Teatime for the Soul
by Camilla Sandman
Disclaimer: Characters and public police boxes from Doctor Who belong to the BBC and I only borrow for some non-profit amusement.
Author's Note: Written on request. The requester wanted dark!Rose or dark!Doctor, so I've tried to give a little bit of both. This is not a fluffy fic, so be warned. Set some time after "Dalek", but makes no references to other episodes. No Jack about either. Title inspired by Douglas Adams's "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul".
II
She doesn't even remember how the argument started. Perhaps her anger that someone had to die. Perhaps his anger at the same, trapped behind the knowledge of what is necessary. She hates, envies and pities him for that knowledge all at once.
"I can't save everyone, Rose," he says, and it makes her all the more angry for being true.
"You could try. I'm sure you at least tried with your people!" she blasts at him, and his face closes.
"No."
"No?"
"I didn't try to save them."
"So you just let them die at Dalek hands."
"At my hands," he says, the burn of planets echoing in the steel of his voice. "The Daleks would kill all of creation. A billion planets - or just a few. I made the choice it would be the latter."
"You killed them. Your own people."
"Yes." His voice is harsh, burrowing into her. "I did it. My people died and I did it."
"But you're sorry," she replies, staring at him.
"I would do it again."
"No."
"I would."
She's never really known him at all, she thinks.
He doesn't say anything more, she doesn't ask, and for a while, it is as if the words were never spoken. For a while, the grain of doubt in her mind lays still. But words haunt and humans let them.
There is storm brewing in her mind and the grain has become a desert.
II
Flying the TARDIS isn't like flying a storm, it is like being the storm, Rose has come to realise. It isn't trees that bend in the force of the gale, but time, and the rain isn't water, but falling stars. The sky is the Universe and it still feels as endless as when she would stand on the skin of the Earth and look up. Always somewhere to go. Always somewhere he's taking her.
"You'll like this!" he says and he's smiling at her like a child with a new toy. It does sometimes occur to her that maybe she is it. "Regan, the moon orbiting the planet of Renava. Best tea in the great and bountiful human empire."
"You took me here for tea?" she asks, just slightly incredulous.
"Not just any tea, Rose. The best!"
He laughs and she laughs, following him out with the laughter still ringing in her skin. It's a darker sky than she's used to, almost black, the planet hovering across most of it. Redder than the Earth, it's still beautiful, lit up by the distant sun. Glass hovers high above them, protecting them from the sky. Around, people busy to and fro, not giving her or the Doctor a second glance.
The Doctor is looking at her, she realises, a soft expression on his face. It's hard to believe it's the same face that can be set in stone and radiate fury and judgement. She does sometimes wonder which is his true face.
"Rose?"
She composes herself, beaming at him. "So, where's the tea, then?"
"Oh, it's..." he frowns, staring at his clock and the people around. "We should leave."
"What is it?"
"Got the date a bit wrong," he says quietly. "The people of Regan want to be free. The government of Renava doesn't agree. There's a bomb waiting to go off here."
"So what are you waiting for? Let's disarm it and get our tea!"
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"Rose," he says darkly. "Sometimes things happen for a reason."
"But they'll die...!"
"Yes," he says, and he is the judge again, the killer, the darkness behind the brightest smile she knows.
A wild, improbable idea occurs. If he saves her, if he changes history for her, if he... If he loves. If he... No one needs to die.
"Bomb!" she cries, and people look up, finally noticing. "Bomb!"
She runs.
She has a moment to hear his voice, calling out her name, and it's almost enough to make her wish it could be undone.
"Rose!" he calls and then the world goes blindingly light.
II
The brightness becomes pain becomes darkness becomes his voice.
"That's right, Rose, just listen. This will hurt. Just listen to my voice and it'll be over soon."
She screams, almost drowning out the terrible sound of bones breaking. And then she feels cool lips against her forehead, burning comfort.
"It's okay, Rose. It's over now."
It's not over, she knows, and in her heart, triumph soars.
II
She awakes to the familiar hum of the TARDIS and for a while, she lies listening to it, feeling it home. The pain is gone, only a faint memory of it lingers with his voice. All gone now, almost as if it never was.
She can feel his eyes on her even before she looks up. He stands in the doorway, arms crossed, regarding her with calm.
