#docroseficfest

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Jackie offered in a strangely kind tone, finally drawing his attention towards her. “She’s been through it.” She stopped, blue eyes studying him carefully as if she were trying to read his mind. The Doctor quirked an eyebrow at her and she frowned. “Tell me straight, you are him, aren’t you? Even if there’s two of you?”

“A man’s a sum of his memories. Time Lords especially,” he answered, the words so similar to ones he’d spoken ages ago as he sat on a hill and felt his past selves slipping away.

“Never an easy yes or no with you, is it?” Jackie huffed and extended a key card. “You’re right next to Rose.”

He took it and played with the idea of giving her what she’d consider a straighter answer than the first one, but she was halfway down the hall before he could. Apparently the adrenaline rush of regenerating directly into a melting TARDIS and then straight into battle with the Daleks was finally subsiding and it was dragging him down into sleep. No telling how long that would last with the way it had all shaken out this time, but he certainly didn’t want to find out in the middle of the hallway.

The Doctor slipped the key card into the slot and the light flashed green, the lock clicking open so that he could swing the door open. It was dark and oh, oh so quiet. It wasn’t just the room, though. For the first time he was left not only with the intellectual understanding that the TARDIS was gone, but the soul-deep fracture left in the wake of the broken psychic link. Even when he hadn’t had a companion onboard, he had never truly been alone for centuries. Now, standing in the darkened hotel room, he felt the loss of a connection that could never be made again. It was true that they might find a way to speed up the growth of a new TARDIS from the coral the other Doctor had left him with, but it wouldn’t be his Old Girl. Not the one he had stolen. He wasn’t sure if he even knew how to begin to mourn that loss. 

A sound from the next room drew his attention to the door that must have led to Rose’s from his own. He paused, finding that he had to strain his ears just a little more than he used to to focus in on the muffled sobs. The corners of his lips twitched downward as he stepped closer, pulling the handle to the door and opening it, only to find the back of the door on her side. Great. Nothing like an endless row of doors to scrape against frayed nerves.

Another whimper drew him out of his irritation and he reached for the handle of the second door as well, pushing it downward. Surprisingly, it gave way under the pressure and it swung silently open to reveal a room mirror-opposite to the one that he was staying in. His dark gaze swept the room, finding the bathroom light on and the shower running, but it looked like Rose hadn’t made it quite as far as she’d intended. Instead, she’d simply collapsed against the bed and was curled up on top of the comforter there.

The Doctor weighed his options for a moment before stepping into the bathroom to quickly turn off the shower. No use in wasting water. He had about convinced himself to slip right back out again when the same mournful sound escaped the woman he loved, drawing his attention back around to see the way she was curled up into herself, a fistful of comforter in her hand, and her face scrunched up as if in pain. No, he couldn’t leave her like that.

“Rose,” he called softly as he padded quietly over to the bed. She stirred, but didn’t wake, whatever nightmare-fueled battle still being waged in her dreams. Finally he reached out, his touch impossibly gentle against her shoulder and light brown eyes popped open, a wild expression dancing through them. “Hey, you’re alright,” he promised. “Rose?”

“Doctor,” she managed and suddenly she was in his arms, knelt on the bed with her nose buried in the crook of his neck and fingers wrapped into the material of his suit coat  like she thought that was the only way to hold on. “I thought --”

“It was just a dream,” he promised and hoped it was the truth. Jackie had said that she’d been through it, but what it was, he wasn’t sure. 

“No it wasn’t,” she whispered brokenly, but she didn’t let go. “You were gone. You were gone and I couldn't get to you.”

“But you did. I’m right here. Promise.”

She pulled back then, her eyes rimmed red and the fear she’d been feeling strangely laid bare in her expression. He bit his tongue, desperately fighting his own inclination to fill a silence and actually let her sort through whatever it was that she was sorting through. 

Slowly and carefully she reached a hand up, her fingers tracing along the side of his face and her thumb along his cheekbone. Then, much more gently than she had earlier that day, she reached up with her free hand and pulled him in. He melted into the kiss, feeling the cold loneliness that had been threatening to consume him just a few minutes before pushed back. He wasn’t alone.

His hands, still resting lightly at her back from where she’d sprung into his arms just a moment before, made their way up to cup her face, pulling her deeper into the kiss and he felt her tip back, pulling him back to the bed with her. He landed on his knees, a leg on either side of her, and she was dragging him closer still, her hold desperate. 

After a long and beautiful moment he had to pull back, both of them breathless, and he found her staring up at him. “You’re here,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“You won’t go runnin’ off?”

“Not without you running with me,” he swore, pulling a grin from her and she tugged him so that he toppled down next to her on the bed. He felt himself relax as she slipped her hand into his, all the earlier fears of detachment starting to fall away with the loneliness. Rose wrapped an arm around his middle, inching closer to him as they lay together across the wrong way on the bed. A soft sigh escaped her and the Doctor pressed a kiss to her blonde hair, reveling in the moment. 

“Must have been dreamin’,” she said softly, her voice sounding like she was edging back towards sleep again. 

“‘Bout what?”

“You leavin’. All over again.”

He frowned a little, not certain if she meant the other Doctor or both of them. Maybe she didn’t know with the way she was dancing on the edge of sleep again. He loosed a soft breath, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, slipping out of her arms reluctantly in order to get her tucked under the covers rather than on top of them. She barely stirred as he pulled the blankets up around her, but as he turned, he felt her hand snap out to catch his wrist. “Don’t go.”

He paused, running the words through his mind again and again to make sure he’d heard them correctly. For her part, Rose gently tugged him back towards the bed, scooting over to make room. He nodded and she loosed her hold long enough for him to shrug out of his blue coat and toe off his red Chucks. Once he had, she pulled back the covers and he slipped in with her, his arm fitting perfectly around her and hers around him with her head against his chest. 

“That’s gonna take some gettin’ use to,” she mumbled.

“What is?”

“One heart.”