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Pete Tyler wasn’t a man to easily give emotions away easily; and yet when her mobile trilled that afternoon, she could instantly tell something was wrong but the ever-so-slight inflection in his voice.
Rose had been finishing up a loose bit of paperwork at the breakfast bar, a mug of cooling tea at her elbow. Normally she would be in the office; however after the team had hinted - repeatedly- to their Director how heading all the way up 1 Canada Square was a frank waste of all their energies, he relented and allowed a partial work-from-home policy. The only caveat was the Doctor having to install strict encryption systems to protect all of Torchwood’s information, but it was a worthwhile trade for the comfort of her own flat and a sunny spot to bask in.
Rose had suppressed an involuntary shudder. She was on good terms with this universe’s version of the underground organisation, but there was just… something about its blue-tinged walls and the odd vibe the building naturally gave off that never failed to make her feel uneasy. It didn’t matter that four-and-a-half entire years had passed; that the man she’d been searching for was now back by her side, with her all the way, his warmer hand always enfolding hers.
The call came just as the laptop gave an ominous whir, the plastic casing warm under her wrists as she typed. Tapping the screen and tucking the phone between shoulder and ear, Rose continued to tap away, determined to finish up this particular report.
“Hiya, Dad. I am working, so you don’t need to set up a Teams meeting later. You might want to check on the others, though. And yeah, I am talking about Jake.”
The light-hearted ramble died as she heard her father’s crushing silence; then his heavy exhale that seemed to go on forever over the line.
“Rose. I’m…glad you picked up.”
She sat upright in her seat, pushing the laptop away slightly as trepidation sank low in her gut.
“It’s the Doctor.”
A torrent of emotion threatened to spill out of her, dammed up only by the emotional strength she’d gained through grief-stricken years of maturity. But this wasn’t some poor nameless creature from a civilization; it wasn’t even the fate of multiple planets and systems at the mercy of a madman. This was the Doctor, and she was more scared than she cared to admit.
Slamming the laptop shut and grabbing her keys, she raced out of the cluttered apartment and was soon coasting speedily out of town, the electric car humming quietly but responsively under her hands and feet (that has actually been a Pete suggestion; the Doctor didn’t really care a lot for pokey earth-bound vehicles when he once had had the greatest ship in the universe at his every command and whim).
As she narrowly missed running a red light, Rose realised she hadn't actually asked where on earth he was right now; nor had she given her dad time to tell her before cutting the line. But the sheer feeling in her bones, leading her to him, was like a stream of energy, some kind of beacon.
The gleaming exterior of Wolf Base One came into view at the end of the empty industrial estate. The one guard, Clive (although not bearing a single resemblance to the prime universe’s Clive, she always felt a pang of sadness at the likely fate of the Clive she had briefly known and all that he had done for her) gave a wave as he admitted her through the high latticed-metal gates.
With a screech of tyres, she just about managed to throw the thing into park before flinging herself out the driver’s seat. If anyone wanted to complain about her sloppy bay parking, they could talk to her later.
The foyer was deserted, save for a bunch of security milling about who nodded when they saw her. Rose couldn’t see the other floors as she entered the lift and firmly pressed the ‘Floor 0’ button and felt its smooth descent. It was a Friday afternoon, and most of the small team would be long gone. A sick sensation gnawed at her gut. That limited the amount of help the Doctor could be getting right now. He would, of course, insist that he was fine and shake things off with a sniff, twitching an imaginary tie.
Well, that was all fine and dandy when he was his Time Lord self. The brain and wits he still maintained, no doubt about that.
She tried to help him come to terms with his new found sense of mortality, she really did. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be an eternal being one minute, and then a mere mortal the next. Any number of things could happen; some dire, some stupid. And this time, there would be no celestial golden light to save him and write his very cells anew.
The Doctor repeatedly emphasised that he did know this; but was he just to give up the maverick self he’d always been?
Through their talks and quietly confiding in one another as they build the bridge of friendship up between them once more, he had revealed just how much he’d veered dangerously close to the edge during their time apart. It made Rose feel guilty at the biting flash of jealousy she had let fill her when first seeing and hearing Martha. It sounded as if the Doctor had perhaps inadvertently (and also not) given her hell, judging by what he told her. And as much as she adored how keen he was to divulge as much as he felt comfortable with, learning these things both comforted and scared her.
