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First and foremost she was going to take his hand. Very unfair, that. He’d held hands with plenty of his companions over the centuries, and this should be no different. It was a habit of his and it made it easier to keep them from wandering off.
But her skin had seeped into his. Despite the countless hands he’d held without consequence, his palm and fingers decided for him that hand, her hand, was the one that actually belonged there. It didn’t matter if he was hearts stoppingly terrified or overwhelmed with joy, Rose Tyler’s hand in his made the world snap into focus and his soul take a sigh of relief.
And when she left, she’d take that with her.
-
Rose’s laugh echoed through the TARDIS and the Doctor discovered his feet were wandering her way. They did that sometimes. He could be working on repairs or reading a book and suddenly he was at her side. She seemed to own gravity. She constantly pulled his feet in her direction, an invisible tether tugging him to her at every idle moment. Even some moments that weren’t idle at all, moments he’d been enjoying just fine before his feet decided it would be much more pleasant if Rose was there.
Would she take his feet too?
-
There was no doubt she’d take gravity.
“Rose!” The explosion had rocked the ground and sent him tumbling
down
down
down an endless hill until the shaking stopped. Trees that were just slightly the wrong shade of green cracked and dropped, ash falling
down
like snow.
He must have passed out. There could be no other explanation for how the ash covered everything so quickly.
“Rose!”
His head felt untethered from his body and his body felt like it was floating too fast downstream, and it could be because of that throbbing pain in his forehead but it could just as likely be the absence of her hand in his.
“Rose!”
She’d take gravity and she’d take trees and she’d take the wrong color green. She’d take coherent thoughts and she’d take laughter and she’d take that honeyed scent he couldn’t name.
“Doctor!”
Oh.
And she’d take his title too.
“Doctor! Doctor, I’m here!”
Gravity reset again, drawing him in instantly.
He nearly cried, teardrops dripping
down
down
down to the ash covered ground. But he didn’t want her taking his tears as well.
-
It was dark and Jackie’s house had just the right number of itchy blankets to be a perfect blend of warm and uncomfortable. The silence ached. A couple more minutes and the Doctor would retreat to the TARDIS as he’d originally intended, before those wide, hopeful eyes glued him to the couch with the word “please.” He wasn’t sure why Rose wanted him to stay in the house too. Maybe Jackie put her up to it.
The clock ticked from 1:29am to 1:30am. The Doctor huffed and kicked away his warm-but-itchy-blanket.
He wore just his shirt and trousers, his jacket and tie slung over the couch arm and his shoes settled domestically at the door. He considered putting his coat on, but puffed another breath of air and headed straight down the hall without it.
The Doctor didn’t even sleep much. It wasn’t like he had to. He could avoid it for a considerably long while before his body began to protest. It was just that he didn’t much enjoy sleeplessly staring at the Tyler home ceiling.
He pressed his ear to Rose’s door and his hand paused before it could knock.
A soft, melodic sound. Fluid and gentle and well, it was slightly muffled, but beautiful.
He’d never heard Rose sing before.
The words were too quiet to make out but they danced with the night air and swirled through the doorway and settled kindly in the Doctor’s ears. Something in his chest ached to enter the room, hear what the words really were, sing them with her, even, if she’d let him.
She was going to take music too.
He swallowed thickly, rested his head on the door for a moment, and returned to the couch.
-
“Doctor…” Rose’s fidgeted, speaking his title in what was clearly a request, permission to ask a question. Or maybe it was a warning that she was going to ask one. There was really no need to ask to ask a question. What was he going to do, say no before she could continue?
“Rose?” he replied in much the same way. An acknowledgement and a curiosity, wondering what she had to say. He liked how her name fit in his mouth. The shapes his tongue had to make, transitioning smoothly from the r to the o to the s to the e. Well. The e was silent. But it was a good silence.
She’d take the e and the rest of the letters too when she left. When would he use her name when she was gone? When would he savor the taste of it brushing through his lips if she was no longer with him? He wouldn’t be capable of bearing it. It would hurt too much, less like a sore throat and more like a knife to the skull. She’d take her name and she’d take the way she said Doctor and he was certain they could never be replaced.
“I was just wonderin’…” Rose continued, “Could you… well, you never really talk… about your planet.”
He blinked and the world swayed beneath him. “No, no I don’t.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. If she tried, he’d probably have looked away. “Yeah. And I was just thinkin’... you know all about mine, all about me, really, and… and I don’t really know much about you.”
