for doctorsplusone: A What-if for RS Verse (AU)

[rude_not_ginger]

It had been twenty years.

Twenty years since they first landed in London with the communicators. Twenty years since he'd re-met his Rose. Twenty years since he'd entered this universe.

And no escape. Not yet. Oh, there was a brief reprise, five years earlier, when he'd taken one last trip back to France. But other than that, it was London. London all the time. Traveling to find clues to figure out how to save the universe, but the universe wasn't having any of that saving business.

And there he was. In London. In his silver-tree-shaped TARDIS. Alone.

Reinette had died. Five years earlier. Lived much longer than they'd expected, and as she started to wither, he and Louis took her back to France, to die in the palace. Where she wasn't supposed to die, of course. Being a non-noble. But she was loved by a King and a lonely God. That was enough of a title for them. Louis stayed in France to tend to her. To make sure her grave was not lost in their universe as it was in the one the Doctor returned to.

Suzie left far earlier. Found her own calling or some such nonsense. Or maybe she was simply tired of the domestics. Now, he was simply alone. He'd gotten used to it, by now. It had become the norm these last five years as dressing in French silks had become the norm in the three years he spent in France before coming here.

He sat in a chair outside the TARDIS, looking over new information. The neverending war against the cosmic apocalypse that seemed to never come. The sonic screwdriver twirled in one hand. A gift from Reinette to the Doctor many, many years earlier. Helped made by Ted. How long had he blamed Ted for Reinette's death? Too long, he decided.

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[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

She approached from the other side of the silver tree, out of sight, still able to back away, to run, if she suddenly chickened out. It had been five long years since she'd fled to Jamie's side -- largely out of the pain of loving this Doctor. Her Doctor. She'd ran hard and ran far and now it was time to come home.

He'd been right. They would always be The Doctor and Rose.

And she'd come as soon as she'd heard...

She moved nearly silently to the side of the silver tree, watching him from afar and reawakening that old ache with each step she took closer. Silently, silently...

Until she trod on something noisy -- a twig, a crisp packet, she wasn't sure, only that it heralded her approach and froze her in her tracks.

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He heard the crack of a twig. Or something. The clumsiness meant it was probably one of his other selves. Trying to be smart or be...supportive or some such nonsense. They'd gotten rather good at that, actually. Being supportive. If "good" actually meant "completely annoying" in some language.

He sighed and put the screwdriver away, replacing his empty hand with his cane, which turned better in his fingers anyway. His other hand was occupied by a glass of wine.

It was almost habitual. Almost human. Drinking a glass of alcohol and turning his vice through his fingertips.

"Quit hiding. I know you're there."

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She huffed out a soft laugh, nervousness dissipating just like that. "You always did, I s'pose." Her voice, even further away from Powell Estate than when she'd left last time. Older, wiser, a little sadder.

"Hello, Doctor." Rose finished her approach, and gently let her hands come to rest upon his shoulders.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Great. Now he was dreaming. Dreaming that Rose came back. He looked at the glass of wine and thought about swearing at it for giving him bad dreams. Dreams involving Rose never ended well. Never.

Maybe he was just going mad. Too long in one place, two TARDISes in his brain, all that chameleon-arch business, losing Reinette...well, it wouldn't be too terribly surprising.

"Going to snow soon, you know?" he said. By way of idle conversation. "Snowed when we went out for sundaes, remember?"

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"Did it?" She pressed a gentle kiss of greeting to his forehead. "I remember the sundaes, and Gallifrey and --" Rose bit her lip, remorseful. "I didn't remember snow. I remember snow that Christmas with the Sycorax..."

Before it all went so horribly wrong...

"... You in you jimjams. Well, your borrowed jimjams." Squeezed his shoulders with her fingertips, then came around to crouch before him. "I came as soon as I heard. Soon as I could. I-I'm sorry. About Reinette."

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Of course she had. She didn't look too terribly older. A few years, maybe? Maybe a few more? Nowhere near Reinette, who had white hair and deep-set wrinkles when she went. Nowhere near Louis, whose hair matched the wigs he loved so dearly. Not any of them that were human that were left, now.

