Title: The Light That You Shine Can Be Seen
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel
Pairings: Rose/Susan
Story Summary: Rose thought she was alone in this universe. But Time Lords turn up when you least expect it. Susan/Rose
Setting: Post-Doomsday.
The Light That You Shine Can Be Seen
But did you know
that when it snows
My eyes become large and the light that you
shine can be seen.
Baby,
I compare you to a kiss from a rose on
the grave.
Now that your rose is in bloom.
A light hits the
gloom on the grave,
I've been kissed by a rose on the grave,
I've
been kissed by a rose
I've been kissed by a rose on the
grave,
...And if I should fall along the way
I've been kissed
by a rose
...been kissed by a rose on the grave.
'Kiss From a Rose,' Seal
She was small and dark-haired, with big brown eyes and strangely pale skin. She's quit when they bring her in, eyes devoid of any life but for a lost, hollow pain. She answers none of Torchwood's questions, but does as they ask without a word. She drifts into sleep between crisp white sheets under the observation of impersonal guards and detachedly caring medical staff.
It's the news of two hearts that makes Director Tyler drop everything and come running to the medical wing, to stare at the thin sleeping figure, with its unruly hair and reddish-purple scars. There's all kinds of rumours about Director Tyler; that her eyes glow gold when she's angry and that sometimes she knows what you're thinking. It's certainly true that she's been at Torchwood for longer than anyone can remember, at least fifty years, and yet she doesn't look any older than their newest recruit, and no older than the girl in the bed. Director Tyler must have a lot of stories to tell.
When the woman finally wakes up the Director is there, eating a packet of hot chips.
"Hello," she says. "I'm Rose. You like chips?"
The woman scoffs them down in a way that matches her small frame and Rose's belief that she hasn't eaten properly in a long time.
"Steady on," Rose tells her, "too many and you'll be throwing it all back up in the loo. I'll have them bring you some decent food, yeah?"
And the woman looks at Rose, still glowing inwardly with artron energy and other kinds of energy that most people don't even have a name for, and feeling Rose's presence echo reassuringly in her head.
"I'm Susan. I was in a war."
"I know. Rose is gentle. "I travelled for a bit with someone who survived. His name was the Doctor."
Suddenly the life surges into her eyes and Susan gasps.
"Grandfather? He's alive?" and then, "why can't I feel him?"
Rose explains kindly, softly, but Susan is left with the hollow look back in her eyes and in a different sort of pain from before.
When Susan is discharged Rose offers her a job, and Susan accepts. It's a wild, on-the-run life that reminds Susan of how she grew up. Sometimes Susan's bouncing cheerfulness and the way she always tries to save absolutely everyone makes Rose think of the Doctor. Susan's hair has been trimmed now, but it's still rumpled and restless like the Doctor's.
Susan soothes Rose when the paperwork piles up and comes up with the clever ideas when something goes wrong, and on the days when Susan sits and cries Rose drags her away to go shopping or something equally, shiningly human, and Susan remembers why she loves Earth so much. Somehow they've ended up doing everything together. To others their intuitive understanding and harmony is like twins. They don't understand how desperate Susan and Rose were to fill the aching emptiness at the back of their minds.
"How old are you really?" Rose asks one day.
"One hundred and twenty," Susan says. "And you?"
Rose is quiet for a moment. So many people she's outlived…
"Hundred and twelve," she says finally. "Seems like longer, sometimes." Humans live for such a short time.
Sometimes they talk of the Time War.
"After the Fall of Arcadia they called absolutely everyone in." Susan's eyes are in the past as she remembers. "So I left my husband behind and my children and followed the call. The universe was a mess. Every time we fixed something the Daleks went back and changed it. I helped save Elandera six or seven times, yet every time we checked it was a burnt husk of a planet. We fixed things again and again, going back and forth in time, but the Daleks always destroyed them again. At the same time they were conquering everything and gaining all kinds of technology. And then there was the Breach of Pazithi Gallifreya. After that we knew it was only a matter of time. A decade later I was knocked into this universe. I watched as my TARDIS burned." Susan bites her lip.
"That was a few months after I regenerated, I knew I'd never be with my family again then. I wasn't Susan Campbell anymore. I was a Time Lady, with two hearts and a new face."
Other times they talk of life, and death, and of all things in between.
"I barely age," Rose says sadly, "while everybody else just dies. I hate watching them get old. My little sister's eighty nine. I was about twenty-two when she was born, and yet I look like I could be her grand-daughter. Marion and me see each other every weekend and it tears me up every time I see her. I remember when she was born, all tiny and precious, and when she used to yell 'wove! wove!' every time she saw me coz 'Rose' was too tricky for her… and now she's this little old lady, and one day I'll be at her funeral and everyone'll be going, 'who's that girl?' coz I'll still look about twenty-five!"
That weekend when Rose visits her baby sister Susan comes too.
Marion smiles at the way they finish each others sentences and predict each others movements.
"She's totally hot," she tells Rose conspirationally. With a Time Lord's hearing, Susan giggles at the other end of the house.
"Mum, leave Aunt Rose alone," Jacqueline scolds.
"What you mean, she's totally hot?" Rose demands. "She's just a friend, Mari."
"You say that," Marion says dubiously, "but I bet she wouldn't turn you down in you offered her a bit of a snog."
"Marion!"
"I'm only saying," Marion points out. Rose shakes her head.
"You're just like Mum, you are," Rose can't help smiling. Unheard, Susan can't help her laughter.
Later Susan looks at Rose with her innocent big eyes.
""You know, about what your sister said – "
"Don't worry about Marion," Rose hurries, embarrassed that Susan heard, "she loves all that romantic stuff, you know?"
Susan hesitates.
"What? What you looking at me like that for?" Rose wants to know.
Susan sighs.
"It's rather complicated. You loved Grandfather greatly, didn't you?"
Rose has never mentioned how she felt about the Doctor, but she nods.
"I know I remind you of him, but I don't want to be his replacement," Susan says.
"Don't worry, you're not." Rose knows who Susan is.
Susan watches Rose a moment, then the eyelids close a little and the innocence turns to something else as Susan leans forward.
Susan's hair sometimes reminds Rose of the Doctor, dark and messy, as does her bright smile and instant grasp of technology, but as Rose wraps her arms around her and twines her fingers into the brown hair Rose thinks only of Susan.
Rose wants to make sure she understands.
"Even if I could choose anyone, anywhere, it'd still be you. If the Doctor turned up now and asked me to come with him, I'd say no. Coz I loved him, and I still love him, but I've got you."
Susan's smile is like the dawn.
Fin