “Okay. Powell Estates it is. Two weeks after our last visit all right?”
He hadn’t understood. She’d had to spell it out. “Not for a visit, Doctor. To stay.”
His hand had slipped, and the smile faded. “You’re - ” Immediately, he’d broken off whatever he’d been about to say. “This is a bit sudden, isn’t it?”
She’d dug her hands deep into the pockets of her top. “Not really. Been thinking about it for a while.”
“Ah.” He’d nodded a couple of times. “This is about Mickey, isn’t it? Rose, he made his own decision. I know you miss him - I miss him, too. But I really think he did the right thing.”
She’d shrugged. “ ‘S not really about Mickey. Or only partly. I just... I jus’ think it’s time.”
He’d given her a long, hard look, his brown eyes seeming to see right inside her. For a moment, she’d thought he was going to argue with her. And, even though part of her had desperately wanted him to, another part of her’d felt the unfairness of it. He hadn’t argued with Mickey when he’d announced he was staying.
But then he’d sighed. When he’d spoken, his voice had been quiet. “If you’re sure it’s what you want. When d’you want to go?”
She’d wanted to get it over with. Her rucksack was already packed. “Now, please.”
And then he’d given her one more long look, emotions shuttered, before saying, “As you wish.”
***
“If there’s something I’ve done... or not done...” His voice was light, but she could hear the underlying tension. He was trying to persuade her to change her mind, after all.
It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t done that with Mickey.
But it was different, really. Mickey had a reason for staying, and the Doctor had known what it was. She hadn’t really given him a reason for leaving.
“No.” She shook her head. “ ‘S nothing you’ve done.” And it was only partly a lie. It was much more her fault than his. She was the one who’d wanted more than he could ever offer her.
Yes, there was one thing he could say that would make her change her mind. But she knew he’d never say it. He’d made that clear the night she’d confronted him about leaving Sarah-Jane behind, and as if it hadn’t sunk in she’d realised it again that horrible day she’d watched him fall in love with Reinette, the child who’d grown up before their eyes to become the most famous woman in eighteenth-century France.
For that day, she’d got a taste of what it was like for the Doctor. To him, a human lifespan must seem like that day had to her. To meet someone, fall in love and then watch them die in such a short time, and be left alive and alone - how could anyone cope with that kind of pain?
She was sure that he loved her, but after Reinette she’d realised that he’d never tell her, and he’d never do anything about it.
If she were a better person - a less selfish person - she’d be able to settle for what they had. Settle for knowing that, for now, she was the most important person in his life. His best friend. But that was the problem. She really was just too selfish, because she wanted more.
It was insecurity, too. This life, much as they both loved it, couldn’t last indefinitely. Sarah-Jane had shown her that. And, even though the Doctor had told her he wouldn’t leave her behind, she’d stopped believing him after he’d gone through that time window knowing all his escape-routes would be closed. Knowing he might never be able to get back to her and Mickey.
Oh, she’d known what she needed to do if he hadn’t made it back. She knew how to initiate a programme that would have taken them back to 2007, to London. He’d shown her that not long after his regeneration, telling her that they had to be prepared for anything that might happen and he couldn’t risk her being stranded somewhere without him. But she hadn’t told Mickey that. She hadn’t told him anything. She’d just stood, frozen, staring at that window, at the last place she’d seen the Doctor.
The Doctor hadn’t had a choice. She’d known that. He’d had to stop the clockwork creatures. For all sorts of reasons, including preserving history, he couldn’t have allowed them to kill Reinette. But it had still felt as if he’d made a choice, and that he’d chosen Reinette over her, however selfish it had been of her to think that. And it had hurt her so much it’d scared her. So much that she hadn’t let him see her hurt, only her worry for him.
He’d come back, of course, and she’d got the impression that for him it had actually been less time than it had for her. But the incident had been an even bigger wake-up call than finding out how he’d left Sarah-Jane behind. Because, even after Sarah-Jane, she’d been naïve enough to let herself believe that she was different.
That, yes, the Doctor left companions. He’d left Sarah-Jane. She’d seen for herself how he’d left Jack, and she was still hurt and confused about that. Jack was alive. That was all the Doctor had told her. She’d asked him a couple of times where Jack was and why they hadn’t gone back for him, but after he’d stonewalled both times she’d let the subject drop. Hadn’t stopped her wondering, of course.