Because that was essentially where they started off on this slow path together. He was a man who wore his pain around him like a shroud, even as he tried to hide it desperately from others. And this Doctor had been born with a few extra quirks. The humanity and the added heat of the blood surging within him had only encouraged that reckless edge.
Jake was right in front of her when the door slid back. She could tell everything from his expression.
“Where is he?”
He led her down a corridor to the small ‘hospital’ wing of the base without a further answer.
“I’m honestly amazed he managed to turn himself in here,” Jake imparted with a nervous backwards glance as they both strode along, her managing to keep up with his pace. “Somehow we’ve all avoided seeing the worst of it, I think. I dunno what he was even thinkin’ ...”
Despite the alleged reassurances, Rose felt the cold sensation in her blood that had started ever since she got the call, changing rapidly to chips of ice. How bad was it - and moreover, what the hell had happened? The Doctor has mentioned something about clearing up the last of the discussions with the Faltraxi delegation, babbling away through a mouthful of half-finished toast. She’d just about been awake herself, only really registering the soft buss of his lips against her cheek as he hurried out the door.
They came to a halt in front of the infirmary entrance. One of the double doors was slightly ajar. Jake glanced at her again, hovering, waiting for her. Rose swallowed down her rising anxiety and pushed it open.
The sight that met her eyes was not pretty. And even though she’d seen worse in the past, things were different now. She was rooted fast to the earth with what technology they currently had at their disposal - and it was the one person who she loved beyond anything, and who had forfeited the very stars to be here with her.
The Doctor lay limply on his side. His breathing was shallow, and the shirt and trouser combo he had decided on that morning was pitted and torn in multiple places. Red bloomed shockingly in a slash from the bottom of his ribcage to his the top of his hip, the pale blue fabric clinging to his skin. Rose darted over, touching his shoulder gingerly as she crouched down to study him further. Tried to control her breathing at the purple swell beginning on his left cheek. She cupped his head, running her hands over him to assure herself he was still tied to the land of the living, because his eyes were squeezed shut with the pain, and then pulled her hand from away when the palm came back wet with more crimson, the patch of hair matted with his blood and dirt.
“Oh, god, Doctor, what happened?” Her thumbs down the planes of his face, more to feel him there, solid and real, rather than to dislodge the grime and flecks of blood and whatever else.
“Bloody rotter took a swipe at me, didn’t he?” He’d cracked open one eye now, and she didn’t miss the sheen there.
“Well, as it turned out,” he continued, wincing on a deep inhale, “the Faltraxi diplomat didn’t take kindly to me finding out they’d planted a virus. They tried to call it part of their so-called mission in helping “lower lifeforms” to develop genetically.” He sounded breathless now, shifting to sit up.
“But nothing too much to worry about, just a few lacerations that may need stitches and a bit of bed rest, then I’ll be right as rain. The contusions will heal themselves.” The energy to raise his body into sitting eluded him and the Doctor gave a sharp, high grunt as he slumped back down onto the bare medical cot.
Alarm surged through her at his paling features. “Ok,” she stated steadily, trying to breath through her mouth and nose evenly. “You’re not internally hurt, right? Maybe we should check you over and then give you, I dunno, a tetanus shot or something.”
The Doctor’s eyes were closed again. A tremble ran through his under her fingers that she knew wasn’t anything to do with their proximity (or his newfound issue with feeling the cold more).
“I’ve still retained some of my previous functions and done a quick internal scan,” he mumbled. “Whatever they also sprayed me with has caused a high rise in my levels of c-reactive proteins–”
Rose’s hands stalled in peeling away the sodden red fabric of his shirt away at the hem. “The virus didn’t get you-”
His palm came to rest over hers. The knuckles were reddened and bruised, the long fingers slightly puffier than usual. “No. I think it’s part of their defence mechanism, a mild toxin - but don’t worry,” he said quickly as she started, eyes wide, “I think the effect is only temporary. Kinda like a bee sting. An antihistamine should do the trick.”
