SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Chapter Twenty Four

The next morning Alan and Rose stood in the doorway saying their goodbyes as Pete brought the car around so he could drive them to the airport.

“Nooooo, wanna go with sissy and Awan!” Tony screamed as Jackie tried to pry him off Alan’s leg.

“No, you gotta stay here, Tony, and look after your mummy,” Alan said, gently trying to help Jackie. “You have to be a big boy for us.”

“Nooooooooo, wanna gooooooooooooooo!”

“Oh boy, uh…now I see the advantages in the Doctor’s swanning off without a goodbye,” Alan said.

He leaned over and tapped the screaming tot on the top of the head. Tony reached up and let go to grab for his neck. Jackie seized the opportunity and snatched him up in her arms while Tony yelled and screamed and tried to get out of her grasp.

“WAAAAAAAAAAANNAAAAAAAAAAAAA GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Hey, pssst…pssst…hey, Tony,” Alan said, waving his arms. “Hey, shhhhhhh…listen.”

Tony stopped howling and with tear-filled eyes looked at his new best friend. He reached out for him with one hand while snot ran from his nose.

“Wanna go, Awan,” he said, mournfully.

“I know you do, buddy, but you’re only knee high to a grasshopper and we’ll lose you in the grass out there. But, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. We’ll call every so often and talk to you and say hello and on top of that, when we go to…um…D-I-S-N-E-Y-W-O-R-L-D, we’ll get you a greeeeeeeeeat biiiiiiiiig stuffed Mickey Mouse.”

“And how we gonna carry it?” Rose said.

Alan turned to her.

“We’ll tie it to your back and you’ll carry it like a mule,” he said as Rose swatted his arm.

He turned back to Tony.

“Okay, maybe not a huge Mickey Mouse, but we’ll get you one just the same. But…you have to be a good boy and not cry and rip your mum’s arms off her body when we go out this door, okay?”

Tony hesitated a moment and then nodded.

“I mean that, I’m holding you to this, alright? You have to be good because Mickey Mouse is depending on us to take him out of hot and sunny Florida, so he can live with you in rainy, foggy London.”

Alan looked at Rose.

“That didn’t sound too appealing, come to think of it. I think I’d rather be where the sun is,” he said as she giggled. “But, anyway…is that a deal, little pollywog?”

“I wanna gooooooo,” Tony said, reaching for him.

Jackie sighed.

“You might as well just go because nothing you say is gonna make this any better for him. Although I do appreciate you tryin’. Now go and I’ll keep a hold of him until you leave.”

“Noooooooooooooooo!”

Tony began to thrash in Jackie’s arms as Alan and Rose waved, blew him a kiss and walked out the door.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Alan and Rose both flinched when Jackie slammed the door, muffling his anguished screams. They grabbed the rucksacks that were resting beside it and headed towards Pete’s SUV. As they passed by the living room window, they heard someone banging on it and turned to see Tony’s chubby face pressed against the glass, snot running from his nose while he howled at them.

“Yup, I can definitely see why the Doctor hates saying goodbye to people,” he said as he forced himself to turn with Rose and head to the car.

Three hours later, they were airborne and on their way to New York City. Alan sat by the window peering out at the clouds while Rose sat beside him.

“Well, we’re finally up and away from London,” Rose said to him. “How does it feel?”

“Wonderful,” he said, looking at her. “Just wonderful.”

He stared at her jean pocket.

“You think if we rang Tony, he’d still be howling?” he asked her.

Rose chuckled.

“Nah, all mum has to do is turn on CBeebies and he’s in a world of his own. He’s calmed down now, trust me.”

“Ah, yes, CBeebies. The Doctor whiled away many a lonely hour watching the antics of the Teletubbies and Bob the Builder.”

Rose stared at him.

“You’re joking, right?”

“No, he was quite fond of those two shows. Oh, and LazyTown and Barnaby Bear…oh and Pengu. Yes, there were many things he did to pass the time while you were sleeping.”

“He was watching children’s programs while I was sleeping?”

“Oh yeah, sat there in his knickers shoving crisps down his throat watching Postman Pat. Course he got dressed and got back to the console room before you got up. But just think, if you had stayed up all night and watched for him like Father Christmas, you would have seen a nearly nude Doctor.”

“Been there, done that.”

Alan frowned.

“When?” he said.

“Who d’ya think dressed in the pajamas after he regenerated?”

“Oh, so it was you then. He always wondered and hoped and prayed to God it wasn’t your mother.”

Rose giggled.

