A/N: The eighth in a series of thirteen Doctor/Rose centric stories I'm planning to write throughout the duration of series three simply because I miss them so much. This is a rewrite of Human Nature which, I should warn you, completely ignores the plot of the episode, and which is posted in two parts because it's long. Part two is all written and will be up tomorrow.
15th July 2004. A shared bedroom, South-East London, 4.20am. Two hours before the alarm.
She's screaming, falling away from him, and there's nothing he can do. Yet somehow he understands what all this means – that's she's being pulled to her death, to a fate worse than death…
And then she's gone, and he's nothing to touch but a cold wall.
He wakes with a gasp and a start, the thrashing he must have engaged in during his dream evident in the tangled covers and the slight frown on his fiancée's face as she rolls over in her sleep. In my dreams I keep missing a girl. He feels his breath catch in his throat. She's here. She's safe.
You're dead. Officially, back home, you're dead. So many people died that day and you'd gone missing…
He shakes his head. This is reality. Not that world.
But it had all felt so real…
Why is it all so clear, so vivid, if it's just a dream?
He can still see her, in his mind, hear her screams echoing around the silent room as she's pulled away from him to something far more terrible than he can understand now he's awake. If he's this "Doctor", and he can help people, why won't he help her? Why can't he save her when he knows, knows more certainly than anything, that he feels exactly the same about her in his dreams as he does in real life?
Nonsense, of course, parallel worlds and breaches in universes and robots with human brains. But he can't stop the shiver that runs down his spine, no more than he can bear to take his eyes off her for the rest of night.
--
19th December, 2003. A street corner, 2am, getting a taxi home.
She comes hurtling round the corner, rooting in her bag for something, and runs straight into him. The contents of the bag go everywhere, she almost slams into the floor and John's completely winded, but it all passes him by. His breath is completely stolen, but it's not from the impact.
This is like being confronted with part of your subconscious. A dream come to life. He looks around for robots and ghosts, thinking perhaps he's dreaming still, but he doesn't see them. Just her. Even more beautiful than in his dreams, laughing and smiling and apologising profusely as she picks up the scattered contents of her bag. He suddenly realises he's being incredibly rude and bends down to help her, coming face to face with her for the first time when they simultaneously grab for a Henrik's employee card – Rose Tyler.
He must have seen her around before, because she's been plaguing his dreams all week. It takes everything he has to swallow, meet her eye and try to appear normal.
"Oh!" she says, dropping her grip on the card only for him to hand it back to her. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going, I just – "
John forces himself to speak, and once he's started, he can't stop. "Oh, no, it's entirely my fault. I can be – "
" – sort of walked out and – "
" – really clumsy sometimes, it's – "
They both stop babbling, take a breath and grin at each other. "I'm Rose," she says eventually, holding her hand out. They're still kneeling on the floor, the contents of her bag now well and truly back where they belong.
Obviously taking note of this, he takes her proffered hand, shaking it briefly before hanging on and helping her up.
"Smith," he tells her, all nervous energy and boyish awkwardness. "John Smith."
"Not related to Bond, James Bond, are you?" she grins, tongue between her teeth. The image tugs at something in the back of his mind, but he's pretty positive he's never seen anyone do that before.
That was our first date.
We had chips!
John Smith shakes his head. "What? Oh! No, no, not at all. I believe my mother was a distant cousin of his gardener's nextdoor neighbour's sister, though," he adds, serious as anything. "Here, um…I don't suppose you're – you're not going anywhere, are you? It's just I – I'm waiting for a taxi, and I thought maybe we could, um, share it. You know, good for the environment and half the cost and everything." She looks as though she's trying very hard not to laugh. "If you haven't got any other way of getting home, that is. I don't want to presume anything, I just thought, maybe we could – if you're not – that is to say, if you're not waiting for someone, or going – "
"No, I'm not waiting for anyone," she interrupts, shaking her head and smiling. "I'd love to share a cab with you."
"Oh, good. Great. Um. Yes. I'm sorry, you're much better at this than me. Can we start again?"
Rose giggles, and he feels like he's waited all his life to hear that sound. "Go ahead."
"Hello!" he says, looking at her with the slightly wide-eyed shock of someone who's just bumped into a whirlwind of heels and blonde hair, grabbing her hand to shake it vigorously. Her bracelet almost slips off. "I'm John Smith, very nice to meet you."
