Title: Holding It In
Genre: Angst/Drama
Rating: K /PG-13
Warning: Many character deaths, child death
Pairing: 10/R, some 9/Rose
Characters: Rose, Doctor, Donna,Martha,Sarah Jane, Luke Smith,Gwen Cooper,Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness. Mention of Nine.
Summary: Rose couldn't save them all, starting with the one she loved most.
"Did you know him?" Did she know the Doctor...oh god yes she did. Yes she did! She knew his smile and his laugh and his great, great hair. She knew his eyes when they were icy blue and made her blush with desire for him. She knew he could dance in both bodies she knew and save the world and be so terrifying you'd never guess he was such a kicked puppy inside.
But she doesn't tell Donna. Can't get the words out. She just leaves. She can't take any more.
Theres more. She is there to watch Sarah Jane and Martha Jone's bodies be taken out of Royal Hope Hospital. Sarah is still so lovely, her face strong and proud even when she isn't behind it. Rose lets out a sob of horror and guilt and kneels beside the body as the men carrying her out recognize the look of a grieving friend.
She holds her hand, looking over at Martha Jones and then back to dear, dear Sarah who told her some things were worth getting your heart broken over. She was right, but Rose isn't sure she can handle the after effects nearly so well as this indomitable woman. This dead woman whose heart had been shred to bits when she found out the Doctor was dead.
Rose remembered returning to UNIT HQ that night to find a man named Alistair sobbing into his hands as the head of UNIT handed him the sonic screwdriver. Sarah was there too, rubbing his back in sympathy while crying into his shoulder. She learned later that the old man had known the Doctor for close to forty years.
The children's bodies are worse on Rose's mind. Luke and his friends...so brave to be doing what they'd done. They'd helped save so many lives and they were only ten or so years old. Gone. All because she was too slow to save the Doctor.
Jack. Jack from the days of the big eared Doctor with his grins and his jealousy at Jack's attentions towards her. Her Jack, who she tries to stop from being a hero and cries when he refuses.
"Jack, please. Please.." She weeps, clutching him to her and sobbing loudly. She wants to fix this world and she will if only Donna would be ready soon, but at the same time she can't bear the thought of him and his team going down.
"Oh Rosie...I have to. I have to because thats what he would do." He says back, pushing away from her so he can kiss her long and deep, like a man about to ascend the gallows. It isn't lust, its nothing like that. Its the pure love of Jack Harkness shedding the playboy lifestyle to love her like the family she knows he considers her.
He's gone.
Gwen and Ianto dying feels like a punch to the gut, even if she didn't know this world's them. She loved them so much. Her Ianto had brought her coffee on the days the absense of the Doctor threatened to overwhelm her. Gwen had taken her out shopping and clubbing and made her remember being simply Rose Tyler. And she can feel this Gwen dying and it hurts like hell...she wants to run back to the Hub and hug the two of them and tell Owen not to be a hero and Tosh to never let her concentration take her out of reality. She won't lose them.
Through it all she had held it in, kept moving and thinking one disaster to another. Its only when she gets home that she throws herself into Gwen's arms and sobs.