Fic: Indent in the Sand
Fic: Indent in the Sand.
Series: These Words Between Us
Characters: Rose Tyler, The Duplicate Tenth Doctor (Ten II/Rose)
Spoilers: Journey's End
Rating: G
Summary: The conversation has to start somewhere.
Rose Tyler stared at the indent in the sand, almost not noticing the warm hand in her. ‘She’s still going to die,’ she said quietly, not looking up at the Doctor.
‘Yes,’ replied the Doctor, looking down at Rose before releasing her hand and pulling her closer. ‘She can’t sustain her side of the metacrsis,’ he told her before pressing his lips to her hair. ‘He’ll have to wipe her memory of everything or she’ll die. All those adventures; Pompeii, Oodsphere, Agatha Christie, him, us and the TARDIS.’ The Doctor was looking down at the indent now. ‘She was my best friend,’ he muttered, ‘and now she’s gone. Back to being Donna Noble, the woman who shouts at the world because she doesn’t believe she is good enough.’ He could feel the tears welling up on the edges of his eyes as Rose leant her head into his shoulder.
‘I liked her,’ Rose said quietly, ‘she was very brave.’
The Doctor turned his attention back to Rose. ‘Ah, yes,’ he exclaimed softly, ‘her parallel world, the one where she didn’t meet me.’
Rose felt the air being knocked out of her lungs as he mentioned the parallel world that had been created around Donna. ‘You died,’ she said quietly before looking up at him. Anger suddenly coursed through her body. ‘Why would you let yourself die, Doctor, why?’ she asked.
She had kept the pain of her time in Donna’s world, as she had nicked named it, a secret. She’d not told her mother or Mickey what had happened in that terrible place. ‘Did Donna remember?’ she asked him quietly. ‘What that place was like without you?’
The Doctor sighed heavily before he spoke. ‘Rose,’ he said quietly, bringing his other hand around to cup her cheek. ‘I’m sorry, but when I lost you, I didn’t think it was worth,’ he paused for a moment, looking at the beautiful creature that had somehow defined him when nothing else could. ‘Worth living.’ He looked at her and saw tears welling up in her eyes as he pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.
‘I’m not worth that,’ she said quietly, pulling away slightly, she was about to scold him for letting himself die, but when she saw his eyes she felt her resolve shatter. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, leaning back into him again. ‘But the universe needs you,’ she looked up at him. ‘I need you.’
‘You’ve got me,’ he told her, pulling her into a hug. ‘See, not going anywhere.’
Rose pressed her head to his chest and listened to the single heartbeat there. ‘Is it weird? Having one heart?’ she asked as they broke from their hug and locked eyes again.
The Doctor smiled back at her as he pushed a stray strand of her from her face. ‘A bit like regeneration,’ he admitted. ‘There, er, might be some personality changes, just little, little things,’ he told her hoping it wouldn’t scare her off, but then she had survived a proper regeneration before. ‘You are taking this rather well, Rose.’
Suddenly he was nervous, because she was taking this very well. She had just watched the man she risked her life for flyaway without as much as a goodbye, but here they were talking as if nothing had changed.
Rose reached up and put a hand on his arm. ‘Are you the Doctor?’
He frowned at her. ‘Of course I am,’ he told her looking slightly hurt at her need to question it.
‘And do you love me?’
His frown softened into a smile. ‘Yes,’ he told her, ‘more than I can ever tell you.’
She tilted her head to the side and smiled back at him. ‘Then I think, we might just be fine,’ she told him before reaching up on her toes and kissing him.
He responded immediately, deepening the kiss and pulling her close to his body. Their lips moved together gently but passionately as both poured not only their years of separation but also the time they had missed out on when they had been together on the TARDIS.
‘Are you two quite done?’
The couple broke apart and looked over at Jackie.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ muttered Rose, having the decency to look slight abashed.
Jackie shook her head, but she couldn’t hide the smile on her lips. ‘Come on, I’m not spending all day on this beach, its bloody freezing,’ she told them before turning to walk back towards even drier land. ‘There’s a village nearby with a couple of B & B’s. Torchwood is sending someone out to pick us up in the morning,’ she called back over her shoulder.