He plastered on a false grin. “Ah, but you know all about me, Rose Tyler. Time Lord, TARDIS, space and time. Really like bananas. And jam.”
She smiled a bit, absently remembering they were out of jam. He remembered as well, and wondered if she’d take his love for jam, too.
“Yeah, but the past you. Before you met me. When you… when you weren’t alone.”
This forced smile took every bit of strength he could spare. “I’m not alone. I’ve got you.”
He wanted to tell her. He wanted to paint the air with the memories of his beautiful home, share every inch of his history with her, lay it out for her to trace her beautiful eyes over and do with what she wished. It was terrifying how completely he wanted to give her every inch of his mind. Of his heart. It was like a physical craving.
But then she’d take those too.
It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t want to leave. She couldn’t stop herself, it wasn’t her decision. What would he have left, when she was gone? He had so little already. If he gave any more of himself, when she left he would have nothing. Be nothing.
He already might.
-
She was gone too soon. He thought he had more time. His memories echoed back to just before he regenerated with her. I was gonna take you to so many places, he’d said. There were still more places to go. They’d never actually made it to Barcelona. They’d been sidetracked by wrong landing after wrong landing, like their entire time together was a journey to Barcelona, and yet they never made it.
Only this time he couldn’t try again with a new face. He’d never take her anywhere else at all.
-
In a bizarre, stupid way, she did take his hand. It was cruel to have her so close within reach just to be snagged away again. Part of him wished he’d just regenerated properly instead of inadvertently causing the metacrisis.
Because this time when she left, she took him with her. She took him with her and left him behind all at once. He, the wrong him, whispered in her ear the condemning words he’d been unable to say for so long, too long. He fought them from the beginning because with Rose Tyler it was just so easy to fall. And that him had her to catch him. That him had her lips on his.
But this him ran as far as he possibly could. There would be no coming back this time. Even if she could, why would she ever want to?
She took all of him and none of him and there was nothing left to do but spiral. And he really did spiral until he stopped recognizing himself. A nagging, insistent part of him repeated over and over how he’d never become this thing if she were there to stop him.
His tears kept him company. Since she hadn’t taken those.
He’d hum to himself sometimes, the tune he wished he knew the words to.
Every story he never told her felt sour on his tongue. He’d recite them to her bedroom walls sometimes, when he was really, properly losing it.
She took so much of him. But he’d been wrong. It wasn’t what she did take; it was the parts she didn’t take that killed him.
-
New body. New face. New personality. New friends.
Same empty craving for a person he couldn’t have. It should have been a blessing to have a body she never touched, a body that was now different from the one she was having a life with oh so far away.
Instead he had more he wished she’d take. Could you come back and take this face too? Could you come back and gather up the scraps of my hearts and pieces of my soul you left behind? He didn’t want to keep his tears, his music, his stories. He wanted to give them all to her.
-
Almost every timeline said it shouldn’t be possible. Rose’s timeline had come to an abrupt end long ago. He’d have thought her dead if he didn’t know it was because she left the universe. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t accessible here because she wasn’t here. By all intents and purposes, she was dead to this universe.
And she was standing right in front of him. Looking exactly as she had when she left.
She recognized him somehow. A curious, calculating look in her eye as his hearts iced over and his legs threatened to give out beneath him. A slow smile crept on her face as his mouth floundered for words, settling on “Rose,” and it sounded like begging, it was begging, please be here, please never leave again, please come and claim everything in me that you haven’t taken yet.
Her tongue touched her grin in that way that was so distinctly Rose Tyler, and he was stumbling forward and she was reaching out and they grabbed each other’s arms and tugged each other’s jackets, pulling closer, closer, and his mind was a war between needing to feel her and wanting to keep his eyes fixed on her face at all times.
The Ponds witnessed this reunion with open shock. The Doctor may be strange and constantly out of sorts, but somehow he was always completely composed. Now his breaths came out as shuddering gasps, careful not to breathe too hard and blow that woman away.. When the woman stepped back a bit to see him clearly, his body responded before his mind, latching onto her even tighter in visceral fear she’d leave. He clung to her with indecisive hands like she rooted him to the planet and if he let go he’d float away.
Gravity. Her arms, her waist, her shoulders, her back, trying to convince himself that she was really there. His hands settled on either side of her jaw, forehead pressed to hers, and he breathed in her scent. “Rose Tyler,” he whispered reverently.
