NEW FIC: DISHEVELED, Part 11/17, Teen, S2
Oct. 26th, 2006 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stDISHEVELED
By Rabid1st
Ten/Rose
Rating: Teen+
Beta Babes: Lil, Jei, LJ users Dualbunny, Aibhinn & Keswindhover
Summary: Rose had an adventure in time with the Doctor’s people. But an interrogation has left her without her baby and in seriously bad shape. Will she recover? Will she and the Doctor be able to rebuild their close relationship?
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. If I did…the show would be censored by…everyone but you smutty few. I humbly thank Russell T. Davies for creating the sweetest, most-loving, most-genuinely iconic couple in the history of the world for me to play with.
For links to previous parts…
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
Jackie Tyler was stuffing a chicken when she heard the grating rhythm signaling the arrival of the TARDIS. She’d been singing along at the top of her voice to a blaring rendition of ‘Spin Me Right Round’ by Dead or Alive, but the unique whooping sound had her fumbling messily for the radio dial. Her first thought was that Rose hadn’t phoned to say they were coming. Her second thought was a criticism of the Doctor. By the volume of the noise, she could tell without turning around that, despite her asking him three times now not to do it, he had materialized his stupid Police Box right in the middle of the flat again. It’d be blocking the telly and they’d all be banging their elbows and stubbing their toes on the ridiculous thing for the next few days. Plus, no paying clients allowed in the house until he and Rose pushed off. Fate of the world and all that rubbish. And Gracie Padgett was due at 4:30 for a root touch-up. That’s aliens for you, she thought. Inconsiderate the lot of them. With no practical idea how to make a living either. How he managed to keep Rose fed was beyond her.
Snatching up a towel, Jackie hurriedly wiped the chicken fat and bits of breading from her fingers, determined this time to give the Doctor a reason to remember her house rules. Rule one: Don’t park your time machine in my lounge. Rule two: Under this roof, Rose sleeps in her own bed. Rule three: Alone! And I mean it. No sneaking about after hours. You think I can’t hear the two of you giggling in there? Rule four: Sit on the furniture not on the floor. For Heaven’s sake, don’t they have sofas where you come from?
She yanked the oven door open, trying to remember rule five, which had something to do with Martian dining habits. As the wave of heat stirred her hair, it dawned on her she hadn’t heard Rose or the Doctor sing out a hello. She quickly tented the chicken and shoved it into the oven, raising her voice to yell as she did, “Rose? Is that you?”
Stupid question. Of course it was Rose. Who else came calling in a time machine? But still, it was so quiet. They weren’t quiet people, either of them. Cautious as any primitive in the face of the unknown, Jackie eased a butcher knife from the block and crept to the doorway. She peered around the corner at the TARDIS. It looked ominous to her, just crouched there on its own. Its door gaped wide, like a great mouth waiting to swallow her down. There was no sign of Rose or the Doctor.
On that first terrible day when she’d learned about the Doctor being an alien, Rose had, also, told her the TARDIS was alive. Having just been inside the thing, Jackie had shuddered and asked what it ate. A perfectly reasonable question, really. Anyone might have asked. There’d been no need for him to fix his blue eyes on her and say ‘puppies and defenseless little girls’ in a cold monotone. And then to start braying with laughter like that. One thing about this new bloke, he had marginally better manners than the other one. Though she still couldn’t say she was happy about Rose taking up with him. He was ten times scarier than Jimmy Stone ever was. Well, except Rose was happy. And that was something. But why she couldn’t find a nice man with a car and maybe an office job, Jackie was sure she would never understand.
She was thinking about weddings, Rose getting married in an off-white lace gown to this hypothetical ‘nice man’, when the Doctor came out of the TARDIS with Rose in his arms. So, it was understandable that, just for a second, she misunderstood. She saw the pale yellow gown, saw Rose cradled like a bride being carried across the threshold, and felt a rush of jumbled emotions. All of them powered the bellow of her lungs as she screeched, “Now what have you gone and done?”
The Doctor’s whole body jerked. He caught his elbow a glancing blow on the TARDIS doorway, swiftly checked on Rose, and then looked toward Jackie. The hollow despair in his eyes pierced her soul. A swift, true understanding flashed between them. Blame was laid and accepted in the heartbeat before Jackie’s gaze dropped to Rose, pale and still in his arms. “Oh, God,” she breathed, as her vision went blurry. Hand to her mouth, fingers pressing her lips, she murmured, “Oh, God, my baby. Is she…?”
She couldn’t say it, couldn’t complete the horrendous thought. Rose couldn't be dead. Luckily, the Doctor understood and shook his head or Jackie might have fainted. Reassured, she started toward him. He avoided her, stepping to the side, keeping Rose hidden with his coldly turned shoulder.
“Bedroom,” he said. And Jackie nodded, obeying without question because, for once in her life, she felt sure he knew best.
Rushing ahead of him, she pushed open the door and held it until he entered Rose’s room. Then, she darted forward to turn back the coverlet on the bed. While the Doctor settled her daughter’s apparently lifeless body comfortably, Jackie fidgeted and fretted--longing to question him, but afraid of what he might say. She watched him sweep Rose’s hair up, so her bare neck rested against the cool pillow. He smoothed her gown, brushing a hand down her body with an unconscious intimacy. His sure touch confirmed what Jackie had long suspected: they were lovers.
Once he was satisfied Rose was resting easy, the Doctor took her wrist in a light grip, checking her pulse. His lips tightened, turned down at the corners. Releasing her wrist, his fingers trailed a gentle caress across Rose's palm while his other hand went to her temple, tentatively touching it. He flinched, pulled away from her, and then sank to the edge of the mattress. After a moment, he slid to the floor in a hopeless heap.
“I’m sorry,” he said, still holding onto Rose’s hand like it was his lifeline. “I’m so sorry.”
“What happened?” Jackie whispered. “Is she…sick? Hurt?" When he didn't answer, she became insistent. "Doctor?”
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t want to risk making him angry before he told her it was all going to be fine. His chin had fallen to his chest. Wearily, he lifted his head, turning to look at her. “She was…” He met Jackie’s eye and the short hairs on her arms stirred in apprehension. She could tell by the wariness in him that he didn’t plan to tell her the truth. Was it that horrible, she wondered? Or was he just being condescending?
“Tell me,” she said, trying to sound as mature as she could. “She’s my daughter. I have a right to know.”
He studied her for a long moment before nodding mechanically. Jackie waited, but he didn’t say anything. He seemed to be pleading with her, silently. His face reflected dazed confusion, as if he’d taken a beating recently and hadn’t recovered his senses. His mouth moved and she could tell he was searching for a way to explain something, something he didn’t want to contemplate or wasn’t sure she would understand. What could be so horrible?
“Was it…alien?” she guessed.
He nodded again. Eyes drifting to Rose, his fingers clenched tight around hers. “She was…” he said again. And then, breathed out one word, “…violated.”
For a second, Jackie’s brain stalled. Women she knew had been…violated, caught on the street unaware or trapped in a brutal relationship. She associated that word with bruises and cut lips and shuddering sobs. Rose looked so peaceful and perfect. Befuddled by the contradiction, Jackie took a moment to study the Doctor. His grimy, rumbled suit, the week’s growth of beard and his haunted expression told a more complete story. Violation. Rape. Some alien…thing had…had assaulted her little girl, her sweet Rose. Jackie thought about the butcher knife and glanced down to find it still in her hand.
“Is it dead?” she asked, barely recognizing the gruff rumble of her own voice. “Did you kill it?”
The Doctor looked lost. “I wasn’t there,” he said.
But when he ducked his head, Jackie read the guilt in him, as easily as she might read between the headlines in a tell-all circular at the checkout counter. He’d been there. Or he’d been able to stop it. Somehow he was responsible. Her knuckles tensed, whitening as she gripped the knife handle tighter.
“Why not? You promised me. Promised you’d keep her safe. Bring her home safe. It’s your job.”
The Doctor nodded. “My job,” he agreed, remorsefully.
Jackie wasn’t satisfied with his contrition. She drew herself up to her full height. “You should go,” she said.
“Not ‘til she wakes up.”
“Now. I want you to go, now.” She stabbed her knife point toward the door. “Get out of my house.”
He lifted his chin and met her steely glare with an even harder, colder one. “When she wakes up, I’ll see what she wants…what she needs,” he said.
“Don’t you care about her at all?” Jackie cried, knowing he did care, knowing it was the worst thing she could say, but more than willing to use his guilt against him if it would protect Rose.
He didn’t even wince just sighed heavily and let his eyelids droop, his head loll against the bed edge. She took the lash of her tongue to him, berating him for another twenty minutes. He pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and two fingers and waited for her to finish. When she finally paused for breath, he opened his eyes and dismissed her with all the imperious ease of the manor-born. “Go. See to your dinner,” he said, wafting a negligent hand.
“This is my home,” Jackie snapped. “And she’s my daughter. And I won’t have you…”
“If you upset her, if you keep on like this,” he warned, softly, not even paying her the courtesy of looking at her as he spoke. “I’ll take her somewhere else, somewhere quiet and safe.”
“But…she needs me,” Jackie protested. “She needs her mother.”
“I know,” he said, his gaze fixed on Rose’s untroubled face. He leaned toward her, until his fingers could toy with a strand of her hair. “That’s the only reason we’re here.”
*******************************************************************
He knew he’d upset Jackie. Knew, even sympathized with, her fears. But he was glad when she pushed off and left him with Rose. They needed to be alone together. Somewhere Rose would feel safe. And he could think of no place safer than back home, in her own bed. The familiar surroundings, the comforting turn of her home planet, the steady time stream and her personal history should soothe her, ground her. She would remember herself here, he was certain of it.
He carried her hand to his lips. “You’re home,” he murmured, into the shell of her partially closed palm.
“Home,” she mumbled in her sleep.
The Doctor started to attention. His blood sang and his lungs clenched at the response. He launched himself up onto the bed, landing like a cat in a slight crouch above her. They were nose to nose, his bent arms held his weight off her chest. His hands were braced to either side of her shoulders. His one knee nudged her hip. The other leg extended to the floor, balancing him. Breathing raggedly, he searched her face from some flicker of awakening intellect. He said her name.
Nothing. He waited. She stirred, shifting under him, arching toward him until her breast pressed against his chest. But she settled back, falling quickly into a deeper slumber. Releasing a pent sigh, the Doctor collapsed to the side in defeat. Head pillowed next to hers, he kept his arm across her belly, used it to draw her into him as he allowed one leg to slide between her knees. This was how they should sleep every night, he thought, every night from now on.
If only she would come back to him.
************************************************************
“Will she ever come back?” Jackie asked two days later as she watched the Doctor inject another vial of what he called ‘nutrients’ into her daughter’s unflinching arm.
He emptied the syringe and set it aside without looking at Jackie. Then, he picked up the steaming cup of tea she’d brought him and, settling to the floor, took a sip before saying, “I don’t know.”
He’d been telling her nothing but that for the last 48 hours. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Would the woman never get it through her thick head? He didn’t know. He had no idea what was happening in Rose’s mind. He’d tried to reach her but the Wolf still howled in her skull. All he could do was wait and hope. But time wasn’t on his side: if she didn’t wake up soon, he’d have to take her to hospital. Despite his blood-purifying injections, dehydration and septicemia would set in if she didn’t resume normal renal function by morning.
Fully expecting Jackie to tell him there was no need to be rude, he was caught off guard when she spoke mildly. “I can sit with her for a while, if you want a break to…change or use the bathroom.”
Tipping his head back, he smiled at her but turned the offer down. “I’m all right.”
