Title: Timeless

Author: Angel Leviathan

Spoilers: Regeneration, Time War.

Notes: Written for 20_20challenge.

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He changes his face, but she wonders if she changes her colours just as often.

Rose knows she is the one out of the two of them who is more likely to get tragically lost and never quite return to normal, but he is the one who somehow seems always lost. He is competent and he is beyond intelligent, but somehow…lost. She hardly ever brings up the topic of the loss of his people and exactly what role he played in it, she doesn’t even have the full story, but she is more likely to presume he is still traumatised. And with good reason. She knows she wouldn’t recover if she knew she had lost absolutely everything and would never get it back. It is comforting to know that, even in her despair filled moments, she would still have somewhere to go back to if the unthinkable happened.

She has lived through two of his lifetimes. Is living through what she knows as his second, though she now knows it is his tenth. Sometimes it makes her feel young. At other times, old. She ages and he seemingly does not. He is timeless. Just as he is meant to be. Rose knows she has only to ask for something and he would do everything in his power to try and find or do it for her. It’s a form of power she isn’t sure she likes. But, she knows, if he were to ask the same of her, she would die trying to do something that really meant something to him. Anything, even. She just would most likely not be as successful. Sometimes she feels small. But she is past the stage of being in awe of him, he is just the Doctor to her, and feels as if he always has been.

She is different. Drastically so. It feels as if he has changed his appearance and remained the same inside, whilst she has done the opposite. She is still a blonde haired young woman, seemingly innocent on the outside, but she has darkened on the inside. The world, the universe, isn’t so innocent and isn’t so friendly anymore. Rose knows death lurks everywhere. She knows it haunts him at every single moment, and he cannot escape, because of what and who is he. He can feel it. Time, death, rebirth, all of it. He is time personified. Almost immortal and always present. To him, she must be but a few seconds in the universe. But its different with her. She will always be there. In some form. She wonders if, when she dies, he will go back to be with her. Snatch moments when they were apart and live them again. It hasn’t happened yet…or is that a time paradox? Rose isn’t sure.

Rose knows inside he is still very much broken. The smiles and the laughter and the utterly boyish nature do a great deal to hide it, but its always there. He can never escape the pain. She pretends not to notice sometimes, when she finds him in the TARDIS control room, head in his hands, silent. Sometimes she wraps her arms around him. Sometimes they become more intimate. They always sleep in the same bed, if only for comfort. Most often he doesn’t even sleep. But she’s there and he knows. He always knows. She knows it must be selfish, and that he has had past and will have future companions, but she wants to be there forever. In every moment of his life. She wants to live forever, somehow, with him. At least then she knows she is needed. He needs her and she has to help. She can’t handle pretending he doesn’t hurt, like he wants her to. She wants to catch him every time he falls. Even if she is long, long gone.

For now, he is just the Doctor. And she is just Rose Tyler. Both are timeless in their own ways.

Fin