"Very nice," Rose agrees, trying to keep a straight face. "Rose." It's about all she can manage without dissolving into laughter.
"Well, Rose Tyler – oh, you didn't tell me your surname yet, did you? Sorry, I'm mucking this up again." He coughs, straightens his tie and tries again. "Well, Rose – "
"Hold on a minute, how comesyou know my last name?" She looks a little wary. "I never told you before."
"I…saw it on your employee card," he admits, guiltily. "Sorry." Rose looks relieved. "Right. Where was I? Oh yes. Well, Rose, would you do me the very great honour of allowing me to escort you home – or, at least, as far as my taxi can take both of us without going completely off course?"
Rose just smiles.
--
It turns out that she lives in the complete opposite direction to him, but John – not quite willing to let such an integral part of the dreams he's so far from understanding run away from him just yet – insists that the cab driver goes all the way to her street nonetheless, and, when she gets out, he's adamant that he's going to walk her to the door (all nine floors up, even; the lift was jammed again).
"I shouldn't jump back when you open the door, should I? No boyfriends waiting inside to breathe fire at me?"
"Only my Mum," Rose assures him, choosing not to point out how obvious he's being. "Though I should warn you that she's pretty likely to breathe fire."
John blanches. Rose puts a hand on his arm and laughs. "I'm kidding!" She's turning her key in the lock. "Well, I'll…see you again, some time?"
"Yes, definitely," he says, eagerly, then backs off a step as though he's sudden worried he sounds too keen. She's halfway through the door when he realises something.
"Rose!"
She turns in the doorway, an expectant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Could I – I mean, do you…do you have a phone?"
Rose pretends she doesn't get the question behind that, adoring his rambling awkwardness, and simply answers, "Yeah, I do."
"Do you think there's any chance I could maybe possibly potentially…have your number? To ring? Some time in the near future? If…you don't mind, that is. I mean, I don't – "
She's already writing it on his hand.
--
"He could've had rabies or anything!"
Inside the flat, Jackie Tyler is utterly indignant, waving her teacup around to make her point and almost sloshing half the contents onto the carpet. She puts it impatiently down on the table and switches the kettle on to make her daughter her own cup.
"Mum, he wasn't foaming at the mouth," Rose says, nicking her mother's tea anyway and wrapping her hands around it to warm them up.
Jackie glares at the smudgy, inky number scrawled across the back of her hand. "Oh, and you'd know, would you?"
"Mum!"
"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but there are all sorts of weird blokes out there who like to prey on young girls like you. Just look at Jimmy!"
Rose's hands still on the mug at the name. "I wasn't being preyed on, Mum," she defends, dealing with that before the mention of her ex. "He was very nice. Nothin' like Jimmy. And anyway, that was six months ago. Don't you reckon it's time I got on with my life? You're the one who's always telling me to stop moping about and find someone else."
She can't blame her mother for being concerned, not after what happened with Jimmy, but she's not prepared to drag all that up every time she finds a potential new love interest. Not that she has found one before now, or is even certain she's found one in John, but that's not the point. She may only be eighteen, but she can make up her own mind when she needs to. This is South-East London. Kids grow up fast.
"I don't see why you can't get on with your life with Mickey," Jackie begins, but Rose interrupts. She knows full well that Jackie only wants her to get back with Mickey because Mickey's safe. Mickey is marriage and kids, that job in Henrik's and a flat on the Powell Estate for the rest of her life. Is it so wrong that she's not entirely sure she wants that now? Maybe John's too smart for her; maybe that's what her mother thinks. But at least with him – or with someone like him, she corrects herself mentally; it's far too early to even expect that he'll use that number and call – she won't feel stuck anymore.
They've had this discussion a thousand times. "Don't start that again!"
The older blonde sits down at the table with the new cup of tea and frowns. "Why not? What's wrong with Mickey? Mickey's nice."
"I know he is, Mum. Mickey's lovely. It's just…he's my ex. I haven't been with him for like, a year and a half. That'd just be weird. Besides," she says, bracingly, "he deserves better than me. He deserves someone who isn't gonna run off with another bloke at the drop of a hat."
"He doesn't think so. That boy worships the ground you walk on, Rose. You could do worse! You have done worse."
"I'm so not having this conversation with you again," Rose says resolutely, shaking her head and getting up from the table to pour her mug of tea down the sink.
