preserved_ginger

Title: Everyone Leaves Home In The End
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Rose
Rating: PG-13
Beta(s):

requialexa
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, not-Ten.
Spoilers: Absolutely spoilerific for 4X13
Disclaimer: The BBC's, not mine.
A/N: Fix-it!fic for 4X13, so definitively AU. The title comes from a statement Rose makes to the Doctor in The Impossible Planet. I’ve borrowed language and themes from various Season Two episodes plus Journey’s End.
Summary: Right, I’m calling shenanigans.

Here they were again, standing back on that beach where she’d died (to all intents and purposes) so long ago, and she is starting to think he’d never really believed her when she’d sworn to him that day how she was never going to leave him.

Because what other reason could there ever be for him to bring her back here?

And as the two of them – him and not-him – babble on about how the Doctor is the not-Doctor is the Doctor (and yes, she is as confused about the idea as that explanation makes her seem; she’s not at all sure she enjoys the feeling), she suddenly has a suspicious thought flower at the back of her mind. What is the Doctor – the real one, her one – trying to do, exactly? And when not-him speaks next, she thinks she knows.

“I’m part Human. Specifically the ageing part. I’ll grow old and never regenerate. I’ve only got one life ... Rose Tyler.” He breaks off, and looks at her in that way he always does when he wants something to stick in her memory. “I could spend it with you. If you want.”

And she’s figured out his plan, because she always was smarter than she looked.

Oh no you don’t. You’re not doing that to me again!

Trying to remain calm and force her brain to think is far more difficult than it seems – and she’s even more impressed at how the Doctor seems to manage it so effortlessly – but she takes her best shot at it, and although her voice wavers a little she’s satisfied with the outcome.

“You’ll grow— grow old at the same time as me?”

Oh you really are a devious one, Doctor. I can see what you’re up to a mile off. But it isn’t going to work.

“Together,” not-him confirms. And she puts her hand against his chest – and he seems to be telling the truth, for only one heart is beating there.

She stands there for a few seconds, thinking hard; the TARDIS makes a strange grinding sound, and the Doctor starts talking about how they have to go, because the reality they’re in is sealing itself off for ever. He and Donna start walking away, but she calls after him and they stop. She says to him how it isn’t right, how not-him is, well, not him – and the Doctor further complicates matters by saying that he is.

Right, I’m calling shenanigans. Time for us to stop this nonsense – nobody’s fooling anyone here –, and go home. I could murder a cup of tea right now.

“All right. Both of you, answer me this:” She watches as the two of them come to stand on either side of her, him on her right and not-him on her left. There’s nothing more she wants than the answer to a question that’s been bugging her since she last saw this beach – what was he going to say, when he disappeared? – but she doesn’t ask him that, because she knows and always has done what the answer would be. She asks another, pointed, question instead.

“You died for me, once. Back on the Game Station, with the Daleks. You died for me.” She looks to her right and sees a half-amused, half-guilty expression cross his face. Thought you could fool me, eh, Doctor?

“Would you do it again?”

She’s looking her Doctor directly in the eyes when she asks the question, and for once he meets them dead on. His answer is in exactly the same tone he’d used when he called her ‘Defender of the Earth‘, way back when.

“Every time.”

Without missing a beat, she turns to her left, and speaks to not-him.

“And you, Doctor?”

Shoving his hands into the pockets of that unfortunate blue suit, he shrugs his shoulders, shuffles his feet nervously and looks pointedly at the man on her right. When he speaks his tone is throaty and she can hear a hint of something akin to panic in it.

“What he said.”

Make-your-mind-up time, Tyler. Not that it’s exactly a competition.

She steps towards the man on her left, takes his hand and leans in to kiss him on the cheek.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

And she lowers her eyes as she turns away from him, unwilling to look at the shocked hurt in his eyes as she gives him up. She turns to her right again, and sees him smiling down at her, the love he’ll never admit to shining through his slightly stunned expression.

“I can’t get anything past you, can I, Rose Tyler?”

“Does it need saying?” she says, her tone and dancing eyes taking away any hurt from her words.

A snort of quickly subdued laughter is his only reply. He holds his hand out to her, wiggling his fingers to encourage her as he’d done in the dust of the Powell Estate what seemed a lifetime ago. And she reaches out to take them, to slide her fingers so they interlock properly with his.

He uses their interlinked hands to pull her in close beside him, and he leans in to whisper in her ear.

“Are you sure about this? There’s no second chances this time. This reality’s sealing itself off. For ever.”

You’ll never see her again, your own mother is what he doesn’t say; he doesn’t have to.

She tenses for a moment, and then relaxes.

“You’ve said that before,” she whispers back. “I remember, you said that to me the last time we were on this beach. And here we are again. But in answer to the question, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

“You’ll be stuck in that universe, away from your family, for ever.”

“I know, Doctor. Don’t you think I know?”

The two of them have reached the TARDIS doors now. Rose, still holding fast to his hand as if she doesn’t quite trust him not to disappear without her if she lets go, turns to take one last look at everything she is leaving behind. And then she looks up at the Doctor and smiles.

“Being stuck with you – that’s not so bad,” she says.

“Yeah?”

He steps into the TARDIS, and holds the door open for her.

“Yes,” she says, in a tone of utter conviction, as she follows him inside.