Even that, though, hadn’t stopped her assuming that she was different. Because of course she was. The Doctor loved her. He wouldn’t leave her.
He’d loved Sarah-Jane. And he’d left her. Never once mentioned Sarah to her. He’d cared about Jack - she knew that, had seen it for herself - and he’d left Jack and never mentioned him now.
She’d known for a long time that she loved him. Loved him enough to die for him. She’d felt secure in the belief that he loved her just as much. Meeting Sarah-Jane, finding out that he moved from companion to companion, and then being left behind on that spaceship, had all shaken her confidence in his love for her.
He did love her. But not enough to take the risk that one day he’d have to watch her wither and die. Not enough to keep his word that he wouldn’t leave her behind.
One day, she’d known then, he would leave her. And it would devastate her.
So, better to make the break herself, before it got too difficult. Before she ruined every other relationship she still had back home. While she still had somewhere to go back to.
And then Mickey had left. And she’d realised that the cosy world she’d just assumed would always be waiting back home for her was already crumbling.
So it was time to go home. While she could still walk away from him.
***
“Be there in a few minutes.” The Doctor cut across her thoughts. Just as well. She was starting to feel sorry for herself again.
“Right. Better go an’ get my rucksack, then.” Without another word, she left the console room. Escaped. Because it was all getting too hard to cope with. If she’d stayed there with him another minute, with the long silences and him alternately avoiding looking at her and shooting her long, speculative looks, she’d completely lose the composure she was only barely holding onto.
Her decision had seemed right last night, when she’d thought it all through and come to the conclusion that it was the only possible option. Now, though... It would take very little to make her change her mind. And she couldn’t let that happen.
She got back to the console room a couple of minutes later, just in time to hear the materialisation sequence begin. This time, she stayed below the platform. She couldn’t handle being too close to him. Not now.
The Doctor met her gaze again, and he looked tense.
“You know this is goodbye, right? No visits. I don’t do that. If you leave now, Rose, this is it.”
She nodded. “I know that, Doctor.” Her tone was sharper than she’d expected. “Sarah-Jane, remember? You move on. You don’t look back. Bye, Rose, hello new companion.”
Something flashed in his eyes. “You’re the one whose decision this is, Rose, not me. You’re the one walking away. So don’t throw Sarah-Jane at me. You have no right to do that.”
Yeah, she was the one leaving. But it was because he did that to companions, because he moved on, never looked back, that she was going. So that he couldn’t do it to her.
He sighed audibly. “Sorry. Look, what I wanted to say is - I don’t keep in touch, Rose. But if you ever change your mind... or if you ever need me, for anything, you know how to contact me.”
Her head shot up. She met his gaze in surprise. She hadn’t expected that he’d leave her that kind of opening.
Contact him... of course, her phone. Her third super-mobile, now. After he’d told her to give Mickey her second phone so he could use it to disable the Cyberforces, she’d needed a new one. And so over those couple of days they’d spent in London the Doctor had insisted on going phone-shopping with her. That’d been an ordeal, too; he’d found fault with just about every phone they’d looked at. She’d only got him to approve a phone in the end by threatening not to get one at all.
And, as soon as they’d left the shop with the activated mobile, he’d taken it from her and jiggery-poked it in exactly the same way as he had both of its predecessors.
It was still a super-mobile. And it still had the TARDIS’s number programmed into its memory. Yes, she could contact him anywhere. But she wouldn’t.
But she wasn’t telling him that.
The silence was suddenly deafening. They were there. Home. Back in London.
This was it. Time to go.
“I...” She had to swallow. “I guess this is it, Doctor. Thanks for everything.”
He left the console, striding down from the platform and over to her. “I think I’m the one who should be thanking you,” he said, his voice soft, as he reached her.
She wanted to ask him why, but couldn’t quite find her voice.
“When I met you,” he said, still quietly, “I was in a right old state. Well, you saw it. You remember. I couldn’t even handle being asked where I was from, let alone telling anyone. Time’s helped, of course, but you helped more.” He reached for her hands, holding them loosely. “You were fantastic, Rose Tyler,” he finished, giving her a crooked smile.
And that was it. She lost her composure completely. Tears were suddenly streaming down her face. And, in a single movement, he caught her in a tight hug.
“You can change your mind.” His arms were tight around her and his face was against her hair.
“No.” This was too hard as it was. She’d never be able to go through this a second time.
