A Saturday After Forever
by Camilla Sandman
Disclaimer: BBC's characters. My words.
Author's Note: Vague references to The Age of Steel and what will come in Doomsday. Thanks to lyricalviolet for beta.
II
Tomorrow
Time wasn't a straight line, he told her once. Circles and triangles and hexagons and shapes not even a Time Lord could know, all swirling in the vortex of time. Moments followed moments in line only if you were a day-to-day person, and he was never that. Tomorrow and yesterday were always more interesting than today. Always.
Always the Doctor. Not always Rose.
It's a Sunday after Canary Wharf, and the Doctor is watching London be London and not her world anymore.
He's not sure what shape their time together ended up being. It feels almost unfinished, ripped from him while still being formed. Sometimes, it feels like forever.
Sometimes, it feels like a blink of an eye.
Far enough into the shapes of time, what could've been rests alongside what was and what is and what will be and he can see them all when he dares madness and closes his eyes.
Yes.
Forever, she told him once. Maybe it'll be forever enough in here.
She would have liked that, he remembers.
II
Yesterday
It's a Friday in the Dark Ages and the Doctor is trying very hard to convince a witch-hunter that witches do in fact not exist. Which might have been a little easier if the witch-hunter didn't think the Doctor was a warlock.
Honestly, call just one witch-hunter a hoax and you're a spawn of Satan for life.
"Look," the Doctor tries again, trying to remember not to do Understanding Handgestures since all his hands understand right now is being chained to a wall, "I am not in league with Satan, Satan's helpers, Inland Revenue, cat nurses, dog doctors or ravens. Well, except that one raven. Good croaks, that one."
He's beginning to wonder what it would like to regenerate burning, but then remembers he already has.
The face staring at him still looks deeply suspicious, before adopting a look of surprise and then rather blank as the whole body falls to reveal Rose Tyler standing behind, a tankard of mead raised.
"Hey!" he says cheerfully, and doesn't remember not to try waving. " Ow!"
"Serves you right," Rose says, but she's already moving to free him, his sonic screwdriver in hand. "What did you go and be stupid for?"
"Witch hunts and threatning to burn completely innocent people just brings out the stupid in me," he says lightly. "Rose, he was going to burn people."
"So you draw attention to yourself instead," she concludes, and he nods happily.
"Yep! Now we get out of here and let the witch hunters hunt for us and forget about the rest of humanity for a while. Brilliant, really," he says, then has an afterthought. "So brilliant a shame I didn't have that as a plan all along."
"What did you have as a plan all along?"
"Nothing!" he says cheerfully, taking the sonic from her hand and then just taking her hand, starting to walk out. The guards seem to be sleeping, and he guesses that has something to do with the mead. He hopes whatever Rose put into it wasn't too alien. Or maybe he doesn't.
It didn't used to be this hard to feel mercy.
She stares at him a little as they walk. "You let yourself be captured by people who burn other people without any plan?"
"You were there," he says cheerfully. "Nice maid costume, by the way. Isn't that mine?"
"It was the only one I could find," she says distractedly, and when he looks at her, he can see her bite down on her lip slightly, looking like she's mulling something over. "Don't you ever worry about dying?"
'Not since everyone else did,' he doesn't say. Not since Gallifrey. Not since it became survival and not life. But now?
"Nope," he lies - maybe - and finds himself pressed against a cold stone wall by a rather angry Rose Tyler.
"Worry," she says, half ordering, half begging. Her hand in his hand, he can feel a storm brewing in her. Been brewing for a while, he supposes, now that he stops to think about it. Been brewing ever since... Oh yes. Mickey. Mickey left. "You can't... I won't let you die."
'You didn't,' he thinks, remembering and feeling something almost like anger.
"You're never dying for me, Rose," he says sharply, leaning forward and feeling his will crash with hers. "You're going to live and get old and have a fantastic life and live."
"I'm having you," she says, as if that is more important than everything else and he wants to shake her a little.
He kisses her instead.
Huh.
He didn't mean to, he's pretty sure. He doesn't have to. Doing a tango through time is for more intimate than a snog, even if it doesn't involve tongues. Most of the time, anyway. He doesn't have to, didn't mean to, but he is.
Huh.
It isn't a first kiss, but it feels like one. No time vortex on her lips this time, burning. Instead, she tastes slightly of something salt and something human (can't mistake snogging a human. He's tried). Definitely Rose too, the slight touch of her tongue against his lower lip telling him that.
He's half aware that she takes his hand and leads him along all the way to the TARDIS - step, kiss, step, kiss, step, kiss, like a dance - half aware that his laces have gone untied, despite being tied with the Gallifrey Knot of Infinite Tiedness (as he's affectionately named it). Nothing holds.
Clearly not restraint either, he figures, lifting her up the moment they step inside the TARDIS and swinging her around in his dance, her hair falling around his face too.
"Rose," he says, and isn't sure why he says it, except that it seemed like a good idea. "Promise me you'll make a great life without getting involved with ravens, even if they eyeball you."
"It'll be great," she whispers, hands on his face, "it'll be with you."
He thinks about breaking her heart already now, but he's always been a coward and today is still today and not tomorrow. He can live in her fantasty a little.
Maybe he's been doing that all along. It is better than his memories.
He puts his face against hers, and they stand very still for a moment. Outside, a storm is gathering. In here, it's them.
"I'm going to stay with you," she whispers, her lips so close to his ear he can feel her breath, "forever."
Nothing holds, he knows. She doesn't.
He'll just have to live in her fantasty a great deal, he decides.
"Yes," he whispers, and she kisses him again until he's breathless and laughing and forgetting.
It's a Friday in the Dark Ages for Rose Tyler and the Doctor, but it won't be forever. There's always a Saturday after.
Wait for it.
II
Today
Forever, she told him once. She was going to stay with him forever. All he'd shown her of time, and she really thought it could be forever still.
It wasn't.
It's a Saturday after forever, and Rose Tyler saves the Earth. She should really have been home enjoying a weekend, like most humans. But she always works too much, because she's grown used to making a difference and it's hard to give up.
She doesn't even think about the Doctor while doing it, even if he taught her. She just whacks the chief Knaffugnikk on the head with a satsuma, and finds vitamin C does horrible things to certain aliens.
The world saved by a satsuma. He would have liked that.
Only after she's cleaned herself of alien goo does she think about all the jokes he might've made and all the smiles they might've shared. Saving the world without him is less fun, but still as important.
Forever, she told him once. Sometimes, it feels like it was.
There is just a Saturday after, and she goes home to her life.
He would have liked that too, she remembers.
II
FIN