Title: Almost the Same Man
Character/Pairing: Ten, Shareen, Future Doctor, implied Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Summary: The Doctor's two visits to the memorial to those lost at Canary Wharf.
Spoilers: Through Journey's End
Betas: daisyb10 and cytherea999 at LJ
Disclaimer: I don't even own the DVD's. Doctor Who and all its wonderfulness belong to the BBC, Russell T. Davies etc, etc, etc
A/N: I really started this is a Post-JE fix it fic for Ten, but it turns out I'm still sort of mad at him. Go figure. This is also my first Doctor Who fic, so please be gentle with me. Thanks!
London – 2008
The Doctor stands in front of the low marble wall, unnaturally still. Fallen leaves swirl on the ground around him, an errant leaf snagging on the laces of his trainers. Black now, the red and white are too frivolous for today's visit. His eyes move slowly over the list of names engraved on the tiny memorial, a tribute barely fit to represent the men and women lost at Canary Warf. He reads through the names with agonizing thoroughness as he approaches the one he isn't quite ready to read.
Nigel Simmons … David Slattery … Jennifer Stuart.
When he finally begins reading the T's, he grinds nearly to a halt. Despite his knowledge that the name will be there whether he reads it or not, some tiny and ridiculous part of his stubborn Time Lord brain insists that reality isn't set, that time is fluid and never fixed and that perhaps, just possibly, if he doesn't ever read that name she won't really be gone.
Arthur M. Trammen … Molly Turnquist … Jacqueline Tyler.
The Doctor closes his eyes. He won't read the next name. He won't. He'll simply turn and walk back to the TARDIS. Run, even. Anything but read that name. Because reading that name on that wall, acknowledging that this world, this Earth, has let her go means he'll have to do the same. She's gone and this time there is no reason for her to come back.
Rose Tyler.
Well. He's survived. That's about the best he could have hoped for. His hearts haven't stopped, haven't even skipped a beat. He hasn't collapsed. His respiratory bypass hasn't even kicked in. Somehow, that's almost worse than if any or all of those things had happened.
He removes one hand from the trouser pocket of his new grey suit. The brown pinstripe has been relegated to the bowels of the TARDIS wardrobe in favor of something with a little less wear and certainly not because it makes him remember things he'd rather forget. He trails his fingers over her name, tracing each letter carefully to make sure he fully appreciates the feel of the valleys in the marble that represent her imprint on the world.
He wonders at how deep those nine letters would have to be carved into his flesh to represent the imprint she left on him, and shudders to think of the carnage.
The Doctor sighs. The universe has finally taken one thing too many from him. His family. His people. His planet. His Rose. And now even walking on Earth feels wrong. Earth, the closest thing he's had to a planet that felt like home in years and it just feels wrong. He is never coming back. Always moving on. But before he leaves, he needs to say goodbye to the last thing he cares about, will ever care about. The last thing.
He runs his fingers one more time over her name. Then he closes his eyes and begins to put her away. He dredges up every memory, every laugh, every tear, every hug and far too many goodbyes. Words unspoken, kisses not shared and the love he has never felt worthy of. He imagines a door, a vast, mahogany door with enormous brass fittings. He locks every last memory behind that door.
Then he throws the key into The Oncoming Storm.
~oOo~
London – 2017
Shareen walks toward the memorial with a take-away container of chips. It's probably stupid, but Rose never really like flowers much. She'd hated the cliché of people giving her roses especially. So she always brings chips to leave at the memorial wall that serves as Rose's gravesite. Stupid. But it makes her feel better.
She never comes on the anniversary of that day. Not anymore. The memorial is always crowded with people, and they always want to chat. She knows it makes people feel better, to have a connection with someone else who understands what they're going through. And the first year or two, she'd really tried, because Rose would have listened to all their stories. But she couldn't do it. She just didn't want to share Rose with strangers.
