A/N: I want to give special thanks to Dragoneisha, as well as everyone else who commented on the first chapter. I felt all kinds of warm and fuzzy after reading your comments. I enjoyed writing this chapter, although I did struggle because I wanted to show Rose more different than she used to be, but not completely broken, because she's stronger than that. Also, each chapter will be more from either Rose or The Master's point of view, and it should be obvious in the first two or three sentences of each chapter who it's from.
Disclaimer: While I think that I do decent writing about the characters, I do not own them. All rights go to BBC.
Warnings: Nothing drastic in this chapter, but in the next few there might be some cursing and violence.
Rose Tyler's dreams are full of fear and pain and hurt. When she wakes up, her skin is coated in a thin layer of cold sweat, making the few strands of hair that stick out of her messy ponytail cling to her forehead. It is without care of dignity or appearance that she makes her way out of bed and stumbles toward the hall. Her legs don't feel like they'd be strong enough to carry her own weight, but they do and her toes brush against the softness of the carpet, then curl ever so much the sharp contrast of tile as she enters the bathroom. She hasn't bothered to turn any of the lights on, and dawn's a long way off, so her small flat is cloaked in darkness.
Pushing aside the flimsy shower curtain, she turns the familiar silver knob, starting the stream of water out of the shower head. She doesn't bother to check the temperature of the now flowing water before stripping and leaving her pyjamas on the counter by the sink. When she steps under the streams of water, they are still cold, but she doesn't move away from them. Instead she lets the icy liquid freeze her skin, make her shiver. Though she needs a proper shower, she silently wills the water to stay cold, the tips of her fingers brushing along the goose bumps that rise on her arms. She knows she's wasting time, and that she'll probably be late for work, but she doesn't mind much. Standing here, under the cold streams of water that freeze her to the bone, she feels something.
She stays this way until she goes numb. How she even feels herself doing so is long beyond her, she's been numb for so long, she's surprised she can feel anything really. It is finally when she can feel nothing that the water finally heats itself. She lets out an involuntary sigh as the warmth seeps into her skin, her muscles. It loosens them, and allows her the ability to think properly about the previous day's events for the first time. The strange happening has taunted her all night, invading her dreams and denying her proper rest.
When she'd arrived at the cursed beach, she could have sworn that she was alone. She wasn't quite sure why she continued returning to Bad Wolf Bay when it had only been a source of pain and misery, but she couldn't help it. Against her own better judgment, she had rolled up her pant legs and waded out into the surf, feeling the tide swell and fade along her skin. She'd become lost to the world as she delved into the corners of thought, her eyes on the horizon, thinking of days long gone by. It was as she turned to leave and go back to work that she had seen him, a tall man in a suit covered in sand, standing not too far away, just watching her. For a brief and wonderful second she had thought that perhaps her Doctor had returned for her at long last.
She realizes now, as she squeezes shampoo onto her hands and begins rubbing it into her scalp, how stupid and foolish she had been to think he would ever actually return for her. She tilts her head back now, rinsing the foamy soap from her hair as she thinks.
She had moved to his aid when the man had fallen, and to her utter shock she had felt the double heartbeat of a Time Lord. She had tried to wake him repeatedly, shaking him and talking to him, but it had been in vain. Finally she gave up and called Mickey and Pete, as well as a few others from Torchwood, to get some help when it became blatantly obvious that he wasn't going to wake up any time soon.
She spreads the conditioner into her hair now, remembering telling Mickey that the man they were loading into her father's car was not human.
He hadn't believed her until she made him feel the double heartbeat, then he had suggested that it was The Doctor, and oh how she had wanted to believe it was. It seemed like hours before they made it to the Torchwood building and had gotten the man in the infirmary. She had suggested running a DNA test, comparing the man's DNA to that of John.
John was - had been, she corrected herself mentally - the human Metacrisis. She didn't like to think about it, but of course she did. All the time.
After the DNA came back negative for a match but positive for a Time Lord, they had taken the man to a confinement room. She had objected of course, but Pete had insisted that because they didn't know who he was and what he was planning, that they needed to take all necessary precautions.
She turns off the water and steps carefully out of the shower now, wrapping the navy blue towel around herself before walking back toward her room. The sky had become gradually lighter since she'd first woke, and early morning sunshine spills through the windows, casting enough light for her to see clearly. Still without turning on any lights, she makes her way to the wardrobe, grabbing the clothing she'd put out the night before. She dresses quickly, pulling on the dark denim, and fastens the button with a mechanical motion. Moments later she pulls a black leather jacket over a dark blue t-shirt. Next in her monotonous routine comes her hair, which she simply tosses into a messy ponytail.
Because her actions every morning have become nothing more than well-rehearsed routine, she finds herself driving to work and not really knowing how exactly she got there. She seems to be doing that a lot. Half the time she has no idea how she has gotten somewhere, and she tells herself that it doesn't matter that she got there, it just matters that she does. It is a weak excuse and both her mother and Mickey had both tell her almost every day that she needs to get on with her life and start actually living, but she can't. She supposes it's too late for living. In many ways she considers herself dead in this universe as well as in her old one. Nothing matters.
