Doctor Who Fic: Universal Realignment (4/8)

[butterfly]

Story Title: Universal Realignment
Author: butterfly
Summary: The Doctor takes Martha and Jack for a trip before the final scenes of "Last of the Time Lords".
Pairing: Doctor/Rose; light amounts of unrequited Doctor/other folks and Jack/everyone.
Rating: PG-13.
Warning: AU after Doctor Who 3x13 - "Last of the Time Lords". Blink-and-miss spoilers for 4x13 -- "Journey's End".
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Doctor Who and the BBC.

Part One; Part Two; Part Three.

Universal Realignment

Rose's room was just as she’d left it.

Messy and tumbled all about, the colours of the TARDIS tinted more purple and pink in here, one of her bags lying next to the bed, which was still unmade.

 

Walking into the room felt like walking into a tomb. An ancient Egyptian one, maybe – the Doctor had taken her to Egypt more than once and she'd had the chance to see the brightness of the colours they'd used before time had dulled them all down.

 

“You didn’t touch it,” she whispered, feeling as though she shouldn’t disturb the silence.

“You’re wrong,” the Doctor told her, letting go of her hand and moving forward towards the bed. He reached out and smoothed down the covers slightly and then, without appearing to notice what he was doing, twitched them back into their original messy state. “I didn’t change anything, but I’ve touched everything in here, Rose.”

 

“How…” She swallowed hard, trying to get the words out. “How long has it been for you?”

 

“Forever,” he said. She could barely see his face, but his voice was so cold.

 

Rose shook her head, fighting back the urge to reach out for him. He seemed fragile in this moment, like he'd shatter if she touched him.

 

“Well, I suppose that objectively that isn’t true,” he said, sounding more like himself as he eased into the details of it all. “It took me three months to track down that last crack in the universe. Another month to locate a suitable supernova to use to send you a message and close the gap. Then a year between when I last spoke to you and when I first saw you tonight. Technically speaking. There was another year that didn't happen in there, but, well… it literally didn't happen, so we can't count it. And you?”

 

“Almost eight years since Bad Wolf Bay.” Rose spoke softly but he flinched and turned his face further away from her, hiding even his profile. “My little brother's seventh birthday was five months ago.”

 

“It was a boy,” he said. He was speaking as quietly as she was, but she could hear something odd in his voice, something that, in anyone else, she would call ‘longing’. She hadn't thought of the Doctor as wanting to have children but, then again, she hadn't ever given it much thought. She hadn't particularly wanted children herself and their relationship hadn't quite made it to the level of wondering whether he might before... before Canary Wharf had happened and changed everything.

 

“Yeah – named Tony,” Rose said, daring to come up close behind him and place a hand on his back. He stiffened slightly but didn’t pull away. “He's a real handful. Drives Mum mad sometimes.”

 

“You’re never going to see either of them again.” He said it like it made a difference.

 

“You think I don’t know that? Even if I’d known what Olpanilicks did, do you think that I’d have hesitated for a second, knowing that they could bring me back to you?”

 

“And what about your life there?” he asked, finally turning to face her. He looked so old now, as old as he had when they’d said good-bye. “A little brother, your parents alive and together, a fantastic job where you can be as amazing as I know you are, and the chance at finding love with a man you could grow old with – isn’t that worth anything to you?”

 

“Not as much as you,” she said, not needing to stop to think about it. This was something as true and as real as anything could be – she’d accepted years ago that the Doctor would always have the first claim on her heart.

 

“Oh, Rose,” he breathed, reaching out towards her and cupping her cheek – he’d never done that in this body. His hand was shaking where he touched her and he looked more terrified than she could have ever imagined.

 

“I tried,” she said, forcing the words out. It hadn't been her proudest moment, she had to admit. “About four years ago, I met a man. We were together for two years and then… then he asked me to marry him.”

 

“You said no.” It wasn’t a question. His fingers firmed against the curve of her jaw, less tentative now.

 

“I realised that I couldn’t promise him the rest of my life,” she said, shivering a bit as the Doctor stroked his thumb over her lips. She took a slow, even breath and then kept on talking. “It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us for me to pretend that I could – not when… not when my heart was still here.”

 

It hadn’t been a matter of not loving him. She had fallen in love with Mark, over those hours and days that he had dedicated to getting to know her. She had loved spending time with him, she had adored the sex, and she had made him fit into her life, complicated and busy as it had been.

 

Then he’d gone down to one knee and asked her to make him the happiest man in the world.