So instead she comes in autumn. Just a random autumn day, usually the first day when the weather reminds her winter is coming. It's rare to find anyone else at the memorial on that day. Occasionally there will be another person there, but for some reason when it's just one other visitor paying their respects, privacy is valued instead of sharing. Shareen prefers it that way.
To say she's surprised, then, to find a man crouching slightly and running his fingers over Rose's name in the wall is an understatement.
He's tall, but not in the awkward way that really tall men sometimes have. His reddish hair is cut short, almost military in its precision. He's wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and khaki trousers. He's an ordinary looking bloke, a fair few years older than Shareen herself. Had it not been for what he was doing she probably would have looked right past him.
As she approaches, she gets her first really close look at his face and he suddenly looks so much older than she'd first thought. And oh, so sad. He looks like he carries the weight of several worlds on his shoulders.
"Did you know her?" Shareen asks.
The man stands up abruptly and whips his head around. He's surprised, and almost ashamed to be caught.
"Rose," she says. "She was one of my best mates. Just came to bring her a present. Daft, maybe. But …"
The man smiles a very sad smile.
"I knew her Doctor," the man says quietly, and his accent puts Shareen in mind of a Welsh bloke she knows from her office.
"Oh! Did he … I mean, was he … Were they together? When it happened, I mean. He didn't come to the services we had, and we thought maybe he'd … been lost too. We wanted to find out, 'course, but we never knew him properly. Not like he'd be listed as 'The Doctor'." She feels a little uncomfortable asking, as the man seems so pained just by being there.
"He couldn't come to the services. He knew he should, but he just … couldn't. He was lost without her, and then …oh, then he was lost with her," he runs a hand over his face and Shareen can't help but wonder how a man so young could look so tired.
"Were you close? You and Rose's Doctor?"
"Oh yes," he says even as he winces at the words 'Rose's Doctor'. "For a while, we were almost the same man."
"It must have been so awful for him, losing her like that," Shareen says sympathetically.
"It was. Plenty of times he wished he'd been lost too," the man says.
"Rose wouldn't have wanted that," Shareen says quietly. She closes the distance between them and smiles as she places the box of chips on the ground beneath Rose's name.
"No," the man agrees. "But …he was never really the same after that. Rose, she wouldn't have been half pleased with him. I'm afraid he didn't go on quite like she would have wanted. He changed after he lost her. Did a lot of things I'm not …he shouldn't have been proud of. He became very cold, cruel, really. A man to be feared. I'm not sure she would have liked him very much."
"I don't think there was anything the Doctor could've done that would've stopped Rose loving him," Shareen says.
He smiles that sad smile again. Shareen thinks she might see a glint of tears in his eyes, but he squints up at the sun and then back down at the wall.
"Maybe you're right. But I'm glad he never had to find out," he says finally.
"Had to? Is he …" Shareen hesitates.
"Gone now, yes," he nods.
"I'm sorry," Shareen says. The man looks at her questioningly. "That you had to lose him."
"Seems like a lifetime ago now. Several lifetimes, actually. So many years, but still not enough time," the man says. He shakes his head and then smiles again, a bit more naturally this time. "I'm sorry, I didn't get your name?"
"Shareen," she offers.
"Nice to meet you, Shareen."
"And you," she smiles.
"I'll let you have your visit. Good to know that Rose's mates still remember her. She was the best and the brightest … her Doctor used to say," his voice catches just a little then, and Shareen wishes she knew him well enough to offer him a hug. Tears prick at her eyes and she squeezes them shut. Rose would have hugged him anyway. When she looks back the man is turning away, ready to leave.
Shareen lays a hand on his arm to stop him.
"You never said, who are you?"
"Right, sorry. John Smith," he offers a hand, and Shareen shakes it. "Thank you, for remembering her."
Shareen watches him walk away, before turning back to the wall to run her own fingers over first Jackie's name and then Rose's. She hears a strange noise, a sort of shrieking and the wind suddenly whips the brittle leaves against her ankles. She turns, positive she's heard that noise before, but she can't see anything. She doesn't know why, but it makes her want to smile.