"Oi, it was good tea, that," Jackie scolds half-heartedly, taking a sip of her own as her daughter crosses the room.
"I'm going to bed. I'll see you in the morning," she insists, a mix between exasperation and forced patience. Her door closes lightly behind her.
"On your own head be it!" Jackie calls after her, nodding significantly at the closed door.
--
Rose is wary, her mother's warnings ringing in her ears despite everything, but John's exactly what she needs. He kisses her under the stars, walking her home after their first proper "date", and he can almost forget that he's certain he's met her somewhere before, kissed her somewhere other than his dreams. She blushes for at least the next ten steps and then takes the initiative herself, pulling him down by his tie to kiss him goodnight on her doorstep. Within a week they're inseparable.
It's whirlwind, utterly whirlwind, so much so that John's contemplating writing to the dictionary and updating their definition. It should really say something about being swept off your feet within seven days.
He still can't shake the feeling that he's done all this before.
--
15th July 2004. Kings College, London, 1.32pm, nearly seven months later.
Work's a nightmare. He barely got any sleep after that dream – one that was hardly conducive to rest in itself – and he can feel his eyes drooping along with his students'. He cuts his lecture – on the thrilling subject of quantum consciousness – ridiculously short (in fact, it was only five minutes long) and promptly falls asleep over his paperwork even as the students are still filing out of the hall.
Do you trust me, Martha?
Of course I do!
Good, because it all depends on you. This watch –
A small hand on his shoulder wakes him up.
"Hello, sleepyhead," a happy, gentle voice to match the hand says, and John Smith jolts his head up suddenly, glasses falling from their position on his head back to his nose and slipping down a little.
It all depends on you."Whassat? Wha'd I miss?"
Rose grins and straightens his glasses, pulling up a chair next to his – quite pointlessly, he thinks, considering she ends up far more on his than in her own – unable to stop herself from giggling at the sight of his hair.
John frowns blearily at her. "What? Have I got something on my face?"
He has, actually. A post-it note has managed to attach itself to his cheek, and there's an ink-stain on his forehead, but she refrains from pointing this out. "Your hair," she says, and he frowns, a mixture between confusion and hurt. "It's…big," she clarifies, removing the post-it note from his face and patting down on the desk with a smirk.
"I had notes on the origin of the universe written across my face by way of sticky yellow paper and you're worried about my hair?"
Rose shrugs. "No bad dreams this time?"
John hesitates.
Did they see you?
I don't know!
Martha, tell me! Did they see your face?!
I don't know; I was too busy running!
Martha!
No. I don't think so. They can't have. No!
It wasn't a bad dream, as such. Not like earlier (although he has to admit he's had nicer ones). He just…didn't understand it. And what's that biology lecturer who teaches across the hall doing in his dreams?
He'd probably better not mention that part to Rose.
"No, none," he answers, eventually. "Not unless you're planning on falling through a hole in the universe any time soon, anyway."
She smiles. "Definitely not. And I promise to stay away from giant flying pepper pots." Then she sighs, twisting their joined hands this way and that, watching the way her ring catches the light. "If you have to go on all these adventures, I wish you could go on nice ones."
John suddenly feels defensive, and he's not entirely sure why. "Sometimes they're nice."
"Yeah?" She's stopped moving their hands, is looking at him with interest.
"Yes," he says, firmly, wondering how to explain the wonder of feeling so…free to her. The ability to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. "Once we went to see Elvis."
Well, that's as good an explanation as any.
She laughs. "All of time and space and you went to an Elvis concert!"
"Why?" he asks, slightly indignantly. "What would you go and see that's so much better and so much more cultured? And don't say the Bronte sisters, 'cause I told you last week that they're boring as anything." He ponders this for a second. "Must be all that living on moors."
"ABBA," Rose admits, guiltily, and he can't help but grin.
"Good choice. I was worried you were going to say the BeeGees."
Rose laughs, the book open in front of her utterly human fiancé catching her attention. A Journal of Impossible Things. She's seen this before, but some of the ink-sketches are new.
"Who've you been drawing, then?" she asks curiously, pulling the pictures towards her.
"I don't know," he says honestly, eyeing the multitude of faces with his chin on her shoulder. "They just sort of…appear. In my dreams."
I dream I'm this…adventurer. A daredevil. A madman.