 

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said, but his hand was sliding around to the back of her neck. He was moments away from pulling her towards him; she could feel it.

 

“I’m not,” she said and he blinked at the force of her words. “I love my mum. I adore my little brother and my day job was sometimes nearly as exciting as travelling with you. I could have made a life there – with the man I almost married or with some other bloke – and I wasn’t waiting for you like some princess in a tower, Doctor, I swear I wasn’t.”

 

She stopped to take a breath and he waited for her to finish.

 

“I was happy,” she said, finally. “But despite all that, I knew that if I found a way back to you, I would go, no matter what else I might have to lose. I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn't give him forever. Because, Doctor… with everything else I had over there, I never stopped looking for my chance to come home.”

 

And her Doctor – her lovely, silver-tongued Doctor – seemed to be at a loss for words.

 

Rose stepped closer to him, angled her face upward and pressed her lips against his, almost chastely.

 

His eyes drifted closed and he was shivering against her, his lips slightly parted and cooler than any human man’s would be right now. She could feel him breathing, his air gusting out, his chest moving, and she would have sworn that she could hear his hearts pounding.

 

His other hand was on her now, resting on her waist, a light and delicate touch. He was so gentle and still shaking and she wondered if he thought this was a dream. Suddenly, she realized that she was touching his shoulder with just as much hesitancy.

 

Part of her was afraid of that same thing – that she’d blink and be back at the mansion in the other world, that he would still be a universe away from her, unreachable.

 

She pulled away from him, studying his face – he hadn’t moved, caught deep in the throes of an emotional reaction that she hadn’t anticipated. She’d known that he would miss her, but this was more than that… this was somehow stronger and darker and stranger than that.

 

His hand tightened around her waist, pressing her against him. She’d seen enough, that first Christmas with this version of him, to know that he looked close to a human man – now she could feel it, though something about him still felt odd.

 

His eyes snapped open and there was a light in them, a burning depth to the deep brown that was new and yet somehow… incredibly familiar. He tilted her head slightly with his hand and she allowed it, the same curiosity that had drawn her into his life in the first place pulling her closer now.

 

He dropped his gaze to her mouth and his tongue swept across his lower lip, and the wait was making her stomach twist with need. She wanted to touch him, rub herself up against him, pull off his coat and the pinstripes and everything just to feel what was underneath, but she held herself back. He was poised on the brink of something and she wanted to see him tumble over.

 

She wanted them to fall together.

 

“Thank you,” he said, his voice so rough and low that, even as close as he was to her, she had to strain to hear him. He leaned toward her and she parted her lips, but instead of kissing her mouth, he pressed his lips against her jaw line, tongue licking out just a bit, warm and soft and moist, and she shuddered in reaction, her eyes closing involuntarily.

 

Something was popping in her brain – almost like she’d just been hit over the head, but it didn’t hurt, there was just the shock of an impact, something hard and powerful. She heard a dark rumbling sound – frustration and, oh, that was hunger. She could hear him talking, but it was so quiet, so far away.

 

No, wait. It was close. Closer than the Doctor in front of her, closer than the sound of her own voice, her own breath. It was… it was inside her head. He’d touched Chloe’s face, Rose remembered, got inside to put her asleep so that he could talk to the Isolus. This might be similar but she couldn’t imagine… she couldn’t imagine him doing this to Chloe. This was more intimate than anything she had ever felt before – she could feel him whispering in her, with words that she couldn’t quite understand, and it rang through her entire body.

 

She was dimly aware of her hands clutching him – his shoulder and his waist – tightening as the cord within her tightened. The TARDIS hummed brightly around them and it sounded clearer than it ever had before – was this how it sounded to him? She could feel the softness of her own body yielding to the hard press of their need, her fingers tangled up in her hair…

 

His fingers, not hers, but that didn’t seem to matter – it was all the same.

 

Entire solar systems were swirling about in her mind and she wasn’t just seeing them, she knew them – could have pointed to any star and named it in a hundred languages, knew which had planets and which of those planets had life…

 

Life.

 

It sang to her in its beautiful harmony of breath and blood and heat. The Doctor and Rose, no longer separate in any way – her heart was beating in the space between his heartbeats, fitting in perfectly, as though he had always needed three hearts. Their breathing was in unison, their flesh one flesh, all clothing incidental and meaningless.

 

And there was more than that, even, so much more.