“No, it was me.”

“Sooooo, did you…”

Rose frowned.

“Did I, what?”

“Take a peek?”

He pointed to his crotch.

“No.”

Alan gave her a “yeah, right,” look.

“I didn’t look at it,” she insisted.

“Okay, then what did Cassandra mean when she said to you, “You’ve been looking, you like it.” He remembers that coming out of his mouth when Cassandra possessed him and he always wondered what it meant. Soooooooooo…what does it mean? Because I’m thinking it means you were naughty and took a gander at the goods without his permission.”

He snickered when Rose didn’t say anything.

“Hmmmmmmmmmm?” he said, sweetly.

“What does it matter to you?”

“Just satisfying my curiosity. Sooooo, did ya?”

Rose looked down.

“Yes, but only for a second,” she muttered under her breath.

“That’s it?”

“Yes,” she said, emphatically. “That’s the only time I saw it.”

“You sure, because that statement seems to imply you were looking at other times, say…in the shower?”

“I…”

She trailed off.

“Hmmmmmmmm?” Alan said, amused.

Rose looked him square in the eyes.

“There were a couple of times when I passed by the bathroom and the door was open a crack and I looked in and saw him getting dressed. Happy, now?”

“Mmmm-hm, you just confirmed the Doctor’s suspicions. Because you might have thought you were being sneaky, but both of us have very good hearing, far better than humans and he thought he heard you breathing outside the door. Well, he heard you when you couldn’t hold your breath any longer and had to let it out. But, he heard you. But, answer me this, Rose. You honestly didn’t think he left that door ajar on accident, now did you?”

He grinned at the shocked look on her face.

“What? You really didn’t think he was dim enough to leave the door unlocked with a female companion in the TARDIS, did you? Unless…he wanted you to take a look because you see, after he got out of the shower, he made damn sure he took his time getting ready. And you fell for it, hook, line and sinker. And it was longer than a few seconds, Rose. It was more than just a casual glance; you stood there and watched him.”

“Okay, I did, I admit it. So, if he knew I was doing it, then why did you have to ask me?”

“Because I want to hear the truth from your own lips. You see, he would have never confronted you about it, nor would he have told you what he was up to. And truth be told, there were times he wasn’t sure if you were really there or he was just imagining it, but he wasn’t about to turn and look right at you, so that’s also why I asked.”

“But, why do you care so much? He isn’t you, remember?”

“Yes, but I have his memories and uh…remember when you asked about his fantasizing and I joked that it would corrupt you. Ah, Rose, so little you really know about your traveling companion and the hold you had on his mind. He wanted you, Rose, in the worst way. But, he was trying to keep you at arm’s length, at least at first, because he had this unspoken policy of not getting romantically involved with his companions and that worked, up to a point, but like I keep saying, you became close in a way no other companion had and well…he couldn’t help but think of what might happen if this, that or the other happened between you. I mean, you’re not the first he had feelings for. He did love Sarah Jane and a few others, but once they were gone, he could let go of them and move on with his life, hence the whole never mentioning her to you thing, but you were different. You…how shall I say it…permeated his whole being until he couldn’t stop thinking about you. But…”

He paused when the flight attendant came by with their meals. They put their tray tables down, thanked her when she gave them the food and waited until she had moved further down the aisle before Alan resumed his train of thought.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” he said, cutting into his roast beef. “he himself would never be that forward and ask you outright for a relationship, especially since there was that curse of the Time Lords crap to consider. So, he began the little hand holding and hugs and stolen glances and occasionally, a quick peck on the cheek or forehead when he was feeling especially bold. But, that’s as far as the overt contact went, which is why he had to resort to subterfuge to…satisfy his inner urges, shall we say. And, he was hoping you were getting off on it too, which apparently you were.”

He took a bite of the roast beef and made a face.

“Gah, tastes like bloody cardboard,” he muttered to her. “We should have just brought the rucksacks on board and got the snacks out…ugh.”

He took a bite of the mashed potatoes.

“Now this isn’t that bad,” he said. “But the roast beef…urgh!”

“So…that’s why the Doctor couldn’t tell me he loved me?” Rose asked.

Alan nodded with a bit of mashed potato in his mouth. He swallowed it.

