preserved_ginger

Title: Wider Than The World
Character(s): Jackie Tyler, Rose Tyler, The Doctor
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Dedication: For

catsfiction, on the occasion of her birthday.
Setting: Journey’s End
Beta:

glory_jean
Rating: PG
A/N: Yes, this is an AU, Ten/Rose, Journey’s End fic. No, I don’t care about canon.
Disclaimer: The Doctor and Rose belong to the BBC. The song from which I took the title of this story belongs to Runrig.
Summary: She promised him “for ever”; now, she has the chance to keep her word.

After the others had left, they’d taken a journey across the Void to return Rose’s mother to her new family. Rose knew that her mother wanted her to stay – but there was no way she had any intention of leaving the Doctor, now that she had him back. So here they were. Why, she wondered, did all her important good-byes have to happen on this cold, deserted beach?

-*@*-

“So,” Jackie asked him, seemingly impatient to know, “what were you going to say to Rose, back on that beach, with that transmission thing of yours and everything? Before you got cut off?”

“Mum!” Rose hissed. “It doesn’t matter; it’s not important.” She looked at him, and smiled. “Not any more.”

“Does it need saying?”

His tone was perfectly level – but he was betrayed by his hand creeping up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck, something Rose, at least, knew he only did when he was nervous. He fooled nobody, not even for a moment.

Jackie walked straight up to him and poked a finger in his chest – none-too-gently, either.

“Are you being deliberately cruel?” She was shouting at him, angry on her daughter’s behalf. “Or are you just saying the first thing that comes into your head, without giving it any thought at all? Either way, you deserve a slap!”

His hand went reflexively to his cheek and he rubbed it, an expression of wary unease crossing his face.

“What have I done now?” he yelled back, his pride stung and his temper for once getting the better of him.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Jackie shouted at him, her expression changing to one of angry frustration as she started to realise with what – or, rather, whom – she was dealing, and she stood watching him as he shook his head in bewilderment.

“He’s an alien, Mum.” Rose appeared to think it wise to intervene at this stage. “You keep forgetting that.” His head whipped around to her so quickly that he felt mildly dizzy. “Things like this are different for him,” she continued, her eyes never leaving his face.

“I’ll give him ‘things are different for him’,” Jackie snapped, not mollified in the slightest. Ignoring her completely, as was his habit when she said something he didn’t want to hear, he focussed his whole attention on the woman in front of him.

“Rose?” His whole tone changed completely, softer and more tender than the voice he’d used with Jackie.

“Doctor?” Rose’s voice sounded strained to him, another thing to add to the growing pile of guilt. But he pressed on, suddenly needing to get this out.

“That last time I saw you, here on Bad Wolf Bay. The sentence I left unfinished.”

“After I’d told you I love you?”

He moved until he was near enough to take her hand, sliding his fingers through hers until the two of them were linked the way they’d always been.

“That’s the one,” he agreed, bringing their joined hands to his lips so he could brush a kiss over her knuckles. “I can finish it now for you. If you want me to, that is. I’d rather like to – it’s been so long since I last had the chance, and I rather messed it up that time and I —”

Rose cut him off at that point by placing one of the fingers of her free hand on his lips. He kissed it and smiled gently at her.

“Still making ten words do the work of three, then? Good to see some things never change,” she said, her voice full of laughter as she smiled up at him. “But, since you asked? Yeah. It would be good to hear it.”

He used the hand he still held to pull her closer still, his other arm snaking around her.

“I said ‘Rose Tyler’,” he said, his voice low and filled with emotion.

“I know that, silly!” The obvious affection in her voice took away any sting from the words. “You told me you were gonna tell me how that sentence was gonna end.”

He grinned down at her wolfishly.

“So I did.”

Wanting only Rose to hear what he had to say, he leaned in so his lips were level with her ear, and he couldn’t resist a chuckle deep in his throat when the warmth of his breath made her shiver. “What I was going to say, before the connexion broke, was this: Rose Tyler, how could you not know how very much I love you?”

He moved to kiss her briefly on the lips before pulling away, only for Rose to pull him back down in order to kiss him properly. He returned the kiss with equal enthusiasm, deepening it and losing himself so thoroughly in the accompanying rush of sensation that it took Rose’s need for air to break the kiss.

-*@*-

“Rose?”

Rose, basking in the afterglow of the kiss she'd shared with the Doctor, had lost herself in memories of the last time they'd kissed that thoroughly. The sound of her mother calling her name brought her, reluctantly, back to reality.

Turning in the Doctor’s arms, Rose faced her mother and the reality of that cold, cruel beach. The only things convincing her that she had not hallucinated the past few years were the pin-striped arms slung firmly around her waist and the comforting thump-THUMP-thump-THUMP of twin heartbeats behind her. Even so, she started to physically shake and, clearly alarmed, the Doctor tried whispering in her ear again to calm her.

“Rose, it’s all right. It’s all right. I’m here.”

-*@*-

When Rose turned back towards him, clutching at his coat and burying her face in his chest, he tightened his arms around her briefly and then began tracing comforting patterns on her back. She continued to cling tightly to him for quite some time: growing slightly concerned, he dropped a kiss into her hair before searching out Jackie with his eyes.

“I think this might go more easily if we were in the TARDIS,” he said to her apologetically. “Rose, at least, would probably be more comfortable. Agreed?”