Walking hand in hand, the Doctor and Rose followed Jackie at a little distance. ‘It’s going to be hard for you, isn’t it?’ asked Rose as they walked, she was looking at the ground, watching her feet sink gently into the sand as they went. ‘Living without a TARDIS, being stuck in one place?’
The Doctor squeezed her hand. ‘Yes,’ he admitted quietly as they reached the sand dunes and started climbing up them. ‘But I’ve done it before, a long time ago, and well, it’s not like we’ve never discussed the possibility of being stuck on one planet before.’
‘Was it really that close a call?’ she asked. She didn’t often think about Krop Tor, because if she did, she would hear the Beast’s voice telling her she was going to die and even now, she believed it could happen.
‘Yes.’
Rose nodded as they reached the open grass, still following Jackie. ‘How far is this village, mum,’ she hollered.
Jackie looked back. ‘About a mile or so,’ she called back. ‘Should only take ten minutes or so to walk.’
Rose then turned back to the Doctor. ‘So, you mentioned some new personality quirks?’ she enquired.
‘Ah, yes,’ replied the Doctor, ‘well,’ he drew out the last syllable before continuing. ‘I know I’ve picked up a few of Donna’s voice patterns, so if I insult you by calling you “Earth Girl”, I apologise now.’
‘Seems a step up from ‘stupid ape,’’ shrugged Rose.
The Doctor looked down at Rose with an aghast expression on his face. ‘That was one time, well, maybe twice,’ he admitted, ‘but, you have to admit, what you did was monumentally stupid.’
Rose shook her head. ‘Thought you were going to drop me off and leave without me.’ She smiled sadly and looked over at her mother. ‘But it’s funny how things work out. I wanted to save him to make her happy.’
‘I know you did,’ replied the Doctor pulling her closer so he could plant another kiss on her lips. ‘But I couldn’t just leave you behind - you fascinated me, you’re the first the first person to make me feel bad for killing a Dalek.’ He stopped walking and his head whipped around looking back over the beach; his own words were a stark reminder of why he was here.
‘I soon snapped out of that mindset,’ she said quietly, but she knew what was on his mind. ‘I’m not saying you did the right thing, but Doctor, I honestly don’t see what else you could have done.’ Rose glanced over at her mother’s retreating back, but realised that Jackie hadn’t noticed them stopping. ‘If you hadn’t stopped them, then they’d have kept killing and killing, and could you bear all that loss of life, all the peaceful worlds out there gone because of their desire for everything to be Dalek?’
But the Doctor didn’t seem to hear her. ‘I committed genocide,’ he whispered, horror-struck as if it was finally sinking in what he had done.
‘So did I,’ she reminded him with a gentle tug on his arm. ‘At Satellite One and in Canary Wharf, and Doctor,’ she spoke slowly, clearly, ‘if we had too, then I’d do it again.’
He feels his heart break as he listens to her say those words. ‘Oh Rose, what did I turn you into?’
Rose looked back into the deep chocolate pools that look beyond sad. ‘A better person, Doctor.’ She let go of his hand and pushed it into her pocket. ‘I don’t like death anymore than you do, but when it’s for the greater good, then Doctor, what other choice do we have?’ She stepped away from him. ‘You taught me that.’
His face lifted into a sad smile. ‘I suppose I did.’
‘And what was his plan?’ asked Rose, her voice challenging. ‘I doubt it was to save the Daleks.’
The Doctor shrugged, knowing ‘him’ to be the full Time Lord Doctor. He knows that she’s right; there really was no other choice. He watched as she took her hand out of her pocket again to run her hand though her hair before stepping back to him.
‘Doctor,’ she’s spoke slowly and carefully, ‘you saved reality, all of creation. Please,’ she whispered, a plea to make him understand that she accepted him for what he was. Then she held out her hand to him. ‘Please come with me.’
He looked at her hand in confusion, and then to her face before reaching out and twining their fingers together. ‘Still the most amazing creature I’ve ever met,’ he told her as they started walking.
They walked in reflective silence for about five minutes. Rose occasionally thinking about opening her mouth and asking the Doctor what he’s thinking about, but she isn’t sure he’ll tell her. Long experience of living in the TARDIS with him tells her that it’s best to let him speak first. Instead, she thinks of another topic to break the silence with. ‘You know,’ she said, now feeling nervous about what she is planning to suggest. ‘Just cos we’re stuck on Earth, doesn’t mean we can’t travel.’
