One

She thought of it as a holiday. A sabbatical. Seeing a bit of the world. Well, seeing a lot of the world in little bitty chaotic never-stay-in-one-place pieces. And it was wonderful. It was. 

Except when it was like this, when he was shoving things in the rucksack, wide-eyed and pale; when he wouldn’t talk and she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what had set him off this time.

(last time, they had been watching a sunset, laying on a black sand beach in Langkawi, and he had smiled and turned to her, this is so much like… and then nothing, just dark and silent and nightmares for the next three nights ... really, she would have liked to hear what it was like ... she loved his stories) 

But they’d just been in a library, a simple library. It was evening, closing time, and someone had begun to shut off the lights. The next thing she knew, he was dragging her out onto the street and the sun was setting and bells were ringing and it was really very beautiful. Except for the Doctor, sitting slumped on the library steps, head in his hands and weeping. 

She sat down next to him, staring down the curious passersby, leaving enough space between them so that he didn’t feel crowded but close enough so that he could reach out if he wanted to touch her. Sometimes he’d do that, grasp her hand so hard that she felt the bones grind, or maybe just a light butterfly touch of fingertips; she liked it when he touched her. 

The sun went down before he came back from whatever horrible place he’d been. He picked himself up and, without a word, staggered back to the hostel. She followed along, letting him choose the path. 

In their room, she closed the door and leaned against it, taking slow breaths and letting him shove their belongings into the rucksack because that's what he needed to do right now. She didn't know why and she didn't need to know. Leaping across dimensions, watching time flow and ebb and even ricochet around her had taught her to be patient. 

He stopped, mid-stuff, and let out a huff of breath, seeing something other than their little hostel room. “I’ll never meet her. I’ll never …” His eyes flew to hers, wide with shock. “I was … I was going to be able to … but, now … He …” 

They hadn’t talked too much of him. And, truthfully, she didn’t think of him all that often. She had the Doctor. It was as simple as that. “He ...?” she echoed back to him. “Other Doctor?” 

“What did you say?” 

“What?” He swayed toward her, completely focused on her words. She rubbed her forehead, trying to remember what she’d said. “What did I say, what?”   His eyes were strange. He wasn’t angry, but something was going on in there, in that amazing, complex, completely nutter head of his. She shook her head helplessly. “Other?” 

His eyes deepened and his whole body stilled. Very slightly, he nodded, go on. 

“Other Doctor?” 

And there it was, that smile, that gloriously mad smile that she lived for. He took a step toward her, his fingers reaching up to touch the side of her face, and then closer, softly wrapping his arms around her. 

“Does,” his voice caught, so he started again. “Does that make me Proper Doctor?” 

She turned her head, smiling into his neck. “Yes.” She hugged him, fitting her body into his. “My Doctor.” His body relaxed against hers, and she nuzzled his neck. "Rose's Doctor." 




Still, they left on the first zeppelin out. 

It was like a game; they threw themselves out into the world like a couple of dice, rolling about and coming up sixes and sevens. She’d said that once and he was so taken with the idea that he bought a gaming die, one of those twenty-siders. Now he threw it after they boarded, after they found their seats and settled down, to choose which stop they disembarked. Once he rolled a twenty and crowed, “Critical hit!” and let her decide. He never rolled a critical miss. 

(though there was that time he rolled a nineteen, and they went around the world two and a half times and ended up in northern Russia, and her with nothing warmer than a jumper) 

They were both exhausted, catching a redeye flight that happened to be headed west, across the pond. He rolled a three. Rose didn’t even bother finding out where that would drop them. She bought a ticket for a sleeper and shouldered the rucksack. “I’m knackered.” She gave his jacket a tug and gestured with a nod of her head. “Come with me?” If anything, he looked worse than she felt. 

He shook himself and rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah. That's ...” His eyes flicking across her face, “that’s a good idea.” He took the rucksack from her. She turned to lead the way, holding her hand out behind her. After a few steps, he laced his fingers with hers. She gave his hand a squeeze – better now? – and he tapped his thumb against her wrist – I’ll do. 

Their first class cabin had a small loo tucked into the corner. Rose dumped the rucksack out onto the bed, grabbed a clean vest and knickers, and went to wash up. When she finished, the Doctor was asleep atop most of their clothes. She knelt on the corner of the bed and began folding everything neatly, gently tugging their meager wardrobe out from under him. She decided to leave her old pink hoodie where he’d snuggled his face into it; it needed laundering anyway. 

There was an extra blanket at the foot of the bed. She threw it over him and squirmed under the bed’s duvet. Her last thought was that the pillow was heavenly. 

She woke up in the middle of the night with the Doctor pressing against her, sleepily confounded by the tangled blanket. She helped him untie his trainers and yank off his trousers, and then he was pulling off his shirt, pulling off her shirt, diving into her with the desperate enthusiasm that she’d come to expect. 

His face tasted of dried tears. She kissed his cheekbone, open-mouthed, taking a small lick of the saltiness there.