 

This ship was part of the nameless song, twisting through both of their minds, connecting them with a soft percussive undertone. Translating, aiding, and… loving – Rose could feel the intensity of its love for the Doctor, the one it had sheltered so long.  The TARDIS was alive, was so very much alive. She'd heard the Doctor talk about it, but now Rose could feel it – feel her – humming inside her mind.

 

And then, through her, Rose felt the echo of dozens of minds.

 

Jack and Martha, currently part of the circuit. Captain Jack Harkness, and there was another word behind that but it didn’t matter. Jack was a bright spark, the high and certain flourish of a trumpet. There was bitterness in him, but it was only a few dark specks in a wash of light. His love was so strong and she had forgotten why she’d ever been surprised by the breadth of it – in this moment of connecting with him, it was the clearest and best choice. Love everyone, forgive all, with peace and trust and faith.

 

Martha Jones – Rose could see her future, sparkling, unwavering. She was destined to change the world; she'd already saved it. Martha smiled and death wept, because she brought healing in her wake. So many lives, so much joy. Oh, Martha Jones, Rose thought, you're a star.

 

And then, deeper in the memory of the music, she recognised Sarah Jane – so young, yet she looked nearly the same, despite the ridiculous clothing. Rose felt a glow bursting through her and named it ‘pride’ – she felt so proud of Sarah Jane for accomplishing so much. Best friend, chimed through her head, through the Doctor’s memory, and it was right.

 

There were other faces, other voices, but few that she had known as herself – both the faint discordant ring of Adam’s brief presence and the familiar but faint glow of her mum and Mickey were in there, but they were drowned out by the sound of others who had spent more time here – women with wide smiles and hesitant eyes, young men with courageous hearts and angry words, an elegant and shifting presence with two hearts and a mind as quick as the Doctor's, and so many others.

 

There was a blurred man hidden behind many walls, with so many complicated, powerful emotions attached to him that Rose couldn't keep track of them all.

 

A young brunette girl – she’d chosen to be Susan, but had been born something longer and much more alien. Granddaughter, Rose knew, gone now, but forever in her mind.

 

All of them, eternal in this song, just as they had been when they’d lived here, when she had crept into their minds to give them access to alien words and the Doctor’s hearts.

 

They called to Rose-who-was-the-TARDIS and they were Rose and she felt such affection for them all.

 

She felt the Doctor breathe against the bend of her neck, and his thoughts, too, were clarifying, the jumble of words inside that had been nothing but noise becoming so much more.

 

She could feel his hearts beat around the sound of hers and they were pounding to the thought of her name.

 

They were still on the planet where she'd found him again, but her mind skipped to the Vortex, and she found the sense-memory of the way it felt when she raced through it. She could feel Time itself whistling around her, could feel the bumps and ripples of the travel. The light was blinding but not light at all – it was Time, too, and it had more colours than she’d ever imagined. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be – she could feel it all, but it didn’t touch her. She was in the eye of the greatest hurricane in the universe and she couldn’t have felt safer.

 

She could feel the word ‘impossible’ trying to form in the Doctor’s mind, but it was being drowned out by everything else inside him.

 

He was trying to pull back, she sensed – she felt his terror now, fear that he would push too far and break her in ways he couldn’t fix, fear that he'd already broken something incredibly important. She couldn’t open her mouth, couldn’t move to tell him that whatever happened, it would be worth it, but she could feel his mind respond to the thought anyway, could feel him desperately putting barriers back into place, walls that tumbled down again whenever his concentration wavered and his joy overwhelmed his fear.

 

Then he let go, her body aching in the places where his skin had touched hers, and the connection in her head tore apart, the knowledge that she'd held with such ease only moments before already starting to slip away from her.

 

For a brief moment, there was a great emptiness in her mind and the deafening silence filled her up; her eyes shot open to reveal a blinding light, like staring up at the sun during midday, only a thousand times brighter and more painful. She swayed, groping blindly for the Doctor and finding nothing in the white-hot emptiness surrounding her.

 

“Why do they hurt?” she mumbled – something out of a dream – and the light was starting to fade a little. The Doctor was in front of her, sitting down on her bed. The glow was washing him out; his skin looked pale and drawn, his eyes blank and frozen, and she could still feel his fear, muted as it was by the distance in her mind.

 

“It hurts because you aren’t set up to handle that kind of information flow,” the Doctor said, his words dim and far away. “Incandescent overload. Like I told you on Satellite Five – the human brain just isn’t wired for the job. You can’t hold it in your mind. If it stays in there too long, it starts trying to burn out new pathways, starts trying to make itself fit.”