“Well, let’s just be glad you’re half of whatever and you made it out alive this time,” Jake said pointedly as he moved nearer the cot. “There’s a reason we work as a unit here, and you can’t just go swanning off–”
“Not my fault nobody else cared to notice the discrepancies in the Faltraxi social behaviour which meant that–”
“Right, enough, ” Rose cut in, standing up and looking between the pair who were now eyeing each other disgruntledly. Even in the pain he was clearly in, the Doctor’s jaw was set. “Nobody’s gonna do any good here just bickering. Jake, why don’t you please help me and get some supplies from that cupboard at the end there.” When his eyes burned and he looked on the verge of arguing, she added, looking at the human on the padded metal cot, “Doctor, we can talk about the rest later when I’ve got you cleaned up.”
A few moments later, a bundle of bandages, antiseptic wipes, a box of gloves and other various paraphernalia had been quickly deposited on a rolling cart. Before she could thank Jake, however, he was out of the room with a flourish, a definite set to his shoulders.
Without looking at the Doctor, she snapped on the white gloves and began to undo his shirt, the topmost button already open. The flare of the collar only emphasised the delicate line of his throat, and she had to shake herself. He was hurt , for God’s sake. This wasn’t the time or place to be mentally drifting off into the place she wished they were already at.
It wasn't as if she had expected them to move on things seriously straight away. But it had been 3 or so months now, and it seemed like he was content to just hold her hand for the rest of their lives here. With evidently more kissing than before, but still. And at the end of the day, she thought as she undid the last button, revealing a pale expanse of chest and narrow waist, she was only human.
Then again, so was he. She stopped and forced herself to meet his eyes, which were deep and warm and brimming with affection.
“‘M gonna need you to sit up, if you can,” she said, flustered at the intensity of his look. He nodded to himself and sat up gingerly, supported by her hand on his shoulder. He winced again, lips a tight line, and she offered two white tablets along with a glass of water. “Not sure what your pain scale is, but the ibuprofen will help. I hope.” She worried her lip as he took the items from her and tipped his head back to swallow the pills. “Would be nice to have a TARDIS and a dermal thingy right now, plus that Kallovian painkiller paste stuff you always used to swear by,” she added in a smaller voice.
“Hey,” the Doctor said quietly, ducking his head to look at her. “I miss her too, y’know. But I made my choice that day.”
“Look at me,” she sighed to herself, shaking her head. “I’m meant to be the one looking after you.” She resumed the purely medical disrobing, carefully adjusting his arms as she guided them out of the sleeves, and settling for cutting away the fabric over the wound altogether.
She hissed in sympathy at sight of the jagged slash, the blood dark and congealing now that lay underneath the wadded material he had shoved there to slow the bleeding. He was right; it didn’t seem too deep, but it would need stitches.
“I wouldn’t leave you,” he continued, a little through gritted teeth as she dampened a cloth and began to dab the dried blood away from the edges, “not for all the 25th century pain medication in the world.”
She rinsed the cloth in the bowl of mildly soapy water and antiseptic, hovering as she brought it once more to his skin. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” The echo of a similar conversation which now seemed decades in the past brought a small smile to her lips. They were quite alone now, and the air vibrated with promise, instead of the measure of disquiet and tension that day as they sat beneath the light of a greedy, never-ending former star.
He drew in a sharp breath at her next ministrations, knuckles whitening as he clutched the edge of the cot. “Sorry,” she found herself apologising quietly, letting the cloth sit in the now grubby water and soaking up the remaining solution with cotton wool.
After a beat and a few carefully controlled, deep breaths, he said, “It’s nothing, really. I’ve been through much worse. I regenerated into my fifth life after falling from a radio telescope. And human surgeons bungled my life after I was shot in my seventh one. A slash from an indignant Faltraxi barely holds a candle to all that, really.”
She put the soiled fluffy pads of cotton back down on the cart a little more roughly than intended. “That’s not the point though, is it? I mean, Jake has a point. And, I dunno, I feel like this has been happening more and more since we’ve been here.” She grabbed at a snow-white roll of bandages and then eyed the medical stapler apprehensively.