“No, really, you’re a bit whiffy,” she told him, pinching her nose with one hand as if he reeked. “Smells all alien…like, I don’t know, some kind of metal or an old coal furnance, when you first light one in the wintertime, and something else..." She snapped her fingers, and then pointed at him, "Chinese takeaway.”
His smile became a wide grin. “No one’s ever mentioned that to me before,” he admitted. “I wonder why.”
She gave a careless shrug. “Probably just being polite,” she said, nodding sagely after she took a sip of her tea. Then, she focused on him. “Seriously, don’t you ever change your clothes? It’s always the same with you. First, the leather jacket and jumper, now, the same brown and blue suit whenever you visit.”
“I love this suit,” he said, glancing down with pride as he plucked up the lapel between his finger and thumb. “Why would I change it?”
“People do.”
Holding his teacup aloft, he gracefully flowed to his feet from his seat on the bedroom floor. He’d taken his shoes off again. He kept doing that, like he was foreign or something, Jackie thought. She watched him sashay languidly to the dresser mirror and take a measured look at himself. Grimacing a bit, he tipped his head this way and that and ran a hand along his stubbly jaw. Then, he met her eye in the mirror.
“I’m not people,” he said.
“Oh, and you don’t have to tell me,” she returned, pointedly, a neat backhand off his conversational volley. He couldn't help but smile, just a little. She took on a wheedling tone as she went on, “But you could shower, at least. Or shave. It’s got to be unsanitary in a sick room. Besides,” she nodded at Rose, “she wakes up and sees you looking like two-for-one night at the pub…it’ll scare the life out of her.”
The Doctor drained his tea in a long guzzle and set the cup on the dresser top with a decisive clunk. “Yes, all right,” he said. “Do you still have that dressing gown?”
“Howard’s? Yeah. I’ll say one thing; it lasted longer than he ever did. In the bathroom. Hook on the back of the door. But don’t you have your own…” She got no further, squeaking in sharp protest when he tossed his suit jacket at her. “Hey! Here now! I didn’t mean….”
“No bleach, cold water soak and tumble dry low,” he said, speaking over her as he hurriedly stepped out of his trousers.
He flung them across the end of the bed, followed by his shirt and coordinated undershirt. He retained only his y-front briefs. Jackie barely had a chance to sweep an accessing gaze over him, noting his lithe figure, too light skin, slender fitness and the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest that lined down his belly, before he took off.
“I’m not washing your clothes,” she said and then, realizing he was gone, she stepped to the door and called after him, “I’m not washing your clothes.”
He popped his head into the hall from the bathroom and said, “You’re the one they’re offending,” as if she was being completely unreasonable. Then he flashed a grin that told her in no uncertain terms that he’d seen through her plan to barricade him in the TARDIS when he went to change.
Huffing, Jackie withdrew to gather up his suit and shirts. She considered ruining them with bleach and hot water but decided she couldn’t put it past him to walk around nude if she did. She wondered if Rose would ever forgive her if she accidentally poisoned his tea. Not that it would get rid of him but it might give her a bit of satisfaction. Of course, with her luck, the next Doctor would be even more annoying.
**********************************************************
Hair damp and sticking up in tufts, but shaved and showered, the Doctor reappeared about thirty minutes later. Jackie was just checking the dryer. He padded by her, moist soles sucking at the floor vinyl, and checked in the fridge for something sweet. It was always the sugar with him. He took the last bit of juice, she noticed, without so much as a by-your-leave. She shot him a quelling look, but he ignored her.
"I was saving that for breakfast," she grumbled. Then, focusing on his bare chin, she yelped, “Did you use my razor?”
He shook his head, drank the final swigs from the juice bottle and then said, “No telling where that’s been. Got a new one from the cabinet.”
Insulted and appalled on about six levels, her voice hit a very high note as she asked, “Do you know how much those things cost?”
“Did you want me to use yours?” he cried, his mouth twisting into a sneer. He couldn’t believe the things she could make a fuss over. “They’re disposable. How dear can they be?”
“Two quid a packet,” she snapped. “And the juice isn't free either.”
“Fine,” he huffed, as he put the empty bottle on the counter. “Make a list. Soon as Rose is better we’ll go shopping and…”
A scream tore through the air, “Doctor?”
Rose.
He beat Jackie in the race to the kitchen doorway but not by much. Elbowing one another in their haste, they dashed down the hall and into the bedroom. Rose was sitting up, but staring sightlessly ahead, her face a mask of horror. A golden fire burned in her eyes. Slamming to a halt, the Doctor put an arm up, blocking Jackie from rushing to her daughter’s side. She scrambled to get around him. He was forced to turn his back on Rose to contain her mother.
“Wait. Think,” he said. “Let me go first.”
Jackie’s head was lowered for a bullish charge but the Doctor’s measured tone caught her attention. Slowly lifting her chin, she met his eye and, seeing the warning there, muttered a half-hearted concurrence. He studied her a bit longer as if he didn’t quite believe she’d given up. Then, releasing her, he pressed his palm toward her nose, wordlessly insisting she stay where she was. Reluctantly, she nodded. He backed away, keeping his palm up and holding her gaze intently, as if she were a dog in obedience training. She craned her neck to see around him. Rose hadn’t moved.
The Doctor pivoted when he reached the foot of the bed. Moving with extreme trepidation, he settled next to Rose and called her name, softly, tenderly. “Rose? Can you hear me?”
“Doctor?”
Rose’s head bobbed uncertainly as she turned it toward the sound of his voice. She stared over his shoulder, didn’t focus on him at all. Jackie gave a strangled cry.
“What’s wrong with her eyes?” she demanded. “What have they done to her, Doctor? Is she blind?” As she rushed the end of the bed, Jackie’s high-pitched screeching hit a register that could have stripped the paint from the walls. “Can’t she see? Rose, sweetheart, can you see me?”
“Stop it,” the Doctor snarled, angling his head toward Jackie but keeping his gaze fixed on Rose. Chin elevated, he stared down his nose at her, working things out in his mind. “Stop thinking that, believing it. She’s not. It’s not an option.” Returning his entire attention to Rose, he drew an audible breath as he reached for her. His fingertips grazed her temple and he stiffened. Recoiling, as if he’d been slapped, he managed to maintain a tentative contact with her skin. Air hissed from between his clenched teeth. A shudder wracked him. “Rose,” he groaned. “Close the…” It was no good. He lurched back, panting. Mouth opening and closing, eyes blinking rapidly, he cradled his hand to his chest for a moment and then swallowed hard and said, “…the door. Close the door.”
“Is she cold, do you think?” Jackie asked, moving to obey him. Making certain not to slam it, she carefully shut the bedroom door. “Should I get a blanket? We’ve a spare blanket in the closet. Or a hot water bottle? A nice hot water bottle for her feet? There’s always been a bit of a draft down that hall. I’ve spoken to the management. But all they do is bring up the doors we’ve already had replaced. Thanks to you, I might add.” The Doctor twisted around to glower at her. His scowl said it all: he thought she’d gone mad. “I’m just saying other people don’t have Christmas trees cutting through their…”
Rose snickered. And the Doctor lost all interest in Jackie’s ramblings. His head whipped until he was eye-to-eye with Rose. He bounced on the bed, going up on his knees and seizing her by the shoulders. She looked back at him, fully aware. She beamed at him. Her dark eyes danced with good humor, sharing the joke of her mother’s confusion. Not daring to believe, to hope, the Doctor searched her face. She looked just as questioningly at him but he studied her with a mixture of awe and fear in his eyes.
“What?” she finally asked.
Joy swelled the Doctor’s chest, almost cutting off his air. He had no thoughts in his head at all, only her name repeating and repeating as a singing chant. Transferring his grip from her shoulders to her face, he pulled Rose to him for a long, desperate kiss. He poured his love into her, over her, like healing water. He willed her to stay with him, be whole again.
She didn’t respond. Not in the slightest. Her hands remained folded in her lap. Her body shifted with him but not in sensual harmony. She moved only because he manipulated her. He tipped her head with his hands, her lips opened because his opened. She was malleable but not interested. Indifferent. Her mind reflected the room, giving him nothing of her thoughts. The Doctor opened his eyes and slowly settled back.
“I’m sorry,” Rose began, “I don’t…”
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re awake,” Jackie cried, surging forward, coming between them. “Are you all right? You’ve had us so worried. Dead to the world you’ve been for nearly three days. And this one’s been no help at all.”
Jackie’s hip shoved the Doctor aside as she drew Rose into a hug, kissing her forehead and then her cheek. Rose’s hands came up to slide around her mother’s waist. When she laid her head on Jackie’s shoulder, the Doctor felt an irrational stab of jealousy, followed closely by an avalanche of guilt and self-recrimination. Why should she respond to him like that? This entire mess had been his fault. He’d burdened her with an unwanted child, and then put her through the loss of it. He’d failed to protect her. His people had assaulted her. Feeling miserable and superfluous, he got up and, hunched against the hurt, shuffled to the door, looking back only once before leaving mother and daughter to their bonding. Rose didn’t even notice him go.
******************************************************
For the next few days, Rose rested and he tinkered. It was what he always did when landlocked, planetlocked. But this time, it wasn’t busy work. The TARDIS had responded sluggishly on their way to Earth, as if her heart weren’t in the trip. The Doctor could relate and maybe she was only picking up on his anxious mood. But he couldn’t afford not to run the necessary diagnostics. He’d learned to follow up on any suspected maintenance issues. With Gallifrey gone, there was no putting her into a shop for a complete overhaul if some minor problem snowballed. The TARDIS kept running or he stopped. They had only each other to rely on.
So, he pocketed a few tools, took off his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves and went to work. He yanked a section of floor grating to one side and followed a spiral staircase down to the primary engine room. After some investigation, he pulled the central stabilizer from the rotor drive and began stripping it of gunk. One of the pinions had a tiny nick. The Doctor examined the flaw, rubbing a greasy thumb over it. It wasn’t enough to cause the listlessness he’d sensed but the pinion would have to be replaced. He thought about what he might use to repair it. And how he might dissipate some of the stress his ship was under.
Talk to Rose.
He choked a little and, craning his neck, shot a suspicious look at the underside of the console far above his head. The TARDIS was generally empathic not telepathic. It wasn’t like her to put flat-out suggestions in his head. ‘I have, I will,’ he thought back at her. Then, stroking a hand along the nearest organic support, he added, ‘don’t worry.’ She soaked up the streak of oil his caress left behind and purred contentedly, a steady thrum all around him. It burrowed into his marrow. He couldn’t help smiling a little. The TARDIS was as alien to him as he was to Jackie, but he loved her and believed she loved him in her way. All he had was the belief, of course. Her responses were erratic, far more than any other ship of her kind. And she never expressed more than vague affection via their mental link. But from the day they’d bonded, he’d always felt an attraction between them. Platonic, of course, because what else could it be?
He moved on to the hydraulic fission system, topping off lubricant levels before turning his attention to the command grid. The oft-patched and bizarrely cross-wired circuitry acted as liaison between the console above and the organic mind of the TARDIS. Technically, according to collective Time Lord Wisdom, the TARDIS didn’t have a mind. She wasn’t sentient in the accepted sense of the word. The grid did her thinking for her, translating his commands into action and her basic needs into requests. If she was having a bad feeling about something, it was nothing more than a glitch in the grid, a loose wire. However, the Doctor had known her a long time and he wasn’t completely sure it was that simple. Still, no harm looking.
He was on his back, checking for loose connections, when he heard a light step on the stairs. Tilting his head, he saw Rose’s feet come into view, followed in time by the rest of her. She bounced rhythmically to the bottom of the stair. Pausing at floor level to hang onto the hand railing, she swung to and fro as she solemnly considered him. Her hair was in braided pigtails, like a little girl, and she wore a fluffy-soft, powder-pink pullover and gray sweats. Without any greeting for him, she sat down on the third step, knees together; elbows braced one on each thigh. The Doctor went on working. He was comfortable with her watching. She often did. Sparks arced as he used the screwdriver to fuse a wire into place. He tentatively flipped a switch and crowed in delight when a series of lights started blinking in response.