It is in this mechanical daze that she walks into her work building. Her watch informs her that she'll be almost twenty minutes late but she doesn't care. What's the worst that could happen? They could fire her, but that doesn't seem to matter much when in her old life, worst case scenario was plain and simple death. Seconds later and she's stepping through the front doors of the job she's held for about three and a half years now. Pete Tyler's daughter she is, but it has been a long time since people have cared about that. She's created a name for herself here that invokes respect and in some cases even awe.
She sighs audibly as she steps out of the lift she didn't quite remember boarding, walking down a familiar hallway, entering part of the building most Torchwood employees simply call 'The Gun Cage'. Clean white flooring turns black and white walls fade gradually into a rich blue-grey color with each step. The smell of sterility and soap become one of gunpowder and iron. It's familiar and it washes over her, calming her mind which had begun rolling in the past few seconds, mainly at the thought of the man with a double heartbeat just a few floors beneath her feet.
Her eyes adjust quickly to the light, which steadily becomes dimmer with each step. Even if her eyes hadn't adjusted as quickly as they did, it wouldn't matter much. She knows this entire section of the building by heart, from the weapons storage behind the mesh wire wall, to the long main wall of computer monitors and radar screens, as well she should, she designed it. Her footsteps are light and fast as she pushes past an unlocked wire mesh door and walks toward a row of dark grey lockers at the back of the room. It's there that she yanks a black vest, similar to Kevlar but not quite, off a hook underneath a tiny placard that bears her name. She pulls it snuggly around her body and fastens it, before turning and making her way toward a group of monitors.
She passes a group of men chatting animatedly in a loose circle, though they all scramble up and about at the sight of her, flushing and returning to their work as fast as their bodies will allow them to, a few of them mumbling her name in apologetic greeting. She gives the tiniest of smirks at it, rolling her eyes upwards before returning to the radar before her. Her fingers tap along the keys quickly, in practiced and automatic motions, and her eyes narrow in concentration as she works to discover how the Time Lord she met on the beach got there.
The hours pass debilitatingly slow, and ironically there seems to be no alien activity on the planet whatsoever. She silently curses the fact that on the one day she wants to get out and lead a group into handling a dangerous situation, it seems that everything has gone quiet. She hears the members of her team laughing at something that is more than likely mundane somewhere behind her, but it's of little significance, so she merely leaves the Gun Cage. She has left her vest on, as she typically does, and she walks the path she knows by heart without much conscious thought process.
She meets Mickey for lunch, and it's a more than welcome relief. Mickey is the only one who has ever truly understood. He is the only one who ever traveled with The Doctor long enough to even have a chance at understanding. She thinks it is because of his knowing that he can still make her smile, make her laugh, much in the way he used to. Perhaps it is not much of a feat, but with him is the only time she has been close to happy since being stranded - no, abandoned - here. She has felt victorious, accomplished, proud, but never happy. Never truly happy since he left her here. Except with Mickey. Sometimes she thinks that when she is around Mickey she's happy.
It is midway through her lunch that she is interrupted by a man from her team. She recognizes him as Chase, Chase Silverman. His close cut blond hair and hard jaw give him a severe look, but she is not fooled by it. She never has been. She knows that beneath his serious façade is a childlike personality, but that's not relevant now, as the look he carries is one of utter seriousness.
"He's asking for you Rose." He informs her, his voice low and serious.
"Who is?" She hopes her initial assumption is wrong, and that the man with the double heartbeat held in a cell somewhere beneath their feet, is sleeping comfortably without thought of her.
"The Time Lord in containment. He's asking for you." He repeats the last part of the phrase, as if she could have forgotten it, as if it didn't make her nervous as hell.
"Are you sure he's asking for me? He could be asking for-" She tries to say something else, to suggest whom the man might mean, but she is cut off by Chase, who seems impatient.
"No. He's asking specifically for you."
She feels her mouth go dry and, not trusting her voice, she nods and stands. She waves an apologetic goodbye to Mickey and follows Chase down the stairs, ignoring the lift entirely as they head deeper into the secretive building. Her pace slows considerably as they walk down a long corridor, rows white doors marking containment rooms on either side of the hallway. They stop by the last door on the right, and she hesitates ever so much before opening it.
As the door swings open, her eyes scan the room in a quick, analytical fashion. Everything is cloaked in pale colors, ranging from the stark white walls to the pale grey bed sheets on the clinical-like bed bolted to the wall in the corner. He sits on the bed, clothed in a cotton shirt and pair of pants, both pure white. He wears a smirk that gives him a slightly menacing look, and when he speaks his voice is fluid and hypnotic.
"Hello, Rose Tyler."
Yeah, I know that there hasn't been a lot of dialogue, and I think Rose might have been kind of OOC, but I wanted to highlight the differences The Doctor leaving her had. Anyway, thanks for reading, I'll see you next chapter, and reviews are like cookies.