Chapter Text
"Run for the shadows, run for the shadows
Run for the shadows in these golden years"
- David Bowie, “Golden Years”
********
“It’s late.”
“I know,” said Rose Noble. The Doctor's niece was focused, barely paying his entrance heed. She pulled another piece of thread through her needle. “Just want to finish up. Promised I would ship this out before Christmas.”
The Doctor leaned against the door of the shed, crossing his arms. “Well, you best hurry up before your mum checks the time.”
Rose paused. “Is she watching that dating show?”
“Unfortunately,” answered the Doctor. “Why?”
She smiled and resumed her work, leaning back into her desk chair. “I have nothing to worry about then. She’s probably too busy throwing things at the screen and calling people ‘dumbos.’ It’s the finale tonight.”
“I will never understand why your mother cares so much about it,” the Doctor sighed. He stepped into the shed, closing the door behind him. “I’ve seen countless reality shows and that’s got to be one of the worst.”
“As if you wouldn’t love being on it, Doctor,” Rose chuckled. She turned her body to look at him. “I bet you’d eat up a show like that if you were a contestant.”
“I was on Big Brother once,” said the Doctor, pursing his lips. “Wasn’t a great experience.”
Rose raised her eyebrows. “Really? You?”
“Well, not the one you know,” the Doctor clarified. He plopped down on a beanbag, his coattails swooshing up in the air as he sank to the floor. “Broadcasted around the year 200,100. Contestants got vaporized if they were voted off.”
Rose nearly dropped her needle. “Are you serious?”
“Entirely.” The Doctor drummed his fingers on his knee. “It was put on by this place called Bad Wolf Stat-” He cut himself as soon as a flash of blonde hair appeared in his mind. “But…that’s a story for another time. Too long and complicated,” he said, changing the subject.
He knew that would make Rose suspicious. The Doctor loved long, complicated stories. But, if she sensed something was off, she didn’t show it. “Whatever you say, Doctor,” said Rose, turning her focus back to sewing.
“I quite like that one.” The Doctor gestured toward the stuffed toy Rose was making. “Although, I love all your goonks. Ooh, goonks,” he repeated, stretching out the double o. “That’s such a fun word, goonks. Goonks, goonks, goo-”
“Do all billion-year-olds have the mind of a toddler,” Rose interrupted, “or just you?”
“Only the smartest ones.” The Doctor grinned brightly, causing Rose to shake her head.
This particular goonk was a hand-sized Slitheen puppet, and Rose had done an excellent job. She spent hours researching different shades of green fabric, wanting to get it exactly right. Although the visions weren’t as common as when she had the meta crisis inside her, images of creatures still lingered in her mind. It would be a while before they’d finally fade away. After all, she had all those little memories floating around in her head since birth, waiting to break out.
It had been a year since everything changed for the Noble family. A year since the Doctor had settled down, trading the vastness of all of time and space for the simple life. The one adventure he could never have. But now, after all those battles, all the war and rage, the Doctor had finally taken time to rest. For the first time in millions of years, he felt at home. Everything was right, and yet, there was still something, or rather someone, that was missing. This daft old face of his had come back, and with it an avalanche of memories he’d rather keep buried.
The onset of a familiar ache loomed in the Doctor’s chest. Track record isn’t great today, he thought, irritated at himself.
“Uh, hello?” said Rose, waving a hand at him. “You’re doing that thing again.”
The Doctor shook his head, snapping out of his thoughts. “What thing ?” he asked, unsure if he should be offended.
Rose sighed, putting the Slitheen toy down in her lap. “That lost in your own head thing,” she said, sharply. “You’ve been acting strange lately, Doctor.”
“Strange how?” The Doctor knew exactly why he was acting this way, but didn’t quite feel like delving into it.
Then, he was utterly surprised when Rose Noble said: “It’s her again, isn’t it?”
“Her…as in, um, who?” the Doctor stumbled.
“You don’t need to do that, you know.” Rose abandoned the Slitheen entirely, pushing it to the corner of her desk. She turned his chair around to face the Doctor. Now he couldn’t escape.
“Do what?” said the Doctor, feigning ignorance.
Rose crossed her legs, probably as an interrogation tactic. Figures that the Doctor would be older than most civilizations, and still be intimidated by a fifteen-year-old. She got that from her mother. “Are you really going to make me say it?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re hinting at,” he defended, although he was definitely losing this cross-examination.
“Act like you don’t think about Rose Tyler all the time.”
And there it was. The Doctor took a deep breath. “Rose, please don’t,” he said gently.
“Doctor, I think you sometimes forget that I’ve had access to that mind of yours,” Rose reminded him. “That woman has popped up in my dreams more times than I can count, let me tell you.”
The Doctor stared at the carpet. “Have you now? Wonder why that is.”
“I-,” Rose started to say something but hesitated. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Look. When I chose my new name, there was only one clear answer. Out of all the names, all those timelines and planets and people you’ve come across, one name was screaming out, and I think you damn well know why Doctor.”