“Got it sorted?” Rose asked.
He curled partway off the floor to see her better and, smiling, said, “Just about. Are you ready to be off?” She shrugged, avoiding eye contact. Relaxing back down, he pushed a finger into a dead socket, clearing it of debris, and then murmured. “We were just talking about you.”
“I thought my ears were burning.”
“We…that is, I…thought…you might want to…” he took a deep breath and shot out his question all at once. “With everything that’s happened, do you want to stay?” He had to ask. It had to get out in the open.
There was a long pause before Rose said, “Yeah,” very softly.
He should have seen it coming. But he truly hadn’t and he couldn’t help glaring at her in hurt surprise. She didn’t notice his grimace. She was looking at the floor in front of her, trying to toe a hole in it with her shoe. “Oh,” he puffed, blinking rapidly, “Right…well, then we’ll just…uh…that is…I’ll…be…uh…” On his way, he’d be on his way. Alone. Without Rose. No Rose.
His throat closed on a lump. Swallowing against it, he felt a signature burn in his chest. Oh, Rassilon preserve him he was going to cry. To forestall the reaction, he transferred his screwdriver to his mouth. Closing his teeth around it and biting down hard on the handle, he took an extreme interest in the wiring above him. Not that there was anything wrong with the wiring. Or with crying. He always let go during Lassie, Come Home, for example. But in this context it would definitely qualify as undue influence. Rose had to think he was perfectly happy with her decision. ‘Be British,’ he thought.
“If it’s okay with you,” she was saying, as he fought for composure. “I just want to feel more…”
“Mmmhph,” he said, around the screwdriver handle, hoping the mumble conveyed a sense of a support.
Apparently, it hadn’t. “Come on, it’s not that bad,” Rose said. “You can put up with my Mum for a few more days.”
“Daves?” he remarked, before remembering to remove the screwdriver. “Days? I…oh, no, no…” his throat was exposed, his eyes very wide and staring, “I mean…yes, a few more or less, of course, is…fine.” He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Or the screwdriver. He finally shoved all into his trouser pockets. “Topping. Yes, why not? Bit of a holiday. Could use a break in the routine, a few days, a week…even. Perfectly natural to want your mother…time like this.”
“You don’t mind?”
Withdrawing a hand from his pocket, he waved off her worry. “Oh, Jackie and I are getting along splendidly,” he lied, cutting his eyes to the side as he did, and nodding several times, somewhat less than convincingly. “Once I got used to her scree…uh, voice…and the accounting for…food…and…soap…and,” he finished all in one breath, “every drop of hot water.”
“Well, it’s not easy, yeah? Being on your own, raising a child?” Rose said. “You have to keep track of things.” And there it was…the elephant in the TARDIS. They both ignored the mammoth thing for a few minutes. The Doctor plugged in a few loose wires. Rose twirled a strand of her hair. And then, said, “Someone’s taking care of her, right? Susan? She isn’t…she wasn’t…alone?”
The Doctor stared at her for a moment before saying, “I don’t know.” After carefully gathering up the rest of his tools, he rolled out from under the rotor housing, and stood. “Honestly, I don’t. My memory is full of holes. Has been ever since the war. But I…I never knew much about Susan. Only how she came to me…the TARDIS malfunctioned. She came back in time and, somehow, knew me. She called me, ‘grandfather.’ I looked for information about her, of course. There were records, the names of her parents, but no specifics.”
“She came in the TARDIS?”
“Yes, didn’t I tell you? I’d been a Senator and a teacher but not a Time Lord. I’d never been able to bond with a ship, hear one in my head, and that’s absolutely vital for regeneration.” He waved a hand at the machinery around them. “It’s not all wires and tubing. There’s a deeper, metaphysical bond. She, sort of, reminds me who I am. But I’d given up on having it. Until Susan brought the TARDIS to me.” He stroked a rounded column near his face, running his palm along the curving length.
“She’d been marked for disposal," he went on. "Turned back in twice over for repair and reconditioning, considered defective. Susan didn’t believe it. On the day she left, she told me there was nothing mechanically wrong with the TARDIS.” Lost in memory, he smiled into the middle distance. “She was very like you. Susan, I mean. Always fighting for the underdog. She was running a test of the TARDIS temporal guidance system when it blew a circuit and she ended up, literally, in my backyard.” He glanced at Rose and saw she wasn’t listening. “Rose?”
“How am I’m supposed to go on…forget her?”
“You’re not. Of course, you’re not supposed to forget. But we can’t go back there, Rose. You understand that, don’t you? If I try to see Susan, now, her history will change. She’ll die, like all the rest.” Rose gave a broken little nod. “We have to let her life unfold as it did.”
“Was she…adopted?”
“Generally, our children are raised collectively. But she was a happy child. Bright. Mechanically inclined. Very well adjusted when she came to me. She had a way with the TARDIS that bordered on miracle working.”
Rose drew a shuddering breath, lifting her chin as she said, “Took after you, then. I have trouble fixing the electric can opener.”
“She had your eyes,” the Doctor said, thinking, ‘…and nose and mouth’ and wondering how he’d never seen it. There was another very long lag in the conversation before he went on, “But you met her, didn’t you? On your library travels? I seem to remember prodding you with my stick.”
“You did, you grumpy old…codger.” Rose’s insincere chuckle died away. At last, she turned to look at him. “What else do you remember?” She asked with an ominous overtone.
‘Right,’ the Doctor thought, ‘Here we go, then.’
“Nothing,” he admitted. “My Eighth incarnation brought you back to me. I was in exile for most of that life, no memory. And then, there was the war. I don’t think Susan was on the front lines. She might have worked with the ships. I don’t remember her at all from the fight.”
“And you don’t remember me? From back then?”
The Doctor had been cleaning his hands, but he stopped to frown over this. “From the war?” He asked as, for the first time, it dawned on him that she might have been elsewhere in time. Taking a step toward her, he asked, “Were you there for the war, Rose?”
“No,” she shook her head, seeing he’d misunderstood and therefore probably didn’t remember anything. “I meant…on Gallifrey. I was there with…him…you…the other Doctor. Do you know what happened…what I did?”
“I know, yes,” he said, walking toward her. “I just don’t remember it.”
Rose shifted on the step, nervously peering up at him as he closed the distance between them. She asked the question that was haunting her. “Did they die? Are they dead?” Her expression pleaded with him to deny it.
So he did. “No, they didn’t die, Rose. I don’t think you could kill anyone.”
”But you can’t be sure? Can you?” she cried, standing up and whipping around to go. The Doctor leaped forward from a standstill, grabbing her elbow.
Already mounting the stairs, she stiffened at his touch, almost shrinking away from it. He let go immediately. “I’m sorry. I won’t…” he broke off, pained because he had to tell her, “You don’t have to worry that I’ll… I won’t go into your mind. Not if you don’t want me there. I would never….” She bobbed her head once, accepting his promise, but he could see her trembling. There was no trust in her body language. She looked ready to bolt. “Rose…?”
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, spinning around to confront him. “How could I do those thing? Hurt those people with my...mind, my thoughts? Is it because we…because of…us?”
His mouth fell open as he dropped one step down. “Oh, no. No, Rose.” He shook his head emphatically. “It has nothing to do with…us, our bond. It’s the Vortex, the Time Vortex. It’s still in your head.”
“The Vortex? From the TARDIS?”
He swallowed, lowering his eyes after registering the confusion in her face. “But you don’t know. You don’t remember. And I…well…I…”
He looked away, staring at the rotor base in the middle of the room. His hand worked the clenched muscles at the base of his skull as he tipped his head to the side. Knowing there was no way to avoid having this conversation, he still shrank from it. Squeezing his eyes closed, he searched for the words to explain what he should have explained long ago.
“It’s inside you," he said, at last. "It’s been inside you for a very long time. But it’s not you.” He turned to meet her gaze squarely, repeating, “It’s not you, Rose, remember that.”
“But...how’d it get in my head?”
“You asked for it. Do you remember? You were trying to get back to Satellite Five, to rescue me. You looked into the heart of the TARDIS...and there was singing...and a light.”
She nodded absently, remembering some details from her brief exile to Earth. “I wanted to communicate with her, convince her to take me back to you before the Daleks could…” She suddenly went very still. Her eyes glazed over as all of her attention turned inward.
“Only it’s not a heart,” he snorted derisively, angry at himself. “I was being poetic. It’s temporal energy, surging back and forth...a limitless, merciless power. And you opened your mind and your soul to it.”
“The Daleks,” Rose breathed the light of memory transforming her face. “I see every atom of your existence,” she intoned, “and I divide them.” Her gaze snapped back to pin the Doctor in place. “I killed them. All of them. Millions of Daleks…” She sounded like she could hardly comprehend it. “I turned them into piles of dust. Everywhere. All at once. Even the Emperor.”
“Even the Emperor,” he confirmed. “The false god. You poured all of time and space into his tiny little head.”
The burgeoning horror on her face intensified. “But I did it to people, too. Your people,” she said, hitting a slightly hysterical note. “And you. What about you, Doctor? You regenerated. Did I…? Was it me? Did I kill you on Satellite 5?”
He shifted, standing as close to her as he dared, as close as he could come without touching her. His hands skimmed along her bare arms and brushed over her hair without making true contact. “No, you didn’t. You would never…” He saw her fading. He was losing her to guilt and fear. She couldn’t hear him. “Rose, look at me,” he ordered and she did. “I killed myself.” Holding her eye, he placed a hand on his chest. “It was totally my own fault. As I told you, I tried to absorb the entire Vortex and nobody was meant to do that.”
Rose gasped as if surfacing from a long dive. She held his gaze for a moment and then asked, “Why?”
“It was hurting you, destroying you. I couldn’t let that happen…" Her pained expression told him he'd misunderstood her question. She wanted to know more about the Vortex but he went on with his explanation because there were things she needed to know, "...anymore than you could leave me there to die. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She nodded. “So, I took the Vortex into my own body. I tried to pull it out by the root. Out of you and into me.” He exhaled, shifting away from her slightly but keeping eye contact. “Only I missed a bit. There’s a door, a way into your mind.”
“It’s open,” Rose said. “Right, now…it’s not locked.”
“I know,” he said.
“Can you make it go away?”
He shook his head, a quick denial so she wouldn’t hold onto the hope. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Even if I let it take this life, I don’t think I could make it leave you. It’s a part of you now. You can close the door, just like you opened it. I can help you seal it, again, but you would need to let me into your mind.” Before she could protest beyond a pre-verbal squeak, he quickly reassured her. “And you can’t. I know. It’s too soon for that. The good news is: I don’t think you are going to hurt anyone. It’s not burning in you. It’s just…vigilant.”
“So…what do we do?”
“We wait. For you to heal, get stronger. For the fire to bank in your mind. For the power to grow complacent.”
“You’re talking like it knows things. Like it’s alive.”
“It knows everything. And it’s more than alive…it’s life. And death. And all the little moments in between. But it’s not a being. It has no agenda beyond the one you give it.”
“I’m in control?”
“Yes, you’re in control. Of everything.” He forced himself to go on, speaking in a rush to avoid coloring his words with too much emotion. “Of this, too, of us…what we have, where we go, what we do. We can go back to how it was before, if you like…be friends, travel…take care of one another.” Bobbing his chin at her, he sucked in air and almost groaned as said, “We don’t have to…”
“Touch?” Rose finished, sorrow clogging her throat.
