Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 7

John heaved a sigh into his empty office. Since he sat at his desk he had time to consume two cups of instant coffee, and remake Gwen's cup of tea three times.

Even though it's Saturday, even though both he and Gwen were up stupidly late talking, he knows she'll be in this morning. He knows it the way that he knows kindness from hostility in a foreign tongue, the way that he knows which tool he'll need to work an artifact free of soil; he knows it instinctively. He knows that Gwen will come because Gwen is Rose Tyler and she must feel the same impatience he feels.

John is normally a very patient man. He is, after all, an archeologist. He can sit for hours at the same tedious and minute task. Whether it is heavy research into a specific culture, or working on a difficult translation, or painstakingly reassembling shattered pottery, he is able to sit at that job with a steady hand and cool brow. But this, this smelled of adventure, and John has never felt more impatient.

Determined to not miss Rose when she inevitably came to her office, John woke at 5, after a scant two hours of sleep, and biked to their office before 6. He was in such an excited hurry to get to the office that he nearly ran over the homeless woman who always preached the Gospel of Saint Rigatoni a block from his apartment, and nearly collided with a random pedestrian in a dark coat as he emerged from an unlit alley a few blocks from campus. Now, after rushing in only to wait two and a half hours, John was ready to jump out of his skin.

Rose opened the door to the office just as John, practically vibrating out of his skin with anticipation and excitement, declared to himself for the fifth time that five more minutes of waiting would simply kill him. Fully expecting to be alone, Rose froze in the doorway.

"John? It's Saturday, and you were up late. What are you doing here? I'm not up for talking just yet, if that's what you're hoping for."

"No, no, Gwen… Rose… sorry… we can do that another time. You'll catch me up eventually. I'm here because you seemed to think that something was really wrong last night… maybe even dangerous?"

"Yeah, maybe. I dunno, John. Something is certainly very weird in all this. You dreamed the Doctor's life in another dimension, and so did at least one other person in this dimension. It might be a coincidence. It might mean nothing. But…"

"But it might mean there's a problem with the rift between the two dimensions?"

Rose looked at him, nonplussed, before remembering he had learned all that sort of knowledge from watching the Doctor on television. The tension in her face eased a little. "Yeah, might mean that."

John scratched his nose, trying to remember what specific things Doctor Who had said about the rifts between dimensions. "Would that be bad? Like, end of the world bad?"

"The Doctor thought it would be bad." She closed her eyes. "Bad enough that he left me here, even though…"

John interrupted, knowing she would never complete that thought out loud, "Well, if the woman who has actually saved the world before thinks it might need saving again, I'm in."

Walking around her desk, Rose considered John's earnest words. She sat and looked into the courtyard outside their only window. "John, thing is, I don't even know where to being. Haven't a bloody clue. This could be an alien, or it could be a monster, or it could be an object, or it could be absolutely nothing. Hell, I could be a conduit, somehow projecting all my hopes onto a couple poor sods. I don't know where to start, or where I'll end up, and it might be nothing, but it might be really dangerous. Really dangerous. I can't drag you into something like this blind, John."

"Well, Rose Tyler, I'm going to follow whether you like it or not. I'll do whatever you ask me to do, and I'll go into all of this with my eyes wide open. We're neither of us Time Lords, but if something is perilously wrong, we'll figure something out. I have faith in that—I have faith in you." He shrugged, "I learned that from your Doctor. I also learned that if someone is trying to save the world, they deserve to have a companion while they're about it."

Rose's face softened into a genuine smile, and she really looked at John for the first time this morning, taking in his unshaved jaw, red-rimmed eyes, and absolute confidence in her. After a moment he widened his eyes and jutted out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. How could Rose turn that away? It would be like kicking a puppy.

Shaking her head and chuckling, she decided that if they were going to start this, whatever it was, together, they may as well start it properly. "Well, since we're off on a busy day, any chance of some tea, then?"

John laughed then rubbed the back of his neck, abashed. "I already made you three cups of tea this morning, and drank two cups of coffee myself, I was so excited for you to come in and for us to get started on whatever you thought needed to be done. So now the kettle's dry." He shot up, catching up the kettle and starting toward their office door. "Tell you what, I'll nip down to dining hall to fill it with decent water, and you start a list of what we need to do. Be back in a jiffy!"

He was gone so quickly that he didn't even hear Rose's giggle at his antics. She pulled out a piece of paper and was staring at the blank sheet, thinking and tapping her pencil, when the door opened and John abruptly re-entered the room. She accosted him without looking up.