 

Rose blinked, shadows and color returning: her bed was violently pink, just as she’d have preferred nine years ago; the Doctor’s eyes were a rich and vivid shade of brown, all of his secrets hiding right in plain sight; his mouth was darker than normal, as though they’d been kissing for hours, though Rose only remembered a brief touch of her lips to his.

 

“You’re saying that like the information is alive,” Rose said, tucking away the knowledge that the Doctor was wrong here – what she’d seen hadn’t hurt her at all. Pulling away from it, that’s what had caused her to hurt. What did that mean?

 

“Oh, it is,” the Doctor told her. “All knowledge is, Rose. It wants to perpetuate itself, just like any other species. And the more esoteric and dangerous it is, the stronger it has to be to take hold in a mind. I was… trying to establish a link with you. No excuse for it, really, but I…”

 

He faltered, losing his words again. Rose felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him and tried to reach out to touch him; he scooted backwards on the bed, looking stricken, and the agony in his mind remembered itself to her. So afraid of hurting her…

 

“But you- what, Doctor?” Rose asked, because she had to, because it needed to be said.

 

“I missed you,” he said, with an overwhelming sort of earnestness. “I wanted to drink you in, Rose, to understand what you’d been through without me but… you ended up drinking me, instead.”

 

Drinking him – it was an apt turn of phrase. She still felt dizzy and flushed from his thoughts, from the universes inside his mind, from the power of what he felt for her. She’d had her moments of doubt, over the last few years, but those dim shadows had been blasted away by what she’d just seen.

 

“It didn’t hurt,” she said and he shook his head. “I’m not… lying to make you feel better. You didn’t hurt me – the pain came after you’d gone.”

 

“That’s not possible.” His words were the same as always, but his voice was so thin.

 

“You’ve been wrong so often lately,” she said, tenderly. “I don’t think you’re much of an authority on what’s possible right now.”

 

His lips lifted up in a half-smile, but he stayed where he was on the bed. When she sat down on the edge, he looked as if he wanted to run for the door.

 

“I know how scared you are.” She tried to be slow and careful when all of her ached to touch him again. His eyes met hers, wounded and disbelieving. “I felt it, Doctor. I saw it.”

 

“Not all of it,” he said. “Not everything.”

 

He watched her warily as she placed her hand near his knee. She shifted up onto the bed, moving as close to him as she could while still not touching him.

 

“Rose, don’t-”

 

“Why not?” She held her open palm out toward him. “You wanted to know what happened to me while you were gone – don’t you see that I want the same thing?”

 

He reached out to her, his hand hovering just over hers but not making contact. He had closed his eyes and he somehow looked both terribly old and shockingly young, an old man with a heart full of fear and a young boy burdened with a desperate and painful hope.

 

“You’ll hate me,” he told her. She could see the tension in his body, could see that he felt the same yearning that she did. “Oh, Rose, you’ll never forgive what I’ve done.”

 

“I already do. I always will.” Rose lifted up her hand, wrapping her fingers around his wrist.

 

This time, she was prepared for the thudding pressure of this new connection and she didn’t allow it to overwhelm her. She slowly reached out, her entire mind a question and the Doctor the answer.

 

 

Do it!

 

It was raining, always raining here.

 

Cold and burning on his face – the sun never showed itself, not in this place. He could hear a voice, far off. It was young Martha, perhaps, with her kind eyes and hopeful smile. She came here, sometimes, to talk to him and try to lead him out.

 

He wasn’t sure why she bothered. There wasn’t any out. Out didn’t exist anymore, though he was sure that it had once.

 

Just do it!

 

He blinked up into the sky, trying to see any break in the clouds, but they were as solid and grey as ever. Such a gloomy place, this. He wasn’t sure why he had come here.

 

But there wasn’t anywhere else to go. He forgot that, sometimes.

 

He’d always been here – this was the only place that was.

 

Strange, how a man could lose track of the boundaries of his world like that. A man should know where his world ends.

 

The sky was dark and it never stopped dripping down into his eyes. The ground was muddy and grey, nothing green and growing here.

 

He cast his mind back and tried to remember what green looked like, but the memory faded as soon as it came and he couldn’t hold onto the shape of it. There wasn’t any point in trying to remember anyway – there wasn’t going to be any green any more, just as blue had disappeared when the sky had covered over with clouds.

 

There was no life here, of course. There had never been anything alive in this place.

 

He didn’t count himself, naturally. He hadn’t been alive for ages.

