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“You were going to go off with Rickey,” he accused her as he followed her from the infirmary, where he’d scanned her throat for any damage done by Margaret/Blon Fel-Fotch, into the kitchen.
Damn it. That hadn’t been what he wanted to say—he hadn’t wanted to bring Rose’s ex…or not so ex into this argument. But the terror from those hearts-stopping moments when the Slitheen held Rose by the throat, claws digging into Rose’s tender flesh, had yet to abate.
The Doctor knew they never would.
And hadn’t he promised himself he was going to be happy for her? Wasn’t that was he wanted? Rose to be happy? And if it was with Rickey the Idiot….but no. Definitely no. He didn’t want her with anyone else.
Stupid, selfish man that he was.
“You very clearly said you don’t want me,” she snapped back.
Then there was that.
The Doctor folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. Rose, brilliant, brave woman that she was glared right back. In the orange-yellow glow of their kitchen, he could see the hurt in her gaze, the way her chin tilted just a little higher. The way her jaw clenched and her arms folded over her chest.
“In fact,” she continued in a hard voice, nothing at all like the pretend tones they’d adopted since That Night. “You were more than clear—spelled it right out. This is a mistake, Rose and It won’t ever happen again, Rose and If you can’t accept that, Rose, then maybe it’s best you go home.”
And he regretted every single one of those words. Each syllable squeezed his heart tighter and tighter until he hadn’t been able to breathe. Hated himself for hurting her like that. For hurting her at all.
The vice his words created still banded tightly around his chest, each breath a difficulty, each beat of his hearts a reminder of own stupidity.
Only right now the Doctor couldn’t remember if it was the act of making love to Rose that had been stupid, the words he’d said to her afterward as he realized the magnitude of their actions, or the here and now and the words that just wouldn’t stop.
“What happened on Laracopa,” he began in what he felt was a very reasonable tone, “can’t ever happen again. You understood that.”
He, on the other hand, had some problem understanding that. His fingers ached to touch her. His mouth watered with desire to taste her. Every time she held his hand he wanted more. Whenever she smiled up at him he wanted to pull her closer.
Whenever she smiled up at him her eyes remained dull. Flat. Her joy in their life no longer shone through. Her smiles had dimmed. Just before they landed in Cardiff, as they pretended nothing was wrong and nothing had happened and nothing had changed between them, Jack had made a comment.
A simple comment about how maybe Rose’s friend Mickey would pull her out of the funk she’d been in for weeks.
Jack had then ended up pressed against the hallway wall, the Doctor’s hand wrapped around his neck. The Doctor had apologized—profusely—and had stormed off. Angry with himself—for hurting Rose, for pulling back from Rose, for threatening Jack.
He was not and never could be angry with himself for making love to Rose.
“Oh, I understand,” she said. Was there a hint of tears in her voice?
The Doctor panicked. He hated when Rose cried. Hated himself even more for being the one to make her do so.
“I understand you changed so much after Laracopa that Jack wanted to know if you were being telepathically controlled. I understand you didn’t talk to me for days.” Rose sniffed but her tears didn’t fall. She tossed her head back and blinked rapidly for a moment, but she did not cry.
Days. Two days, three hours of tortuous hell. Two days, three hours, seventeen minutes of loneliness and despair and howling, raging pain. He always was his own worst enemy.
“So you ran to Rickey the Idiot?” he sneered.
He really needed to shut up and stop talking. He really needed to keep his big Time Lord gob closed for once.
“Mickey wants me,” she spat back at him. “There aren’t any conditions with him. No regrets or take backs or You can’t understand, Rose. ”
He growled, the sound dark and primal and he did nothing to stop it. The Doctor stalked the few steps separating them and pressed her against the counter. Rose looked defiantly up at him, eyes golden in the kitchen’s light, hair afire.
The Doctor leaned over her, hands braced on the counter, fingers digging into the stone to keep him sane. To stop the words even now tumbling off his tongue.
“What I said,” he told her quietly, mouth brushing the shell of her hear. Rose shivered and a surge of pure masculine satisfaction rushed through him. Of need and want and desperation. Of the smell of her skin and the spark of her own arousal and the feel of her pressed to him.
“Was that you didn’t understand what you were asking of me. That it was more than sex between us.”
“I know,” she said, voice low and husky. Her arousal perfumed the air, saturated his senses and clouded his mind with Rose. Pure Rose. “I told you I understood that. That I wanted that.”