He loosened his hold on her, and his eyes held hers. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Me, too.”
That was one thing she knew for the absolute truth. She’d miss him every day for the rest of her life. But she wasn’t going to be like Sarah-Jane, feeling bitter because he’d left her, always wondering what she’d done to make him not want to come back to her.
She pulled away, out of his arms. Because if she didn’t do it now she’d embarrass herself totally by clinging to him. “Goodbye, Doctor.”
For an instant, the briefest of moments, she could almost have believed he was going to kiss her. Something in his expression, in the way he seemed to move his head... but then she blinked, and it was gone. It must have been her imagination. Or the tears blurring her vision.
“Goodbye, Rose.”
His hands shoved deep in his pockets, he stayed exactly where he was as she picked up her rucksack and walked to the door. She glanced back once, as she was halfway through the door, and saw that he was watching her, his expression every bit as sad as it’d been when he’d come back to the TARDIS after saying goodbye to Sarah-Jane. Maybe even sadder.
She swallowed the lump once more occupying her throat. “You take care, Doctor. Don’t go absorbin’ any more Time Vortexes, you hear?”
His mouth twitched, very faintly. “That’s Vortices, actually.” He sobered again. “You take care, too, Rose.”
And then the door swung shut behind her. She’d taken less than three steps away when she heard the dematerialisation sequence start.
“Goodbye, Doctor. I love you.” She whispered the words into the void left by the now-vanished TARDIS, before setting off to her mother’s flat and home.
***
tbc
Author: WMR
Characters: Ten, Rose, more to come
Rated: PG (may increase)
Spoilers: All the way to Age of Steel
Summary: “You know this is goodbye, right? No visits. I don’t do that. If you leave now, Rose, this is it.”
With very many thanks to my wonderful BR,
dark_aegis.
Disintegration
Chapter 1: Selfish
“You’re absolutely sure this is what you want?”
He was standing at the console, hands busy with controls, his gaze on what his hands were doing. But then he’d barely looked at her since the end of the conversation in which she’d told him what she’d decided.
“Yes.” That came out too quietly, too unconvincingly. “Yes,” she said again, firmly, with a confidence she didn’t feel at all.
It was the right thing to do. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t what she really wanted. It was time. And anyway, if she left it much longer she wouldn’t be able to do it.
Their accidental visit to the parallel universe had been the catalyst. It’d shown her how selfish she’d been.
Mickey had chosen to stay there, where they would never see each other again, rather than come back to his own - their own - universe. Until then, she’d never quite realised how badly she’d treated him. The Doctor, too. Mickey’d said it himself: he was the spare part. The one they all forgot about.
She’d been taking him for granted. And the Doctor had only spared him a thought when it’d been necessary.
It wasn’t just Mickey. Her mum, too. Realising that had been the Doctor’s doing. She’d envied her parents in the alternate world - their huge house, the cars, the wealth they clearly had. She’d been imagining what it would’ve been like to grow up in that world. And they’d never had a daughter. She could have been their daughter. Then the Doctor had reminded her: Jackie and Pete Tyler of the alternate universe had each other - well, sort of, she’d discovered. And anyway, the alternate Jackie had died in the end.
But her mum only had her.
Her real mum. Who loved her and who didn’t treat her - or anyone - as if they were less than the dirt beneath her feet. Oh, her mum had a temper and could let fly with insults, all right, but she’d never, ever doubted that she was loved.
She was all her mum had. And she’d spent the last year running off to the other end of the universe, hardly ever remembering to call home, almost getting herself killed countless times. Ignoring the look of pain and grief in her mum’s eyes every time she left.
Selfish.
Christmas had shown her yet again how much her mum worried about her while she was gone. But, of course, she should have known that. Had known it, but had blithely assumed that her mum would just get used to it. Because she knew she was fine.
Okay, she made an effort - and so did the Doctor - to make sure she visited more often, not to leave gaps of months between visits, either in terms of her own time or time back at home. But it wasn’t the same for her mum, and she knew that.
Until recently, her mum had at least had Mickey for company. Until Mickey had asked to come with them in the TARDIS. And now Mickey was gone for ever.
Mickey’d been right, in those last few conversations they’d had - especially when he’d told her he was staying in the parallel world. Oh, he’d never actually called her selfish, but he’d thought it. She knew that. No-one else had mattered in her life for a very long time. Not since she’d met the Doctor. As long as she could be with him, nothing else mattered. Selfish.