“Yes, that’s why, because after everything that had happened. He still couldn’t bring himself to say what he really felt. And I was just standing there staring at him, thinking what an idiot he was and I really was hoping he’d say it since you wanted him to so badly. But, no he couldn’t and when you asked me, I decided to whisper it to you, in part to spare him the added agony of hearing me tell you what he always wanted to say. Though why in the world I did that is beyond me since we weren’t exactly best mates. I guess in the end I just felt sorry for the bastard. However wrong his actions were, he had his hearts in the right place and was only doing what he’d been doing for centuries, cutting and running when it became too much for him to bear. He never meant to hurt you by doing that, Rose, I’m sure of it. But, the Doctor is a creature of habit and it’s always worked for him in the past, or so he thinks, so why change? Bollocks, I’m done with the potatoes and I have a feeling the green beans will be shite…eh, I’ll try the cake, I guess. But, anyway, to make a very long winded explanation short, yes, that’s exactly the reason why he didn’t tell you he loved you.”

“Then, if the gap hadn’t closed before, the first time I got stranded, would he have said it then?”

Alan chewed on his chocolate cake as he thought.

“Good question. He wanted to, but once the gap closed, that was that and then Donna just showed up out of the blue, so he just went on with his life. Whether or not he would have if the gap hadn’t interrupted him, I really don’t know. I would hope he would have, but like I said, it’s hard for him to say those kinds of things to people. He actually tried to tell Ida Scott to tell you he loved you when he thought he might die at the bottom of that pit on Krop Tor, but even then, when you weren’t even listening, he couldn’t bring himself to say it and just told her that you knew, which I’m sure confused the hell outta Ida. And you do know that he loves you, but that’s not the point. Have you tried the cake, by the way? It’s not too bad.”

Rose nodded.

“The green beans really aren’t that bad either, but I agree with you about the roast beef.”

“Yeah, in future, let’s stay away from it if we get on another plane.”

“What about Martha? Did he have feelings for her?”

He shook his head.

“Not like that. He cared for her, but she must have taken that as proof he loved her because she became jealous of you for some reason, which puzzled him, since first off, she didn’t know you and secondly, she told him when she first got in the TARDIS that she wasn’t interested in him. But, like I said before, charisma.”

“Martha was jealous of me? She seemed so nice when I met her.”

“Well, she finally kinda wised up and realized that it was hopeless to try to start up a relationship with the Doctor when he wasn’t interested in her, so she went and found that Tom Milligan that she worked with during the year that never was and they got engaged, so by the time you came along, there were no jealous feelings left.”

He finished with his cake, tried the green beans and made a face.

“Nope, sorry, mine are waxy and dry. I’m done,” he said, picking up his cup of coffee.

“Did the Doctor ever catch her being jealous?”

“Once. It was when they were on Malcasairo and he was walking in front of Jack and Martha and Jack was talking about being left behind on the Gamestation and she said something like, is that what happens then? You just leave us behind and Jack said, not if you’re blonde and suddenly the Doctor just hears her saying in this snotty voice, oh, she was blonde! Oh, what a surprise!”

Rose’s mouth dropped open.

“No, wait, wait, third trip out, he took her to New, New York and when she found out he had taken you there she said something like, you’re taking me to all the places you took her? Other than that, there were all these little looks that she threw his way, which Mister Gormy totally missed. He’s not really…adept at picking up signals from flirters, let’s put it that way. Being half human, I’m more in tune with that kind of stuff than he is, so I can see it looking back on his memories. To me, the flirting was as obvious as being hit in the head with a sledgehammer, but to him with his Time Lord mind and lack of intimacy with women, nope…went over his head repeatedly.”

“What did he say on Malcasairo after Martha said that?”

“He spun around, they stopped and he said something to the effect that they were here at the end of the universe, at the end of knowledge itself and they were busy blogging. Then, he turned back around and went on his way.”

“Nothing to Martha about her being mean to me?”

“Rose, I told you, he doesn’t confront people in that way. He wouldn’t have called Martha on her behavior because that would have confirmed that he had feelings for you that went deeper than platonic love. When he first told Martha about you, he blurted out that you and he were together and then he just quickly zoomed past it and changed the subject. I’m sorry, Rose, I really am, but that’s how he thinks and as painful as it is, it’s probably always gonna be that way. I’m half human, which means I know how to express myself better than he does and I’ve made a conscious choice not to do what he did to you, which is why you knew without a doubt from the start that I love you. But, he’s an alien and on Gallifrey they just didn’t do the things they did on Earth because there was no such thing as physical reproduction and there was certainly no sex because of the looming and because Gallifreyans saw themselves above carnal matters like that. You know, on that planet it was all about the brain and how you used it, not how big a…penis you had and how many people you shagged. That’s the culture he came from, so you know, you have to excuse him for that as well. He did love you, Rose, more than anything and he tried the very best way he knew how to show you that. It fell short by human standards, but actually on Gallifrey his behavior would have caused a scandal since normal Gallifreyans never held hands or hugged and they certainly didn’t kiss each other. In his mind, he was going beyond normal Time Lord behavior and what was considered acceptable among his people to show you that he cared and that’s why he was so stunned when you pressed him to say I love you. He sincerely thought you knew that without him vocalizing it.”

