All Tomorrow's Parties
There was Rose. And there was the Doctor.
Not her Doctor.
Travelling through all space and time, righting wrongs, triumphing over injustice--the whole Robin Hood deal.
Rose and the Doctor. Who was not her Doctor.
Schematically speaking, it wasn't all that different. He did little things to make her happy, took her to gorgeous decandent worlds for no other reason than to watch her smile. Held her hand when the moment seemed right. Did everything possible to make her want to stay.
But he didn't need her. He thought he did. He wouldn't let her leave, he thought it so strongly. Said his promise to her mother didn't matter because he made it, the one who came before. The one who needed her. The one who wasn't coming back.
He reminded her, often enough. He's not coming back, he said, but I'm here. I'm still me, Rose, he'd say. But she knew. Oh, she knew.
His hands were all wrong. Too smooth and delicate. His hair was too soft, and it smelled too sweet. He didn't come silently to her in the night and weep into her nightgown. No: he caught her in corridors, against the wall. And he was the Doctor and somewhere inside of him, dead but maybe still lingering, was the one she wanted.
Needed. This one didn't need her but she needed who he used to be. So she never tried too hard to leave. Accepted him. Yielded. He never took her closely enough to home to make it worthwhile, anyway.
The TARDIS...all the Doctors were the same to her. Were just the Doctor. But Rose knew her as no one else ever could, and knew her love was infinite, beyond particulars.
-I want you safe.- Maybe the TARDIS helped keep Rose there, all those years. Held up the illusion that she was necessary. Or maybe the TARDIS, too, was alone, missed him, wanted Rose there as a reminder of him.
Him. Her Doctor. The one who needed her. The one she needed.
The one who wasn't the Doctor any more.