Say Forever

Legs not quite obeying him, one moving a bit more to the side than in front of him as he stumbled towards that blue box that stood so blue in the silence of a room so long overlooked, the solitary man with the uncontrollable hair and the distinctive blue bow-tie threw his back against the door and pushed it open. He let himself stumble in, spinning himself languidly around to lean against it and push it shut again. His eyes were glazed over, missing something. He looked around, as if there was some answer there. Of course there wasn't. What else could he do? What options did he have? He had saved her, but how much could that do? His hands felt numb, hanging low at his sides. What good was he, then, if he couldn't even save her? Images of the past ran through is mind, his teeth gritting together and moisture welling up in the corners of his eyes.

Then he noticed a blinking light somewhere ahead of him. He turned his head a bit, raising his hands up to straighten his jacket and bow-tie. With a deep breath somewhere between a sigh and an intake of much-needed confidence, he walked towards the display screen blinking its lights at him.

"A… message? How…?" he wondered, puzzled by this unusual turn of events. A quick, short chirp of noise came from a small chest just below the console. The chest where he had put… the diary… only a few hours before. He froze where he was for a long moment, watching the chest. Another chirp rang out, and this time he noticed that it was perfectly synchronized with the blinking of the display light. Licking his lips nervously and drumming his fingers against the air just under his palms, he slid one foot towards the chest… then another, slowly making his way over to the source of the noise. He leaned in towards it, listening closely to the noise. A cybermat? But how would it have gotten in there? The Sonic Screwdriver was in his pocket, wasn't it?

He took the Screwdriver from its place of safekeeping, preparing to defend himself. He poked the lid of the chest briefly, looked at it a second longer, then flipped off the lid of the thing and scooted back a ways from it. The beeping persisted, nothing jumping out at him. He walked forward again, peering curiously into the depths of the container. Laying next to that terribly TARDIS blue diary, a small mobile phone chirped and displayed the exact same message the console display had demanded he see. His eyes flicked between the two, his tongue running subconsciously across his lips again in his anxiety.

"Right…" he murmured, gingerly picking up the phone and restoring his Sonic Screwdriver to its usual place. He set the mobile gently on the console, resting the heels of his hands upon the thing as he watched the display and the mobile phone alternately. "I haven't touched this in… years! Who could be calling me? Who could possibly…?" he let the words trail off, remembering the last few people who had been in possession of this phone and the means to communicate with it. Martha Jones. Donna Noble. No. No, no, it couldn't have been them. Nothing could have gone wrong with them. It wouldn't be— he stopped his thoughts there and closed his eyes, lowering his head and trying to breathe deeply past teeth which were locked tightly together. He wasn't the center of the Universe. He wasn't the center of the Universe. But… in a way, they were. Taking a moment to recompose himself, he pressed the "listen to message" button on the mobile and carefully watched the display.

"You have: 2 messages, Doctor," the thing displayed, "1st message is from: Rose Tyler." the time lord's breath caught in his throat for a moment, one heart skipping a beat and then the other. His stomach turned over, somewhere between fear and sadness and joy and longing and some… some emotions he wasn't even sure he could name. Oh. Oh, it was… Rose Tyler.

"Doctor," there was a breathy laugh following her voice, the kind of laugh she would make when she was somewhere between having finished crying and starting to cry again, "Doctor. It's so… it's so weird to say that again. To say it and know that I really mean it that way. I just… it's been so long, Doctor. It's been two whole years and each year seems like so long since I met you and we spent that time together traveling through the stars and I…" she paused, her voice catching and the tears more than likely beginning to fall again. The Doctor clutched tightly onto the console, his feet splayed out slightly, as if he would collapse onto the floor of the TARDIS if he didn't have enough support. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead down next to the mobile. Oh, Rose. It really was Rose Tyler and she… she was crying, and he could do nothing to help her. He could do nothing to console her. He was useless, and far away, and all he had was her voice.

