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"Look at you, beaming away like you’re Father Christmas”
“Who says I’m not? Red bicycle when you were twelve!”
“What….?”
The Doctor’s features softened as he remembered the look on Rose’s face as he’d spoken those words. They’d been pure guess, but the words had resonated as truth. The Doctor walked through Rose's old world, a year after the Christmas the Sycorax had attacked the world, and Harriet Jones had betrayed them. And for the first time since he’d put on the 3D glasses that day at Torchwood, he had a crystal clear notion of what he had to do.
He’d dropped Martha off at her family’s home. She’d invited for Christmas dinner but he’d refused, made some weak reference to business he needed to clear up. He knew he’d hurt her but he couldn’t be there on Christmas, he couldn’t look at her and not think of Rose, their Christmas together and how he’d let himself believe for a moment that she had been different.
The Doctor walked along Oxford Street, losing himself in the normalness of the human holiday rush, a little sprinkle of snow floating in the air. He told himself that it was the cold that was affecting his eyes.
Oxford Street wasn’t quite right though, so he headed towards Suffolk, the south side of the Thames, stepping onto the wobbly footbridge, soft light of sunset around him. He found himself suddenly staring through a shop window, he didn’t know which shop, or where exactly he was, but through the window he saw it. A red bicycle. Small enough for a girl of twelve, and sturdy enough to last. The psychic paper convinced the shop clerk that the company had offended him in some grave manner, and that he was welcome to any merchandise he requested.
Walking out of the store, red bicycle in tow. The doctor looked down the street, recognizing it now. He knew how long it would take him to walk back to the TARDIS. A slight grin crept over his face, the first that day, the first in a long while. He looked back at the bicycle.
“Oh, come on, it can’t be that hard can it?”
Of course, he fell down, but eventually got the hang of it. He sped down the streets of London on Christmas Eve, a man in a brown pinstripe suit, on a child's red bicycle; luckily his reflexes remained on his side.
He reached the TARDIS and strode in, he had to be very precise about the date. The thing was, precision wasn’t always his strong suit. The TARDIS sensed what he needed though, and took it on herself to do exactly what he needed this time.
Arriving at the spot he’d so often arrived before, the street had subtle changes, a little less graffiti, that punk kid who’d graffitied ‘Bad Wolf’ on the TARDIS probably didn’t know how to spell yet. Well, he couldn’t really blame the kid now, Rose had been responsible for that after all, hadn’t she?
Leaving the bike in the TARDIS for now, he slipped out onto the street and into the building’s emergency staircase. It was 8 o’clock on Christmas Eve, and a younger Jackie Tyler tried to convince twelve year old Rose that it was time for bed, his Rose wasn’t having any of it. A modest Christmas tree with presents under its base glistened in the corner. He’d been right, none of the presents were big enough to be a bicycle.
The Doctor crouched outside, looking in on this life he could never have, but had wanted with Rose. Wanted more than almost anything. At least the two of them, Jackie and Rose were together in that other universe, in Pete’s world.
Finally Jackie tucked Rose up in bed, and went to sleep herself. He crept back to the TARDIS, managed to find a big loopy bow, goodness knows where from. It was more awkward sneaking in to the building carrying a bicycle, but he managed it and used his sonic screwdriver to open the lock. After much tweaking, he found the perfect spot under the tree. And signed the note tied to the bicycle;
To Rose, With Love,
Father Christmas.
The word he’d never managed to say to her, he could tell her past self, even if she never knew it had been him.
Silently, he walked in to her room, bright as it was when he first met her, seven years in the future. He watched her sleeping form, as he’d so often done when she slept in her little room in the TARDIS. She was so at peace there. He wished with all his hearts that she had found some peace in that other world as well. He watched her breath quietly rise and fall until the light of sunrise started to lessen the darkness of the sky. He walked to her side, brushed the hair from her cheek and kissed her forehead gently.
“Rose Tyler, I love you. Goodbye,” he spoke softly, his voice tight with emotion, “and Happy Christmas.”
Then he walked away, not looking back. This time not holding back the tears that escaped his eyes. The intensity of the pain in both his beating hearts threatened to overwhelm him. Into the TARDIS, on to the next adventure, without her.