“I do,” the Doctor barely admitted. “She meant a lot, Rose Tyler.”
“Just a lot? Doctor, you lo-”
“And what gives you any right to bring that up?” The Doctor’s tone turned sharp, but he immediately softened once he saw how taken aback Rose looked. She was right, too right.
He loved Rose Tyler. He had since the day they first ran together in Hendrik’s basement. For years he’d gotten by escaping those feelings. He tried to mold himself into a version apart from her. It was easy enough when he turned into a different person. Yet, all the floppy hair, a Scottish accent, and rainbow-striped shirts did naught for him.
He still loved her, after all this time. The Doctor wasn’t the type to stop, but that didn’t quite mean he was ready to say those words out loud.
Why did it have to be so difficult? In this old new body, more than ever, he said the word love so freely. He said it for Donna. He said it for Wilf. Even Sarah Jane, and she was long gone. But Rose Tyler? Well…only one Doctor had admitted that, and it wasn’t him.
********
One Year Earlier
Bi-generation was a myth passed down amongst Time Lords. It couldn’t possibly exist. But the Doctor tested the limits of what was possible all the time, didn’t he?
The Fifteenth Doctor crossed his arms as he leaned on the TARDIS console, giving the Fourteenth Doctor a scrutinizing look. The numbers of his forms were irrelevant but proved helpful in coping with this discovery. He had met and talked with different versions of himself across timelines. But now, as the Doctor stood across from himself, a version split from his very body, he understood this was something new.
The Doctor was talking to himself, exactly as he was now. And he was being torn asunder.
“Our whole lifetime, that Doctor that first met the Toymaker, never, ever stopped,” said Fifteen, relaying their life story. “Put on trial. Exiled. Key to Time. All the devastation of Logopolis.”
“Adric,” Fourteen managed to mumble in response. One of his first losses in a long line of them.
“River Song,” Fifteen added, holding out his hands in dismay. “Sarah Jane has gone. Can you believe that for a second?”
Fourteen lowered his gaze in respect, overcome with an uncomfortable swell of emotion. He looked back up, and admitted what he could. “I loved her.”
“I loved her,” Fifteen reiterated, breathing shakily. Then, he held the opposite Doctor’s gaze so intensely as he said the next words: “And Rose.”
Fourteen tightened his lips in response, his face appearing more tired than ever. And he was tired. Utterly exhausted as a matter of fact.
It was time to stop running.
It was time to take a breath.
********
And Rose. Two words, that’s all it took. So why couldn’t he manage to get that out himself? As ancient as he was, there were times when the Doctor felt like he knew nothing at all.
“Doctor?”
He blinked, brought back to the conversation at hand. “Yes?”
“Are you content to keep staring off? Or are we going to finish this conversation?” Rose seemed irritated at the Doctor’s distraction, as was her right. He wasn’t paying as much attention to it as he ought.
The Doctor rubbed his eyes, then made a move to stand up. “I think it best if we continue another time, love,” he admitted.
Rose bit her lip, clearly wanting more out of him. She wouldn’t get it, not tonight, perhaps not ever. But just like her mother, Rose Noble wasn’t one to go down without a fight. The Doctor was sure his swift exit tonight would result in a future argument later.
“Just know that, if you ever do find yourself thinking about her again, you can talk about it with me,” offered Rose. She meant it, wholeheartedly.
“And that means a lot,” said the Doctor, lingering toward the shed door. “I’ve got to say, you’re a far better niece than I am an uncle.”
“Well, you better take my advice then,” she teased, smugly.
The Doctor smiled, but Rose noticed that it didn’t quite reach the edges of his face like usual. “Goodnight, Rose. Sleep well.”
With that, the Doctor stepped out of the shed and was met with the starry expanse of the sky. He looked up, surprised at the lack of clouds obstructing the view. Despite his best efforts, another flash of Rose Tyler appeared in his mind. How long ago was it that she traveled the multiverse, warning people about the stars going out? He hoped the stars shone as brightly in Pete’s World as they did here. She deserved that reward.
He never said goodbye to her, the last time he saw her. The Doctor simply left as soon as Rose embraced the Metacrisis version of him. Perhaps if he had, that overwhelming sense of regret plaguing him now would disappear. He would give anything for that, anything.
“I wish I had another chance, a chance to speak with her,” he whispered, perhaps the specter of Rose that haunted him; perhaps to himself. The Doctor was unsure why he felt compelled to voice that desire aloud, but he uttered the words nonetheless.
********
Bound in the depths of its own rules, a lone figure listened and giggled.
Wishes are a powerful thing, it thought, especially when shared.
But he was getting ahead of himself. Oh yes, he was.
The Toymaker was never a patient being, not like the one who waits.
That was a story for another time, another Doctor.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun in the meantime. Now did it?
The Doctor had won, and still, he wanted more. Such a pity.
Such a pity.
I wish. Two words with so much power.
The Toymaker couldn’t wait to make use of them.