OH MY GOD this has taken me FOREVER.
First my computer crashes, then it gets a virus, then I have to wait six months, then I BREAK MY WRIST. Basically, it took me forever to write this, and now I'm beyond determined to finish this damn thing.
Anyway, if you've read any of my past stories, this may open up some old wounds. But besides that, no caveats here. Do enjoy.
Her car keys clinked against the wall as she gently laid them to rest on the hook by the front door. The purse she'd been carrying was discarded at her feet. She seemed morose, understandably so, and the heavy way in which she let her arm fall by her side betrayed the defeated slump in her spine. Her eyes wandered about the room, pointedly taking in everything but him.
He was immediately aware of how idiotic of an idea it had been to slip into her house and wait for her after driving home. He wasn't thinking clearly. It was obvious that she would have been upset, tired; wanting nothing more than the mindless simplicity of a bed – not the presence of the man who was causing her all of this pain to begin with. He swallowed, sifting through an endless myriad of thoughts in hopes of finding a way to redeem himself.
A small twitch seemed to pass through her: the mark of indecision. After a moment she was in motion, making towards the hallway past him that would lead to her room. "Rose, wait," he managed to choke out.
Rose turned slightly, her dark brown eyes almost black. "What?" She sounded hoarse.
"Everything alright?" he fished desperately through his head for the right words. "Nothing bad happened on the drive, I hope?"
"No," her posture shifted. "Mum and I were fine. You?"
"Yeah. I mean no. Everything was okay for me too."
"Oh." She was quiet for a moment, closing her eyes. A heavy sigh escaped her. "Why are you here?"
"I just… thought you might be lonely." Idiot, he cursed himself. She's too headstrong for that sort of comment. Now she'll be angry.
He was beyond correct. "Well I'm fine, alright?" She snapped. "Could you just go? I don't need you here."
She turned back down the hallway, and he knew he had lost her. He gave one more futile attempt. "Wait! Where am I supposed to go?"
Another perfectly wrong comment. Now he was putting the pressure on her; stating that he was her responsibility. Such a comment would make her shut down even further – he'd seen the same event play out with aliens, or with people at the odd space station. Well, no, he hadn't seen it – but the memories were there. Stolen thoughts from another man that looked exactly like him.
She narrowed her eyes, this time not holding back the barely-suppressed emotions. That quiet rage sapped what little strength he'd had left after the long drive from Norway back to London. The human part of him gently suggested that he might slink away and find a small corner to whither away in. "Just go, alright? I don't need this. I'm tired, and... tomorrow I'll be busy. I don't have any time to deal with you."
From the moment he'd seen that twisted, dark expression on the Doctor's face as the Daleks burned in the middle of the Medusa Cascade, Handy had known that things weren't exactly going to go his way.
Rose had already slipped away: she was down the hallway, in her bedroom and gone. Handy stood there for several long, defeated moments, listening to time trickle out of his grasp with the ticking of the grandfather clock in her disorganized house. Nothing moved; nothing tried to help or hinder him. For the first time in his short life, he was alone. Finally he turned, with a slow and misleading skip in his step, and escaped out the front door.
It was night. They'd left Bad Wolf Bay around noon that day, taking rental cars to return to their home in this universe's London. It was funny; he'd expected the taste, the feel, of a new universe to be... different to him in some way, but this one felt just like that which he'd been born in. He could barely see much difference, except that this version of earth seemed to be slightly more technologically advanced. He spun in a slow circle on his heels, breathing in the rain-scented, heady air.
He sighed as he walked, hands instinctively going to his pockets, his mind stuck on Rose. He was still having trouble fathoming the concept that the Doctor had left him here for the sole purpose of having Rose "fix" him. That he wasn't fit for the other universe. Handy couldn't understand how that worked – Daleks were bad, wasn't he supposed to kill them? Either way, it seemed as though it was his job to stick around her. And it was obvious that wasn't going to be easy.