"That was fast, do you need something?"

"Yeah, might do. I'm lookin' for Rose Tyler, you know'er?"

Rose's eyes shot up at the sound of that painfully familiar voice. She jumped out of her chair so quickly it fell back against the wall with a loud thunk. She gasped as she took in the well-known black boots, jeans, black leather jacket, blue jumper. Her heart was throbbing so hard it made her vision pulse, but she was still able to distinguish the short cropped hair, clear blue eyes, and daft ears of the face she'd missed so much and for so long it physically hurt.

As she stared she wasn't entirely sure she was awake. It had been a strange night, and for all she knew she'd gone stark raving mad. It took her two swallows before she could get out any words, her voice quick and strained, "What'd you say?"

"Rose Tyler. I'm lookin' for Rose Tyler."

Rose closed her eyes and drew in a deep, slow breath. Whatever greeted her when she opened her eyes, no matter the proof that she'd gone round the bend and this had all been a figment of her imagination, she had still heard it once. She heard the sound of her Doctor saying her name again, with his own ubiquitous 'Northern' accent, and for this one moment, it was wonderful.

An hysterical laugh bubbled in the back of her throat when she finally opened her eyes and saw him still standing there, wearing a bemused expression. His familiar air of patient tolerance gave her courage.

With several painful and wonderful emotions coursing through her entire body, Rose drew cautiously closer to this man, her Doctor, and studied his face. To the casual observer he appeared calm and indifferent to Rose's strange behavior, but her eyes, accustomed to the Doctor's mask of indifference, caught the subtle evidence of curiosity and wonder playing through his features. Once she was close enough Rose put her hands on the lapels of his jacket, pushing them out of the way and laying her palms against his chest, over the spaces where a Time Lord's two hearts would be located. As she felt the familiar, syncopated double beat of his binary vascular system, Rose saw fear and doubt join the changing expressions on his face.

Rose finally looked full into his eyes, palms still on his chest, and spoke in a small voice, "It's me Doctor, I'm Rose Tyler." She cocked her head when he remained passive, his expression neutral. "You don't know me, do you."

It was a statement, not a question, but the Doctor still gave his head a miniscule shake and asked in an equally soft tone, "Should I?" He was completely unprepared for what happened next.

*SLAP*

"Oi!" The Doctor jumped back from Rose, knocking into John as he returned with the full kettle. "Whatcha wanna do that for?!"

Rose's face transformed from tender to furious in a moment, her hand stinging from where it had met the Doctor's face. She glared hard at the Time Lord as he rubbed his cheek and gave her an injured look, her voice rising throughout the passionate tirade that followed.

"You knew! I can't believe you knew! How could you travel with me for so long, for all those years, and KNOW that you would come through that rift and meet me, and not be here? How could you know the rift would be open and not make an effort to come bring me back to you? Oh, I hope you remember this! I hope you carry this memory with you for the rest of however many lives you have! I really hope that hurt! It can't possible hurt as much as this does! I thought that day on the beach was the worst day of my life, but I was wrong…THIS is the worst day of my life. How could you, Doctor? How could you do this? How could you not be here to save me from this?"

She was dissolving into tears, hating herself for showing that weakness for the umpteenth time in two days, too over tired and high strung to stop herself. Here was the Doctor, the savior of worlds, the last of the Time Lords, her Doctor, and he didn't know her.

John, meanwhile, stood with his back to the closed door, staring at the scene in front of him. There was Rose Tyler. And there was the real and actual Doctor, the one he'd dreamed about. He found himself equal parts gob-smacked, angry, amazed, and indignant at the water that soaked him from chest to sneakers, the water from the kettle that the Doctor had spilled when he jumped back into John.

Given the current situation, John did the only thing that seemed right. He went to Rose and gathered her into his sopping arms, letting her sag against him as her sobbing tapered off into bone-weary exhaustion. He gently turned her away from the Doctor and glared over her head at the Time Lord who had caused her such distress.

The Doctor, flummoxed as to Rose's reaction to him, his bizarre desire to comfort her himself, and John's icy glare, huffed out a breath and rifled through his pockets. "Aha!" He came out with the bit psychic paper that had caused all this trouble.

That earned him an extra hard glare from John as he soothed Rose.

He checked the words on the paper, just to make sure. "Find Rose Tyler." The paper was crumpled and shoved back into his pocket. He touched his sore cheek and chanced another glance at John, who was still glaring at him.

He huffed again. Rose Tyler, indeed.