"I've gone rather mad, you know?" he whispered, as though it were a personal joke between them. "You see, I think that my old lover has returned to me. Which she'd never do."

She was never a lover in the strictest of senses, but he loved Rose. Loved her dearly, and that was very well known between them. She was more a lover than the woman he'd bedded in France before Reinette.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

Carefully, she took the wine glass from his hand and set it down beside her. "No, Doctor -- you've not gone mad. It's me." She took the empty hand, now divested of the wine glass, and guided it to her face. "I came home."

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His thumb traced her cheekbone. She certainly felt real. But, then again, he'd been to the waste-beaches of Pentastico 2 and imagined he saw Reinette waiting for him by the waves. He was used to having his senses deceive him.

But she felt real.

"Why did you come?" he asked. It was better than arguing with a hallucination as to whether or not it was real.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"Because it was time to come home."

He seemed so delicate -- and that wasn't just the cane by his side. She'd get the story of that later. Just old and tired and she hurt for him, for his loss. Rose turned her face into his hand, placing a kiss in the palm.

"Because I've been gone too long."

Carefully, so utterly carefully -- she was treating him like finest crystal -- she indicated she wanted him to stand and then helped him up the rest of the way. A subtle kick and the wine spilled red on the grass. It was time for a cup of tea, she decided. Maybe ice cream, if he had it. Old times.

"Because I'm Rose and you're the Doctor and it was only ever a matter of time."

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Again, what good would arguing do? He opened the door to the TARDIS and laid the papers he'd been going over by the console. The TARDIS was darker, now. Colder. It had been him and his work for a long time, now. Slowly edging back into the simple ship of a wandering bachelor.

It was something he really should've managed to get used to, by now.

And how many times had he fixed two cups of tea by accident? What damage would one more do?

"Tea?" he asked, limping towards the kitchen. His leg didn't ache nearly so much as it did in his youth, but the injury had never healed. The doctors on New New Earth suggested regeneration. He often thought of that as a worthy cure.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"Of course." She followed him, watching the limp, trying to figure out how old the injury was -- but that was impossible, of course. He hadn't aged a day for all the time that had passed.

"What happened?" she asked.

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"Twenty years or so ago," he said, heading to the cabinets where he stored the tea. "Not long after---" after she'd left. That was the sort of topic that made her leave in his dreams. "I turned human. Kidnapped by the Master for...oh, roundabout a month or so. Damages by the torture there never really repaired. My own fault. Going out on my own."

He swore under his breath and slammed the cabinet. A different tea than the one he wanted, then. He opened a different cabinet and pulled out a box.

"I don't remember how you like it." The statement was a lie, of course.

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"I remember you were talking about turning human." Unbidden, her hand rose to her throat, still feeling the absence of that long-ago gift he'd pulled from her at their last fight. "I'm -- I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you."

She looked up at him, and cocked a single eyebrow. Didn't remember, bollocks.

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"Ended up pulling it off, you know. Eight months or so? Something like that? Naturally, the universe went against the idea and I had to turn back."

If he hadn't, he'd have probably still had to see Reinette die. He'd have only been in his mid-fifties, while Reinette was settling into her sixties when she passed. But that wasn't the only reason why he wanted humanity. It was the chance to live out the life. Funny thing to long for after all these years.

"Still. Pleasant while it happened." He handed her the tea. Made the way he remembered.

"How is Jamie?" The way he asked was almost as though it were idle conversation with someone he was very used to seeing.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"Oh, gone again," she admitted with an off-hand gesture that didn't really echo into her bones but if she kept trying, it would grow to habit one day.

Rose took a long sip of her tea -- made perfectly. As if he'd ever forgotten. "You did remember," she murmured, redundantly, hiding the faint flare of embarrassment in her sip.

Then, offhand, further to an earlier comment of his: "We were never really lovers." She didn't fully believe that any more than he did, but saying it, making the argument, might help with his sense that she was just a hallucinations. "Although not for want of trying."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Well, I'm a stubborn sort, always have been," the Doctor replied, shifting into a seat at the small table. He grew old in this seat. And Reinette grew old in that seat and Louis grew old in that seat and Suzie flitted in and out of their lives in that seat and...