"There's a lot of women here," she teases, and he knows it's true. She can't mind, though, not when the book is full of so many drawings of herself. John just hopes that she never ends up turning to the last page, never sees herself as he did earlier that morning, ripped away from him, screaming, and sent to her death. "Why's this one got a question mark by her?"
He shrugs, shaking off the image. "Sometimes that's her, and at other times she looks completely different, but it's still her, you know? When you can just tell it's the same person inside?"
"Like when you can't see someone's face in a dream but you know who they are anyway?"
"Yes, sort of. I suppose that must be what it is."
--
15th July 2004. Kings College, London, 2.47pm, fighting off the green-eyed monster.
Sometimes, Martha Jones really wishes her parents had taught her to knock.
Rose pulls away from the Doctor and beams even through her blush. "Hello. You're Martha, right?" The colleague of John's is around a lot. A lot.
Martha nods, trying not to wince when the young blonde rests her head on the thoroughly-human Doctor's shoulder and he smiles down at her. It hurts, the way they just fit. She imagines they were much like this anyway, Time Lord or not. "Hi."
And last night, I dreamt you were there, as my…companion.
Rose looks from one to the other as though realising something for the first time. "Sorry! Am I keeping you from super serious teacher business or something? Because, if you wanna borrow him, he's all yours. I shouldn't be here anyway. My lunch hour ended – " she looks at her watch " – um. An hour ago."
"No, that's OK," Martha manages, surprising even herself. "I just wanted to drop off this list of students." She waves it at them. "Some of my Biology lot want to take your cosmology modules," she clarifies, addressing John. "Sir."
"Oh! Right, well, I'm sure that could be arranged." He looks expectantly at the paper, but Martha seems unwilling to come any closer. Rose, sensing the awkwardness and knowing her wages for the day are dropping by the minute, coughs a little and gets up.
"Um. I'll…leave you two to it. I'm sure you've got…important stuff to talk about. Better get back to work while I've still got a job to go to. Bye," she says, running a hand across John's shoulder as she walks past him on her way out. He takes hold of her arm, stopping her in her tracks. "Hm?"
"Not saying goodbye like that, are you?" he grins, and her frown disappears. He gestures with his free arm. "Come here."
Martha looks away, but she can't deny that he's kissing her. A lot.
"I really – " kiss " – have to – " kiss " – go." Rose grins and disentangles herself from him. "I'll see you later." She reaches the door this time. "Bye, Martha!"
"Yeah. Bye."
--
16th July, 2004. The TARDIS, wishing for an old friend.
You had to, didn't you? You went and fell in love with a human. And it wasn't me.
This wasn't in the rules. There was nothing about Rose in that video of instructions. Nothing about falling in love. You didn't say anything about women! What is she supposed to do now? They'd planned to leave on the 29th of July, by which time the hunters would be dead – two days before John Smith is now supposed to be marrying Rose Tyler. What's going to happen then? Even if the danger passes and she can open the watch, there's no guarantee that she'll get him back.
Rule Four: You. Don't let me abandon you.
Oh, yeah, because that helps.
And what about all that crossing into established timelines and creating paradoxes and universal implosion stuff he's always talking about? What happens if, in a few months' time, she hasn't managed to pull him away, even if he is a Time Lord again, and a younger version of himself comes along to collect Rose? The universe isn't exactly being kind, right now, but she's pretty sure she doesn't want to see it ripping apart.
She can't let him marry Rose. She knows that much for certain.
Don't open the watch, she thinks, running her fingers over the catch.
But what if there's nothing else left to do? The hunters are closing in, Martha's well aware of that. A whole new bout of OfSTED inspectors who never existed before suddenly descended on the university and performed "checks" on all new staff. They've only got a couple of weeks to go, and luckily no-one seemed to suspect anything, but if they're not careful, very careful… Can the hunters read minds? "John" (she still can't get used to that) might be all-human, but she's still a time traveller. She remembers it all.
Oh, and…thank you.
--
19th July, 2004. 1.11am. John Smith's bedroom, time ticking away.
"I love you," she tells him, and he feels his breath catch in his throat in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that she's lying on top of him. Why does hearing that from her always affect him in such a way? He should be used to it by now. Why does it still feel like the first time? She obviously notices. "How long has it been since anyone told you that? I mean…before me."
"I don't remember." He honestly doesn't. Rose, for some absurd reason, smiles, propping herself up with her arms across his chest.
