Title: Very Nearly Almost (1/1)
Characters: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Spoilers: No
Disclaimer: Doctor Who © BBC.
Summary: He still remembers the ice that ran through his veins as they took her away from him, the cold, cold rage that ripped through his throat and tore across his face when he heard her screams from the next room.
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His hands are shaking as he wipes the blood from her face. Her eyes are closed, her face impassive, but she's not unconscious or asleep. She's sitting on her pink quilted bed and waiting as he wipes away the scarlet that marks her forehead and her creamy cheeks.
He can smell it – the blood; it's coppery iron and A-Negative – clinging onto his senses like water vapour and not leaving him alone.
There's a slight whiff of coffee coming from her mouth, too, and he remembers this morning when she laughed that he was making it wrong, when he knew he was a Time Lord so in fact had to be making it perfectly fine (not that he knew why they were making coffee in the first place when tea was so much better anyway). She had taken the grains and mug and whatnot away from him to make it her own way. She made him some, too. It was surprisingly nice.
He remembers her hair was wet and her cheeks were pink from her shower. She was laughing all morning at his jokes, most of which he's afraid to say may not have even been all that funny. Then she said she wanted to go somewhere. "Somewhere wonderful," she said with a grin, pulling him up from the kitchen table.
He thought it would be beautiful. He thought it would be somewhere that would make her face light up, and her eyes sparkle with wonder. He thought he could watch her watch the sky sing by and the sea wash along beside them, watch as her awed smile grew into amazed laughter. He thought it would be amazing; he would hold her hand and as it grew darker they would laugh under the stars.
That's what he thought.
But now… now they are back in the TARDIS, he has no memory of any smile radiating from Rose in the place they left, and he's left cleaning the blood from her face once again. Her blood. His hands.
He's opened his mouth a dozen times since… since… But for once words seem to evade him. He can't find words enough to tell her what he feels right now. 'Sorry' for once in this body, seems so acutely inadequate, so used, he wants to rip it from his vocabulary and put a more suitable, meaningful word there. He just can't figure out what that word might be.
Whatever he thinks of that word stuck in his throat though, he does mean it. Rassilon, does he mean it. He's sorry. He's sorry he got the date wrong, and they ended up in a time before basic human rights. He's sorry he offended the people there. He's sorry the result of that was imprisonment within a cell and beatings for her from… from monsters that had no right at all to call themselves men.
He still remembers the ice that ran through his veins as they took her away from him, the cold, cold rage that ripped through his throat and tore across his face when he heard her screams from the next room. He'll never forget that; nor, he thinks, will he ever forgive himself for it. His fault. Always.
His breathing calms itself just a little as he blinks himself back into the present. The flannel is soaked scarlet, but her wounds are not so bad. Not as bad as the vicious images that raced through his head in any case. He has healed them, very nearly. All that is left is to wipe away the blood and the tiny telltale scars, only noticeable if someone were to touch her nose with theirs.
He wants them gone, still, and knows he'll do it soon. He can't help but wonder what it would feel to touch his own nose against hers.
He takes the flannel away, putting it back in the washbowl on the bedside and watches her face. Her lids are still closed and he wishes she would open them, if only so he can see her eyes' life. The blood is gone and she looks more like Rose and less like the broken girl he carried in his arms as he escaped.
Her cheeks aren't their usual pink though, and her eyelashes are dark against her pale skin. She is still like marble. He has an overwhelming desire to touch her face, to check she's real, and he's about to when her eyes, as brown as cocoa with a hint of gold, open up and blink at him once. A tiny tear clings for life at the corner of her eyelash, before breaking, and laying a thin trail down her cheek.
He wants to reach out and catch it, but doesn't. Everything's still; he almost forgets to breathe. He takes a breath. In. Out. It's easy.
Steadily he swallows. Then quiet, so quiet it barely rides at all in the air outside his mouth, he whispers, "Rose," like a promise, like a plea.
She says nothing at all, only looks at him; watches him. Slowly, she nods. A smile, tiny yet there, graces her lips for a wondrous moment.
He realises then that he's found the word suitable enough to show how he feels. Or maybe he's just found a way to show it. Either way he knows; he knows she understands. She forgives him, probably never had any reason not to. She touches his hand with hers and he grasps at the contact like it's air; he feels like a starving man offered food.
He looks into her eyes, she doesn't have to say anything at all, and finally he knows he can find it in him to forgive himself for this snippet of guilt. Sometimes the best words are in a single look.