“My Doctor.”
She brought everything back.
-
Explanations, introductions, and an inevitable unforeseen adventure later and the TARDIS hummed quietly, carrying an additional member. Rose’s room hadn’t changed barely at all, save for a slight shift here and there. A tie draped on her mirror and a bowtie tossed on her nightstand. The faint scent of the Doctor’s jacket, the way it smelled after he’d been working on TARDIS repairs. He’d been in her room while she was gone.
He admitted it, too. That threw her off. This Doctor was more forthcoming than the ones she’d previously known.
All at once, however, he was so like the one who’d followed her into Pete’s world. The one who’d given up his pride and became openly devoted to her. A darkness lurked in this Doctor’s eyes that showed the years he’d gone without her, but he was completely, wonderfully, the same man.
-
He cried, that first night she spent on the TARDIS. Right in front of her. It had begun as an apology, as an I’m sorry for what you’ve been through but I’m also so glad you’re here, but he was just as difficult expressing the words that mattered as he used to be and the tears started falling before he made it to the second sentence.
The Ponds were away in their room. This was usually the moment to swallow his emotions and walk away. But this time, the Doctor let the tears fall and Rose’s tears fell too. This time he didn’t care at all if she took every single one of them, if she owned every drop that fell on her shoulder and the floor and in her hand as she brushed them away because she was there, and oh, oh he wouldn’t hold back a single thing now, he wouldn’t make the same mistake three times.
“Can I tell you a secret,” he muttered into the crook of her neck, their arms entwined around each other like vines.
“Yeah,” she whispered back, even though no one but the TARDIS and the universe were listening. Maybe, in the end, it had been the universe he wanted to keep this secret from, not Rose. Maybe he was just afraid of daring it to take her. But it had taken her anyway and the words had seared a hole in his chest instead and there was no escaping them. The metacrisis had told her but he hadn’t and he needed to tell her now.
“Rose Tyler, I… I’ve loved you from the very start, and I’ve never, ever stopped.”
-
He was humming one day as the Ponds ate in the galley. He pranced happily around the TARDIS console, bouncing to the tune. A cheesy, cheesy Frank Sinatra song playing on repeat in his mind.
Another hum joined him and he could’ve sworn the sun had taken up residence in his soul. Rose leaned on the wall, smiling gently, and he returned her with a grin.
A memory flashed over him. At this point he was meant to protect himself, to clear his throat and change the subject.
Instead he redirected his energetic dance around the console to Rose, taking her hand, pulling her to the center of the room as she laughed at his antics, and he put the words to the tune. The TARDIS took up the instrumental, playing it to egg him on, which earned another beautiful, radiant laugh from Rose Tyler.
“All of me,” the Doctor sang with an irrefutable grin, pulling Rose into a dance, “Why not take all of me?”
This body’s clumsy feet had to try hard to remember the steps but managed alright, even if Rose ended up partially leading. She had led that first time they danced as well, before he remembered he knew how.
“Can’t you see, I’m no good without you?” He spun her and she tripped a little but she only laughed and came right back to him. “Take my lips, I wanna lose them.” He placed a peck on her nose, living for the bewildered giggle it earned him. “Take my arms, I’ll never use them!”
Another spin before pulling her close, shifting from a jaunt to sway. “Your goodbye, left me with eyes that cry.” His smile turned soft, brimming with affection. “How can I… get along without you?”
Her hand moved up from his shoulder to his cheek. He covered it with his own before moving it down to his chest, then taking her second hand to do the same on the other side.
“You took the part that once was my hearts.” He bent the last word away from the original lyrics shamelessly. “So why not, why not take all of me?”
The song turned to the instrumental only and they continued their dance. It had been too long since they last danced.
Amy and Rory watched this exchange with wide eyes hiding in the doorway, having come to see what was happening out of curiosity after the music started. The Doctor and the woman, Rose, were too consumed with each other to notice them standing there.
“I’ve never seen him this happy,” Amy whispered with an awed smile.
Rory looked down at her with a smile of his own. “I know how he feels.” She returned his gaze to see his outstretched hand.
One couple danced in the console room, the other in the hallway.
-
The Doctor was very tactile now. Rose wasn’t sure if it was a quirk of his new body or a side effect of missing her for so long. The last him was tactile too, but he often tried not to be. The metacrisis Doctor, John, had been tactile with her as well, though it wasn’t exactly the same. He’d also been even more verbal than the original, if that was even possible. No doubt because of Donna’s influence. The Doctor and Donna combined were an absolute terror of the very best kind.