Still, something told him that his luck might be changing. Well alright, that wasn't exactly true. But his optimistic state of mind encouraged such a possibility. The memories are there. The smiles, the laughs, the simultaneous beat of three hearts. If you, of all people, remember, then surely she does too. He frowned slightly as he realized how profoundly human such a thought was. The Doctor side of himself didn't see anything wrong with it, however – from a logical standpoint, that's just the way humans were. Emotional, unpredictable, exciting, and above all, always looking for the bright side of things.
But for now, all he had to look forward to was a night on a park bench.
Rose woke up crying.
It had been raining during the night – she could tell because of the crisp, balmy scent flowing through her open window. It was early: the sun was only about halfway through clearing the horizon. A cold wind wafted through her room. The temperature had dropped considerably, and she pulled her blankets more tightly around her shoulders as she stared blankly at the cream white ceiling and tried to come to grips with the wetness on her cheeks.
You'd expect that for most people, she'd have had more than enough time to become numb, but Rose seemed to be incapable. That moment when she'd heard the TARDIS shudder to life, she had instantly pulled away from him – from the fake – but it was too late. No time to prepare herself for the last moment in which she would see that machine dematerialize; no time to look at his face, his aloof smile, once more; no time to say goodbye. Just one word, two syllables. That's all she wanted, but her wish wasn't granted – the fake had taken that from her. And although she'd had a long drive, going through the disconnecting and arduous task of an unexpected road trip, she hadn't recovered. She hadn't pulled herself away from that sickening moment when the TARDIS' gears had ground into action.
It wasn't his fault that he looked like the Doctor, down to every single detail. It wasn't his fault that he had his memories. It wasn't his fault that he was an anomaly, floating, with nowhere to go. But it didn't seem right that she was the one who ended up with him, this sudden weight in her life, this constant, everyday reminder of the Doctor. What crime had she committed that left her with the threat of seeing his face and for a moment being tricked into thinking that adventure, time travel, and the soft, subduing smell of the TARDIS was to come, only to be disappointed by his hollow humanity?
Somehow she'd ended up undressing and getting in the shower, although the time between then and the moment when she'd woken up seemed to have escaped her memory. She turned, frowning, letting the hot water run down her back.
The hardest part, she knew, was yet to come. She would have to carefully work herself back into a normal life once more – working for Torchwood, shopping, sleeping, visiting her mum, eating chips... it all seemed like some poisonous dream, some sick, torturous reality that she suddenly had to commit herself to. And all the while, he would be there in the background, making it harder – as if it wasn't impossible already. There would always be the bittersweet memories, of fantastic adventures and those that could have come, but are now destined to never do so. The reminiscing; the moments when she might drift out of focus in the middle of work and only return when someone really started screaming at her to snap out of it. The knowledge that he wasn't coming back.
And damnit, all that work she'd done. Sure, it was ultimately to save all of creation, but what kept her going through those long nights, slaving over the teleporter, was the idea of seeing him again. The idea of getting back to the way it had been before. Only to have it snatched away from her again...
He might have not been that bad if his very face wasn't so haunting to Rose. And if she didn't know that she never had any choice in his staying with her; that it was all his fault. And if he didn't always look so helpless and diffident, like he had no idea what to do with himself. And if she hadn't always caught him shooting her worried, desperate glances when they stopped at that gas station and Jackie insisted on calling him so he could stop, too. And if he just wasn't so human...
He wasn't the same. No part of him but his face and voice could be compared to the Timelord she once knew. And she had every right to be angry at him – how else did she go about making it perfectly clear that she hated his existence? She wished he would just disappear.
Dressed, she slipped out the front door and gave the pale sky a dark glance. There wasn't all that much to distinguish this universe from the old one, but something about the sky seemed different to her. A sort of pallor to its color, a vague difference in the hue and the shape of the clouds. It was never lost on her. Maybe that wasn't a bad analogy to use on the fake. Subtly different. Something off about him. Something wrong; improper. Disappointing.
Frowning deeply, she turned, hitching her bag farther up her shoulder, and headed down the street.