"I try, Doctor. I try, and I do love him. He's wonderful and amazing and so much like you always were, Doctor, and I'm really happy when I'm around him… but… but sometimes… I'll just… I'll lay my head on his chest, all cozy and warm and I should be so happy then, but I hear his heartbeat, Doctor… his only heartbeat. He just has one, Doctor, and… it's not enough. He's like you, but he's not you. I'm happy but I'm not… I'm not with you. Oh, God," she sniffled, laughing with a weak little whimper at herself, "I hope he never hears this. I do love him, y'hear? I love him almost as much as I love you… but never… I mean… he just has the one heart, Doctor, and…" for a long time, there was nothing but the sound of her harsh and tearing breathing. The sound of desperation and those memories that he imagined clawed their way up to the front of her mind just as they tore through his own. He let himself fall, turning himself around and resting his head against the very edge of the console. He could still hear her from here.

He thought of River, the woman whose life had run in the opposite direction of his own. The woman he had married. The woman who was hell in high heels. He had loved her, he knew. He wouldn't have felt quite that kind of numb after losing her as he did if he hadn't been in love with her. He had loved her as daughter of the Ponds, as daughter of the TARDIS, as his own wife. He had loved everything about her. Her wild hair and wild heart, the way she moved and the electricity her lips would send into his when they kissed and her voice whenever she would greet him. "Hello, Sweetie…" words he would never hear again. Words he longed so much to hear now. Words he loved as much as he loved River herself, and he loved River Song so much and so passionately… but in the end, she had never been Rose Tyler. He had been deeply in love with her, but it was even deeper in his hearts where Rose resided. He had been in love with two women at once, and the one he always came back to… the voices of the two mingled in his mind for a moment, one warning him of spoilers in one ear and the other coaxing him to bare his secrets in the other. Both teased him to take them along on an adventure, River only for so long as she could and Rose… Rose for as long as she lived.

"You warned me, Doctor," the voices echoing from back in time subsided, the recorded message of his Bad Wolf playing again, "You tried to tell me. You said… you said to never say never ever, Doctor. Because I said nothing would split us up. And now it has, but I have him, and… I love him, I do," she insisted, perhaps more to herself than to the man she was speaking to, sobbing openly now, "but we were. We were split up, and I have him, and… and I remember, all the time, that I don't have you. He is you, but… but he's not…" her voice fell to a whisper, and the tears bled through it as the message ended, "I love you." The phone beeped once more, and now even her breath was gone.

That terribly big, empty interior of that impossibly small and blue TARDIS echoed with the thick kind of silence which moved like the tides. Out, towards the walls, and back inwards as if to consume him. No more River flirting with him every other breath. No Amy fretting over him in her oddly motherly-sisterly way. No Rory complaining about the illogical nature of the Universe or professing his love for his wife. No Rose… nothing but the slight shuffling of his own shoes upon the clear glass floor. He brought his hands up to his eyes, pressing gently down on the lids as if the spots of color amidst the darkness of non-sight might provide some answers. He had lived so long, and been responsible for so much death and displacement and loss. How had he managed it? How was he not dead himself by now? Other than his wife, of course. She had tried to kill him once, but it hadn't worked out exactly as she had planned. They'd gotten married instead. They'd had a life together. Almost… the kind of life he'd thought he could never have. Almost.

With a deep breath to steady his lungs as if these thoughts had stolen all the oxygen from him, he wobbled back up onto his feet and turned on his heel to face the display again. The words "message ended" stood out boldly in front of his face, the mobile still resting where he had laid it when the message began. He stared at it again, his eyes becoming lost within him for a long moment before he shook it off and awkwardly moved his hand toward the buttons themselves. He hadn't dialed any numbers on this in so long… since Donna, at least. His next breath was shaky, remembering how many he had hurt by being in their lives. But River and Rose… they had loved him. He could tell, they had. Always. And River was saved now. She could go on loving him… forever, if she felt like it. Hands shaky in the isolated glow of the lights within the TARDIS, the Doctor pressed the button to call back the number which had left him that message. He wasn't sure that it would work, but he at least had to try. He glanced at the display as the phone began to ring… a sound he hadn't thought he'd hear again.

"Waiting…" the display assured him, roughly a minute passing before that word faded away, "Redirecting. Answering Machine. 'Hey, there, Boss,'" it was Mickey's voice projecting from the phone now, "'I've been messing around with Rose's phone. She says she'll have to get an expert to look at it later, fix whatever I've messed up. She swears it has fuzzy reception now. Y'know what I think? I think I'm one flip of a switch somewhere in here from getting her to talk to you again. I just don't know where that switch is. Anyway, if it's really worked… I hope you talk to her soon, Doctor. She needs you.'" the mobile beeped again, long and loud, and the screen read, "Message Recording…" Reflexively, the Doctor straightened his bow-tie as if he was talking to her face-to-face and smiled one of those tired smiles he would often give Amy when she was worried about him. He looked at the display, almost as if it could record him.

