“There’s some things I shall miss,” she said. “But it gets thin, you know. Life, I’m referring to. You can’t trust your own body any more, and it’s time to move on. I reckon it’s about time I tried something else.”
“Doctor, I swear to God if you don’t get out of that bathroom now I’ll kick the door open.”
He barely heard her threat, barely peered at the door behind him through the mirror. It was true he had spent far too long in the bathroom, but he had a very good reason. Several reasons. First, to keep her from witnessing a small-scale panic attack that might have had pulled a tear or two from his eyes. Second, to find a way to hide it, so she wouldn’t see the horror of it.
Well, it didn’t lookhorrible, but it certainly felthorrible. That was it. The very first obvious sign that this rubbish human body was aging, and all the rest it implied. According to the small plastic card Rose insisted he should always keep in his pocket, he would turn fifty a few days later. To a Time Lord, fifty was nothing but a quick blink of an eye, a flutter of an eyelid. To a human, that fifty marked the beginning of the second half of their pathetically short lives. He was old. Very old. Older than he’d ever been before, even as a Time Lord. Ancient, almost.
He wasn’t scared of dying, because he had long accepted this body wouldn’t last. He was simply scared of aging. Scared the changes in his body would somehow… Make him too different from the Doctor Rose had fallen in love with. It might be too awkward to her. She had started to love him when she thought he’d always remain the same lanky man with wonky features and long spikes of brown hair. But now. Now, he certainly was different from that ideal she had married.
There was the few pounds he had managed to pack on for indulging in way too many of the meals she prepared him every night, and all those unhealthy lunches she put in his bag before he left for work. And then, his lower lip had gotten just a bit poutier, his left eye a bit bulgier, his crinkles a bit deeper. And then, this morning, he had found out about that one thing he dreaded. He could contract his abdomen when she was looking, just to make it look a bit flatter. He could smile and make faces to hide his growing wrinkles and softening features, just to pretend time wasn’t taking its toll.
But there was nothing he could currently do to hide the tiny tuft of silver hair growing among the mane of brown. He had tried to sculpt the hair around to bury it, but it hadn’t worked. He had tried to trim the top to make it less visible, but it hadn’t worked. He was trying to paint them back to their original colour with careful strokes of his fingers covered in a thick layer of her eyeshade, but it wasn’t working that well either.
“Doctor, I’m coming in, yeah?” she said behind the door - and it flew open before he could protest.
She stared at him, raised eyebrow and fists firmly planted on her hips - how had she managed to keep such a slender waist when his was but a long gone memory, he didn’t know. She spotted the tubes and boxes of hair gel on the counter, the comb full of hair, his fingers dirty with black power, the contents of her toilet bag all gathered in the sink.
“What on Earth are you doing with my makeup?” she asked, picking up his wrist to watch his fingers from up close.
“I’m not, I mean, I’m not using your makeup to… Makeup,” he stuttered, hurrying to wash his hands with a blob of soap. “I was looking for your hairbrush and… It just all fell and I’m trying to… Nevermind, it’s nothing. I’m done anyway. We should go.”
But of course, she had seen the hair products, the comb, the awful quantity of shiny gel plastered all over the top of his head. She only smiled, suddenly much less irritated, and handed him a towel.
“I like it, you know,” Rose pointed out, purposefully glancing at his hair.
“You like what?” he shrugged as he shoved all of the products in the bag and set it back on the shelf.
“Your hair,” she simply answered. “It’s beautiful. The good kind of grey, silver and all shiny.”
“I do not have grey hair yet, thank you very much,” he huffed, though the blush spreading on his cheeks did a poor job at backing up his claim.
“You’ve had gray hair for ages, Doctor,” she giggled, running her fingers through the short strands at the back of neck. “It started there.”
She gently tugged on a spike going astray just behind his ear. She trailed her fingers around, until they reached the slightly flat area of his skull and scratched her nails on another patch of hair.
“Then here,” she continued - and she rolled an arm around his waist as she did, pressing into his back and staring at his reflection through the mirror. “And that one, it appeared two weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he muttered, swatting her hand away from his head.
“Because I like it,” she repeated, pinching the light swell of his abdomen in retaliation. “I like everything about you. I like that you’re human. I like that you’re growing old with me, like you promised. You thought I wouldn’t notice? Your breath when you try to hide your belly, or your forced smiles when you try to hide the crinkles at the corner of your mouth?”
