My Alternatives fic for the episode The Idiot's Lantern. Not my most favourite episode, and it probably shows...
Threatening Presence
He couldn't believe, after all that had happened in the house, the way Tommy's dad had treated both him and his mother, that Rose, thinking she was doing something good, told him that none of the abuse actually mattered. That the only thing that mattered was that Tommy's father was leaving and that he should go to him, be there, look after his father.
That man did not need looking after, especially from his own child. The child he abused.
He watched with a slight frown on his face, as Tommy nodded and wandered off in the direction of his father. Watched as, voluntarily, the boy picked up his father's suitcase and walked away with it.
The threat had been somewhat eliminated. After he had given courage to the woman of the house, Tommy had to have found his courage somewhere himself, and he had done that by helping him, ratting out his father and giving his mother the chance to kick his dad out.
The only reason that Rose thought Tommy should go after his father is...well, because the man was his father. Her daddy issues were showing, with her wishing everyone's dad was around. If she asks again to go back to see her dad, he would smack her so hard she'd wonder what alternate universe she was living on.
He didn't go around hitting people by nature. He was much nicer than that. Plus, he didn't like fighting. He'd seen too much of it in his lifetime, destroyed too much to find it a good thing, but Rose pushed him too far sometimes.
He thought that, maybe now Tommy's threatening father had been brought down and wasn't much of a threat any longer that the boy and his dad could possibly get along, if there were apologies said and accepted. If not, he couldn't see it working for very long, but Rose seemed blind to that.
The threat in Tommy's home may have been stopped, but he was beginning to feel smothered by Rose's presence. He enjoyed her being around, but what she just did...she doesn't care. She thinks that she was doing good, thinks everything she does is good, even though half of what she did was either useless or stupidly bad.
Tommy was more a help than Rose was in dangerous situations.
Faceless Rose had scared him though, scared him into thinking what it would be like to once again be alone, and he definitely didn't want that, so for the moment he was content and happy to put up with it.
Rose wasn't the first annoying companion he'd had after all.
She was beginning to move in though, closer to him and he wondered how long he had before Rose decided to act on her feelings. He hoped it was a long time. At least right now Rose was restraining herself.
He couldn't help but think that while things may or may not work out for Tommy and his family, that things between him and Rose would very soon begin to deteriorate. That he was metaphorically entering the situation that Tommy had just exited from.
Because he didn't want Rose that way. But Rose wouldn't care. She'd just do what she always did. Take what she wanted.
And she wanted him.
Shivering slightly, feeling the beginnings of what felt like a storm brewing in his mind, he drank his cordial and put on a smile.
It was no good thinking, yet again, on these things when he could just deal with those problems when they arrive and just enjoy each good moment as they happened, and a coronation party was good enough a moment as any. Brilliant actually. This was a time of happiness and peace, not of bad, grey, cloudy thoughts.
Tommy returned a half hour later, his mother in tow, and both seemed more relieved than anything else.
He wondered if that was how he would feel when Rose left him. The way he worried over her he didn't think so, but that was another thing he'd just have to get over when it arrived. He had the feeling it would be soon, though he couldn't tell how soon.
The wind blew, and it felt like a warning, but a warning to what?
Yes, while the threat in Tommy's life was gone, the threat in his was just truly starting.