She’s relived to see that the Doctor’s eyes light up. ‘That’s a brilliant idea, Rose,’ he enthused, ‘but won’t we have to get mortgages, and jobs and other domestic stuff?’ Then his eyes dulled. ‘Can’t get away with no money and psychic paper now.’
‘I’m part of a rich family now, it’ll be okay.’ The words are out of her mouth before she can even think about what she was going say, and she can see that she has managed to offend him.
‘No,’ he stated, ‘I’m not living off you, Rose.’ But then he smiled at her tenderly.
Of course, he would want independence. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Well,’ she realised that she sounds very business like, ‘we can get you set up, do whatever you want,’ she smiled at him; mischief soon played in her eyes. ‘You could be one of those strangely sexy yet dorky science teachers again.’
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, before closing it and frowning at the blonde walking beside him. ‘Strangely sexy yet dorky?’ he exclaimed, his voice high. ‘Is that what you really think of, well, this?’ he gestured to his whole body which makes Rose laugh and that just confirms it, he thinks. ‘You think I’m strangely sexy yet dorky.’
Still laughing, Rose struggled to keep walking. At this point her mother turned around to see for the first time that they have dropped behind. When Rose managed to get control of her laughter she managed to speak. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I know you’re sexy yet dorky.’ Then she pulled him to a halt and whispered in his ear. ‘Very sexy,’ she whispered, knowing that the compliment would stoke his ego, but she would never dare keep the truth from him. ‘Come on, mum looks like she’s ready to kill us.’
They both look up to see Jackie glowering at them, and when they are close enough, Jackie turned around and kept walking. ‘Come on, you two,’ she said, ‘haven’t got all day and I’m freezing. It shouldn’t be too far to the village, another five minutes or so.’
The Doctor shook his head as Jackie turned away. ‘That would make it the longest ten minutes, ever,’ he commented quietly, earning himself gentle whack on the arm from Rose. He smirked. ‘Sorry, Donna,’ he said by way of an explanation.
Rose shook her head. ‘You’ve always been rude,’ she reminded him, ‘don’t go blaming it on Donna.’
The Doctor grinned at her. ‘Oh well, worth a try,’ he said as the continued on into the future.
Series: These Words Between Us
Characters: Rose Tyler, The Duplicate Tenth Doctor (Ten II/Rose)
Spoilers: Journey's End
Rating: G
Summary: The conversation has to start somewhere.
Rose Tyler stared at the indent in the sand, almost not noticing the warm hand in her. ‘She’s still going to die,’ she said quietly, not looking up at the Doctor.
‘Yes,’ replied the Doctor, looking down at Rose before releasing her hand and pulling her closer. ‘She can’t sustain her side of the metacrsis,’ he told her before pressing his lips to her hair. ‘He’ll have to wipe her memory of everything or she’ll die. All those adventures; Pompeii, Oodsphere, Agatha Christie, him, us and the TARDIS.’ The Doctor was looking down at the indent now. ‘She was my best friend,’ he muttered, ‘and now she’s gone. Back to being Donna Noble, the woman who shouts at the world because she doesn’t believe she is good enough.’ He could feel the tears welling up on the edges of his eyes as Rose leant her head into his shoulder.
‘I liked her,’ Rose said quietly, ‘she was very brave.’
The Doctor turned his attention back to Rose. ‘Ah, yes,’ he exclaimed softly, ‘her parallel world, the one where she didn’t meet me.’
Rose felt the air being knocked out of her lungs as he mentioned the parallel world that had been created around Donna. ‘You died,’ she said quietly before looking up at him. Anger suddenly coursed through her body. ‘Why would you let yourself die, Doctor, why?’ she asked.
She had kept the pain of her time in Donna’s world, as she had nicked named it, a secret. She’d not told her mother or Mickey what had happened in that terrible place. ‘Did Donna remember?’ she asked him quietly. ‘What that place was like without you?’
The Doctor sighed heavily before he spoke. ‘Rose,’ he said quietly, bringing his other hand around to cup her cheek. ‘I’m sorry, but when I lost you, I didn’t think it was worth,’ he paused for a moment, looking at the beautiful creature that had somehow defined him when nothing else could. ‘Worth living.’ He looked at her and saw tears welling up in her eyes as he pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.