Rose yawned and lowered the book she’d been failing to read. She was exhausted. They’d gone to a planet that was primarily snow and, unsurprisingly, nearly frozen to death. Afterward, the Doctor ran thorough checks on Rose, Amy, and Rory to be completely, 100% certain there would be no lasting damage. All of them were alright.
The Doctor, of course, suffered no issues whatsoever from the cold. He hadn’t even looked cold while they were there, going so far as to give up his coat and still be fine. Unfair Time Lord physiology.
Rose tightened her blanket around her and spread out farther on the couch. Just getting in bed would make sense, but the idea of walking would ruin the pleasant fog of sleepiness that had fallen over her.
The door opened and closed and quiet footsteps made their way around the couch. The Doctor’s eyes met her half lidded ones, looking abnormally shy, and he held a mug of something warm in his hands.
“Might I join you?”
Rose nodded, shifting her legs so he could sit. After he did so, she smirked a bit and stretched them out again over his lap. He tried to hide his smile.
“Brought this for you. In case you’re still cold.” It was hot chocolate.
“Stop feeling guilty.”
The Doctor scoffed. “I don’t have to feel guilty to bring you something.”
“You don’t, but you do.”
“I’m just…” he took a moment to locate the proper defense. He didn’t find one. He let out a sigh and settled on the truth. “Making sure you’re alright.”
Rose took her hand out of the blanket to palm it over his. “M’alright. Believe me.”
He stared at their hands for a moment. Set down the mug. When his eyes traveled up again they climbed slowly, deep in thought. He licked his lips. Their eyes met.
Then gently, he began to move. He adjusted her legs so he was out from under them but still on the couch. Shifted to face her. One hand on the back of the couch, the other hand moving her blanket. He leaned over.
Each movement was slow and careful, allowing a large amount of time for her to tell him no. She didn’t.
He joined her beneath the blanket and snaked an arm around her waist. When she didn’t object, he maneuvered the other under her head so she was using it for a pillow. Rose also shifted, wanting to face him, and he paused as she did so before settling in. His eyes were wide and waiting, searching for any sort of displeasure. He found none. A slow grin crept onto his face.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Rose smiled back. His breaths were falling on her lips. She pressed her forehead to his and their noses brushed gently.
“You know,” the Doctor began softly, “On Gallifrey this would be considered very impractical.”
“Cuddling’s not meant to be practical, s’meant to be comfortable.”
“They wouldn’t consider it that, even. More of an inconvenience than anything.” He trailed a hand up and down her back. “I very much disagree with them.”
Rose brought her hand up to explore his hair, carding her fingers through slowly. “Me too.”
He’d gotten great hair again. It didn’t stick up this time but it was just the right kind of shaggy. She felt his body lose all tension as her fingers trailed from his forehead, over his crown, and down to the nape of his neck. As she made the return trip, a low hum escaped his chest, half between a moan and a purr. He was like an oversized kitten with the energy of a puppy, she thought.
“You’re magic, you are.”
“Says the man with the time traveling box.”
“Different kind of magic. Good kind.”
She gave him a slow smile and he watched the turn of her lips and the flick of her tongue studiously, determined to memorize every detail. “I love you,” she said, and he’d gotten the unspeakable pleasure of watching the words form in her mouth, deliberate and honest.
“You own my hearts, you know that?” He returned, because ‘I love you too’ didn’t feel like enough. “I’ve always… I’ve always been running.” He shifted slightly, stopping when he remembered it would move her too. “Going from star to star just to avoid being stuck by anything. Or anyone, really. I brought people into my world but I wouldn’t dare venture into theirs.” He swallowed. “I love the stars, but I never let them own me. Never stayed. Never wanted to. And then…” Rose’s eyes burned into his own and he could barely return it. “Well. Well, I tried living without you, and honestly, I’d rather get a mortgage.”
A surprised laugh escaped Rose and it broke some of the intensity but none of the affection. He grinned back at her. Bringing his hand up to her face, he traced his fingers over her cheek and her eyes fluttered shut.
“I love you,” The Doctor told Rose Tyler; because he meant it, and because he’d taken too long to say it, and because he’d rather have her for a time and lose everything later than to never have anything at all.