Jackie nodded, heading back to the ship, and he was left alone again with Rose.

“We’ll go back to the TARDIS, then, shall we?”

His tone was light and tender, although he knew the time they had left before the breach between the worlds closed was growing shorter by the second. Much longer, and the TARDIS might not be able to get back. Pushing this to the back of his mind for now because he was determined to find Rose the time she needed, he swung Rose into his arms and carried her the short distance back to his ship. When they reached the console room, the reassuring hum and green-gold glow seemed to make Rose feel safe. In any event, once he set her down on the grating, she let go of him.

She still seemed wary of being too far away from him, and had a tendency to cling to him as if he were going to abandon her at the first opportunity. Since he had no intention of doing anything of the sort, he found it more than a little unnerving. He made a mental note to follow up on that with Rose later; she’d always had abandonment issues, especially since he had crossed her timeline to take her to see her father, but this seemed more, well, pronounced somehow.

Filing it away for later, he turned to Jackie with the ghost of a smile on his face.

“So,” he said, reaching for Rose’s hand as he spoke and sliding his fingers in so they meshed with hers, “Jackie, I think this is probably where you and I say good-bye. This reality’s sealing itself off again. For ever.”

“You’re going to take her away from me again, aren’t you?”

Jackie’s tone was mournful and it looked for a moment that there would be tears before she managed to get herself back under control. Rose, naturally, tried to comfort her mother, but he found that he couldn't quite manage to drag his attention away from Rose.

“Doctor?” Jackie’s voice, full of emotion, wavered slightly.

“Jackie.”

His voice was gentle, almost tender, but nevertheless contained an unmistakable hint of steel. He had every intention of winning this argument. “Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. You’ve had the sort of second chance other people can only dream of – a second chance with the man you love.” His eyes locked with Rose’s and so he missed Jackie’s reaction to what he had said. “And if it’s what she wants,” he continued, in theory addressing Jackie but with his focus on Rose, “are you honestly going to deny Rose her chance of the same?”

Jackie made a choking noise which seemed to come from deep in her throat. He saw her close her eyes briefly, swallowing visibly, before turning to her daughter.

“Rose?”

Just the one word, name and question both.

He watched Rose look away from him towards her mother, and for a few moments felt real fear. But then he saw the way Rose was looking at her mother, and relaxed a little. Her expression was that of somebody watching something infinitely precious that was already for ever gone.

“Mum ... I’m going with him.”

“But – but you can’t,” Jackie stuttered out. “I’d never see you again.”

“Mum, listen to me. The last time I was in our universe, the one we came from, I swore to him that I was never going to leave him. You already know what happened, after that. But now, I've a chance to keep my promise. How can I stay here without him?”

Pointedly, Jackie said nothing for a short while. With half an eye on the two women, he started calculating in his head exactly how long they had before the dimension retroclosure would make it too dangerous for him to attempt to return. His eyes widened when he realised just how little time was left.

“Rose, we —”

“Is this what you want, Rose?” Jackie interrupted him, in a tone that suggested that she had caught on to the fact that time was running out. “Tell me the truth, mind, and not what you think I want to hear. Is this really what you want?”

Rose turned away from her mother back towards him; again, their eyes locked.

“This dimension’s sealing itself off, for ever,” he reminded her gently. “You’ll never see her again.” He watched as tears filled her eyes, hating himself for doing it to her but knowing that he had no choice. And then she smiled at him, which made him feel even more of a heel. After a few seconds, she answered them both in a voice choked with pain.

“It’s what I want. But if I could only keep you both!”

He itched to comfort her but Jackie got there first. In any case, he would have Rose to himself for a very long time when this was over – which was more than he could say for Jackie. So he let mother comfort daughter, for once forcing himself to over-rule the jealous, darkly possessive parts of his nature and the increasingly urgent messages his brain kept sending him to protect Rose. The same Rose who stood, perfectly safe, in front of him being hugged tightly by her mother.

All too soon he put a hand on Jackie’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Jackie, I honestly am. But we need to go.”

Jackie nodded, letting go of her daughter. He ached to take Rose into his arms but he didn't, choosing instead to kiss Jackie’s cheek before holding out his hand to Rose, who took it.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he said to Jackie as he felt Rose’s hand tighten its grip on his.

“Take good care of her for me,” she said quietly.

“Always. You have my word.”

“I love you, Mum.”

“I know you do. I love you too, Rose. Whatever happens, always remember that.”

“Mum —” Rose’s voice broke, and her grip on his hand tightened so much it was starting to hurt.

Jackie turned towards the door, digging into her pocket for something as she went; she opened it and she was halfway through before suddenly she stopped.

“I’d almost forgotten,” she said, in a wistful voice full of pain that tore at his hearts. “You left this behind, Rose,” she continued, “and I have the oddest feeling you’ll need it where you’re going. Although it’s not like you not to have it with you, I must say ...” And with one last, trembling, smile she placed something on the console and was gone.

He checked the door was fastened properly and, after he pulled the lever that completed the dematerialisation sequence, he went with Rose to the other side of the console to find out what Jackie had left there. He spotted it before Rose and held it out to her: it was her TARDIS key. Her face crumpled as she took it but he was there, comforting her as he always had, as they started on their journey once again.

The road that lies ahead of us
Is wider than the world