"You're right. You're absolutely right. Never say never ever, Rose Tyler. However… if you want to… you can go ahead and say forever if you like. Never ever means that something won't happen, but you don't know what the future will be," he looked down at the mess of wiring beneath his feet for a moment, stopping himself from glancing over at the diary, "You don't know what will happen to you years or months or days or even hours from now. You don't live like that anymore. So don't ever say never ever. But, my Rose Tyler, you do know what will survive through all of the change and chaos and strangeness of life. You know what will stay with you no matter what the future ends up becoming. You don't know what the future will be, but you know what the future will have. You don't know where you'll be next, and especially not whereI'll be, but you know who you'll have with you in your heart wherever you go… and who I'll have in my hearts. I have so many faces imprinted there, you know, so many faces I love and cherish and miss with all my heart, but yours is always strongest. Yours is always there, with that blond hair and that wonderful smile and the words "Bad Wolf" tattooed across both my hearts for the rest of time," he smiled a bit himself at the image, leaning in a bit closer to the display and feeling his teeth ring strangely with the combined novelty and deja vu of saying these old words and phrases again just for her sake, "You know who will always stay with you, and who you will always be with. So never say never ever… but allons-y on, my dear Rose, because we can always say forever."

The corners of his mouth strained slightly with the effort of his smile, his eyes beginning to water again and the tears brimming at the edges of them so dangerously close to falling down his cheeks at last. He wasn't as sad as he thought he was, of course. He was… relieved, really. "And…" he hesitated briefly, looking between the display and the phone and wondering how long a message lasted, "I know this isn't the voice you wanted to hear this from. Especially not after you've already heard it from him. I've changed since we saw each other, you see. I'm the Eleventh Doctor now. I'm not… exactly who I was. I just…" his own voice fell a bit quiet just as hers had, "I do want you to love him, Rose. I want you to live and be happy and love him as if he had two hearts to give you. I just want you to know… I love you, too, Rose Tyler, and I always will." With that, he pressed another button and the call came to an end.

"Message Recorded," the display informed him just before he pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes again, as if fighting back a headache. It had taken him so long to say those words to her, and now they hadn't even been in the right voice. What a mess he was, this last member of the great Time Lord race. This lonely mad man in a lonely blue box, gallivanting about the stars as if he owned them. As if he owned anything but the clothes on his back and the gifts which long gone friends and allies and lovers had once bestowed upon him. He sighed, watching the wiring beneath his feet again.

Then the chirping began again. Chirping? Why would it have been chirping again? The Doctor swung his head towards the display again.

""You have: 2 messages, Doctor," it told him yet again, "1st message is from: Sexy. 2nd message is from: Rose Tyler. Which would you like to view first, Doctor?" A second of stunned silence passed, then a half-wild, half-mad grin replaced the Time Lord's once more serious visage. All of the sudden, both his Ninth and Tenth incarnations rushed up in his mind to meet the Eleventh and a few phrases passed through before he was able to reassert his current attitude.

"I… I think I'd like to hear Rose first, if you don't mind…" he decided, pressing the number two on the mobile. There was another beep, just like before, and…

"Oh my god, it's you. It's really you. You called me and I got the message and… that must have been why my phone kept ringing yesterday. I tried to pick it up, but it wouldn't let me, and… Doctor, call me back. Tell me everything. I have to listen to your voice a few more times before I know what you actually said. My head's all dizzy, I don't know what to think right now. Call me, and tell me everything you've been up to. How long it's been, what you've been doing… everything. I want to know everything. If I can't be there with you, traveling with you, Doctor, I at least have a right to know. I have to have a way to be with you at least a little bit… 'cause it's you and me, Doctor… forever," this time, her voice faded out with a smile in its lilt rather than tears in its pitch. The Eleventh Doctor's face was nearly consumed by the smile it wore as he pressed the number one to listen to his other message. He would have to re-listen to this one a few times, as well, before he would truly listen to what it was saying.

"Rose Tyler…" he breathed happily, "My Rose Tyler. The Bad Wolf. The Defender of the Earth. The girl who said… forever…" and after all this time, he finally had a way to communicate with her.