After A Moment

by TwinEnigma

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or the related characters. I do this for fun, not profit, and to build skills.

Warnings/Codes: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor x Rose Tyler; spoilers for Journey's End and Day of the Doctor

Like most turns in their lives, it begins innocuously enough: with a few words.

"Hold on."

The buzzing of the sonic pitches up and then down as the Doctor fiddles with his sonic, holding it up to his ear. "Can you hear that?" he asks.

It is largely a rhetorical question – they both know that Rose has neither the training or physical ability to hear and understand the sound as data in the same manner that he does; and while trying to disarm a doomsday computer, it is hardly a conversation they have the time for.

"There's a program running in the background," The Doctor states, scrunching up his face in concentration. His eyes narrow behind his specs and then he lowers the sonic, frowning at it as though it had somehow offended him in some manner.

"Doctor," Rose intones forcefully. Her eyes flicker up towards the computer and the jagged numbers of the dwindling countdown in what she hopes is a demonstration of enough urgency to pry him from the distraction.

"Right, right," he says, blinking and returning to the task at hand.

The sound of the sonic cuts through the air, high and throbbing, and the machine sputters with sparks and mauve code before going completely dark. As if right on cue, the machine's owners break through the doors. Any thought of the sonic is forgotten as they get on with saving the world.

It is only later when the debriefing at Torchwood is over and she sees the stormy expression on his face as he looks at the device that Rose feels the ominous sense of time-seconds-fate boxing them in. Something, deep in the back of her mind, in the place that is-was-forever burnt by the sight of eternity, whispers Bad Wolf in a sort of dull, fearful gasp of suspicion-premonition-knowing and she cannot help the shudder that slips down her spine.

Could it be that the wolf, even after all this time, still has one last task to lead them to?

She hopes, for the Doctor's sake, that she is imagining things.

In the middle of the night, Rose wakes up to find his bed empty and the door to his workshop open. Equations and diagrams in beautiful looping Gallifreyan, annotated with his spidery-jitter-scrawl of handwriting, litter the floor and walls. Their TARDIS, grown from coral of the old, hums to itself in the middle of the mess, door ajar, and it is inside, beneath the console, that she finds him. He is filthy, covered in grease and ink, and there is a sort of strange, manic glint in his eyes that she hasn't seen since their first days together in the old world, back when he had big ears.

"I don't understand," he murmurs, more to himself at first, and then, for her benefit, he explains. "There's some sort of program running in the background, some kind of subroutine that's been compiling for years. But that's not possible."

"How can she have a subroutine if we just grew her?" Rose asks, echoing the unvoiced question.

"Precisely," the Doctor says. He pauses, pushing up his glasses on his nose, and, in a movement that is so very him, he cedes, "Well, it could be carry-over from her mother. Technically, they would have the same base-codes and instructions on how to pattern the interior layout, right down to the Eye of Harmony. But this isn't a natural subroutine – it's something I added, obviously, at some point. I just… I can't remember why or what it was for."

His expression turns somber and, far more softly, he adds, "But it's in there, all right. Calculating… something useless, I imagine."

Rose can sense that there is something he is not telling her: she's practically got a degree in speaking "Doctor" and though there was a time she would have pressed, maturity has tempered her with the wisdom to understand that some things will come in their time. It is, in a manner of speaking, their own Eye of Harmony, the secret of their new-old relationship.

"I'm sure it's fine, yeah?" she says, slipping her hand into his – the hand that she'd taken so long ago and a world away – and she twines her fingers with his, letting herself lean into his shoulder. She closes her eyes, listening to the rolling drum of his heart, and thinks of the time they stood in the snow-ash, staring up at the sky.

Something, somewhen brushes across the memory, and she buries her face against his shoulder, trying desperately to ignore the ghost of a presence she doesn't-can't-will never understand.

"Rose, you all right?" he asks and, when she opens her eyes, he is looking at her with clear worry.

"It's nothin'," she murmurs, smiling. Her fingers find their way to the lapels of his jacket on autopilot and the familiarity of this teasing little routine washes through her like a balm. "Jus' thinkin, is all."

The Doctor arches an eyebrow at her and, then, a smile, slow and sensual, makes its way across his lips.

"Come on, then," Rose says, giving him one of those little nods he so loves. "Let's go to bed."

He lets her lead him now-forever-always and they bury themselves in the comfort of each other, far from the pressure of instance-probability-certainty.

In the back of their heads, the TARDIS continues to hum.

The Doctor sits like a statue in the morning light, the tangled sheets of their bed covering him from the waist down. His gaze is somewhere miles and centuries from the here and now. She wants to ask what's bothering him, but there is something about the set of his shoulders, about the way the light halos his body that makes her reluctant to break the silence.

"I had a dream," he says, at long last.

Rose sits up, propping herself on one arm.

"No more," he states quietly, his head bowed and eyes focused somewhen long ago. Then, again, as if the sound of it would place the words: "No more."

He raises a hand, scrutinizing it with a terrible sort of focus, and she rises fully now, her hand slipping into his with familiar ease as she raises her eyes to meet his. "It's all right," she says, gently running her thumb over the lines of his palm.

"You were there, I think," he murmurs and closes his eyes, letting himself lean forward until his forehead pressed against hers. "No, not you – Bad Wolf girl."

A sliver of fear, primal and wrenching, tears through her and the part of her that was burnt-burns-always is strangely quiet.

"And I saw myself there, too," the Doctor says, frowning a little. He gestures towards his face, brows furrowing in confusion as he adds: "This me, this face – older, maybe, I don't know – and someone else, someone I've never seen before. But that can't be, it just can't. That day… I was alone. I was alone and tired and I just wanted all the killing to stop."

