Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply.
Beta: Beta'd by the lovely and talented iamtheenemy
A/N 1: This is slight AU for Doomsday but this story is not a fix it fic.
A/N 2: This is my first ever Rose/10 fic and it will be the first in a series. Please let me know what you think.
Challenge: This was written for the April Fic Pic Prompt Challenge over at the timeandchips lj community for picture number 11. What stood out to me was the rings.
She wore a man's wedding ring on her right hand and a small sterling silver band on her left.
The ring on her right hand had been Pete's.
"Wearing it wouldn't be fair to Jackie," he had told her, taking it off and handing it to her. He was trying to distract her. Her family had done a lot of that in those awful early days. "I mean, she's the same but she's not. So we'll be getting new rings because…well…" he'd trailed off, trying to explain but Rose had just nodded. Of course she understood. She better than anyone.
"Right. So I thought, maybe, you could take care of it. Pass it down and all that. Keep it in the family."
He didn't see her as his. She knew that he probably never would. But Pete Tyler was, in every world, a good man and he was a man who loved her mother and did, despite all the troubles and difficulties between them, love her as well. So she took it and slid it on her thumb.
The silver band she bought two days after the first bout of morning sickness.
She kept it quiet at work for as long as she could. It was no one's business but her own. At least until the swell of her stomach became impossible to miss.
Whenever eyes fell on her, dropped over her swollen breasts down to the curve where the child she carried did busy somersaults and waltzes beneath her heart, she twisted the band on her left ring finger. It was safer than reaching for the key she wore around her neck.
It was amazing how a simple thing like a ring could change the tone of whispers. What could have been water cooler gossip about promiscuity and irresponsibility was instead fascinated sadness for the poor war widow. And that was much closer to the truth.
Because war had torn her from him, across Hell itself.
She was too far along to hide when the dreams came - his voice across the Void pushing her to Norway - Mickey, her mum and Pete on her heels. But his voice was everything she'd been waiting months for.
And then he was there, standing in front of her. He flickered like a specter; his eyes wide with shock and sadness that made her feel like her heart was ripped in half.
"Oh, Rose."
"This wasn't how I wanted to tell you," she said softly, spinning the ring on her finger. A nervous habit. One he spotted.
He stood speechless, his face twisted with questions he would never ask. She didn't know if he'd ever been speechless before. She doubted it.
"Cat got your tongue?" she teased with a cheeriness she didn't feel.
"Rose," he said again. Just her name but there was so much in his voice, in his eyes. "Did you-"
"No, I'm not. It's just for show. Just made things simpler. I'm not really sure what to do," Rose blurted, her eyes watering with remembered fear and elation. "There were two heart beats. I convinced the physician it was a machine error since all he could find was the one baby. But I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say to her when she asks about you, where to take her if she gets hurt, what to say when she looks at the stars and wants to go. Doctor, help me."
"I can't." Tears made his eyes bright and he reached out, a ghostly hand stretched out toward her face before dropping back to his side. "I can't Rose. And even if the impossible does become suddenly possible, it won't be soon enough to be of any use to you now."
"Where are you?"
"Inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap in the Universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection, I'm in orbit around a super nova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye."
"You look like a ghost," she said lamely. Of all the stupid things to come out of her mouth with so little time and so much to say. So very much to ask and tell him.
"Hold on."
And then he's there, real as life, tall and strong and so very much home to her. More than the Powell Estates or even the TARDIS ever was, and infinitely more than this world would ever be.
Her hand stretched out of its own accord. "Can I -"
"I'm still just an image. No touch."
He regretted that as much as she did. She could tell. His fingers were twitching and she itched to grab that familiar hand and press it to her stomach, to let him feel the hyper energy he'd passed on to their child.
"Can't you come through properly? "
"The whole thing would fracture. Two Universes would collapse."
"So?"
He smiled a sad smile.
"I… she'll be different, Rose. Up here." He tapped his temple, his words stilted and slow. "Don't let it scare you."
"I won't."
"She… she'll be lovely, Rose. Just fantastic."
"You know that?"
"She's yours," he said gently, as if that made it obvious and why couldn't she stop being an ape for one minute and keep up.
"She's yours too." Her voice trembled. "I bet you're a great dad."
He didn't flinch but she could see the pain in every inch of his handsome face.
She laughed at the absurdity of it all, that this was all she'd have for the rest of her life, all the time she had to ask about how to raise their daughter. "I haven't even got a picture of you. I left it in the other universe."
His smile was heartbroken but beautiful.
"How long?" she asked.
"About two minutes."
She nodded, at a loss, laughing at the silence that was their wasted time. "I can't think of what say."
"Have you decided on a name?" he asked, those phantom hands reaching out to ghost over her stomach. She could almost feel him and she wondered if maybe the baby couldn't as well because she gave a mighty kick.
"I quite like Althea. I found it in one of those name books," she said lightly if a little breathless, like this was a normal conversation, like they would have a hundred more. "What you think?"
He scrolled through his brain, spitting out information and experience like a computer with a sense of humor. She'd missed his brilliance, his history. She'd missed all of him. "That's Greek. Met a girl in Thebes once named Althea, sweet, helped me fix my shoes. It means …" he laughed, the sound spreading warmth through her whole body even though it was likely the last time she would ever hear it. "Doctor. You want to name her after me?"
She smiled and held her hands over his. Not touching, there was nothing to touch. But the illusion was the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen. "Maybe. If you like it."
"Althea Tyler." He said, trying it out with a nod. "Good name."
"You won't forget her?"
"Never." The tone of his voice reminded her of the way he spoke to presidents and royalty, false devils and self-appointed gods. It held solemn promise and it always delivered.
"I know you probably won't ever get to know her but …" Rose swallowed hard around the burning lump in her throat and stares into those familiar brown eyes, memorizing them, "Try to love her anyway." She choked on a sob and leaned into him, powerless. "I-I love you."
"Quite right too," he said softly. "I will, Rose. I already do. Tell her so." He lifted a hand, reaching out to touch her, forgetting for a moment the universes of distance that separated them and the image of his hand actually passed through her cheek before he pulled back. "And I suppose, if it's one last chance to say it …Rose Tyler -"
And then he was gone and Rose felt as though she'd been gutted, her insides on the sand, already dead but too dumb to know it. The sobs knocked her feet out from under her.
Her mum and Mickey pulled her to feet and guided her back to the car. Terrible weather, Jackie said, as she bundled her up. Not the sort of thing she should be exposed to in her condition and shame on the Doctor for dragging her out in it.
Rose's tears were quiet by that time, slowly sliding down her face and dripping off her chin. She sat with her head against the cold glass of the window, one hand up against her mouth, the cool metal of Pete's ring pressed against her lips, her other arm wrapped around her stomach, feeling the tiny fist pressing up against her from within, just waiting for the day when she could take her mother's hand.
A small smile curled Rose's trembling lips as a thought crossed her mind.
She probably got that from him.