"Did you disarm it?" she asks.
He smiles, but there is nothing warm in it. "Piece of cake for a brilliant mind like mine."
"What happened?" she asks, putting her feet down on the floor carefully. They hold her, and she stands up with a smile he doesn't return.
"You got trampled in the stampede. Should know better than to cry 'bomb!' in a nervous population. They'd been waiting for the first shot."
"They won't have to now."
"They'll have to wait for the second shot now," he says calmly, and walks in. "That bomb was planted by a Revanan fanatic, hoping to crush the Regan moral in one big bang. Instead, he would've made his people outraged and the Revanan government would have been forced into giving Regan the freedom it wanted."
She feels her smile falter and her head fills with what isn't quite pain, isn't quite a broken leg that can be mended.
"Now there will have to be more bloodshed," he goes on, his voice as even as ever. "No outrage to stop it yet. More will die. Then there will be peace, as it could have been today already."
She closes her eyes, but he goes on, quietly, voice of steel in the darkness of her mind.
"A few lives to save thousands."
"A few planets to save the Universe," she mutters and she wants to scream at the part of her brain that understands.
"Yes," he agrees, and she opens her eyes to see his eyes on her, unrelenting. She almost wishes he would rage at her, scream and shout instead of this cold calm, a wall erected between her and his emotions.
"You knew I would come for you. You knew I would change the past for that," he says and it's not a question.
"Yes," she admits.
"Why, Rose?"
"I had to know I wasn't your planet and you'd just let me burn."
He shakes his head. "You didn't have to know. You wanted to know."
"Yes!" she flings at him. "Maybe I wanted to know if you had a heart!"
"I have two, actually," he corrects coldly. "You tested me. Did I pass?"
"Yes."
"And you?"
"I failed," she mutters and his gaze hurts as it holds her.
"Glad we have that cleared up!" he replies, fake cheerfulness dripping from his voice. She wants to slap him, beg his forgiveness, walk away from him, hold him, forgive him, kiss the hurtful words from his lips.
The latter seems as god an idea as any.
She kisses him; framing his head in her hands, feeling his lips hard and unresponsive against hers. She has to stand on her toes to reach, pressing herself against his body and almost feeling his heartbeats through skin and cloth. After a moment, he takes her by the elbows and breaks the kiss, his eyes ice as he looks at her.
"I'm not Mickey," he says flatly. "That's not going to make it all right."
'I know!' she wants to hurl at him. She knows, oh, she knows. Mickey doesn't do this to her, doesn't spin time around and dance among falling stars as if it's rain. Mickey doesn't hold death in his voice and life in his offered hand. Mickey doesn't have two hearts, one for her and one for the Universe.
Mickey was her boyfriend. The Doctor is...
"Rose, you can't..." the Doctor goes on, shaking his head slightly and finally she sees some emotion in his face. Anger, resignation, hurt and just the tiniest, tiniest flicker of something else.
He's not going to drag her off home and leave, she realises. He can't, anymore than she could walk away previously. There's a strange, dark joy in it, painful certainty that he'll hurt her and she'll hurt him and they still won't let go.
He's still gripping her elbows as she leans in and kisses him again, relentlessly this time until he sighs into her mouth and his grip feels like a caress.
"Rose, you can't," he says again, a whispered plea before he kisses her back, tugging at her bottom lip, pressing a hand against her neck. She struggles to keep her balance until he steadies her with a hand around her waist, effectively locking her against him.
She can. She can and he knows it even as he's kissing her with so much gentleness it aches. She aches and clutches the wool of his jumper in her hand, the feel of it so familiar. Human clothes and alien skin. Killer and healer, judge and jester. The Universe's Doctor, and still she has shamelessly claimed a part of him for herself. She doesn't know him, but she knows the part she's claimed. Maybe it's enough.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, his breath warm against hers.
"I know," he whispers back and gently frees himself. He looks at her for a moment, his lips curving into what seems more a grimace than a smile. He holds out his hand and she takes it, skin linking and clinging on.
Forgiveness in a held hand. Hers and his. Because if she can't forgive him or he can't her, they'll have to let go.
They walk back to the console room and it isn't as if what happened has never been. But from his jacket the faint whiff of tea persists, and there is that too.
FIN