He sighed. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your dad giving me the job, but can you blame me for saying so? Sometimes I feel like I can’t do anything. It’s like being egregiously overqualified.”
“I know, it was like that a bit during the first two years here. Having all this extra knowledge and even Torchwood sometimes think you’re speaking out of line because you know something is wrong or that they shouldn’t treat an artefact or whatever that way.” She lowered her voice, meeting his soft gaze. “I just don’t wanna lose you again. I can’t lose you again,” she reiterated, picking at the frayed edge of the rolled edge out of habit.
“I’m sorry,” he said with feeling, pleading with her to understand. “I am trying, it’s just…not what it was before. And of course in a definitely good different way, but it’s kind of odd going from having that fallback to…” He didn’t finish the sentence, and Rose didn’t have it in her to do it for him either.
“All you need to remember is that I love you, Doctor, and that hasn’t changed.” She inhaled, readying herself, and picked up the stapler. “Also, I know a fair bit about being a human.” She pressed the cool plastic mouth of it to the top of his now clean wound and looked up. “Trust me enough to do this?” She wasn’t teasing this time.
The smile he gave her made the corner of his eyes crease. “Never doubted you, Rose Tyler.”
He only flinched a little as she carefully knit him back together, craning her head closer to inspect her slow, measured progress. The alloy blend they had here was slightly more advanced than the average hospital and like silver, had antibacterial properties, so hopefully they would be out in a matter of weeks.
“How’d I do?” she asked, peering at her own handiwork. He lifted his arm as he glanced down, and her attention was once more drawn to the pull and flex of wiry muscle. “It’s not exactly NHS, but I don’t trust my hands to do that level of suturing right now.”
Having finished examining his patched-up side, he dropped his arm and beamed at her. “I trust you. And good on you for learning that. You’ve always been handy at picking up new skills…” She flushed at his praise, focussing on unrolling the palm-width size bandages. “Hadn’t had a chance to use it much. But it beats standing around like a lemon.”
She cut a piece of already medicated gauze to size and placed it on him, careful not to press too hard before tucking an end of the fabric in place over it and beginning to wind it around his torso.
“Rose, you could never be a lemon,” he offered in a genial, sincere manner. “Maybe you could be considered a citrus fruit on Lejiv, but maybe even their version of a pineapple, but never a lemon.” She was only half-listening, quite distracted by the alternating planes of his back and chest as she moved up and around him. She’d never been quite so close to him while he wore quite so little before now. When she secured the elasticated fabric with a piece of tape and a clip, she found she was quite breathless.
“There. Now you’ll just need to get a shot and then take it easy for the next week or so.” She peeled off the powder-coated gloves, rubbing her fingers together at the sensation, and hoisted herself next to him. The Doctor instinctively leant closer into her body heat.
“Thank you.” It was soft as he said it, barely audible in the sterile white room they occupied. She was close enough to count the freckles that played across the bridge of his nose and cheeks; cheeks which had a delicate pink tinge to them now.
Her response was to lean in further and move to brush her lips against said soft cheek, and he quickly rerouted them, angling his head so he captured her lips instead. She didn’t think she’d ever get enough of the sensation of the softness of them. It was slow and testing and quite chaste at first, just pressing together and just feeling . Just as the Doctor started to deepen things, the very tip of tongue gently trailing ever-so-gently at the corner of her lips and tracing the seam of them, he pulled back, resting their foreheads together.
“Still got to get used to that lack of respiratory bypass,” he chuckled. She nuzzled into his cheek, feeling the rumble in his chest with how she was now folded up against him. As her fingers cupped the back of his neck again, she registered at the the patch of hair curling at his nape was now stiff and spiky with dried sweat and blood, and she had half a mind to pull him into the hydrotherapy pool the med wing generously provided.
"I can't promise I'll help with that, but I'll try," she mused in an airy tone, trailing her fingers until her arm was looped around his shoulder.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she giggled, and brushed a featherlight kiss over the tip of his nose.
Things were going to be just fine, she was sure of it. There were bound to be mishaps and hiccups along the way, but they were both right where they were meant to be. Together.