“I do love nothing in the world so well as you,” he murmurs. “Is not that strange?” The book is forgotten on his lap—he could recite it from memory, has done so before but that’s not why the words stare up at him, unread. He needs her to understand this is not just about Beatrice and Benedick and if their life was a play it would be Much Ado about Nothing with everyone in the bloody world seeming to know before either of them that they are most definitely a couple. It started with her very first trip and it hasn’t stopped—he doesn’t want it to stop. He’s been running so long, first from the rigid ways of his people, then from the choice that loomed over him, and finally from his own guilt, from the consequences of his own actions. And he’s run and run but the past catches up to him—it always does. Just like a shadow, it’s always one step behind. He almost lost her the other day, almost lost himself too, and the beast’s words loop in the background noise of his thoughts: the lost girl, the valiant child who will die in battle so very soon—not if he can help it.
Rose has seen the movie, of course, Much Ado about Nothing with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. She knows the story but it’s different, hearing the words come out of the Doctor’s mouth. It’s the way his brown eyes hold hers, the way his voice has sunk low, almost to a whisper, the way the book sits limp in his lap and his hand, cool and dry, wraps around her own. It was a lark, a bit of fun, let’s see Shakespeare when he lived. It was brilliant watching the actors under the open sky, standing shoulder to shoulder with people who lived and died hundreds of years ago, but then the Doctor started reading his other works (plays first, sonnets later) and she curled up next to him on the couch and somehow it ends here.
He closes the book with a ‘thump’ that startles her, just a bit, and sets it on the table without relinquishing her hand. The air is heavy and still in the library, punctuated by soft creaks from the leather couch as he shifts and her heartbeat. His knee brushes hers and he reaches up with one hand and delicately cups her cheek. Her mouth parts and she doesn’t miss the way his eyes dart down, seem to be trapped on her lips for a moment.