 

Am I ever going to see you again?

 

His clothes clung to him unpleasantly, but he couldn’t imagine that taking them off would help – it was so cold here, as cold as space. As cold as everything had been, since she-

 

They’d been brown once upon a time, his suit and coat had, but they were just unrelieved grey and black now, like everything else. Sodden and miserable. His socks squelched in his shoes and the muck had splattered so thoroughly over those that they were more mud than shoe anyway.

 

The Time Lord has such adventures, but he could never have a life like that.

 

He wished that he could remember how long he’d been on this planet.

 

He wished that that woman would come back – Nurse Redford… Joan, she’d been here, for a while. She’d smiled at him and made him dance. It had felt so familiar, like smiles and dances were things that were allowed to exist.

 

But she’d left.

 

I've never had a life like that.

 

There were other creatures here, but they weren’t alive either, he was sure of it. The old man in chains, the screaming women who all fell forever, the drowning spiders, that boy with the fixed smile, and his dear, beloved enemy – they were all here, sometimes.

 

The little girl, with her balloon that pretended to be red, but couldn’t be, because red wasn’t a real colour.

 

Red was a colour for hopes and flowers; it didn’t belong in a place like this.

 

The one adventure I can never have.

 

 

 

Rose whimpered softly, but refused to let go of the Doctor’s wrist. Slowly, his eyes opened, though the connection stayed as it was, raw and aching. His eyes were dry, but she could feel him on the inside – rage and agony and the bitter fierce ache of a dying star.

 

“You should let go,” he said; it echoed in the still quiet of the room. “You should turn around and leave, Rose Tyler.”

 

“This is my room.” She raised her chin up, not letting the tears in her eyes keep her from staring him down. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

“I need you too much.” His words were bleak. “Please, Rose, please let go.”

 

“I made you a promise once,” she said. She reached out with her other hand and gently stroked through his hair, feeling as though she were the older one. “I said that I would never leave you. I meant that promise, Doctor.”

 

He breathed in, a slow, hitching breath, and then just relaxed into her touch, not holding them apart any longer. His head ended up pillowed on her chest, but she didn’t think he’d even noticed that – he just wanted to rest.

 

She eased them back onto the bed, wrapping herself around him and pressing her lips against his forehead.

 

“I’ve been so tired,” he whispered. “So very tired. Everything’s been so much work, lately.”

 

“You need to rest,” she told him.

 

“And if this is just a dream?” His eyes were open now and he was staring up at the ceiling, trying to hide that grey and howling darkness from her again, she was sure of it.

 

“It isn’t,” Rose said, but he was still tense and terrified in her arms. “I promise that I will be here when you wake up. You trust me, don’t you?”

 

“Of course,” he said, so quickly that that nimble tongue of his almost tripped over the words. “You know I do.”

 

“Then believe me.”

 

His gaze shifted to meet hers, the uncertainty in him breaking her heart, and then he nodded once, decisive and sure. He softened in her arms, the months of exhaustion that she’d glimpsed in his mind catching up to him. His eyes slowly shut and she rested her head on top of his, petting and touching him until she felt him drift off into more peaceful dreams than the ones that had been haunting him recently.

 

Rose let her own eyes close. He was here, right next to her. She had no idea what tomorrow might bring, but here and now, they were together.

 

Rose wrapped herself a little bit closer to her Doctor and, finally, let herself begin to dream.

---

Part Five

Comments

[orelle-peredhil.livejournal.com]

God, this was gorgeous. I love the Doctor's terror and uncertainty and Rose's unwavering love and her so-very-caring heart. The descriptions of Martha and Jack and everyone else were beautiful. This is an incredible story; I can't wait for more!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm so glad that the story is working for you!

[shinyopals.livejournal.com]

Blimey, very intense chapter.

I love Rose being there for him, because of course she would be.

The images inside his head were very vivid. Love the mentions of some of the Classic Who characters.

Brilliant chapter, and looking forward to more!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I love Rose being there for him, because of course she would be.

*nods*

She really would. I can remember after watching LotTL for the first time, how much I wished that Rose could be there for the Doctor, because she would be able to reach out for him in a way that Jack and Marth (great as they are) just couldn't.

[soupforlife.livejournal.com]

Wow, I loved this chapter. I somehow managed to miss this story and I am now so glad that I have found it. I love how you have portrayed Rose and the Doctor.

I am really can't wait for it continue!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I also very glad that you found the story; I'm glad that you're enjoying it.