‘I’m not worth that,’ she said quietly, pulling away slightly, she was about to scold him for letting himself die, but when she saw his eyes she felt her resolve shatter. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, leaning back into him again. ‘But the universe needs you,’ she looked up at him. ‘I need you.’
‘You’ve got me,’ he told her, pulling her into a hug. ‘See, not going anywhere.’
Rose pressed her head to his chest and listened to the single heartbeat there. ‘Is it weird? Having one heart?’ she asked as they broke from their hug and locked eyes again.
The Doctor smiled back at her as he pushed a stray strand of her from her face. ‘A bit like regeneration,’ he admitted. ‘There, er, might be some personality changes, just little, little things,’ he told her hoping it wouldn’t scare her off, but then she had survived a proper regeneration before. ‘You are taking this rather well, Rose.’
Suddenly he was nervous, because she was taking this very well. She had just watched the man she risked her life for flyaway without as much as a goodbye, but here they were talking as if nothing had changed.
Rose reached up and put a hand on his arm. ‘Are you the Doctor?’
He frowned at her. ‘Of course I am,’ he told her looking slightly hurt at her need to question it.
‘And do you love me?’
His frown softened into a smile. ‘Yes,’ he told her, ‘more than I can ever tell you.’
She tilted her head to the side and smiled back at him. ‘Then I think, we might just be fine,’ she told him before reaching up on her toes and kissing him.
He responded immediately, deepening the kiss and pulling her close to his body. Their lips moved together gently but passionately as both poured not only their years of separation but also the time they had missed out on when they had been together on the TARDIS.
‘Are you two quite done?’
The couple broke apart and looked over at Jackie.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ muttered Rose, having the decency to look slight abashed.
Jackie shook her head, but she couldn’t hide the smile on her lips. ‘Come on, I’m not spending all day on this beach, its bloody freezing,’ she told them before turning to walk back towards even drier land. ‘There’s a village nearby with a couple of B & B’s. Torchwood is sending someone out to pick us up in the morning,’ she called back over her shoulder.
Walking hand in hand, the Doctor and Rose followed Jackie at a little distance. ‘It’s going to be hard for you, isn’t it?’ asked Rose as they walked, she was looking at the ground, watching her feet sink gently into the sand as they went. ‘Living without a TARDIS, being stuck in one place?’
The Doctor squeezed her hand. ‘Yes,’ he admitted quietly as they reached the sand dunes and started climbing up them. ‘But I’ve done it before, a long time ago, and well, it’s not like we’ve never discussed the possibility of being stuck on one planet before.’
‘Was it really that close a call?’ she asked. She didn’t often think about Krop Tor, because if she did, she would hear the Beast’s voice telling her she was going to die and even now, she believed it could happen.
‘Yes.’
Rose nodded as they reached the open grass, still following Jackie. ‘How far is this village, mum,’ she hollered.
Jackie looked back. ‘About a mile or so,’ she called back. ‘Should only take ten minutes or so to walk.’
Rose then turned back to the Doctor. ‘So, you mentioned some new personality quirks?’ she enquired.
‘Ah, yes,’ replied the Doctor, ‘well,’ he drew out the last syllable before continuing. ‘I know I’ve picked up a few of Donna’s voice patterns, so if I insult you by calling you “Earth Girl”, I apologise now.’
‘Seems a step up from ‘stupid ape,’’ shrugged Rose.
The Doctor looked down at Rose with an aghast expression on his face. ‘That was one time, well, maybe twice,’ he admitted, ‘but, you have to admit, what you did was monumentally stupid.’
Rose shook her head. ‘Thought you were going to drop me off and leave without me.’ She smiled sadly and looked over at her mother. ‘But it’s funny how things work out. I wanted to save him to make her happy.’
‘I know you did,’ replied the Doctor pulling her closer so he could plant another kiss on her lips. ‘But I couldn’t just leave you behind - you fascinated me, you’re the first the first person to make me feel bad for killing a Dalek.’ He stopped walking and his head whipped around looking back over the beach; his own words were a stark reminder of why he was here.
‘I soon snapped out of that mindset,’ she said quietly, but she knew what was on his mind. ‘I’m not saying you did the right thing, but Doctor, I honestly don’t see what else you could have done.’ Rose glanced over at her mother’s retreating back, but realised that Jackie hadn’t noticed them stopping. ‘If you hadn’t stopped them, then they’d have kept killing and killing, and could you bear all that loss of life, all the peaceful worlds out there gone because of their desire for everything to be Dalek?’