It’d taken Mickey coming with them, though, to make her see that the Doctor was just as bad. She hadn’t been the only one ignoring Mickey, making him feel like a spare part - or the tin dog, as he’d called himself. The two of them existed in their own little world, where everyone else was excluded unless they were needed in some way.
So, yeah, the Doctor was just as selfish.
She’d wondered, in those few days after they’d left Mickey behind, whether if she’d treated him better he might not have wanted to stay there. But, even then, why should he have decided any different? He could almost have echoed those hurtful words she’d once said to him: there was nothing left at home - or with her - for him any more. He loved her, true. And she loved him but, as he’d told her, she loved the Doctor more. And in the parallel world he had people who needed him. People who wouldn’t treat him as a spare part. He had his gran.
In her world - in her orbit - Mickey had felt useless. She’d made him feel useless. As if he didn’t count. And she and the Doctor, both of them, had done that to him.
She’d been selfish again when he’d told her he was staying behind. What about me? she’d asked. What if I need you?
She missed Mickey. And how selfish was that, too? She’d treated him like a part of the furniture. Or an annoying tagalong. Now that he was gone, she wanted him back. She was a stupid cow who wanted it all.
She knew the Doctor blamed himself, too. They hadn’t talked about it at first. He’d taken one look at her when she’d walked back into the TARDIS and immediately started manipulating the controls. She hadn’t realised what he was doing until he’d told her to go outside and she’d found herself back home, in her mum’s living-room. With her mum. Alive. It was what she’d needed, and he’d understood that.
But, once they’d left again, a couple of days later, he’d asked her if she blamed him for Mickey leaving. She’d told him she didn’t, but that wasn’t really true. They were both to blame. But she more than him.
It wasn’t really Mickey, though. Or even her mum being alone. Those were part of the reason she was leaving, but not all of it.
She’d known for a while that she’d leave the Doctor one day. That it would be her choice. After meeting Sarah-Jane, she’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to end up in the same position. She wouldn’t let herself be left behind. She wouldn’t spend the rest of her life hoping and wishing that the Doctor would come back for her some day.
She’d leave, at a time of her own choosing, a clean break with no looking back. She’d make him say a proper goodbye and she’d send him on to live the rest of his long lives without her - to pick up new companions along the way, of course, until she became just a dim memory.
And this was the time she’d chosen. Sooner than she’d expected, sooner than she’d wanted, but it was the right time. Because any longer and she wouldn’t be able to do it.
So she’d told him. About two weeks after Mickey’d left, after a sleepless night when she’d been over and over how selfish she’d been, and everything else that’d been on her mind for weeks, she’d come to him in the control room and told him she wanted to go home.
He’d looked up and smiled at her. “Again? Weren’t we just there a couple of weeks ago?” But his hands had already been moving across the controls. “Okay. Powell Estates it is. Two weeks after our last visit all right?”
He hadn’t understood. She’d had to spell it out. “Not for a visit, Doctor. To stay.”
His hand had slipped, and the smile faded. “You’re - ” Immediately, he’d broken off whatever he’d been about to say. “This is a bit sudden, isn’t it?”
She’d dug her hands deep into the pockets of her top. “Not really. Been thinking about it for a while.”
“Ah.” He’d nodded a couple of times. “This is about Mickey, isn’t it? Rose, he made his own decision. I know you miss him - I miss him, too. But I really think he did the right thing.”
She’d shrugged. “ ‘S not really about Mickey. Or only partly. I just... I jus’ think it’s time.”
He’d given her a long, hard look, his brown eyes seeming to see right inside her. For a moment, she’d thought he was going to argue with her. And, even though part of her had desperately wanted him to, another part of her’d felt the unfairness of it. He hadn’t argued with Mickey when he’d announced he was staying.
But then he’d sighed. When he’d spoken, his voice had been quiet. “If you’re sure it’s what you want. When d’you want to go?”
She’d wanted to get it over with. Her rucksack was already packed. “Now, please.”
And then he’d given her one more long look, emotions shuttered, before saying, “As you wish.”
***
“If there’s something I’ve done... or not done...” His voice was light, but she could hear the underlying tension. He was trying to persuade her to change her mind, after all.
It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t done that with Mickey.
