Music and Dreams
Author: Neth
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Rose, the Doctor or Gallifrey. Don't claim to either.
Summery: "It seemed as if all the sounds the Garden usually made stopped. It was silent, no music, no birds, no annoying plant singing about how good his petals felt. Just silence."
Notes: This was written for a challenge issued by Sparks. I started writing one at college but a series of events prevented me from finishing and posting it until now. Hope you like. It includes the criteria of multi-coloured plants (kinda), Rose slapping some one and Gallifreyan music. Maybe more if I can fit them in. Pre- Empty Child, Post- Father's Day. Thanks to Sethoz for beta reading it for me.
It had been a trying time for them, not long after they got out of one dangerous situation another would come up. A visit home turned out to be an alien invasion and a revelation about the Doctor's biology. Mickey and the Doctor's off hand remarks about UNIT had inspired her curiosity and she'd demanded answers. And found more than she'd thought. One Person. Two hearts. Thirteen lives and thirteen bodies. It was more than enough to make a normal person question their sanity.
But Rose Tyler wasn't a normal person. Far from.
Rose was currently wandering about the TARDIS looking for her best friend, the organic looking halls arching around her, frames of doors looking more like trees than metal. The entire place was like a golden forest come rib cage. In here were more rooms than in Buckingham Palace. Kitchens (20 that she'd seen so far), Swimming Pools (10 Olympic style, 20 Water Park style and 5 training pools), Cinemas, Bowling Alleys, Alien Alton Towers, and so much more. What she'd been really shocked to discover were the gardens. Some seemed to be there purely to act as green houses, some seemed to be running wild and some were like the type of gardens you saw behind cottages in pictures.
But there was one garden that was special, the Garden. After the Earth had gone up in flames. After Gwyneth had died, the Dalek had destroyed itself he went there and listened to music. Opera mostly, though the only one she'd recognised was the one about that guy with a mask. Phantom of the Opera. But they'd all been human, Spanish, Italian, German maybe. But always human. This time, this time the sound coming from the Garden was not human, even to her. And she'd never taken music GCSE.
"Doctor?"
No response, though she spotted his figure laying on the strange grass (just the wrong shade of green) as if he'd never been born with bones. His eyes were closed and his face showed sadness and regret. The sounds around them, coming from who knew where, were haunting and grand and all the things she'd never wanted to hear. Because all it did was make her want to fall down and cry.
"Doctor, come on." This time she touched his arm too, resulting in the older man sitting up quickly.
"What is it? What—Rose?"
"Yeah, you all right?"
"Yeah, course I am."
"Don't believe you."
"What?"
"You're brooding, you always do this when you brood. But this is worse. Haven't heard music this sad before."
"And you wont. No one lives long enough to make it anymore."
And suddenly it hit Rose, she knew exactly where this music came from, who made it. It was Gallifreyan, music from a people that didn't exist any more. It mellowed her some, what had happened must have hurt him. What she'd done. And she'd never stopped to think how it might affect him.
Just like she'd never stopped to think how it might hurt time, hurt other people. How it might get him, the most important man in her life killed. And as much as she wished he wasn't so sad, she was still mad at him. For leaving her, for dying and not coming back again. And really, that's what she'd come here for. To let him know how much he'd hurt her.
And so she slapped him, hard. It seemed as if all the sounds the Garden usually made stopped. It was silent, no music, no birds, no annoying plant singing about how good his petals felt. Just silence. Shocked silence, the doctor staring at her mouth open, and that really wasn't normal, eyes wide. Even Jackie's slap hadn't hurt like that.
"Rose?"
"Don't you dare, DON'T YOU DARE, do that to me again! You hear me? Don't die on me again, don't sacrifice yourself like that! You're supposed to come back, you're too important to be gone forever."
"I was only trying to protect you."
"I know! Don't do it again, don't die on me. Because I know I can't change it now. I can't go back and save you if you die and don't come back. I couldn't handle it."
"That wont happen, of course I'll…"
"LISTEN TO ME! I Don't Want To Listen To Funeral Music. You hear me? I don't want to be here sitting in the middle of this Garden, listening and seeing the only things left from your home planet. Without you."
And there was sound again. Not music, as such, only the beating of three hearts and two friends, who were so much more, crying. Hugging each other, grabbing onto the other with dear life. Needing. Craving. Hoping and dreaming of an impossible future where neither one died.