“I did know it, but…”

Rose nodded.

“I get your point though. It’s me, Alan. I kept on forgetting he’s not human because he looks like one. Just like, I can’t see…you know, the half of you that isn’t.”

They smiled when the flight attendant picked up their food trays and went on.

“But, I guess I expected him to act more human when he wasn’t. Especially because he did know so much about human culture. I guess I assumed that he had the same way of expressing emotions that I did and I made the mistake of demanding too much from him.”

“It’s not all your fault, Rose. Another part of it is his depression and his insistence on pushing people away who get too close. Like I said, saying it confirms it for him and he won’t do it because he’s terrified of facing the fact that one day you’ll die and leave him. So, another thing he does is he just purposely ignores signs or overlooks the flirting behavior or changes the subject when things get too intimate because it’s out of sight, out of mind then. The Doctor is like a complex tapestry and all you’ve ever seen of that is a few strands. I doubt if even he could unravel ever fiber that makes up his psyche now. I think that’s another attraction for you and everyone else, yes? The urge to find out all you can about him?”

He nodded with Rose.

“Yes, there is that mystique about him that is very seductive to everyone who comes in contact with him and especially to his companions. Every companion he’s had has wondered about him the same as you have…well, except Ian and Barbara, I think they were too busy trying to get into each other’s trousers to care about him on that level…and Susan too, but she was his granddaughter and that would have been creepy, plus illegal on Earth and several other planets, but other than that…everyone else has been in the same position you’ve been in when it comes to wondering who the man really is.”

He noticed the interested look on her face.

“See, now you wanna know who Ian, Barbara and Susan are. Omega’s orifice, I’ll never get a chance to catch my breath, especially since you won’t talk about boring old Torchwood in return. I’m gonna be guzzlin’ water from mornin’ till night just to keep my mouth goin’.”

He rolled his eyes as she giggled.

“And of course there’s over twelve hundred years of his life to tell you about. I’m gonna be running my gob nonstop.”

“Twelve hundred years? He’s only nine hundred and four.”

Alan took her hands.

“Love, let’s not beat around the bush any longer. I have a giganto secret for you. He’s been telling people he’s nine hundred years old for about two centuries now and before that he was seven hundred and something years old for a couple of centuries and before that four hundred and something. The man…is…vain. He’s like those people who keep saying they’re thirty nine, you know, the Jack Benny age, even when they’re a hundred and two? Well, the Jack Benny age for him is nine hundred. I promise in several decades when there’s no one around to contradict him, he’ll go back to saying he’s nine hundred. Not to mention the fact he’s telling people his age in human years when in Gallifreyan years, he’s a hell of a lot older. He tells everyone that so often now that the nine hundred is ingrained in his mind, at least for the moment. Gallifreyans can read each other’s minds, which is why the Master mentioned that he would look nine hundred when he turned him into Papa Smurf. Yet another thing the man keeps hidden, but I’ve revealed it here and now to you. And of course, he regenerates and never ages, so it’s not like you could call him on his age when he lies. Nope, he’s just a big ol’ fibber when it comes to his age.”

He put his hands behind his head.

“You’re just learning all you ever wanted to know about the Doctor, huh?”

“Too right I am.”

He chuckled.

“Yup, I’m definitely a threat to the universe because I can just gab on and on about every personal, private detail of his life and I can tell you every juicy, sordid little secret if I so desire. He could have wiped my memory and left me a blank slate, but too late now, he’s gone and I’m here with his former girlfriend and I’m just gonna give her the lowdown on every little thing he does.”

Rose giggled when he rubbed his hands together and let out a sinister laugh.

“But, for now, I think I’ll just drink my coffee and decide what salacious tidbit I’ll utter next. Not to mention that I want to rest up before we reach New York. You know, it’s the first New York since the original. That makes it…New York. Wow, that was easy, at least I didn’t have to count out the word new in my head.”

He giggled when Rose rolled her eyes. She snuggled against him and he kissed her cheek before he picked up his plastic mug and took a sip.

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