Human Warmth 1/1
Story: Human Warmth
Author: wmr
Characters: Eleventh Doctor, Rose Tyler
Warning/Spoiler: AU, so no Doomsday; tissue warning
Summary: She’s made it to eighty-four, skin like paper now and hair gossamer-fine and the colour of spiders’-webs. This isn’t her, not the Rose he remembers.
Thanks and apologies to
dark_aegis.
Inspired by a conversation about RL with a friend - you know who you are and thank you for allowing me to write this.
Human Warmth
Such frail, weak little human hearts. So fragile - one severe shock, and they stop beating. Only one of them per human, too. How do they survive, these creatures? How do they manage to live their average seventy-odd years with just one feeble heart?
And yet they do. Some manage more.
She has. She’s made it to eighty-four, skin like paper now and hair gossamer-fine and the colour of spiders’-webs.
Her eyes are closed as he stands by her bedside, watching the breath of life being pumped into her lungs. That machine is all that’s keeping her alive.
Such frail human organs. Technology is now all that stands between her and the coldness of death. This isn’t really living, though. And he knows she wouldn’t want to be kept alive like this, machines doing the work for her. This isn’t her, not the Rose he remembers. Not the golden-haired girl with so much energy, so much zest for life. Never could stand still, his Rose.
This body, this shell, isn’t Rose.
She’s not here, not any more. The body lying on the bed is empty. He knows, even without the fancy equipment the doctors have to tell them that. There are brainwaves, but they’re no more than echoes of the real thing. He’s checked, though he knew even before the screwdriver told him. There’s nothing of Rose left behind those closed eyes. She’s not here any more.
She’s gone. The soul of Rose has already died. All that’s left behind is a body that’s being kept functional by machines. And she doesn’t deserve that.
It’s not his decision, though. He shouldn’t even be here. He’s managed to slip in because it’s the middle of the night and most of her family’s gone home to rest. Her husband, the man she married in her mid-thirties and who he knows loves her, just as she’s loved him, is asleep in the waiting-room, sent out because a new doctor wanted to examine his wife.
Good job he never came to visit Rose and her family after his last regeneration. No-one here recognises him now. The lanky, forty-something six-foot-six bloke with jet-black hair and green eyes is a complete stranger.
At some point, her husband’s going to question why a new doctor would come at four in the morning to examine a patient. He’s going to ask questions and discover the tall man in the white coat’s an impostor. By then, it won’t matter.
Because he can’t help it, he lays his fingers against her temples. Probes, searches, digs, looking for something, some remnant of his Rose. But she’s not there. She hasn’t been for some time, probably a couple of hours.
Someone’ll have to break that to her husband, then persuade him to agree to switching off the machines. Not his job. And he’s glad of that.
She’s dead, is Rose. But she had a good life. A fantastic life, she told him the last time they spoke, he on Earth briefly to help defeat an invasion of Nortraxian tripeds. She was there as part of a UNIT task-force, and they had just a few minutes of conversation before the demands of their respective duties took them apart again. That was thirty years ago, for her. For him... he can’t even remember.
A fantastic life, yes. With him. And then back on Earth a brilliant career with UNIT, a man who deserved her, children who meant the world to her. And he’s glad of that.
He takes her hand in his, then bends and presses his lips to hers. They’re human-warm, just as if she were still behind them. “Goodbye, Rose,” he whispers. But, though he holds his breath, there’s no reply.
He lays her arm gently across her chest, then turns and walks out of the room, down the darkened corridor and back into the night.
And, as he reaches the TARDIS, one eye just a little bit moist, he realises that his hand’s still warm.
END
Author: wmr
Characters: Eleventh Doctor, Rose Tyler
Warning/Spoiler: AU, so no Doomsday; tissue warning
Summary: She’s made it to eighty-four, skin like paper now and hair gossamer-fine and the colour of spiders’-webs. This isn’t her, not the Rose he remembers.
Thanks and apologies to
dark_aegis.
Inspired by a conversation about RL with a friend - you know who you are and thank you for allowing me to write this.
Human Warmth
Such frail, weak little human hearts. So fragile - one severe shock, and they stop beating. Only one of them per human, too. How do they survive, these creatures? How do they manage to live their average seventy-odd years with just one feeble heart?
And yet they do. Some manage more.
She has. She’s made it to eighty-four, skin like paper now and hair gossamer-fine and the colour of spiders’-webs.
Her eyes are closed as he stands by her bedside, watching the breath of life being pumped into her lungs. That machine is all that’s keeping her alive.
Such frail human organs. Technology is now all that stands between her and the coldness of death. This isn’t really living, though. And he knows she wouldn’t want to be kept alive like this, machines doing the work for her. This isn’t her, not the Rose he remembers. Not the golden-haired girl with so much energy, so much zest for life. Never could stand still, his Rose.
This body, this shell, isn’t Rose.
She’s not here, not any more. The body lying on the bed is empty. He knows, even without the fancy equipment the doctors have to tell them that. There are brainwaves, but they’re no more than echoes of the real thing. He’s checked, though he knew even before the screwdriver told him. There’s nothing of Rose left behind those closed eyes. She’s not here any more.
She’s gone. The soul of Rose has already died. All that’s left behind is a body that’s being kept functional by machines. And she doesn’t deserve that.
It’s not his decision, though. He shouldn’t even be here. He’s managed to slip in because it’s the middle of the night and most of her family’s gone home to rest. Her husband, the man she married in her mid-thirties and who he knows loves her, just as she’s loved him, is asleep in the waiting-room, sent out because a new doctor wanted to examine his wife.
Good job he never came to visit Rose and her family after his last regeneration. No-one here recognises him now. The lanky, forty-something six-foot-six bloke with jet-black hair and green eyes is a complete stranger.
At some point, her husband’s going to question why a new doctor would come at four in the morning to examine a patient. He’s going to ask questions and discover the tall man in the white coat’s an impostor. By then, it won’t matter.
Because he can’t help it, he lays his fingers against her temples. Probes, searches, digs, looking for something, some remnant of his Rose. But she’s not there. She hasn’t been for some time, probably a couple of hours.
Someone’ll have to break that to her husband, then persuade him to agree to switching off the machines. Not his job. And he’s glad of that.
She’s dead, is Rose. But she had a good life. A fantastic life, she told him the last time they spoke, he on Earth briefly to help defeat an invasion of Nortraxian tripeds. She was there as part of a UNIT task-force, and they had just a few minutes of conversation before the demands of their respective duties took them apart again. That was thirty years ago, for her. For him... he can’t even remember.
A fantastic life, yes. With him. And then back on Earth a brilliant career with UNIT, a man who deserved her, children who meant the world to her. And he’s glad of that.
He takes her hand in his, then bends and presses his lips to hers. They’re human-warm, just as if she were still behind them. “Goodbye, Rose,” he whispers. But, though he holds his breath, there’s no reply.
He lays her arm gently across her chest, then turns and walks out of the room, down the darkened corridor and back into the night.
And, as he reaches the TARDIS, one eye just a little bit moist, he realises that his hand’s still warm.
END