“Not ever…if you don’t want to.”
“What if I do?” she asked, voice breaking on a sob that became a gasp, “No,” she wrenched her head aside, backpedaling when he instinctively put out a comforting hand. His fingertips grazed her cheek. The back of his hand registered a ghostly touch, a few of her stray hairs caressing him as he let his arm swing down to his side. “No, not, now, not yet,” she panted, fear making her throat clench around the warning. “I just…what if…someday…I do want to?”
“I’m right here,” he said, with all the tenderness he could summon. “Honestly, I’m right here.”
“No matter how long it takes?” she asked, wanting--needing a promise.
He gave one without any hesitation, letting it shine through his eyes. “No matter how long it takes.”
END THIS PART
PART TWELVE
By Rabid1st
Ten/Rose
Rating: Teen+
Beta Babes: Lil, Jei, LJ users Dualbunny, Aibhinn & Keswindhover
Summary: Rose had an adventure in time with the Doctor’s people. But an interrogation has left her without her baby and in seriously bad shape. Will she recover? Will she and the Doctor be able to rebuild their close relationship?
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. If I did…the show would be censored by…everyone but you smutty few. I humbly thank Russell T. Davies for creating the sweetest, most-loving, most-genuinely iconic couple in the history of the world for me to play with.
For links to previous parts…
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
Jackie Tyler was stuffing a chicken when she heard the grating rhythm signaling the arrival of the TARDIS. She’d been singing along at the top of her voice to a blaring rendition of ‘Spin Me Right Round’ by Dead or Alive, but the unique whooping sound had her fumbling messily for the radio dial. Her first thought was that Rose hadn’t phoned to say they were coming. Her second thought was a criticism of the Doctor. By the volume of the noise, she could tell without turning around that, despite her asking him three times now not to do it, he had materialized his stupid Police Box right in the middle of the flat again. It’d be blocking the telly and they’d all be banging their elbows and stubbing their toes on the ridiculous thing for the next few days. Plus, no paying clients allowed in the house until he and Rose pushed off. Fate of the world and all that rubbish. And Gracie Padgett was due at 4:30 for a root touch-up. That’s aliens for you, she thought. Inconsiderate the lot of them. With no practical idea how to make a living either. How he managed to keep Rose fed was beyond her.
Snatching up a towel, Jackie hurriedly wiped the chicken fat and bits of breading from her fingers, determined this time to give the Doctor a reason to remember her house rules. Rule one: Don’t park your time machine in my lounge. Rule two: Under this roof, Rose sleeps in her own bed. Rule three: Alone! And I mean it. No sneaking about after hours. You think I can’t hear the two of you giggling in there? Rule four: Sit on the furniture not on the floor. For Heaven’s sake, don’t they have sofas where you come from?
She yanked the oven door open, trying to remember rule five, which had something to do with Martian dining habits. As the wave of heat stirred her hair, it dawned on her she hadn’t heard Rose or the Doctor sing out a hello. She quickly tented the chicken and shoved it into the oven, raising her voice to yell as she did, “Rose? Is that you?”
Stupid question. Of course it was Rose. Who else came calling in a time machine? But still, it was so quiet. They weren’t quiet people, either of them. Cautious as any primitive in the face of the unknown, Jackie eased a butcher knife from the block and crept to the doorway. She peered around the corner at the TARDIS. It looked ominous to her, just crouched there on its own. Its door gaped wide, like a great mouth waiting to swallow her down. There was no sign of Rose or the Doctor.
On that first terrible day when she’d learned about the Doctor being an alien, Rose had, also, told her the TARDIS was alive. Having just been inside the thing, Jackie had shuddered and asked what it ate. A perfectly reasonable question, really. Anyone might have asked. There’d been no need for him to fix his blue eyes on her and say ‘puppies and defenseless little girls’ in a cold monotone. And then to start braying with laughter like that. One thing about this new bloke, he had marginally better manners than the other one. Though she still couldn’t say she was happy about Rose taking up with him. He was ten times scarier than Jimmy Stone ever was. Well, except Rose was happy. And that was something. But why she couldn’t find a nice man with a car and maybe an office job, Jackie was sure she would never understand.
She was thinking about weddings, Rose getting married in an off-white lace gown to this hypothetical ‘nice man’, when the Doctor came out of the TARDIS with Rose in his arms. So, it was understandable that, just for a second, she misunderstood. She saw the pale yellow gown, saw Rose cradled like a bride being carried across the threshold, and felt a rush of jumbled emotions. All of them powered the bellow of her lungs as she screeched, “Now what have you gone and done?”
The Doctor’s whole body jerked. He caught his elbow a glancing blow on the TARDIS doorway, swiftly checked on Rose, and then looked toward Jackie. The hollow despair in his eyes pierced her soul. A swift, true understanding flashed between them. Blame was laid and accepted in the heartbeat before Jackie’s gaze dropped to Rose, pale and still in his arms. “Oh, God,” she breathed, as her vision went blurry. Hand to her mouth, fingers pressing her lips, she murmured, “Oh, God, my baby. Is she…?”
She couldn’t say it, couldn’t complete the horrendous thought. Rose couldn't be dead. Luckily, the Doctor understood and shook his head or Jackie might have fainted. Reassured, she started toward him. He avoided her, stepping to the side, keeping Rose hidden with his coldly turned shoulder.
“Bedroom,” he said. And Jackie nodded, obeying without question because, for once in her life, she felt sure he knew best.
Rushing ahead of him, she pushed open the door and held it until he entered Rose’s room. Then, she darted forward to turn back the coverlet on the bed. While the Doctor settled her daughter’s apparently lifeless body comfortably, Jackie fidgeted and fretted--longing to question him, but afraid of what he might say. She watched him sweep Rose’s hair up, so her bare neck rested against the cool pillow. He smoothed her gown, brushing a hand down her body with an unconscious intimacy. His sure touch confirmed what Jackie had long suspected: they were lovers.
Once he was satisfied Rose was resting easy, the Doctor took her wrist in a light grip, checking her pulse. His lips tightened, turned down at the corners. Releasing her wrist, his fingers trailed a gentle caress across Rose's palm while his other hand went to her temple, tentatively touching it. He flinched, pulled away from her, and then sank to the edge of the mattress. After a moment, he slid to the floor in a hopeless heap.
“I’m sorry,” he said, still holding onto Rose’s hand like it was his lifeline. “I’m so sorry.”
“What happened?” Jackie whispered. “Is she…sick? Hurt?" When he didn't answer, she became insistent. "Doctor?”
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t want to risk making him angry before he told her it was all going to be fine. His chin had fallen to his chest. Wearily, he lifted his head, turning to look at her. “She was…” He met Jackie’s eye and the short hairs on her arms stirred in apprehension. She could tell by the wariness in him that he didn’t plan to tell her the truth. Was it that horrible, she wondered? Or was he just being condescending?
“Tell me,” she said, trying to sound as mature as she could. “She’s my daughter. I have a right to know.”
He studied her for a long moment before nodding mechanically. Jackie waited, but he didn’t say anything. He seemed to be pleading with her, silently. His face reflected dazed confusion, as if he’d taken a beating recently and hadn’t recovered his senses. His mouth moved and she could tell he was searching for a way to explain something, something he didn’t want to contemplate or wasn’t sure she would understand. What could be so horrible?
“Was it…alien?” she guessed.
He nodded again. Eyes drifting to Rose, his fingers clenched tight around hers. “She was…” he said again. And then, breathed out one word, “…violated.”
For a second, Jackie’s brain stalled. Women she knew had been…violated, caught on the street unaware or trapped in a brutal relationship. She associated that word with bruises and cut lips and shuddering sobs. Rose looked so peaceful and perfect. Befuddled by the contradiction, Jackie took a moment to study the Doctor. His grimy, rumbled suit, the week’s growth of beard and his haunted expression told a more complete story. Violation. Rape. Some alien…thing had…had assaulted her little girl, her sweet Rose. Jackie thought about the butcher knife and glanced down to find it still in her hand.
“Is it dead?” she asked, barely recognizing the gruff rumble of her own voice. “Did you kill it?”
The Doctor looked lost. “I wasn’t there,” he said.
But when he ducked his head, Jackie read the guilt in him, as easily as she might read between the headlines in a tell-all circular at the checkout counter. He’d been there. Or he’d been able to stop it. Somehow he was responsible. Her knuckles tensed, whitening as she gripped the knife handle tighter.
“Why not? You promised me. Promised you’d keep her safe. Bring her home safe. It’s your job.”
The Doctor nodded. “My job,” he agreed, remorsefully.
Jackie wasn’t satisfied with his contrition. She drew herself up to her full height. “You should go,” she said.
“Not ‘til she wakes up.”
“Now. I want you to go, now.” She stabbed her knife point toward the door. “Get out of my house.”
He lifted his chin and met her steely glare with an even harder, colder one. “When she wakes up, I’ll see what she wants…what she needs,” he said.
“Don’t you care about her at all?” Jackie cried, knowing he did care, knowing it was the worst thing she could say, but more than willing to use his guilt against him if it would protect Rose.
He didn’t even wince just sighed heavily and let his eyelids droop, his head loll against the bed edge. She took the lash of her tongue to him, berating him for another twenty minutes. He pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and two fingers and waited for her to finish. When she finally paused for breath, he opened his eyes and dismissed her with all the imperious ease of the manor-born. “Go. See to your dinner,” he said, wafting a negligent hand.
“This is my home,” Jackie snapped. “And she’s my daughter. And I won’t have you…”
“If you upset her, if you keep on like this,” he warned, softly, not even paying her the courtesy of looking at her as he spoke. “I’ll take her somewhere else, somewhere quiet and safe.”
“But…she needs me,” Jackie protested. “She needs her mother.”
“I know,” he said, his gaze fixed on Rose’s untroubled face. He leaned toward her, until his fingers could toy with a strand of her hair. “That’s the only reason we’re here.”
*******************************************************************
He knew he’d upset Jackie. Knew, even sympathized with, her fears. But he was glad when she pushed off and left him with Rose. They needed to be alone together. Somewhere Rose would feel safe. And he could think of no place safer than back home, in her own bed. The familiar surroundings, the comforting turn of her home planet, the steady time stream and her personal history should soothe her, ground her. She would remember herself here, he was certain of it.
He carried her hand to his lips. “You’re home,” he murmured, into the shell of her partially closed palm.
“Home,” she mumbled in her sleep.
The Doctor started to attention. His blood sang and his lungs clenched at the response. He launched himself up onto the bed, landing like a cat in a slight crouch above her. They were nose to nose, his bent arms held his weight off her chest. His hands were braced to either side of her shoulders. His one knee nudged her hip. The other leg extended to the floor, balancing him. Breathing raggedly, he searched her face from some flicker of awakening intellect. He said her name.
Nothing. He waited. She stirred, shifting under him, arching toward him until her breast pressed against his chest. But she settled back, falling quickly into a deeper slumber. Releasing a pent sigh, the Doctor collapsed to the side in defeat. Head pillowed next to hers, he kept his arm across her belly, used it to draw her into him as he allowed one leg to slide between her knees. This was how they should sleep every night, he thought, every night from now on.
If only she would come back to him.
************************************************************
“Will she ever come back?” Jackie asked two days later as she watched the Doctor inject another vial of what he called ‘nutrients’ into her daughter’s unflinching arm.
He emptied the syringe and set it aside without looking at Jackie. Then, he picked up the steaming cup of tea she’d brought him and, settling to the floor, took a sip before saying, “I don’t know.”