“Do you, Rose?” he asked. Then, giving into temptation, he brushed his lips against her temple. Tempted himself again, and trailed his lips along her jaw. “Do you really understand what I’m asking? What I need?”
She cleared her throat but didn’t push away. But her arms dropped, fingers trailing down his jumper-covered chest. She tilted her head just enough to look at him.
“Why can’t you understand?” she pleaded. The same voice, the same words she’d used then.
On the beautiful moon of Laracopa, with fields of flowers and a golden sunrise and nothing but beauty as far as the eye could see. With Jack off exploring one of the coastal towns, they’d taken a walk. Hand in hand along the meadows and through the flowers she loved so much.
Rose’s head against his arm, her hands wrapped around his, her laughter lighting even that beautiful day. With his own hearts feeling lighter than they had in…forever.
He’d made love to her there. In the tall grass, the scent of a hundred wildflowers surrounding them. With Rose’s soft sighs and the taste of her on his tongue and the feel of her against his fingertips. He’d made love to her and she promised she’d break things off with Mickey.
She’d promised him forever. No matter how long that is for me, Doctor. I told you once you’re stuck with me. I mean that. Forever.
“Why can’t you understand that I love you?”
His hearts stopped. Just as they had the first time she’d said it. When he’d panicked and thought it was some ridiculous human thing to say after sex. When he’d panicked and thought himself even more selfish than usual for wanting to believe that—believe her.
When he’d panicked and couldn’t let her carry the burdens of what being with him truly meant. Of sharing a bond and consequently the horrors and screams of a war he hadn’t wanted to fight but had ended with the deceptively simple press of a button.
Her hand, her soft, warm, human hand cupped his cheek and he looked down at her. Emotions, terrifying emotions of love and want and forever swirled in the brandy-colored depths of Rose’s gaze.
He didn’t back away.
He didn’t know how to. Not anymore.
“Why do you think I don’t or can’t or wouldn’t or whatever it is you think I’m doing? Why don’t you believe me when I say I do understand?” Rose whispered. Pleaded. “That I do love you?”
“Why would you want to?” he asked just as quietly. “Why would you want an old damaged warrior like me?”
A murderer like him.
“Doctor,” she breathed, and the single word held everything her eyes told him. “I told you once you’re stuck with me. I didn’t just mean I was signing up as a traveler or companion or your plus one. I meant it.” She pressed her lips to his, just a touch. “Forever.”
“Rose,” he groaned, her name a prayer and a thanksgiving and a promise.
“I’m in love with you, Doctor,” she said, the words a caress against his skin. “How can you not see that?”
“Why, Rose?” he asked again, forehead pressed to hers as he breathed her in. “What good could you possibly see in me?”
“You’re a good man, Doctor,” she told him. “The best. Good men aren’t the ones who stay out of a fight. They’re the ones who are forced to end it. And it haunts you, I know it does. But you’re still a good man. Here.” Her hand settled on his chest, between his hearts. “Nothing can change that.”
The Doctor had a feeling he knew exactly one way that could change—losing Rose Tyler. He didn’t want to travel down that path—that way led to madness. And he was already quite mad enough. And he knew losing Rose, no matter the circumstances, was something he simply couldn’t survive.
“But I don’t just love you because you do what needs to be done. Or that you took me from a life of routine and numbness. Or that you showed me the universe. I love you because you showed me I can be anything I want to be. I love you because I held you as you cried in my arms after we met that Dalek. I love you because you make me laugh and you make me crazy with anger.”
Rose pressed her lips to his again, as if to stop him from speaking. For once, the Doctor had no words. They stopped in his throat, closing it tight on emotion and love and need and Rose.
“I love you because of who you are. I just do.”
The Doctor broke.
Pulled her tight to him, kissed her deeply, as if his very soul depended on it—as if his continued existence did. And maybe that was true, maybe her just being Rose made his soul lighter, his burden easier to bear, his life worth living.
He kissed her, tongue sweeping over hers, the taste of the liquid medication he’d given her to ease the soreness in her throat and the cranberry juice he’d offered to her to wash it down. Of Rose, pure essence of Rose and it didn’t matter that he was old and broken and still screamed during what little sleep even he managed to get.
Rose was in his arms and pressed against his body. Her fingers combed through his shorn hair and one hand cupped the back of his neck, fingers playing over the shell of his ear.
“Don’t leave me,” he begged. Or thought he did.
“I love you,” she promised, arms wrapping tight around him. “Forever.”