But it was different, really. Mickey had a reason for staying, and the Doctor had known what it was. She hadn’t really given him a reason for leaving.
“No.” She shook her head. “ ‘S nothing you’ve done.” And it was only partly a lie. It was much more her fault than his. She was the one who’d wanted more than he could ever offer her.
Yes, there was one thing he could say that would make her change her mind. But she knew he’d never say it. He’d made that clear the night she’d confronted him about leaving Sarah-Jane behind, and as if it hadn’t sunk in she’d realised it again that horrible day she’d watched him fall in love with Reinette, the child who’d grown up before their eyes to become the most famous woman in eighteenth-century France.
For that day, she’d got a taste of what it was like for the Doctor. To him, a human lifespan must seem like that day had to her. To meet someone, fall in love and then watch them die in such a short time, and be left alive and alone - how could anyone cope with that kind of pain?
She was sure that he loved her, but after Reinette she’d realised that he’d never tell her, and he’d never do anything about it.
If she were a better person - a less selfish person - she’d be able to settle for what they had. Settle for knowing that, for now, she was the most important person in his life. His best friend. But that was the problem. She really was just too selfish, because she wanted more.
It was insecurity, too. This life, much as they both loved it, couldn’t last indefinitely. Sarah-Jane had shown her that. And, even though the Doctor had told her he wouldn’t leave her behind, she’d stopped believing him after he’d gone through that time window knowing all his escape-routes would be closed. Knowing he might never be able to get back to her and Mickey.
Oh, she’d known what she needed to do if he hadn’t made it back. She knew how to initiate a programme that would have taken them back to 2007, to London. He’d shown her that not long after his regeneration, telling her that they had to be prepared for anything that might happen and he couldn’t risk her being stranded somewhere without him. But she hadn’t told Mickey that. She hadn’t told him anything. She’d just stood, frozen, staring at that window, at the last place she’d seen the Doctor.
The Doctor hadn’t had a choice. She’d known that. He’d had to stop the clockwork creatures. For all sorts of reasons, including preserving history, he couldn’t have allowed them to kill Reinette. But it had still felt as if he’d made a choice, and that he’d chosen Reinette over her, however selfish it had been of her to think that. And it had hurt her so much it’d scared her. So much that she hadn’t let him see her hurt, only her worry for him.
He’d come back, of course, and she’d got the impression that for him it had actually been less time than it had for her. But the incident had been an even bigger wake-up call than finding out how he’d left Sarah-Jane behind. Because, even after Sarah-Jane, she’d been naïve enough to let herself believe that she was different.
That, yes, the Doctor left companions. He’d left Sarah-Jane. She’d seen for herself how he’d left Jack, and she was still hurt and confused about that. Jack was alive. That was all the Doctor had told her. She’d asked him a couple of times where Jack was and why they hadn’t gone back for him, but after he’d stonewalled both times she’d let the subject drop. Hadn’t stopped her wondering, of course.
Even that, though, hadn’t stopped her assuming that she was different. Because of course she was. The Doctor loved her. He wouldn’t leave her.
He’d loved Sarah-Jane. And he’d left her. Never once mentioned Sarah to her. He’d cared about Jack - she knew that, had seen it for herself - and he’d left Jack and never mentioned him now.
She’d known for a long time that she loved him. Loved him enough to die for him. She’d felt secure in the belief that he loved her just as much. Meeting Sarah-Jane, finding out that he moved from companion to companion, and then being left behind on that spaceship, had all shaken her confidence in his love for her.
He did love her. But not enough to take the risk that one day he’d have to watch her wither and die. Not enough to keep his word that he wouldn’t leave her behind.
One day, she’d known then, he would leave her. And it would devastate her.
So, better to make the break herself, before it got too difficult. Before she ruined every other relationship she still had back home. While she still had somewhere to go back to.
And then Mickey had left. And she’d realised that the cosy world she’d just assumed would always be waiting back home for her was already crumbling.
So it was time to go home. While she could still walk away from him.
***
“Be there in a few minutes.” The Doctor cut across her thoughts. Just as well. She was starting to feel sorry for herself again.
“Right. Better go an’ get my rucksack, then.” Without another word, she left the console room. Escaped. Because it was all getting too hard to cope with. If she’d stayed there with him another minute, with the long silences and him alternately avoiding looking at her and shooting her long, speculative looks, she’d completely lose the composure she was only barely holding onto.