He’d been telling her nothing but that for the last 48 hours. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Would the woman never get it through her thick head? He didn’t know. He had no idea what was happening in Rose’s mind. He’d tried to reach her but the Wolf still howled in her skull. All he could do was wait and hope. But time wasn’t on his side: if she didn’t wake up soon, he’d have to take her to hospital. Despite his blood-purifying injections, dehydration and septicemia would set in if she didn’t resume normal renal function by morning.
Fully expecting Jackie to tell him there was no need to be rude, he was caught off guard when she spoke mildly. “I can sit with her for a while, if you want a break to…change or use the bathroom.”
Tipping his head back, he smiled at her but turned the offer down. “I’m all right.”
“No, really, you’re a bit whiffy,” she told him, pinching her nose with one hand as if he reeked. “Smells all alien…like, I don’t know, some kind of metal or an old coal furnance, when you first light one in the wintertime, and something else..." She snapped her fingers, and then pointed at him, "Chinese takeaway.”
His smile became a wide grin. “No one’s ever mentioned that to me before,” he admitted. “I wonder why.”
She gave a careless shrug. “Probably just being polite,” she said, nodding sagely after she took a sip of her tea. Then, she focused on him. “Seriously, don’t you ever change your clothes? It’s always the same with you. First, the leather jacket and jumper, now, the same brown and blue suit whenever you visit.”
“I love this suit,” he said, glancing down with pride as he plucked up the lapel between his finger and thumb. “Why would I change it?”
“People do.”
Holding his teacup aloft, he gracefully flowed to his feet from his seat on the bedroom floor. He’d taken his shoes off again. He kept doing that, like he was foreign or something, Jackie thought. She watched him sashay languidly to the dresser mirror and take a measured look at himself. Grimacing a bit, he tipped his head this way and that and ran a hand along his stubbly jaw. Then, he met her eye in the mirror.
“I’m not people,” he said.
“Oh, and you don’t have to tell me,” she returned, pointedly, a neat backhand off his conversational volley. He couldn't help but smile, just a little. She took on a wheedling tone as she went on, “But you could shower, at least. Or shave. It’s got to be unsanitary in a sick room. Besides,” she nodded at Rose, “she wakes up and sees you looking like two-for-one night at the pub…it’ll scare the life out of her.”
The Doctor drained his tea in a long guzzle and set the cup on the dresser top with a decisive clunk. “Yes, all right,” he said. “Do you still have that dressing gown?”
“Howard’s? Yeah. I’ll say one thing; it lasted longer than he ever did. In the bathroom. Hook on the back of the door. But don’t you have your own…” She got no further, squeaking in sharp protest when he tossed his suit jacket at her. “Hey! Here now! I didn’t mean….”
“No bleach, cold water soak and tumble dry low,” he said, speaking over her as he hurriedly stepped out of his trousers.
He flung them across the end of the bed, followed by his shirt and coordinated undershirt. He retained only his y-front briefs. Jackie barely had a chance to sweep an accessing gaze over him, noting his lithe figure, too light skin, slender fitness and the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest that lined down his belly, before he took off.
“I’m not washing your clothes,” she said and then, realizing he was gone, she stepped to the door and called after him, “I’m not washing your clothes.”
He popped his head into the hall from the bathroom and said, “You’re the one they’re offending,” as if she was being completely unreasonable. Then he flashed a grin that told her in no uncertain terms that he’d seen through her plan to barricade him in the TARDIS when he went to change.
Huffing, Jackie withdrew to gather up his suit and shirts. She considered ruining them with bleach and hot water but decided she couldn’t put it past him to walk around nude if she did. She wondered if Rose would ever forgive her if she accidentally poisoned his tea. Not that it would get rid of him but it might give her a bit of satisfaction. Of course, with her luck, the next Doctor would be even more annoying.
**********************************************************
Hair damp and sticking up in tufts, but shaved and showered, the Doctor reappeared about thirty minutes later. Jackie was just checking the dryer. He padded by her, moist soles sucking at the floor vinyl, and checked in the fridge for something sweet. It was always the sugar with him. He took the last bit of juice, she noticed, without so much as a by-your-leave. She shot him a quelling look, but he ignored her.
"I was saving that for breakfast," she grumbled. Then, focusing on his bare chin, she yelped, “Did you use my razor?”
He shook his head, drank the final swigs from the juice bottle and then said, “No telling where that’s been. Got a new one from the cabinet.”
Insulted and appalled on about six levels, her voice hit a very high note as she asked, “Do you know how much those things cost?”
“Did you want me to use yours?” he cried, his mouth twisting into a sneer. He couldn’t believe the things she could make a fuss over. “They’re disposable. How dear can they be?”
“Two quid a packet,” she snapped. “And the juice isn't free either.”
“Fine,” he huffed, as he put the empty bottle on the counter. “Make a list. Soon as Rose is better we’ll go shopping and…”
A scream tore through the air, “Doctor?”
Rose.
He beat Jackie in the race to the kitchen doorway but not by much. Elbowing one another in their haste, they dashed down the hall and into the bedroom. Rose was sitting up, but staring sightlessly ahead, her face a mask of horror. A golden fire burned in her eyes. Slamming to a halt, the Doctor put an arm up, blocking Jackie from rushing to her daughter’s side. She scrambled to get around him. He was forced to turn his back on Rose to contain her mother.
“Wait. Think,” he said. “Let me go first.”
Jackie’s head was lowered for a bullish charge but the Doctor’s measured tone caught her attention. Slowly lifting her chin, she met his eye and, seeing the warning there, muttered a half-hearted concurrence. He studied her a bit longer as if he didn’t quite believe she’d given up. Then, releasing her, he pressed his palm toward her nose, wordlessly insisting she stay where she was. Reluctantly, she nodded. He backed away, keeping his palm up and holding her gaze intently, as if she were a dog in obedience training. She craned her neck to see around him. Rose hadn’t moved.
The Doctor pivoted when he reached the foot of the bed. Moving with extreme trepidation, he settled next to Rose and called her name, softly, tenderly. “Rose? Can you hear me?”
“Doctor?”
Rose’s head bobbed uncertainly as she turned it toward the sound of his voice. She stared over his shoulder, didn’t focus on him at all. Jackie gave a strangled cry.
“What’s wrong with her eyes?” she demanded. “What have they done to her, Doctor? Is she blind?” As she rushed the end of the bed, Jackie’s high-pitched screeching hit a register that could have stripped the paint from the walls. “Can’t she see? Rose, sweetheart, can you see me?”
“Stop it,” the Doctor snarled, angling his head toward Jackie but keeping his gaze fixed on Rose. Chin elevated, he stared down his nose at her, working things out in his mind. “Stop thinking that, believing it. She’s not. It’s not an option.” Returning his entire attention to Rose, he drew an audible breath as he reached for her. His fingertips grazed her temple and he stiffened. Recoiling, as if he’d been slapped, he managed to maintain a tentative contact with her skin. Air hissed from between his clenched teeth. A shudder wracked him. “Rose,” he groaned. “Close the…” It was no good. He lurched back, panting. Mouth opening and closing, eyes blinking rapidly, he cradled his hand to his chest for a moment and then swallowed hard and said, “…the door. Close the door.”
“Is she cold, do you think?” Jackie asked, moving to obey him. Making certain not to slam it, she carefully shut the bedroom door. “Should I get a blanket? We’ve a spare blanket in the closet. Or a hot water bottle? A nice hot water bottle for her feet? There’s always been a bit of a draft down that hall. I’ve spoken to the management. But all they do is bring up the doors we’ve already had replaced. Thanks to you, I might add.” The Doctor twisted around to glower at her. His scowl said it all: he thought she’d gone mad. “I’m just saying other people don’t have Christmas trees cutting through their…”
Rose snickered. And the Doctor lost all interest in Jackie’s ramblings. His head whipped until he was eye-to-eye with Rose. He bounced on the bed, going up on his knees and seizing her by the shoulders. She looked back at him, fully aware. She beamed at him. Her dark eyes danced with good humor, sharing the joke of her mother’s confusion. Not daring to believe, to hope, the Doctor searched her face. She looked just as questioningly at him but he studied her with a mixture of awe and fear in his eyes.
“What?” she finally asked.
Joy swelled the Doctor’s chest, almost cutting off his air. He had no thoughts in his head at all, only her name repeating and repeating as a singing chant. Transferring his grip from her shoulders to her face, he pulled Rose to him for a long, desperate kiss. He poured his love into her, over her, like healing water. He willed her to stay with him, be whole again.
She didn’t respond. Not in the slightest. Her hands remained folded in her lap. Her body shifted with him but not in sensual harmony. She moved only because he manipulated her. He tipped her head with his hands, her lips opened because his opened. She was malleable but not interested. Indifferent. Her mind reflected the room, giving him nothing of her thoughts. The Doctor opened his eyes and slowly settled back.
“I’m sorry,” Rose began, “I don’t…”
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re awake,” Jackie cried, surging forward, coming between them. “Are you all right? You’ve had us so worried. Dead to the world you’ve been for nearly three days. And this one’s been no help at all.”
Jackie’s hip shoved the Doctor aside as she drew Rose into a hug, kissing her forehead and then her cheek. Rose’s hands came up to slide around her mother’s waist. When she laid her head on Jackie’s shoulder, the Doctor felt an irrational stab of jealousy, followed closely by an avalanche of guilt and self-recrimination. Why should she respond to him like that? This entire mess had been his fault. He’d burdened her with an unwanted child, and then put her through the loss of it. He’d failed to protect her. His people had assaulted her. Feeling miserable and superfluous, he got up and, hunched against the hurt, shuffled to the door, looking back only once before leaving mother and daughter to their bonding. Rose didn’t even notice him go.
******************************************************
For the next few days, Rose rested and he tinkered. It was what he always did when landlocked, planetlocked. But this time, it wasn’t busy work. The TARDIS had responded sluggishly on their way to Earth, as if her heart weren’t in the trip. The Doctor could relate and maybe she was only picking up on his anxious mood. But he couldn’t afford not to run the necessary diagnostics. He’d learned to follow up on any suspected maintenance issues. With Gallifrey gone, there was no putting her into a shop for a complete overhaul if some minor problem snowballed. The TARDIS kept running or he stopped. They had only each other to rely on.
So, he pocketed a few tools, took off his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves and went to work. He yanked a section of floor grating to one side and followed a spiral staircase down to the primary engine room. After some investigation, he pulled the central stabilizer from the rotor drive and began stripping it of gunk. One of the pinions had a tiny nick. The Doctor examined the flaw, rubbing a greasy thumb over it. It wasn’t enough to cause the listlessness he’d sensed but the pinion would have to be replaced. He thought about what he might use to repair it. And how he might dissipate some of the stress his ship was under.
Talk to Rose.
He choked a little and, craning his neck, shot a suspicious look at the underside of the console far above his head. The TARDIS was generally empathic not telepathic. It wasn’t like her to put flat-out suggestions in his head. ‘I have, I will,’ he thought back at her. Then, stroking a hand along the nearest organic support, he added, ‘don’t worry.’ She soaked up the streak of oil his caress left behind and purred contentedly, a steady thrum all around him. It burrowed into his marrow. He couldn’t help smiling a little. The TARDIS was as alien to him as he was to Jackie, but he loved her and believed she loved him in her way. All he had was the belief, of course. Her responses were erratic, far more than any other ship of her kind. And she never expressed more than vague affection via their mental link. But from the day they’d bonded, he’d always felt an attraction between them. Platonic, of course, because what else could it be?
He moved on to the hydraulic fission system, topping off lubricant levels before turning his attention to the command grid. The oft-patched and bizarrely cross-wired circuitry acted as liaison between the console above and the organic mind of the TARDIS. Technically, according to collective Time Lord Wisdom, the TARDIS didn’t have a mind. She wasn’t sentient in the accepted sense of the word. The grid did her thinking for her, translating his commands into action and her basic needs into requests. If she was having a bad feeling about something, it was nothing more than a glitch in the grid, a loose wire. However, the Doctor had known her a long time and he wasn’t completely sure it was that simple. Still, no harm looking.
