So,” Rose said, leaning her weight against the control console and looking down at where the Doctor was busy replacing some circuitry modules. There was a long silence while the Doctor waited for the rest of the sentence; when it was obvious there was nothing more coming he popped his head out of the panel and asked: “So what?”
“So what is it with you and … him? Exactly. No, not exactly because I don’t think I want to know that much, but … you like him, yeah?”
The Doctor grinned. “Yeah.”
He dived back behind the panel again, leaving Rose to wait for further enlightenment. After another long moment of silence she rolled her eyes and tried again. “You known him long?”
The response was muffled. “Known who long?”
“This … Watcher bloke. You know. The guy in who’s TARDIS you’ve parked this one?”
“Oh,” the Doctor said. He popped out for another grin. “Yeah.”
Rose drew in a patient breath as the Time Lord once again vanished into the depths of his TARDIS. He was obviously in one of those moods, and getting answers out if him was going to need a little finesse. Or just a lot of questions.
“How long?”
Another muffled answer. “Long enough.”
“Long enough for what? No, wait … stupid question. Long enough for that, obviously … but … how long? A year long, a century long, what?”
The Doctor reappeared, looking up at her with a thoughtful frown. “It doesn’t work like that,” he said, shaking his head a little as he tried to find the words that might tell her how it did work. “Time is … relative. And ours hasn’t crossed entirely … consecutively.”
Rose grimaced. She hated these ‘I first ran into him the day after tomorrow’ kind of conversations. They gave her a headache. “I don’t need to know that. Just how long you’ve known him. How old were you when you first met him?”
The grin came back, along with a hint of wistful memory. “Sixty two. He was … well, I’m not sure how old he was, but older than me. By a bit.”
“Sixty two.” Rose stared down at the man at her feet. “You told me you were nine hundred years old.”
“Uhuh,” he agreed. “More or less. Slightly more now, but not by much.”
“And he is …?”
She got an unconcerned shrug and what sounded like a guess, but which was almost certainly wasn’t. “Nearer a millennium. I think. Closer than me, anyway. Not quite there yet, maybe.”
“Right,” Rose acknowledged, mentally subtracting sixty two from nine hundred and then putting the answer alongside the thousand to compare it. “So you’ve know him for … over eight hundred years? And he’s known you … almost as long? Longer? No time at all?”
The Doctor chuckled, clambering to his feet and dropping a circuit board onto the console with a clatter. “Long enough,” he grinned. “Long enough for it to matter. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, then frowned. “No. You said … you said you knew you were the only one left. That you’d feel it,” she pressed her hand to her chest, “here, if anyone else had survived. And you’d think – well, I’d think – that if he meant that much to you, you would know. But you didn’t. Did you?”
For a moment – just a moment – the Doctor looked every one of his nine hundred years. Old. Worn. Burdened with time and a wisdom of experience no-one should be asked to wear. Rose’s heart quailed. Had she pushed too far, asked too much?
“I was wrong,” he whispered, the pain in his admission cutting though his soul, cutting who he was like a diamond edge. “So wrong.” He was staring past her now, staring at the closed door as if he could see through it, seeking the man they discussed with a desperation she didn’t want to understand. “Didn’t dare hope,” he admitted, almost under his breath. “Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.”
Rose shivered, remembering the day he’d told her about his people, about how he was the last one left. So much pain, so much loss …
“You didn’t dare hope,” she realised, “because you were afraid it would be a lie.”
He swallowed hard, as if suddenly aware of his vulnerability, of the admission he’d just made. “Yeah,” he affirmed, trying for a lighter note and failing miserably. “Wishful thinking. Bad habit. Delusional. Not good.”
“No,” she agreed sympathetically. “Guess not. But … you felt him, didn’t you.”
He was still staring at the TARDIS door. “Yeah.”
“And that’s how … he knew you and you knew him. Back on Jarsus Five.”
The stark look softened slightly, echoing a hint of his usually brilliant grin. “Yeah.”
“And you can … I don’t believe I’m saying this … you can feel him now?”
The grin resurfaced in all its glory, warm, wonderful, and filled with honest delight. “Yeah.”
“That’s – good,” Rose decided, not entirely sure she believed it. She felt uncomfortable about all this, uncomfortable with the way she’d thought he’d felt. Did he really care about her, or had he just been using her, keeping her with him because otherwise he’d have been utterly alone? And if he had cared, did he still, did he have room to care for one foolish girl that had dared to think she could be his friend when he needed one?
“Bloody brilliant,” he was saying, turning that grin towards her with his usual irritating charm. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” she echoed a little uncertainly. His eyes narrowed. He leant forward a little to study her – more intently than she felt comfortable with. “What?” she defended. “You don’t think I – “
“Care?” he interrupted pointedly. “Oh, you care, all right. More than you’d like to admit. What are you afraid of? That I don’t care? You think … you think he comes along and I’m going to just … toss you out like a piece of stale cheese? Do you know what he’s doing right now? He’s training his Slayer. His Slayer. The one girl in all the world that holds both his hearts? The way that you have mine? You do know you have mine, don’t you?”
“Well,” Rose said warily, backing away from his sudden intensity. “You never exactly said …
“Stupid little Ape,” he muttered, somehow managing to pack the insulting phrase with more affection than Rose knew how to deal with there and then. “I didn’t have to say. Did I? Nine hundred years, Rose. More than enough time to learn how to love. And yes, I love him. And I love you. And I’m rather fond of Jack, although I’d prefer you didn’t tell him that right now. You’re family. You have nothing to fear from him. Nothing to be jealous over either. He’s family too.”
Rose’s mouth worked, wrestling for something to say. Needing something to say. Because what he’d just said was something she’d never expected to hear and everything she’d ever wanted to hear and now she’d heard it, she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. “Well,” she managed at last. “That’s okay then.”
“Yeah,” he concurred, then shook his head a little despairingly as he reached past her for the abandoned circuit board. “And if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
She didn’t mind. In fact, she was fighting to keep the smile from her face. “Doctor?” she said, as he bent down to climb back into the open panel.
“What?” The question was impatient. Dismissive.
“I’m – I’m glad, you know? That … that you found him. That you’re not the last … alone … the only Time Lord left.”
He froze for a moment, his hand curled over the edge of the consol, his face safely hidden behind panels and circuitry. “Thanks,” he said, and she wasn’t imagining the lump in his throat. “I’m – rather glad myself.”
“Yeah,” she smiled. “I got that. So … you known him long?”
There was a moment of absolute silence – and then he began to laugh.
It was, Rose Tyler decided with a grin, the most wonderful sound she’d ever heard.