Deleted Scene number 1

This scene came to me in a dream about a week after I started writing Breaking Point. I wrote it up, and wound up not using it. It was originally supposed to be part of the chapter "one week," but I thought it dragged the chapter down with too much angst. It was also far too long for the chapter, which was supposed to just be little snippets.

I replaced it with the bit about the date they had gone on before this scene. In my head, it still totally happened.

XxXxXxXx

Rose Tyler was on her own, running her hand down the walls of the TARDIS again, asking the sentient ship for a room she had never seen that was amazing. Something to keep her mind off of the fact that the Time Lord had just caught her making out with the part human in the console room.

She had decided that his life was too damned short to waste it on waiting games, so after a wonderful trip to see Muse, she pushed him to the worn chair in the console room and snogged him for all he was worth. His jacket was missing and a couple buttons of her shirt were undone when the Time Lord walked in.

The TARDIS gave Rose a mental nudge. She stopped walking, opened her eyes, and walked into the room indicated.

She stood in what looked like a field, outside. There were a handful of trees and many bushes with flowers of all types, but most of the massive room was a meadow. If she had woken up in this place, she might have thought she was outside, except for the light hum the TARDIS always gave off.

In that meadow, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of butterflies.

The sight was beautiful, and was just what she needed. She turned around in a slow circle, taking in the whole room, then stopped and held out a hand, palm up.

Just as she hoped, a butterfly landed on her hand, and she hummed to it softly.

She heard a footstep right behind her.

"Hello, Doctor," she greeted in a pleasant voice without turning around.

"Hello, Rose," he replied softly.

"About earlier..." he started. Then trailed off. She could practically feel the tension coming from him. She was sure he was standing right behind her, messing up his hair and scratching his neck.

"I don't want to talk about it right now." she told him. "I just want to be here, having fun with butterflies. Did you know this room was here?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I haven't seen it in, oh, at least a century," he replied.

"TARDIS brought you here?" Rose asked, knowingly.

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Why?" she asked the ship, but the man behind her answered.

"Seeing as she's deleted the door, apparently, I have to talk to you," he deduced. She heard him mutter something to the ship, but it was in Gallifreyan, and she didn't get a translation.

She suddenly received a picture in her mind of the Doctor standing in front of her, and she had her eyes closed. The suit that the Doctor was wearing kept changing colors. She knew now why the TARDIS had led him here.

"Rose, look at me."

"No."

He moved to walk around her, so that she'd look at him, but she closed her eyes before he could come into her peripheral vision. She felt him stop in front of her, very close to her. Then he placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Open your eyes, Rose," he ordered, his voice barely above a whisper. Rose shook her head.

"Why not?" he asked, confused.

"I don' wanna know who I'm talking to," she replied.

His long fingers clenched her shoulders as he repeated his last question, this time with more sadness.

"Because it doesn't matter. Because I believe it'll let you speak more freely," she replied, honestly. Because the TARDIS told me not to know who I was talking to, she thought. She couldn't say the last part. If this was the Time Lord, he'd know she was conversing with the ship that deeply, and would learn everything. She needed him not to know yet.

The hands left her shoulders, and she felt him take a step back.

"More freely?" he repeated her last words as a question.

"Yeah. I just want the truth, no repercussions. I'll never bring up what we say here again, and I'll never know which one of you said it unless you tell me," she assured him.

She felt, rather than heard him move back behind her. She knew he was thinking about what she said. When he stopped, right behind her, he put his hands back on her shoulders, as if he needed the contact, and she opened her eyes back up, knowing that she wouldn't be able to tell which one was there now.

"Alright," he finally said. "What do you need to know?"

"I have just one question," she told him. "That day, on the beach. What was the last thing you said to me?"

He went still. Then the fingers on her shoulders tightened again, almost painfully, and he swallowed.

"I said Rose Tyler," he said softly.

"And how was that sentence gonna end?" she prodded. After a few seconds of silence, she added "Go on, say it."

The hands dropped from her shoulders, and from the rustling of cloth, Rose was sure that he had put his hands in his pockets.

"Does it need saying?" the Doctor asked from behind her.

She dropped her head a little, disappointed. He couldn't even say it when she wasn't sure which him it was?

She went to turn around, there was no point in trying to keep his identity a secret if he wasn't going to finish the damned sentence.

Suddenly, his hands grabbed her upper arms and kept her from turning around. She felt him come closer, until she could feel his ragged breath near her ear.

"I love you. Be brilliant," he whispered into her ear. He then kissed her hair, making sure not to touch her skin.

The hands left her arms and he left as quickly as he could.

She never did know which one it was.