He was on his back, checking for loose connections, when he heard a light step on the stairs. Tilting his head, he saw Rose’s feet come into view, followed in time by the rest of her. She bounced rhythmically to the bottom of the stair. Pausing at floor level to hang onto the hand railing, she swung to and fro as she solemnly considered him. Her hair was in braided pigtails, like a little girl, and she wore a fluffy-soft, powder-pink pullover and gray sweats. Without any greeting for him, she sat down on the third step, knees together; elbows braced one on each thigh. The Doctor went on working. He was comfortable with her watching. She often did. Sparks arced as he used the screwdriver to fuse a wire into place. He tentatively flipped a switch and crowed in delight when a series of lights started blinking in response.
“Got it sorted?” Rose asked.
He curled partway off the floor to see her better and, smiling, said, “Just about. Are you ready to be off?” She shrugged, avoiding eye contact. Relaxing back down, he pushed a finger into a dead socket, clearing it of debris, and then murmured. “We were just talking about you.”
“I thought my ears were burning.”
“We…that is, I…thought…you might want to…” he took a deep breath and shot out his question all at once. “With everything that’s happened, do you want to stay?” He had to ask. It had to get out in the open.
There was a long pause before Rose said, “Yeah,” very softly.
He should have seen it coming. But he truly hadn’t and he couldn’t help glaring at her in hurt surprise. She didn’t notice his grimace. She was looking at the floor in front of her, trying to toe a hole in it with her shoe. “Oh,” he puffed, blinking rapidly, “Right…well, then we’ll just…uh…that is…I’ll…be…uh…” On his way, he’d be on his way. Alone. Without Rose. No Rose.
His throat closed on a lump. Swallowing against it, he felt a signature burn in his chest. Oh, Rassilon preserve him he was going to cry. To forestall the reaction, he transferred his screwdriver to his mouth. Closing his teeth around it and biting down hard on the handle, he took an extreme interest in the wiring above him. Not that there was anything wrong with the wiring. Or with crying. He always let go during Lassie, Come Home, for example. But in this context it would definitely qualify as undue influence. Rose had to think he was perfectly happy with her decision. ‘Be British,’ he thought.
“If it’s okay with you,” she was saying, as he fought for composure. “I just want to feel more…”
“Mmmhph,” he said, around the screwdriver handle, hoping the mumble conveyed a sense of a support.
Apparently, it hadn’t. “Come on, it’s not that bad,” Rose said. “You can put up with my Mum for a few more days.”
“Daves?” he remarked, before remembering to remove the screwdriver. “Days? I…oh, no, no…” his throat was exposed, his eyes very wide and staring, “I mean…yes, a few more or less, of course, is…fine.” He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Or the screwdriver. He finally shoved all into his trouser pockets. “Topping. Yes, why not? Bit of a holiday. Could use a break in the routine, a few days, a week…even. Perfectly natural to want your mother…time like this.”
“You don’t mind?”
Withdrawing a hand from his pocket, he waved off her worry. “Oh, Jackie and I are getting along splendidly,” he lied, cutting his eyes to the side as he did, and nodding several times, somewhat less than convincingly. “Once I got used to her scree…uh, voice…and the accounting for…food…and…soap…and,” he finished all in one breath, “every drop of hot water.”
“Well, it’s not easy, yeah? Being on your own, raising a child?” Rose said. “You have to keep track of things.” And there it was…the elephant in the TARDIS. They both ignored the mammoth thing for a few minutes. The Doctor plugged in a few loose wires. Rose twirled a strand of her hair. And then, said, “Someone’s taking care of her, right? Susan? She isn’t…she wasn’t…alone?”
The Doctor stared at her for a moment before saying, “I don’t know.” After carefully gathering up the rest of his tools, he rolled out from under the rotor housing, and stood. “Honestly, I don’t. My memory is full of holes. Has been ever since the war. But I…I never knew much about Susan. Only how she came to me…the TARDIS malfunctioned. She came back in time and, somehow, knew me. She called me, ‘grandfather.’ I looked for information about her, of course. There were records, the names of her parents, but no specifics.”
“She came in the TARDIS?”
“Yes, didn’t I tell you? I’d been a Senator and a teacher but not a Time Lord. I’d never been able to bond with a ship, hear one in my head, and that’s absolutely vital for regeneration.” He waved a hand at the machinery around them. “It’s not all wires and tubing. There’s a deeper, metaphysical bond. She, sort of, reminds me who I am. But I’d given up on having it. Until Susan brought the TARDIS to me.” He stroked a rounded column near his face, running his palm along the curving length.
“She’d been marked for disposal," he went on. "Turned back in twice over for repair and reconditioning, considered defective. Susan didn’t believe it. On the day she left, she told me there was nothing mechanically wrong with the TARDIS.” Lost in memory, he smiled into the middle distance. “She was very like you. Susan, I mean. Always fighting for the underdog. She was running a test of the TARDIS temporal guidance system when it blew a circuit and she ended up, literally, in my backyard.” He glanced at Rose and saw she wasn’t listening. “Rose?”
“How am I’m supposed to go on…forget her?”
“You’re not. Of course, you’re not supposed to forget. But we can’t go back there, Rose. You understand that, don’t you? If I try to see Susan, now, her history will change. She’ll die, like all the rest.” Rose gave a broken little nod. “We have to let her life unfold as it did.”
“Was she…adopted?”
“Generally, our children are raised collectively. But she was a happy child. Bright. Mechanically inclined. Very well adjusted when she came to me. She had a way with the TARDIS that bordered on miracle working.”
Rose drew a shuddering breath, lifting her chin as she said, “Took after you, then. I have trouble fixing the electric can opener.”
“She had your eyes,” the Doctor said, thinking, ‘…and nose and mouth’ and wondering how he’d never seen it. There was another very long lag in the conversation before he went on, “But you met her, didn’t you? On your library travels? I seem to remember prodding you with my stick.”
“You did, you grumpy old…codger.” Rose’s insincere chuckle died away. At last, she turned to look at him. “What else do you remember?” She asked with an ominous overtone.
‘Right,’ the Doctor thought, ‘Here we go, then.’
“Nothing,” he admitted. “My Eighth incarnation brought you back to me. I was in exile for most of that life, no memory. And then, there was the war. I don’t think Susan was on the front lines. She might have worked with the ships. I don’t remember her at all from the fight.”
“And you don’t remember me? From back then?”
The Doctor had been cleaning his hands, but he stopped to frown over this. “From the war?” He asked as, for the first time, it dawned on him that she might have been elsewhere in time. Taking a step toward her, he asked, “Were you there for the war, Rose?”
“No,” she shook her head, seeing he’d misunderstood and therefore probably didn’t remember anything. “I meant…on Gallifrey. I was there with…him…you…the other Doctor. Do you know what happened…what I did?”
“I know, yes,” he said, walking toward her. “I just don’t remember it.”
Rose shifted on the step, nervously peering up at him as he closed the distance between them. She asked the question that was haunting her. “Did they die? Are they dead?” Her expression pleaded with him to deny it.
So he did. “No, they didn’t die, Rose. I don’t think you could kill anyone.”
”But you can’t be sure? Can you?” she cried, standing up and whipping around to go. The Doctor leaped forward from a standstill, grabbing her elbow.
Already mounting the stairs, she stiffened at his touch, almost shrinking away from it. He let go immediately. “I’m sorry. I won’t…” he broke off, pained because he had to tell her, “You don’t have to worry that I’ll… I won’t go into your mind. Not if you don’t want me there. I would never….” She bobbed her head once, accepting his promise, but he could see her trembling. There was no trust in her body language. She looked ready to bolt. “Rose…?”
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, spinning around to confront him. “How could I do those thing? Hurt those people with my...mind, my thoughts? Is it because we…because of…us?”
His mouth fell open as he dropped one step down. “Oh, no. No, Rose.” He shook his head emphatically. “It has nothing to do with…us, our bond. It’s the Vortex, the Time Vortex. It’s still in your head.”
“The Vortex? From the TARDIS?”
He swallowed, lowering his eyes after registering the confusion in her face. “But you don’t know. You don’t remember. And I…well…I…”
He looked away, staring at the rotor base in the middle of the room. His hand worked the clenched muscles at the base of his skull as he tipped his head to the side. Knowing there was no way to avoid having this conversation, he still shrank from it. Squeezing his eyes closed, he searched for the words to explain what he should have explained long ago.
“It’s inside you," he said, at last. "It’s been inside you for a very long time. But it’s not you.” He turned to meet her gaze squarely, repeating, “It’s not you, Rose, remember that.”
“But...how’d it get in my head?”
“You asked for it. Do you remember? You were trying to get back to Satellite Five, to rescue me. You looked into the heart of the TARDIS...and there was singing...and a light.”
She nodded absently, remembering some details from her brief exile to Earth. “I wanted to communicate with her, convince her to take me back to you before the Daleks could…” She suddenly went very still. Her eyes glazed over as all of her attention turned inward.
“Only it’s not a heart,” he snorted derisively, angry at himself. “I was being poetic. It’s temporal energy, surging back and forth...a limitless, merciless power. And you opened your mind and your soul to it.”
“The Daleks,” Rose breathed the light of memory transforming her face. “I see every atom of your existence,” she intoned, “and I divide them.” Her gaze snapped back to pin the Doctor in place. “I killed them. All of them. Millions of Daleks…” She sounded like she could hardly comprehend it. “I turned them into piles of dust. Everywhere. All at once. Even the Emperor.”
“Even the Emperor,” he confirmed. “The false god. You poured all of time and space into his tiny little head.”
The burgeoning horror on her face intensified. “But I did it to people, too. Your people,” she said, hitting a slightly hysterical note. “And you. What about you, Doctor? You regenerated. Did I…? Was it me? Did I kill you on Satellite 5?”
He shifted, standing as close to her as he dared, as close as he could come without touching her. His hands skimmed along her bare arms and brushed over her hair without making true contact. “No, you didn’t. You would never…” He saw her fading. He was losing her to guilt and fear. She couldn’t hear him. “Rose, look at me,” he ordered and she did. “I killed myself.” Holding her eye, he placed a hand on his chest. “It was totally my own fault. As I told you, I tried to absorb the entire Vortex and nobody was meant to do that.”
Rose gasped as if surfacing from a long dive. She held his gaze for a moment and then asked, “Why?”
“It was hurting you, destroying you. I couldn’t let that happen…" Her pained expression told him he'd misunderstood her question. She wanted to know more about the Vortex but he went on with his explanation because there were things she needed to know, "...anymore than you could leave me there to die. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She nodded. “So, I took the Vortex into my own body. I tried to pull it out by the root. Out of you and into me.” He exhaled, shifting away from her slightly but keeping eye contact. “Only I missed a bit. There’s a door, a way into your mind.”
“It’s open,” Rose said. “Right, now…it’s not locked.”
“I know,” he said.
“Can you make it go away?”
He shook his head, a quick denial so she wouldn’t hold onto the hope. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Even if I let it take this life, I don’t think I could make it leave you. It’s a part of you now. You can close the door, just like you opened it. I can help you seal it, again, but you would need to let me into your mind.” Before she could protest beyond a pre-verbal squeak, he quickly reassured her. “And you can’t. I know. It’s too soon for that. The good news is: I don’t think you are going to hurt anyone. It’s not burning in you. It’s just…vigilant.”
“So…what do we do?”
“We wait. For you to heal, get stronger. For the fire to bank in your mind. For the power to grow complacent.”