There it is then, she notes quietly: the Time War. This isn't the first time he's had a dream about it since she'd first started travelling with him, but it's been a while since he's had one this bad. The pain in his voice is excruciating and it cuts Rose up inside because there isn't a whole lot she can do for him when he has these dreams except hold him. But Tyler women are experts at making do with what they've got and if all she's got to offer is comfort, then comfort she shall. Her arms slip around him and, slowly, he tilts deeper into her embrace. He ends up practically in her lap, his head pressed against her chest – he likes to hear her heartbeat, she knows that – with one of her arms cradling his shoulder and the other running through his hair.

"It's OK," she says softly, "It was just a nightmare."

They stay that way, tangled in each other's arms, just listening to the steady beating of their hearts in the silence.

"I want to show you something," the Doctor says.

It is weeks later. There is snow, real snow, lazily twirling from the sky. He is wearing brown and she is dressed in white. It seems important, somehow, this contrast. The TARDIS, their TARDIS, sits behind them, humming quietly to herself: it's a tune that dances on the edge of her memory, as if she should know it. It's calm and eerie all at once and she can't help but sway in time to the melody.

The Doctor's arms drape over her shoulders and she feels him press against her back, his head finding its way into the crook of her neck as she instinctively turns her head to let him get closer. They sway to the soft melody of TARDIS song together, under the gently falling snow, and it feels like heaven.

"Rose, look," he murmurs, raising an arm.

She opens her eyes and blinks at the clear crystal in his hand. It is the size of a fist, delicate, precise curves impressed in its sides. Propped against the side of the TARDIS is an empty frame.

"Concentrate," he whispers in her ear, "On this moment, on this very instant."

"I'm trying," she says, half-giggling because his lips are brushing against her ear in a very distracting way and the intensity in his words is making her brain do all kinds of flip-flops.

"Concentrate," he repeats and she can practically feel him smiling.

Then, it's as if something clicks and the canvas within the frame ripples, color and form spiraling across the surface in graceful fractals. It spreads, turning in upon itself again and again, until at last she can see the picture. It is them, as they were not a moment ago, caught in the sway of the song of the TARDIS. Their eyes are closed and they are both smiling beneath the snow; and Rose thinks that they have never looked so content.

"It's beautiful," she says, drifting out of his embrace to examine the painting further. But she's hardly taken a step forward before she pauses, letting out an 'oh' of amazement: "It's 3D!"

"Time Lord art," the Doctor says, juggling the crystal in one hand, "A sliver of time, a single moment, captured in a frame."

There is something in Rose, a faint echo of a presence, which stirs at the way he says moment. It's in the place that burns-always and she supposes that it must have meant something once-upon-a-tomorrow-past, but what it means and what it meant have long-since gone. Instead, she ignores the sensation and focuses entirely on the frame in front of her, until there is nothing left but the present.

She runs her hand over the edge of the frame, smiling. "Mum's going to go bonkers, you know that, right?"

"Oi," he says, mocking affront, "It's not for her. This moment is ours."

"Quite right, too," Rose agrees, giving him a playful swat.

He twists away from it on instinct and laughs, but she's already pouncing and they end up landing in the snow, a mess of limbs and laughter and rosy cheeks. In between the quietly falling snow and the soft song of the TARDIS, they are a universe unto themselves and they are at peace.

That night, the Doctor wakes suddenly, startling her out of sleep as he practically flees from the room in a blind panic. Rose finds him downstairs, staring at the painting, eyes wide and haunted. He is murmuring something over and over, but it's so soft that she cannot even hear it at first.

"Gallifrey stands," he says, louder this time, and there's a measure of clarity that's starting to return to his face, as if he'd come to some great realization. "Gallifrey stands."

Something dawns on his face then, something greater than mere realization: it is exhilaration – no, it is more than that. It's as if some great burden has been lifted at long last. He turns, his face awash with delight, and he hugs her, lifting her and spinning with a whoop. Her feet have hardly touched the ground once more before he is kissing her and when he draws back, for a moment, they are both left breathless. His smile doesn't fade, not even for a moment.

"Oi, what's gotten into you, then?" she asks.

The Doctor smiles at her like a little kid on Christmas. "I'm a genius, Rose."

"Modest, too," she says, playfully swatting him on the arm.

"Oi!" he calls out, feigning insult.

"Gonna tell me what this is all about?" she presses, leaning in close.

"Nope," he replies mischievously, popping the 'p'.

She purses her lips and gently swats him again.

"Well," the Doctor cedes, "Just a memory – a really good memory."

Rose smiles, pressing her hand against his, and as if on autopilot, their fingers entwine. It's her hand, the hand she'd taken so long ago, the one he'd lost, the one that gave her this him. It feels like an ending somehow, as if some chapter of their lives has come to a close, and yet, at the same time, it feels like it's also the beginning of something new.

It's a good feeling.

"Come on, then, Doctor," she says at last. "Let's get some chips and you can tell me all about it."

"At this hour?" he jokes, playfully nudging her.

She rolls her eyes, gently bumping him back. "We have a time machine. We could be back before you know it."

He winks, his words practically rolling off his tongue: "Are you ready to run, Rose Tyler?"

"Always," she says.

AN:

The trouble with time travel is that it is havoc on grammar and temporal tense, especially when you are talking about beings that are everywhen and can get in your head.

That aside, since Metacrisis is off on a separate timeline now, it is possible he might recall the truth, too, don't you think?

And, of course, he has to kiss his Bad Wolf Girl, because that will-did happen in the future-past and well, Tennant did say Rose got the best kisser of the two. ;)