But the Doctor didn’t seem to hear her. ‘I committed genocide,’ he whispered, horror-struck as if it was finally sinking in what he had done.
‘So did I,’ she reminded him with a gentle tug on his arm. ‘At Satellite One and in Canary Wharf, and Doctor,’ she spoke slowly, clearly, ‘if we had too, then I’d do it again.’
He feels his heart break as he listens to her say those words. ‘Oh Rose, what did I turn you into?’
Rose looked back into the deep chocolate pools that look beyond sad. ‘A better person, Doctor.’ She let go of his hand and pushed it into her pocket. ‘I don’t like death anymore than you do, but when it’s for the greater good, then Doctor, what other choice do we have?’ She stepped away from him. ‘You taught me that.’
His face lifted into a sad smile. ‘I suppose I did.’
‘And what was his plan?’ asked Rose, her voice challenging. ‘I doubt it was to save the Daleks.’
The Doctor shrugged, knowing ‘him’ to be the full Time Lord Doctor. He knows that she’s right; there really was no other choice. He watched as she took her hand out of her pocket again to run her hand though her hair before stepping back to him.
‘Doctor,’ she’s spoke slowly and carefully, ‘you saved reality, all of creation. Please,’ she whispered, a plea to make him understand that she accepted him for what he was. Then she held out her hand to him. ‘Please come with me.’
He looked at her hand in confusion, and then to her face before reaching out and twining their fingers together. ‘Still the most amazing creature I’ve ever met,’ he told her as they started walking.
They walked in reflective silence for about five minutes. Rose occasionally thinking about opening her mouth and asking the Doctor what he’s thinking about, but she isn’t sure he’ll tell her. Long experience of living in the TARDIS with him tells her that it’s best to let him speak first. Instead, she thinks of another topic to break the silence with. ‘You know,’ she said, now feeling nervous about what she is planning to suggest. ‘Just cos we’re stuck on Earth, doesn’t mean we can’t travel.’
She’s relived to see that the Doctor’s eyes light up. ‘That’s a brilliant idea, Rose,’ he enthused, ‘but won’t we have to get mortgages, and jobs and other domestic stuff?’ Then his eyes dulled. ‘Can’t get away with no money and psychic paper now.’
‘I’m part of a rich family now, it’ll be okay.’ The words are out of her mouth before she can even think about what she was going say, and she can see that she has managed to offend him.
‘No,’ he stated, ‘I’m not living off you, Rose.’ But then he smiled at her tenderly.
Of course, he would want independence. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Well,’ she realised that she sounds very business like, ‘we can get you set up, do whatever you want,’ she smiled at him; mischief soon played in her eyes. ‘You could be one of those strangely sexy yet dorky science teachers again.’
The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, before closing it and frowning at the blonde walking beside him. ‘Strangely sexy yet dorky?’ he exclaimed, his voice high. ‘Is that what you really think of, well, this?’ he gestured to his whole body which makes Rose laugh and that just confirms it, he thinks. ‘You think I’m strangely sexy yet dorky.’
Still laughing, Rose struggled to keep walking. At this point her mother turned around to see for the first time that they have dropped behind. When Rose managed to get control of her laughter she managed to speak. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I know you’re sexy yet dorky.’ Then she pulled him to a halt and whispered in his ear. ‘Very sexy,’ she whispered, knowing that the compliment would stoke his ego, but she would never dare keep the truth from him. ‘Come on, mum looks like she’s ready to kill us.’
They both look up to see Jackie glowering at them, and when they are close enough, Jackie turned around and kept walking. ‘Come on, you two,’ she said, ‘haven’t got all day and I’m freezing. It shouldn’t be too far to the village, another five minutes or so.’
The Doctor shook his head as Jackie turned away. ‘That would make it the longest ten minutes, ever,’ he commented quietly, earning himself gentle whack on the arm from Rose. He smirked. ‘Sorry, Donna,’ he said by way of an explanation.
Rose shook her head. ‘You’ve always been rude,’ she reminded him, ‘don’t go blaming it on Donna.’
The Doctor grinned at her. ‘Oh well, worth a try,’ he said as the continued on into the future.