“You’re talking like it knows things. Like it’s alive.”
“It knows everything. And it’s more than alive…it’s life. And death. And all the little moments in between. But it’s not a being. It has no agenda beyond the one you give it.”
“I’m in control?”
“Yes, you’re in control. Of everything.” He forced himself to go on, speaking in a rush to avoid coloring his words with too much emotion. “Of this, too, of us…what we have, where we go, what we do. We can go back to how it was before, if you like…be friends, travel…take care of one another.” Bobbing his chin at her, he sucked in air and almost groaned as said, “We don’t have to…”
“Touch?” Rose finished, sorrow clogging her throat.
“Not ever…if you don’t want to.”
“What if I do?” she asked, voice breaking on a sob that became a gasp, “No,” she wrenched her head aside, backpedaling when he instinctively put out a comforting hand. His fingertips grazed her cheek. The back of his hand registered a ghostly touch, a few of her stray hairs caressing him as he let his arm swing down to his side. “No, not, now, not yet,” she panted, fear making her throat clench around the warning. “I just…what if…someday…I do want to?”
“I’m right here,” he said, with all the tenderness he could summon. “Honestly, I’m right here.”
“No matter how long it takes?” she asked, wanting--needing a promise.
He gave one without any hesitation, letting it shine through his eyes. “No matter how long it takes.”
END THIS PART
PART TWELVE
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 02:40 am (UTC)Hello, Char...
Date: 2006-10-27 03:02 am (UTC)Rae
thanking you for the comment
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 03:23 am (UTC)That's an interesting question
Date: 2006-10-27 03:34 am (UTC)Thanks for the...was that feedback? I suppose it was...a thanks for updating...so you are welcome. It was my pleasure. ;->
Rae
Re: That's an interesting question
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 04:14 am (UTC)XD
Got to love Jackie
Date: 2006-10-27 05:18 am (UTC)Thanks for the comments...when you take over the world...I hope you get lots of yarn.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 04:39 am (UTC)Rose was essentially raped mentally. Those inquisitors violated her mind and now she's suffering the same after effects a physically raped victim would. So, she's bound to fear mental or physical contact for a while. She'll need to take things slow I gather. Rebuild trust and comfort around the Doctor, which I'm sure she will. He's a patient person. (Remember how he fully intended to live out the time and meet up with Rose again in GitF?)
The Susan storyline was bittersweet. Rose never really got watch her daughter grow up, but at least the Doctor got to know her for a bit. Hmmm... I'm curious whether Susan knew this whole time that the Doctor was her dad? If so, this could mean that she can reasonably meet her mom and Ten. Hang out with them first and then when the time is appropriate, go live with One.
I wonder how Jackie feels now that she knows for sure that the Doctor and Rose were intimate. Will this make her happy that her daughter met someone? Or, will it make her sad because she knows that their relationship won't last forever and ever and ever (we know at least the Doctor will be alone in the end) due to the Doctor's future lives?
*sigh... I can't wait until the next chapter. I want to see the Doctor and Rose rebuild their relationship. Are we going to get more Doctor/Rose smut from you? I hope so because that would suggest a happy ending, right?
Thanks for the lovely feedback
Date: 2006-10-27 05:15 am (UTC)I want to see the Doctor and Rose rebuild their relationship. Are we going to get more Doctor/Rose smut from you? I hope so because that would suggest a happy ending, right?
Yes, we are going to get more smut. They are, of course, going to rebuild. And while we still have to get through Doomsday...I think, now, you might have the suggestion of a happy ending on the distant horizon. And you know...maybe Susan WILL meet up with Rose again...we must wait and see.
Thanks again for the comments...I truly appreciate them.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 04:46 am (UTC)Sorry you had a hard day
Date: 2006-10-27 05:16 am (UTC)Rae
Re: Sorry you had a hard day
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 05:51 am (UTC)Plus so many things to love, The TARDIS being her own living, thinking entitiy. I love that idea. I mean obviously she is alive, she should get an opinion more methinks.
Upset doctor. (Plus the delicious mental image of DT in only his y-fronts. Damn) I'd be happy to make him feel better. You don't need Rose! I'm here!
Oh, and Jackie, always love a bit of Jackie.
And such a nice ending. Bring on the warm and fuzzies! (Which I need after two days of Torchwood fic. which I love, but no warm and fuzzy...)
Since I've gotten to the point where I lack anything else to say. So i'm gonna leave before I start squeeing again...
Down, girl...Down, I say!
Date: 2006-10-28 11:01 am (UTC):->
The warm fuzzies are officially on the way. I see you picked up on that. Most people are all...sniffling and heartbroken. But I'm going for as much warm fuzzy as I can wedge in between here and Doomsday...so we should have bubbling Doctor and smiling Rose...and some alien smut very soon. All for the happy...if you ask me.
And a bit of Jackie is quite nice, isn't it? Rabid sticks her tongue out at Ten for making that squeamish face.
Thanks for always coming up with things to say.
Rae
Re: Down, girl...Down, I say!
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 05:53 am (UTC)gaaah. *goes to bed to hug her pillow*
Awww....AWWWW! Hugs your pillow, too.
Date: 2006-10-28 11:03 am (UTC)Rae
giving away the storyline a bit there. ;->
Re: Awww....AWWWW! Hugs your pillow, too.
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 07:30 am (UTC)You do wonderful things with the Doctor's hands (I know how that sounds, fangirls, but I'm serious). I absolutely loved the contrast between Eight and Ten's fingernails noticed by Rose in the last part. But the highlight of this wonderful chapter for me is when he's alone in the Tardis basement and Rose joins him. How for a minute, with the pigtails, she looks like a little kid, and sometimes she would to him, and a part of him would hate himself for what he's done to her. And the thought of him clenching on the screwdriver so he doesn't cry, that's brilliant, as is that whole conversation with its echoes of the final moments of TCI, trying to sound cool about something that is terribly important to them both.
Jackie's mixed emotions about him are brilliant, too, all the little nuances of class and fear and suspicion there (on both sides to some extent). And that washing scene - I could hear my fifteen year old son in that protest "You're the one who's complaining"). Only one reservation, I can't imagine any working class British family referring to "root beer" and "soda" in the fridge. It'd just be beer, I think, and we'd probably brandname the fizzy soft drinks, although Jackie would buy unbranded cola, cos it's cheaper.
oh...thanks for the tip...re: soda
Date: 2006-10-27 12:07 pm (UTC)Truthfully, I generally let Ten do what he wants to do in a scene in my head and then I try to describe it...so when he padded over to the fridge in his borrowed robe and took out something with lots of empty calories to drink...I was all...oh, root beer. ;->
Glad you got the class vibes going both ways...the Doctor is a bit snobbish about Jackie...but it could be just that she is so "non-Doctorish"...that he's generally appalled by her.
I think a lot about the Doctor's being half-human - whatever the view on it, he's always been an outsider, in deep inner conflict against his people's detatchment and civilized coldness. Sounds very Earthbound and incongruous, but I kind of see him as the child who scraped into a very smart grammar school by the skin of his teeth, bumped along at the bottom of the class, and was really only happy when he transferred to the local comprehensive (public school to Americans?). So he doesn't quite fit in anywhere, and that explains the intensity of his attachment to the Tardis, and also to his companions. He has to create his own little world in there, and that's fine until it gets invaded.
You know...this is my exact view of the Doctor, too. But I reject the half-human idea...because it gives him a ready excuse. You can even hear that in the Master's voice when he "discovers" it. "Oh, THAT explains why he's so peculiar...why he loves these useless humans!" With so many people of mixed race or nationality today I don't think individuality can or should be so readily linked to simple genetics. My feeling is the Doctor is just like Rose...she didn't fit in either. Everyone feels they don't fit in some time. Some people don't fit in anywhere...and they have to create a niche for themselves. I think the Doctor created a niche for himself because all that he was (in my fic...part of a human experiment, bright but unable to completely bond with anyone...attracted to the wrong sort of girl...wanting to "fix or Doctor" the universe)...added up to what he is.
Rae
thanking you for your lovely comment and also wondering...what do you call an "unbranded cola" over there? Or...is Jackie likely to have juice in the fridge?
Re: oh...thanks for the tip...re: soda
From:Now...it is juice
From:Re: Now...it is juice
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 07:41 am (UTC)A gorgeous, angsty, funny, bittersweet, h/c'ing chapter.
Poor Ten! He gets Jackie telling him he whiffs, Rose not allowing him to touch her...
*pets Ten*
As always, can't wait to see where this goes ;-D
Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU!
Date: 2006-10-28 11:07 am (UTC)Anyway...gorgeous and bittersweet...I understand. And, yes, poor Ten. He's having a hard time of it, giving himself a hard time, too,...for letting Rose down in a former life...poor widdle bear. I'm sure he will make it up to her. And now...she's in charge...so she'll call the romantic shots for a time.
Thanks for continuing on the ride.
Rae
knowing how distracting TORCHWOOD can be ;->
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 08:08 am (UTC)You are everywhere, Kinky
Date: 2006-10-28 11:09 am (UTC)WOW!
Somehow, I thought you'd been commenting all along. Anyway...sorry to hear you were saddened by this chapter...I will try to be more upbeat next time out...thanks for the string of lovely comments...warmed my heart.
Rae
Re: You are everywhere, Kinky
From:I do appreciate it
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 12:05 pm (UTC)I sure hope that during this little holiday Rose has time to reflect on everything, as well as the Doctor, and that a decision can be made on just where they want to go. Although I don't think backwards is a choice for them - all or nothing keeps running through my mind.
Hope to see more of Susan, Rose should at least meet her once more. It isn't fair that motherhood was just ripped from her. Oh and Doomsday, that word alone makes me a bit anxious...I can't wait to see how that goes down!
Yes...exactly...I'm glad to hear it...
Date: 2006-10-27 12:51 pm (UTC)I like the idea of him slowing his pace to hers for a time...and I think we see that in the Impossible Planet. Or we touch on the idea anyway...of him slowing down, living a more ordinary life. It's poignant to me.
And yes, I do agree...I would like Rose to experience motherhood...she's such a mothering person...and RTD denied it to her in Doomsday (for good reason, I think, because he couldn't make it the Doctor's baby and he didn't want the suggestion raised that she would go back to Mickey). We will see what happens. It's all laid out now...so no chance of changing my mind...but I can see your point-of-view.
Thanks so much for the comments. I appreciate you taking the time to communicate your feelings and insights to me.
Rae
As usual, I loved it.
Jackie's voice -- you aced it.
He’d taken his shoes off again. He kept doing that, like he was foreign or something, Jackie thought.
Great little point of affect; it just caught me up as sort of right.
And the bit about how the Doctor hadn't been able to find a ship until Susan introduced in to the irregular TARDIS -- implying that he needed some(thing/one) to bond with that was as eccentric as himself -- beautiful.
Re: As usual, I loved it.
Yes...he definitely needed a misfit TARDIS
From:Wait...that didn't come out right...
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 03:57 pm (UTC)Will report back when home and txt has been consumed, ingested, and digested.
H
x
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 06:40 pm (UTC)As for Root Beer - there's always a can or two of Root Beer in my fridge and I am in the UK (but I love the stuff, even if it is devilishly difficult to find), and I live on a council estate in South London - but I am not normal. Would Jackie go for unbranded? Quite possibly - but have you tasted Tesco Own Brand Cola? Bleaugh! Even Jackie wouldn't .. Would she?
Anyway, loved it - of course. Poor 10. Poor Rose, one step forward 3 steps back....
See? You can never tell with the British ;->
From:Re: See? You can never tell with the British ;->
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 05:18 pm (UTC)Puzzled by your icon...