"I love you," she repeats, the lightest teasing tone to her voice as she watches John's reaction. He squirms. In a good way. "I love you," she says again, kissing his nose. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she laughs delightedly against his ear, his forehead, his eyelids. He opens his eyes and she sobers, whispering it one more time. I love you. How can it sound so much more potent like that? Why does a quieter tone change the meaning so?
And then she kisses him, and he's lost. Quite right too.
--
21st July, 2004. A coffee shop, 12.17pm, questioning.
"She's so young," Martha says, one lunch break over coffee. Funny how the small things can give you hope, even when you know the inevitable's coming and, human or not, the Doctor is months away from meeting Rose Tyler for the first and second time and falling madly in love with her all over again.
He – John – is looking at her over his cup, inviting her to go on.
"I mean…it's just…doesn't her mum mind that you're more than twice her age?"
"Wouldn't know. Haven't met her," John tells her casually, sipping his coffee and wincing as it burns his tongue. "Should really have let this cool first…"
Martha stares. "You're marrying her and you haven't met her mother?!"
"I've a bit of a…fear of mothers," he admits, tugging on his ear. Some things never change. "Got a feeling I've been slapped by a few in the past."
Martha stifles a laugh. "Yeah. I can imagine."
--
23rd July, 2004. The shower, 9.19pm, embarrassing Rose.
John's never been the kind to knock. He bursts into the bathroom in a whirlwind of soap suds and chewed-up bits of copper pipe – the result of trying to fix the washing machine himself – the door banging off the wall and slamming shut behind him. Rose squeaks and attempts to hide behind the shower curtain (rather pointlessly, he thinks; it's not as though he hasn't seen it all before), instead managing to half-wrap herself up in it and pull it straight off the rail as both she and curtain fall to bottom of the bath.
And she is dressed in the most immodest way.
John grins, completely forgetting whatever urgency caused him to come in here in the first place. "You don't blush nearly often enough," he tells her, helping her up, and the pink in her cheeks deepens by about three shades.
Now Rose knows why she prefers bathing.
Still, she's not complaining when he agrees that his utter lack of nakedness compared to her is really rather unfair and jumps in there with her.
Wouldn't be room for that in a bath.
--
The TARDIS, timeless.
Finally, finally, the long seven months have come to an end and it's time to sort out this whole mess, to bring the Doctor back and get on with their lives, leaving Rose to get on with hers – how it should have been.
Martha hesitates for a minute, her fingers tapping over the silver casing and tracing the intricate symbols there. Don't open the watch, he said, and there's no way she can be absolutely certain that the hunters are dead, even though the time he gave has passed, more than passed (he added on an extra month just to be sure, he said, and there certainly haven't been any shifty inspectors hanging around for a while), but she's as certain as she'll ever be.
Rose, though. How's she going to feel when her fiancé just disappears into the night?
Martha sighs, knowing she has to do this no matter what. There's no other choice. She's going to stick to the plan even if John Smith didn't. It's the right thing to do, she tells herself, as she twists open the catch. No matter how many people get hurt, this is what she was always supposed to do. This is what will make everything turn out alright again.
The longer she leaves it, the worse it'll get.
Don't open the watch.
Her fingers shake as she prises open the lid…
And then that's it.
It's open.
--
29th July, 2004. John Smith's bedroom, 2.34am, waking from a dream.
At first it's just a quiet murmur, something he can easily convince himself is a remnant of his dream, whispers of another time, another life. But it grows in intensity with each second that ticks by on his bedside clock, and soon there's a multitude of words screaming at him in a thousand different voices and he's thrashing around, trying to bat them away, push them out, but it's no use because they're inside his mind. He swears he's screaming, but his ears are too full of shouts to hear.
The words are going so fast that he can barely make them out, and he's sure that his brain's going to explode. This must be what it's like to go mad, completely and utterly mad.
A doctor, the Doctor – him – and a hundred words in a language he can't understand, elaborate clockwork symbols exploding into and interlocking through his mind. Time Lord, TARDIS, Gallifrey, Void, it means nothing but somehow suddenly it all seems to make sense, just like it did in his dreams. Time travel, time vortex, time rotor, time, time, time, did I mention it also travels in time? Rose – Rose? – and Susan and Romana and Adric and Ace and…
He remembers.
Oh, God, he remembers.