They’d come to each other slowly, she as unsure of her welcome as he was.  He had changed but she, well, she had really, really changed.  It had been over four years for her (but it's the millage, she'd joked)  She understood some things about him now.  He saw the changes and he watched her sometimes, questions  moving uneasily behind his eyes.  But he didn't ask them yet.  Maybe he wasn't ready to hear the answers.  

She didn’t know how long it'd been for him.

(“People assume,” he said, “that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint…”  And then he’d trailed off and not spoken again for the rest of the day.)

They both knew that it’d come to this; skin, touch, taste, hot whispered words, and the utter certainty of being in the right place and the right time.  Well, she'd known.  He was rather surprised by it all.  It being his human penis and his human hormones.  His sex drive shocked him to his core; shocked and angered and delighted him.  He hated anything that made him feel less in control. 

He was infuriating, heartbreaking, and hilarious all at once.  Sometimes he reacted so very much opposite of what she assumed that she knew he was doing it on purpose, to be contrary, to trip her up and confuse her.   When he felt his control slip, he threw himself into the experience, a traveler diving into a strange land without a guide book.

Well, not really.  She was his guide book.  Mostly.  When he let her past his defenses.  When he remembered who exactly it was that stared into his eyes, who took his hand and loved him because he was worth the monsters.

“Rose.”  He feathered kisses across her face, his fingers following his lips, tracing across her closed eyelids, down her cheek, along her jaw.  He told her once that, even if he’d had sex infrequently over his life time, after a millennium, the number of sex acts added up, and he had an excellent memory. 

He was very good at this. 

Except when he wasn’t.  Then, it was either hold on for dear life or just hold on to him until whatever horror story playing behind his eyes was over – and then he’d either need her so much that it appalled her, or threw his clothes on and left.

Once he’d left her and she’d found him a week later in an Adelaide lock-up, the bruises just fading and his knuckles raw.  He still had a scar on his left knuckle.

After this day, a day that had started out very nice but was punctuated with ache and misery, and ended on a zeppelin (which, she just realized she'd started thinking of as being in the Void ) they were both too tired for an extended sexual romp but too wired to leave each other alone. 

Her hands pulled at him, now, now, and he nodded into her neck and slid into her with a groan.

When space had warped around her and the stars were going out, Rose Tyler lost count of the times she watched the Doctor die; she stopped keeping count and then threw the count away.  Because in the end there was only now.  There was only this moment, this air she breathed, this man she loved, this sky beneath her bed. 

This is her truth.

The trip across the Atlantic took over a week.  After New York and Chicago, they ended up in Minneapolis.   It had been a good week, except for the incident with the hot dog, and Rose felt well rested and comfortably sore from all the shagging.  Their clothes were clean and mended, packed neatly in the rucksack, their cell phones were charged, and they even had a bit of American money lining their pockets.

They took a bus from the Port to the farmer’s market and sat on a bench eating late summer blackberries and fresh croissants.  The Doctor had purchased a map that showed the State of Minnesota on one side and several Minnesotan cities on the other.  “I’ve never been to Minnesota,” he mused.  “Minn-ay-soe-taa,” he drew the word out.  “Sounds... Ojibwa?  Mmm.  No.  Sioux, I think.  Something about water...which,” he nodded down to the map, “would make sense.  We’ve got the headwaters of the Mississippi,” his fingers danced across the map, pointing, “as well as all of these little lakes and rivers, and here, to the east, is Lake Superior ... Have you ever been to Lake Superior, Rose?”

“No.  It looks huge.”

“Yep!  Over eighty thousand square kilometers; about a third the size of England.  And deep, too!  Makes a great hiding place for, well, all kinds of things.”  He nibbled his pastry, fingers tapping along the Lake Superior shoreline.  “I’ve only been here the once, and had to make a," he cleared his throat, "precipitous exit.”

Rose grinned at him and bumped him with her shoulder, “Made a run for it, yeah?”

He grinned back, eyes bright with memory, “Yeah.  Ended up wintering with the Anishnabe, east of here.”  He leaned forward, eyes focused inward, lips pulled into a half smile.  “They were going to kill me, too, but one of the War Minister’s daughters took a fancy to me.”

Rose bumped against him again, laughing.  “Oi!  And was she a good shag, Mr. Full-Of-Himself?”

“That’s Doctor Full-Of-Himself, if you please!”  He stood up and took her hand, pulling her up.  Come on, Rose!  Let’s go to the Science Museum.  They’ve got a Triceratops and a whole exhibit of Rodents of Unusual Size.”

Rose dragged her feet.  “But we spent days at that exhibit in Aquila...”

He gave her arm a sudden jerk and took a step toward her so that she was suddenly flush against him, his arm around her waist.  “Please?  It’s a small exhibit...”  He nuzzled her ear.

“Rodents.  Three days in Italy looking at rodents.”

“Please?  I’ll do that ... thing.  That you like.”

“You’ll do it anyway if I ...”

“Oh, come on, Rose!  Please?”

Rose kissed him on the nose and stepped away, linking her fingers with his and tugging him along the walk.  She shook her head at his querulous look.  “Let’s go!  You had me at Triceratops.”

“Did not!”

“Did too.”

“Did not!”

“Did too.”