Work Text:
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring –
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow – I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone –
And all I lov’d – I lov’d alone –
Then – in my childhood – in the dawn
Of a most stormy life – was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still –
In early twenty-first century Earth culture, the worst thing you could hear from someone was “we need to talk.”
For the Doctor, it had never been that. He loved to talk. Never stopped, frankly. If he wasn’t talking, it was a red flag to everyone around him that something was very, very wrong.
No, the worst phrase of the Doctor’s life was something else entirely. “Take me home.”
Sometimes, it didn’t even end badly. Like with Donna – he’d only had to take her home for a short while, before she was back on adventures with him. And when he’d taken Rose home, it ended in a Christmas dinner, with crackers and a home-cooked meal and friends who wanted him to be there.
But for humans, they all had to go home for good, in the end. Leaving him alone.
Home was such an odd concept.
The Doctor had had a home, when he was very small. He’d had a home with Koschei, at the Academy, before it all went wrong. He’d made a home for himself, dozens of voices to fill up empty halls and pause the constant clamoring of his thoughts. All of that had gone.
The Face of Boe had gotten it right, of course. “The man without a home.” Not exactly a man, but he’d let that one slide.
The Doctor had tried to explain it, when he and Rose had first met.
The Doctor lived in the feeling of being cast into space – no past, no future, only now, and a mad dash of a plan to survive, to occupy the mind long enough that it couldn’t dwell on all it had lost. He could feel the turn of the Earth, the rocket-fast movement of planets and suns throughout space – but more importantly, that’s what he was.
The Doctor was movement without end or conscious direction.
He’d never again have something as frivolous and silly and temporary and heartwarming and supportive and wonderful as a home.
They were in the basement of a pub in a bazaar in an eastern province of the planet Otsneba, in the second quadrant of the Gamts’arebuli galaxy.
Smirking, the Doctor had accepted every drink Rose sent his way. It would be nice to get drunk, in this body – his two previous always got horribly sad whenever they drank, but he had a feeling this one wouldn’t, especially with the company he currently had. But he really shouldn’t – someone needed to be responsible enough to be the designated driver. It took a twitch of a thought to just instantly metabolize the alcohol, but he still got to participate in the cheering and toasting of it all.
Rose, however, was quite drunk indeed. He’d steered her away from the hypervodkas – but she’d had at least five tonikhs on the rocks (sans the rocks) by his count.
“Doctor,” Rose asked over the noise of the room, breath warm in his ear, “is it true that their ice cubes never melt? Are those blokes taking the piss?”
“As far as I know,” answered the Doctor, “their ice cubes are totally normal ice cubes. I think those three over there are trying to impress you."
Rose hummed in acknowledgment, her eyelids drooping. Without another second’s thought, she laid her head on the Doctor’s shoulder, blonde hair smushed against his face.
“Mmm, I’m tired.”
The Doctor chuckled, shaking her head with the force of it. “I can imagine.”
Blearily, she blinked, turning her head enough to look up at him, her face inches away from his own.
“You’re pretty,” she said.
The Doctor knew she wouldn’t remember this in the morning. “You’re prettier.”
“You’re smashing.”
That got a laugh out of him. “You’re smashed.”
She shrugged, the curl of her lip saying, yeah, and?
“I still like it, though. I like your…” Rose yawned. “Your nose. It’s cute.”
Absentmindedly, the Doctor brushed her hair out of her face.
“I think it’s time to go to sleep, Rose.”
Rose nodded against his shoulder. “You’re right. Take me home, yeah?”
The Doctor froze.
How drunk was she? Had she forgotten where they were, what was going on?
Would he have to break the news of her lost family to her all over again?
“Rose,” he croaked out. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Rose grumbled, “Let’s just go home, alright? I don’t want to fall asleep here.”
“Rose.” He straightened, pushing Rose off his shoulder, holding her arms so he could look directly at her. “I can’t take you home. Your family’s in the other universe, don’t you remember? I can’t get you there. I would try, but any further damage to the walls between dimensions could be catastrophic.”
Rose squinted at him. “You’re being silly. Silly, silly Doctor. Come on. Mush.”
Eyes half closed, she stuck her hand down the front of her shirt. She pulled out her TARDIS key, still on a silver chain around her neck, and wiggled it in front of the Doctor’s eyes.
“Home,” she grumbled. “The TARDIS. The Taah-diss. Blue, bigger inside, pretty. Sings, in your head. That’s our home, you silly thing. Let’s go.”
For the first time in several hundred years, the Doctor’s mind was blank.
Had the TARDIS become Rose’s new home?
Had he?
“Oh,” he breathed, entirely belatedly.
He coughed to cover his mistake. “Right. Yes. Absolutely. Home. Alright, I can do that. Sure.”
Clumsily, Rose tried to place a finger on his lips, missing by a couple of inches. “Shhh. Time to go to sleep, now. No rambling.”
The Doctor softened. “Well, you can’t expect me to deny you anything.”
“Up we go,” said the Doctor, hoisting Rose to her feet.
She smiled sleepily. “‘Fanks, Doctor.”
“Of course,” he murmured. Quick as a whip, almost hoping she’d miss it, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Her smile broadened into a toothy grin.
Home is whenever I’m with you