Her decision had seemed right last night, when she’d thought it all through and come to the conclusion that it was the only possible option. Now, though... It would take very little to make her change her mind. And she couldn’t let that happen.
She got back to the console room a couple of minutes later, just in time to hear the materialisation sequence begin. This time, she stayed below the platform. She couldn’t handle being too close to him. Not now.
The Doctor met her gaze again, and he looked tense.
“You know this is goodbye, right? No visits. I don’t do that. If you leave now, Rose, this is it.”
She nodded. “I know that, Doctor.” Her tone was sharper than she’d expected. “Sarah-Jane, remember? You move on. You don’t look back. Bye, Rose, hello new companion.”
Something flashed in his eyes. “You’re the one whose decision this is, Rose, not me. You’re the one walking away. So don’t throw Sarah-Jane at me. You have no right to do that.”
Yeah, she was the one leaving. But it was because he did that to companions, because he moved on, never looked back, that she was going. So that he couldn’t do it to her.
He sighed audibly. “Sorry. Look, what I wanted to say is - I don’t keep in touch, Rose. But if you ever change your mind... or if you ever need me, for anything, you know how to contact me.”
Her head shot up. She met his gaze in surprise. She hadn’t expected that he’d leave her that kind of opening.
Contact him... of course, her phone. Her third super-mobile, now. After he’d told her to give Mickey her second phone so he could use it to disable the Cyberforces, she’d needed a new one. And so over those couple of days they’d spent in London the Doctor had insisted on going phone-shopping with her. That’d been an ordeal, too; he’d found fault with just about every phone they’d looked at. She’d only got him to approve a phone in the end by threatening not to get one at all.
And, as soon as they’d left the shop with the activated mobile, he’d taken it from her and jiggery-poked it in exactly the same way as he had both of its predecessors.
It was still a super-mobile. And it still had the TARDIS’s number programmed into its memory. Yes, she could contact him anywhere. But she wouldn’t.
But she wasn’t telling him that.
The silence was suddenly deafening. They were there. Home. Back in London.
This was it. Time to go.
“I...” She had to swallow. “I guess this is it, Doctor. Thanks for everything.”
He left the console, striding down from the platform and over to her. “I think I’m the one who should be thanking you,” he said, his voice soft, as he reached her.
She wanted to ask him why, but couldn’t quite find her voice.
“When I met you,” he said, still quietly, “I was in a right old state. Well, you saw it. You remember. I couldn’t even handle being asked where I was from, let alone telling anyone. Time’s helped, of course, but you helped more.” He reached for her hands, holding them loosely. “You were fantastic, Rose Tyler,” he finished, giving her a crooked smile.
And that was it. She lost her composure completely. Tears were suddenly streaming down her face. And, in a single movement, he caught her in a tight hug.
“You can change your mind.” His arms were tight around her and his face was against her hair.
“No.” This was too hard as it was. She’d never be able to go through this a second time.
He loosened his hold on her, and his eyes held hers. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Me, too.”
That was one thing she knew for the absolute truth. She’d miss him every day for the rest of her life. But she wasn’t going to be like Sarah-Jane, feeling bitter because he’d left her, always wondering what she’d done to make him not want to come back to her.
She pulled away, out of his arms. Because if she didn’t do it now she’d embarrass herself totally by clinging to him. “Goodbye, Doctor.”
For an instant, the briefest of moments, she could almost have believed he was going to kiss her. Something in his expression, in the way he seemed to move his head... but then she blinked, and it was gone. It must have been her imagination. Or the tears blurring her vision.
“Goodbye, Rose.”
His hands shoved deep in his pockets, he stayed exactly where he was as she picked up her rucksack and walked to the door. She glanced back once, as she was halfway through the door, and saw that he was watching her, his expression every bit as sad as it’d been when he’d come back to the TARDIS after saying goodbye to Sarah-Jane. Maybe even sadder.
She swallowed the lump once more occupying her throat. “You take care, Doctor. Don’t go absorbin’ any more Time Vortexes, you hear?”
His mouth twitched, very faintly. “That’s Vortices, actually.” He sobered again. “You take care, too, Rose.”
And then the door swung shut behind her. She’d taken less than three steps away when she heard the dematerialisation sequence start.
“Goodbye, Doctor. I love you.” She whispered the words into the void left by the now-vanished TARDIS, before setting off to her mother’s flat and home.
***
tbc