“You… You did?”
“You’re my husband, you plonker, of course I noticed. And guess what, you’re not smiling twenty-four seven, and sometimes you have to breathe like everyone does. I see it, Doctor. I’ve been seeing it for months. I said nothing because I love it. I love you, slight overweight, grey hair and wrinkles included. I just want you to be yourself.”
“Well I hate myself right now,” he mumbled, trying to get free of her hold she wouldn’t loosen. “Look at me, Rose. I’m fat and hideous and so old.”
“Fat, yes, alarmingly so,” she agreed.
He frowned at those words, but rolled his eyes when she grinned at him from above his shoulder and snatched the hem of his shirt from his trousers. He grumbled when she ran her hand in circles over the small lump that, she had to admit, was slightly overreaching above his belt. But she loved it. Its warmth, its softness, its thin layer of coarse hair that disappeared under the waistline of his pants. All those things she had learnt to love about this human the first day they had spent together, and all those things she still loved despite his most vehement protests.
“And hideous, too,” she smiled, pressing her lips on the side of his neck. “But you’ve always been hideous, it just didn’t happen overnight. And old. Gosh, you are so old, I think you’re on the brink of death already.”
“It’s not funny, Rose, look at me.”
“I look at you, my Doctor, I always look at you.”
“You should have told me, then,” he groaned, still miffed that she had been seeing these things for ages when he only had noticed them a few weeks before.
“Tell you, then what? What would you have done about it? Go on a diet and dye your hair? Buy a pass to the gym and get botox in your face?”
“Well, if that’s what it takes to be the same as before, yeah, I would do that.”
“Do you honestly believe I would ever love you less because you’ve grown a tiny belly?” she asked in a murmur, so sincere he almost believed she meant that question - impossible, though, because that would imply he didn’t trust her, and she knew just how much he did. “Or love you less because you’ve got a few wrinkles or gray hair, or weak knees and cranky fingers? That such ridiculous things of your appearance would ever change how I feel for my husband and the father of my children? Do you, Doctor? Because that means I haven’t loved you properly.”
“It’s not about love, Rose, it’s about you finding your husband attractive,” he retorted, swatting her hand away from his belly, now revealed by the few buttons she had undone. “And, excuse me, but you never compliment me on my hair or my body anymore.”
Her fingers went back to his shirt at those words, but instead of carefully undoing the remaining buttons, she ripped the two hems apart, little plastic pucks raining down on the tiles. She pulled it down his arms with a harsh shove, staring at him through the mirror, looking at her own hands mapping the contours of his broad shoulders, trailing down his pectorals, down to his abdomen, down, downer. Her fingertips slipped under his belt, quickly, just enough to see his bright chocolate eyes darken and, quite ironically, the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth deepen as he pinched his lips to keep a moan in.
“Rose, the kids…” he started, briefly closing his eyes when her nails grazed the coarse hair at the juncture of his legs.
“Are gone already. Our eldest has her licence now and this is her birthday. She took my car.”
“We’ll be late, we…”
“Don’t try to change the subject, Mister,” she scolded, biting her lips into the soft skin of his shoulder. “Do you want to know something, Doctor?”
“What?” he sighed - both because he was just a bit annoyed, but mostly because he was starting to really appreciate how her body was pressing against his.
“Maybe I don’t compliment you on your body anymore…”
“Ah, see?” he interrupted with a sad grin of victory.
“But you don’t tell me you love me anymore,” she continued, unfazed by his intervention. “The last time was… I don’t know, a year ago, on our anniversary?”
“Of course I tell you I love you, don’t be silly Rose,” he protested, stopping her wrists when she began to move her hands again. “I tell you that everyday.”
“Nope,” she smiled as she broke free from his hold and unbuckled his belt. “But that’s alright. Because I know you do. So I thought… You knew I still find you attractive, too, just like I know you still love me. Because I do. You’re handsome, Doctor, every single part of you. Obviously I haven’t made myself clear enough. I shall remedy that, don’t you think?”
“Rose, love, we’ll be late,” he repeated, bracing himself against the sink, her deft fingers zipping his fly down and popping the button off.
“They can wait. I have a beautiful husband to love, right now.”