"Gone. Can't have been that long for you, Rose." He was not going for particularly cruel or cold, but he was rubbish at putting an equal mixture of sympathy and curiosity in his voice.

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A faint shrug, as if she felt as little emotion as his voice contained. Still, she didn't flinch away from the tone. He was who he was, and she knew him better than she knew herself somedays.

"Long enough," was all she said. "Good tea."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"It's British," he replied. "French are rubbish at tea."

He raised the cup to his lips and took a small sip. It wasn't terrible. It just felt...ridiculously strange sitting there with her. Surreal. Having tea. Talking about nothing. Like all the time that had passed hadn't. It had. Part of him wanted to shake her and scream at her for leaving him. Part of him wanted to walk away and pretend she'd never come back.

The more logical part of him that said he should just stay put and drink his tea (the part of him with the voice that sounded like Reinette) won over and he took another sip of tea.

"How did you get back?"

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"There's a rift in time and space over Cardiff and Jack figured out how to tap into it with his vortex manipulator," she exposited. "It's not terribly precise," a faintly apologetic grimace, "which is why I didn't get here sooner. But I'm here now, right?"

Forced cheerful grin. AWKward, Rose thought, the voice in her head that sounded an awful lot like Jack. He'd said that this was an 'idea of dubious quality', but she'd convinced him to let her try. To go to the Doctor when she figured he'd need her the most. Jack had mostly given up trying to talk sense into her over the Doctor, but she loved him for trying nonetheless.

Silence for a moment. Then: "Well, this is bloody awkward, isn't it? Whew..."

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

After the tangle of bodies and minds, Rose drew his head down to rest on her shoulder. Her fingers absently stroked through his long hair.

"Well..." she murmured.

There was a pleasant ache through her body and the lingering presence of him in her mind and... Rose had never imagined after. She'd imagined The Event Itself countless times -- in infinite variations -- but never After. When it had all changed. When they had finally gotten what they'd both wanted for years. It seemed somehow desperately significant to be lying there beside him and yet... utterly ordinary. Commonplace. Anticlimatic. She wondered what Jack would make of such an assessment and found herself smiling; she pressed a soft kiss to his temple.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He closed his eyes and let his body soak in their afterglow, in the realization that this was real and had happened. Years of wanting between them and now...it all seemed very simple, how she kissed his forehead and lay with him comfortably.

"I never thought I'd see you again," he murmured. He didn't know how to vocalize his emotions in regards to her return, or how much he adored her. Even "adoration" seemed too sweet to be the emotion between them. He needed her. The lingering connection between them, he hoped, would show her what he couldn't say.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"We never said good-bye." Rose looked down at him, half-smiled and brushed another his to his forehead. "I couldn't leave it like that. I told Thete I'd come back one day..."

She was content: echoes of his mind wrapped around her and she felt like she'd truly come home. He was her Doctor and, on some level, they needed one another. There was no reason nor time to deny that any longer.

"I did miss you, you know."

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"You left because of me. I thought you left because of me, at least."

He could smell her hair as she moved above him, feel the touch of her lips to his forehead, and hear the music-like tones of her mind near his. He felt good. He tried to think of a time in years that he'd felt this sort of good, and he couldn't recall one.

Maybe when United won in 2011...no, not even then. Not like this.

"I...tried to find you. Before. Years ago. Never could get the right signal out. Probably wasn't the time."

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Her heart clenched and soared, somehow, at the same time. It should have been a contradiction, but instead it simply was. In fact, it was achingly familiar.

"I'm here now. That's what matters, right?"

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"Yeah." He wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him. They were already close---physically and mentally---but holding her like this just made him feel safe. Like she couldn't suddenly vanish again. Not like before.

"It's what matters."

He wanted to say more, but he didn't know what. Maybe that he loved her, that he always loved her and the distance and the years didn't change that. But they were never the type for perfect romance. Ideal words never seemed to float between them.