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]

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."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

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.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"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.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"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.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"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.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

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..."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He nodded, then stood and walked back to the cabinet. He returned with a bottle of wood alcohol, which he tipped into his tea before placing the bottle next to Rose's cup.

"A bit."

He'd given up on resisting alcohol's effects on him. After all, what was the point, now? Wasn't as if he were the designated driver anymore. There wasn't anywhere to drive.

"Never righted, you know," he said. "The universe. Not this long. Not...well, not really ever."

He looked at her again, almost scrutinizingly.

"How long has it been for you?" It was a question they seemed to always be asking each other.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"That shit will make you go blind," Rose gestured to the bottle. She picked it up and put it back into the cupboard, murmuring to the TARDIS to 'just lose it, there's a girl'. She was not one to really condemn another's vices, but really...

"Just a hair over five years," she told him, self-consciously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She'd not aged much, due to, she assumed, the TARDIS mucking about with her the last time she'd been here. Bad Wolf and all that.

She'd known coming home wouldn't be easy, but she'd really not expected to find him so dead inside that she didn't even warrant a hug.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly," he murmured to himself, taking a sip of his tea. It burned a bit going down.

"Universe still isn't saved," he said. "Not quite sure what I haven't done or have done...but it's still not saved. Still getting new people in every week or so. Half this universe must be made up of people from other universes trying to help, by this rate."

He turned and looked at her. Really looked at her. Rose. She looked almost exactly how he remembered her. Oh, a touch different here and there, but still Rose.

"Never expected you to come back." That wasn't that he didn't expect to see her again (he knew he would, at some point), he just didn't expect her to return here willingly.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"Well, here I am." She didn't have a reply to that, only the reality of her presence -- she'd known she had to go back, to see him, to be there now that he had no one -- and a shrug.

"I'm all he's got," she'd said once, long long ago and now, all over again, it was sort of true.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

In one move, he stood and stepped over to her. He reached out a hand to touch her face. She felt real.

"Why did you come?"

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

Rose swallowed hard. There was still so much power to move her in that simple touch. No wonder she'd run...

"I came home, cos it was time. Because I thought --"

I thought you'd need me.

His hand on her face, close enough to almost connect. She knew he'd hear her thoughts. Because I couldn't stay away forever.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Thought you had a life of your own," he replied. He didn't want her to hear what he was thinking. Too many years of getting older, getting meaner. He thought about pulling away. Instead, he pressed his forehead to hers.

"I missed you."

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"Missed you, too." She stayed close, tucking a strand of his longish hair behind his ear. It felt good, to be this close to him, even after all this time. "And jus' 'cos I've got a life of my own, doesn't mean I can't be a part of yours, sometimes, too."

Rose brushed the faintest whisper of a kiss to his lips, an almost chaste acknowledgment of his presence.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He swallowed and closed his eyes.

She felt really there. Even the brush of her lips against his felt exactly how he remembered. If it wasn't delirium---and the more they stood together, the less he believed it was---he was going to feel ridiculously embarrassed for his actions in front of her.

"I wish---"

He wished she hadn't gone in the first place. That he'd have had her with him during...but that was so very selfish.

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"What do you wish, Doctor?" She gently tipped out the alcohol-laced tea while she had his entire attention, keeping him focused on her face , her presence and her closeness.
"I'm home now."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He opened his mouth to tell her. Tell her what he wanted, how he wished she'd stay---

He pulled back. It had been a long time since he'd been so close to anyone that being cold had become easy. He could just pull back.

What had happened to his tea? He must've drank it all.

"Five years for you and twenty for me. Heh, our whole lives are passing without each other, Rose. Need to stop doing that, I think."

[doctorsplusone.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, we really should, shouldn't we?" Big, game grin and she sat back in her chair with a soft laugh. "Some things get to be bad habits, don't they?"

Nonetheless: twenty. It took her breath away.