Date: 2006-10-28 11:15 am (UTC)I feel like a rebel already. :hee:
Anyway...to the commentary...thank you for stopping by to say hello...also...thanks for sharing your pang over the Ten angst. Yes, he was very worried...poor lamb...and he still is. But he is trusting Rose to handle this situation...course he has no choice...but I think the Doctor does have trust issues up to a point...trusting other people not to cock things up in the "righting the universe" department.
And Jackie...Jackie...Jackie! You are not wrong...I love writing her. That first part...in her head...it flowed out in one sitting...fundamentally unchanged in the end. She's been aching to speak up for the last few chapters...she popped into my head after the Doctor's orgasm...wanting to give him a piece of her mind in a dream sequence...but I made her hold off until this chapter. And she did herself proud I think. ;->
Yes...now...onto the rebuilding. And hopefully, some more fun, sexy chapters.
Rae
Re: Puzzled by your icon...
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 08:05 pm (UTC)Awww...hands you a tissue and some tea
Date: 2006-10-27 09:12 pm (UTC)Luckily, she and the Doctor have a very loving, supportive relationship and I think Rose will draw on that to heal. Plus, he has placed their future in Rose's hands...so, she has a sense of control.
Rae
working on putting everyone's pieces and parts back together now. ;-> Don't I have your beating heart around here...somewhere?
Re: Awww...hands you a tissue and some tea
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 10:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-28 11:26 am (UTC)Hopefully...you will be fixed by forthcoming chapters.
Rae
Long-time reader, first-time commenter...
Date: 2006-10-28 03:42 am (UTC)stalkingreading your fic for quite a while now (Suicide Blonde was top notch, btw), and I just felt the need to gush. Honestly, this is probably one of the top three best new!DW fic I've read to date, and probably the top M+ rated multi-part fic period. Seriously. And that's coming from an ex-beta for many a fic writer in other fandoms, so I must also tip my hat to your "beta babes", for a fic is only as good as your betas let it be, IMO. :)Simply can't wait for the next part - I love the combination of bittersweet and suspense in this chapter. Jackie/Ten moments were divine, and the ending, while making my heart beat slightly out of rhythm, also put a smile on my face. Sad, patient, and hopeful. Well done! *quietly goes back to lurking*
Thrusts the welcoming fruit basket at you
Date: 2006-10-28 11:24 am (UTC)And yes, my beta babes are the best. I sort of pour out my creative juices all over the page...and send it off with all the pride of a seven-year-old with her first fingerpainting of a giraffe. Then, they pat me on the head and point out that giraffe's usually have long necks and aren't purple. Then, I pout and say...MY giraffe is purple...because...he eats a lot of eggplants...so THERE!
;-b
Glad you liked the suspense and bittersweet in this chapter. I wanted to have you long for them to touch at the end...so you can look at that kiss of his helmet in Impossible Planet and feel a totally different vibe...like...this is her breaking out of the pain and trying to touch him. I love the tenative way they behave with each other in Impossible Planet...like they are about to change everything...and I honestly think that in canon...they DID change everything just there. So...I must give the next few chapters my careful fingerpainting attention. ;->
Thanks for breaking the long silence...you made my weekend as this chapter wasn't as well received as I might have hoped.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-28 11:25 am (UTC)Despite what other people seem to have said about this installment, I actually found it quite positive. I like the way you're handling Rose's reaction to what has happened... it's gentle, but you're maintaining all the believable elements... And the Doctor, well, we're seeing another side to him now, and that's good. I have so often felt that he's never been really allowed much 'character development' because the episodes are always propelled by what danger and action there is going on, so it's nice to see him with a little more colour. I particularly liked his interactions with Jackie and then the final lines... which assure me (in a vaguely nervous kind of way) that there are happy days to come. I'm also fairly convinced now that we haven't seen the last of the 'glowing door'... and definitely intrigued by how you're going to deal with the events in the rest of canon.
I think I mentioned last time as well about how much I looked forward to each installment and yet now I find that you've set your chapter limit and I'm suddenly starting to count down the time until there will be no more updates... Sad, hm? ;) And of course, that wasn't helped by the fact that you said you would be finished by Christmas, and well, I've already started my Christmas shopping! I am cheered though by the thought of a resolution, and of course, more smut, which is always a good thing! :) And so now I'll finish because I'm rambling and just say that anticipation is a wonderful thing, but so is the sight of an update! ;)
Jo.
Ah...an non-heartbroken person...
Date: 2006-10-28 09:55 pm (UTC)But I sort of put it in my canon at that moment when she decided to die with him in The Satan Pit...she believes there is always hope but even if he's already dead she can't leave him on his own. That is complete commitment. But people were all..."Oh, she's pressuring him in the mortgage conversation"...totally missing that he has not one question of commitment to her in that two parter. He is "getting a house and settling down"...all on his own...he is all..."Oh, I'll get back. Rose is up there" and..."if they get back in touch...if you talk to Rose...tell her...oh, she knows." <<--Yes...I'm sure what she knows is she's your close personal friend and you hope she has a happy life :Rabid crosses eyes and sticks out tongue: JEEZ!
I agree we are seeing another side to the Doctor, now. I, also, agree he needed a bit more character development in S2. I think the problem was two fold...BBC restrictions on the character staying the same for the franchise...and RTD being old school and believing he was being INCREDIBLY obvious about Rose/Doctor romance (which is a huge character step) when he was, in fact, being quite subtle. I mean...it was totally obvious to me...but not to 1) everyone who thought their old school companion got sexed up all the time and so what's the big deal and 2) the noromos -- the he's an alien so no sex or love for him crowd. 3) the people who thought Rose was beneath him or disliked DT as the Doctor.
Anyway...see...you set off a rant with your very lovely commentary. Sorry about that.
I am glad you are cheered by the thought of resolution and smut and happiness. We do, of course, have some angst on the horizon as well. And...here's a thought...I have two MORE Rose/Doctor stories on my back burner. So that should cheer you up. Probably not as epic as this one though. One is my attempt at a Doctor Who novel...wish they still took submissions. And the second one is my obligatory post Doomsday fic...it is semi-epic but since our players are separated during much of it...not as smutty and exciting.
Thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback. As always...I'm warm and glowy inside now.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-28 07:19 pm (UTC)Wonderfully done, as always. I love this story so much.
Awww...heartbreak again...
Date: 2006-10-28 08:45 pm (UTC)Rae
teasing the heartbroken...so bad of me.
Re: Awww...heartbreak again...
From:You have my permission to printout
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-28 09:27 pm (UTC)The interaction between Jackie and the Doctor was fun to read. They both compete for Rose's attention and affection and resent each other for the competition.
The discussion between Rose and the Doctor was a good thing. A bit of it rather overdue, but better late than never. But then, he didn't know about the door until he became intimate with Rose, I'd imagine.
BTW, have you seen Torchwood? I won't spoil it for you if you haven't, but if you have, I have an additional comment to make.
You need to start speaking to me secretly
Date: 2006-10-28 09:36 pm (UTC)Yes...I have seen the first two episodes of Torchwood and I am very please with them...very pleased indeed. If that helps you at all...and knowing you...it WILL.
Rae
who is at Rabid1st@yahoo.com...email me your additional comment and I will respond as to why you are so clever...let the rest of the readers wonder. As it is a small thing...and they might go on wondering even with your cleverness showing. Also...I'm terribly fond of your commentary...yes...terribly fond.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-29 12:17 pm (UTC)Can't wait to see what happens!
It's okay to hug the Doctor
Date: 2006-10-29 04:16 pm (UTC)I'm glad you had the hugging reaction actually...as I was worried people wouldn't relate to his pain in all this. However, it seems people have related...and that's good because I honestly think the Doctor is suffering a lot here...Rose was assualted and fought back...but the Doctor took on all that guilt and worry about her...and mixed it in with the thought that he has lost her trust.
So...honestly...I think they both need to heal from this horrible encounter with his people.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-29 02:29 pm (UTC)"She would remember herself here, he was certain of it.
He carried her hand to his lips. “You’re home,” he murmured, into the shell of her partially closed palm.
“Home,” she mumbled in her sleep.
The Doctor started to attention. His blood sang and his lungs clenched at the response. He launched himself up onto the bed, landing like a cat in a slight crouch above her. They were nose to nose, his bent arms held his weight off her chest. His hands were braced to either side of her shoulders. His one knee nudged her hip. The other leg extended to the floor, balancing him. Breathing raggedly, he searched her face from some flicker of awakening intellect. He said her name.
Nothing. He waited. She stirred, shifting under him, arching toward him until her breast pressed against his chest. But she settled back, falling quickly into a deeper slumber. Releasing a pent sigh, the Doctor collapsed to the side in defeat. Head pillowed next to hers, he kept his arm across her belly, used it to draw her into him as he allowed one leg to slide between her knees. This was how they should sleep every night, he thought, every night from now on.
If only she would come back to him."
"Joy swelled the Doctor’s chest, almost cutting off his air. He had no thoughts in his head at all, only her name repeating and repeating as a singing chant. Transferring his grip from her shoulders to her face, he pulled Rose to him for a long, desperate kiss. He poured his love into her, over her, like healing water. He willed her to stay with him, be whole again.
She didn’t respond. Not in the slightest. Her hands remained folded in her lap. Her body shifted with him but not in sensual harmony. She moved only because he manipulated her. He tipped her head with his hands, her lips opened because his opened. She was malleable but not interested. Indifferent. Her mind reflected the room, giving him nothing of her thoughts. The Doctor opened his eyes and slowly settled back.
“I’m sorry,” Rose began, “I don’t…”"
I did a double take, as initially I thought my concentration had lapsed and I was reliving memories from my life! But then I realised that I was the one that was sick, so this would be the perspective of my close friend. It's amazing that this is written, especially the latter, even down to the first words out of my mouth.
Well...at the risk of bonding...
Date: 2006-10-29 04:12 pm (UTC)However, I didn't pull that passage from those experiences...at least to the knowledge of my conscious mind. I was simply projecting my imagination into Rose's place...her having just been through a harrowing experience. The idea of being in her home in her own bed recalling her to herself...is a bit of psychology mixed with Rabid-Canon view of Time Lord philosophy.
You remember when Eight talked about time travel he said a person could move within their own ball of time...but he also mentioned the time ball of THINGS (buildings, the TARDIS). In her own home, in her own bed...Rose's time traveling mind would keep meeting herself...and remembering herself. <<--Hey, maybe it works in real life like that.
Okay...now I think we both need more sleep!
Thanks for sharing your interesting insight...it certainly is something to ponder. All writers get asked "Where do you get your ideas"...and I always say I get mine from "the collective unconscious...only I write them down."
Rae
Sometimes the only sane response...
From:Now...that's even more interesting...
From:FMS is a pain the...
From:Oh...and I was so caught up in pondering...
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-30 09:56 pm (UTC)I can't express adequately how much I am enjoying this. You've dealt so well with the dreadful situations in this part and each characters reactions to them...
I love how you avoid writing the easy way, and making things perfect. The pain and trauma are making the story so much more real and even more beautiful.
Thank you for your feedback
Date: 2006-10-31 02:45 am (UTC)Conflict is necessary to good storytelling but I think we've made too much out of relationship conflict and we need to look at all of the OTHER types...BSG is particularly mired in missing the boat on all of their other sources of pain. This entire season could have been so much more harrowing...if the characters had maintained their close relationships. Only the Chief and Cally give us our pain from endangerment. Sad, really!
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-02 02:35 pm (UTC)Thank you for the love
Date: 2006-11-02 05:19 pm (UTC)Rae
Re: Thank you for the love
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-03 08:40 pm (UTC)Oh, Rassilon preserve him he was going to cry. Not sure why but I absolutely loved that line. Just perfect.