Title: Sheltered (1/1)
Characters: Rose Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones and including the TARDIS and the Master (with no longer quite-so-implied Jack/Rose/Doctor threesom-goodness).
Disclaimer: American me, this is all in good fun.
Author's Notes: Alright, this is the unfortunate sequel to Shattered, so it might make a little more sense if that's read first. Previously posted at LiveJournal. Beware insanity and repetitiveness. Unbeta'd for viewing confusion; see something wrong- please let me know! I love comments and criticism.
"Can't you hear it?"
Tea before bedtime. That's his answer. A recipe for sleep, the cure-all he said saved the world once. She sees memories flash like quicksilver, to fast for understanding. Still, she drinks the warm liquid and manages a smile. It helps, but not completely. Dreams plague her and she's being chased, tracked through a forest of golden leaves where eternity looms in a blood red sky. Feet pound in rhythm, taunting the hunter with a silver axe.
When she wakes it's to an echo of something not quite there and stars dancing on the ceiling. She can almost name them, these stars and planets and galaxies, these nebulae and gas giants. They pulse and flicker and twinkle down at her and they aren't real, are artificial. Knows this; can still feel them. It confuses her, a frustrating duality she suspects will never go away.
The room is cold and blankets press her to a bed. A bed, not hers. She doesn't remember the sound to the sheets or the feel of the walls. Cotton acting like silk and its all blue. The color of a wool jacket, the hue of a call box, the tint of the vortex they're falling through.
And they are, she can feel that too. The spin. The tilt. The vortex. He sends them falling every night, likes the safety of being untouchable, of being outside time. These nights are the closest he can get to being just like her. The closest he can pretend to be like them.
He with the tea before bedtime. He who talks and talks and talks and hands her a bone china cup with a smile. He who drinks with her. He who smiles with heartache, he who smiles with guilt.
She sleeps to a rhyme and they all wake with a shout.
Skin to skin and flush to sheets, they're left to fight each other's dreams.
They don't travel like she thinks they used to. There's running and laughter and clasped hands. But it's not carefree. There's three of them now and they are weary, it's in everything they do. In everything they don't.
Blue and brown and sad, sad red.
They stay close to her, all three, never wander, and go by groups. Two by two, her hand is held and they don't let go, like a child threatened by a crowd. And when they separate, when one must go ahead she's always left behind. Sheltered with an arm around her waist or a tight grip on her fingers.
She can almost remember a past where trip after trip the door opened on Trouble, Possibility, and Jeopardy. Their days are now filled with sun and breeze and relaxation. There's a yearning for danger, for the action of adrenaline. She can almost remember jumping from past to future for the adventure of saving lives. The choice isn't hers now and they won't let her try.
They don't travel like she thinks they used to, so she has taken to staying behind and sings with the ship. She knows they worry.
They should.
Can you hear it? The echo of a song.
Shoulders clash in hallways that shift. The dark girl in red now wearing blue like the travelers she's companioned with stumbles. They stumble together as they fall.
"Oh, here, let me help you."
"Can you hear it?"
There's a look in the girl's eyes as they flit side to side. "Hear what? Is something wrong?"
"There. Just there, can you hear it? The absents in a call."
"I… No, but maybe the Doctor can. Or Jack. Come on, I was just on my way to the kitchens. They should both be there. Jack's picked up ingredients for some sort of 51st century delicacy."
Gentle hands tug but they're going the wrong way.
"Rose?"
"It's there. Just there." And her voice is distant as fingers trail on the walls and those hands on her pull without regard.
Time refused to hold them, the abandoned children, those paired with gold. It was something he didn't know how to fix. They were broken and tears fell. She wants to say she's sorry, but it would be a lie.
Forever includes a man who learns to stand by their side. A battle of revulsion for the actions in her past, and she wonders how long forever will last when one of them must die.
"Jack and Jill ran up a hill…" and she's laughing. Laughing with a ship that's singing, curled in the warmth it provides her. She's sitting on the grating, metal at her back and gold in her eyes. They're waiting, waiting for the Doctor, the Captain and the Student; waiting for the triumphant return of yet another planet's heroes.
"…But Jack fell down,"
Exterminate.
"And broke his crown,"
Yeah, kinda figured that.
"And Jill went tumbling after."
They're waiting and the song's for them, but when doors open and they're no longer alone the tune has changed.
"Can you hear it?"
A rhyme with no words, just a tap-tap-tapping of her fingers on the floor. She's crying, and she can't tell them why.
The two that became five lost one. It was time, she said and walk out the door without looking back. Rose couldn't help but feel responsible. When a man promised the whole of time and space to a girl they don't expect to baby-sit.
The Doctor looks sad and Jack looks grim; she wonders when forever will end.
How?
They had the conversation in the middle of the street, ignored a crowd of strangers ignoring them. Two sets of travelers, four timelines, one ship. It was a mathematical equation she hadn't known the answer to, couldn't see the end of. Possibilities multiplied as seconds turned to minutes and hours came and went.
In the end they had tea, sitting around a cozy table alien in design. She sat between blue and brown looking towards wide-eyed red.
"Can you hear that?"
But her words were overpowered with the glaring and their silent conversation shouting above her head. They talked of time and travel, of space and adventure and danger. They battled for dominance in a ship of only one master. They pulled and pushed and decided to try.
Barcelona was proposed and she let them lead the way.
"Rose," He pleads holding out his hand. Slow movements, restrained energy. He inches forward, a broken smile on his lips. Hair ruffled and tie undone, socks donned and shirt unbuttoned. He's coming closer, always closer, and feet fall to a rhythm pounding right there; just outside.
There is rich orange light shining down from above and bangs hide closed eyes. At her back the walls are humming, saying go, go, go, and the tears that are falling burn like gold.
"Rose," They're there. Two hands out, two palms up; four not knowing what to do.
"I'm so sorry sweetheart, I shouldn't have left you alone." It's the second-first one, who once flirted and smiled and grinned with ease.
"Let's go to the kitchen, a cup of tea should do the trick." It's the first one made new, and he's talking, talking, talking in the silence of uncertainty.
Hands are on her shoulders and they're both pulling her away.
She whispers into a warm shirt as dual hearts beat at her back. "Can you hear it?"
Their answer overpowers her question and it's tossed aside, forgotten.
Tea before bedtime. That's his answer, held out with steady hands and a hopeful expression. A recipe for sleep, he says and knows it's drugged. Still, she drinks the warm liquid and manages a smile.
Arms grow heavy and legs start to drag. She panics, sometimes, and remembers the men with white jackets and a room with no outside. She fears falling, of never stopping, of metal words and a world of nothing. But then hands are catching her and she's being lead to bed.
"I've got you sweetheart," says the one who was always there as the one who came before but after closed the door.
She dreams that she's running; always running, feet pounding to the rhythm. She dreams of darkness with long arms reaching for her. She dreams of monsters.
She dreams of golden leaves in a forest of eternity where the master huntsman holds a gleaming silver axe. And there's blood all around and fire lights the sky, everything shifts in the chaos of the subconscious and his face changes from time to time. "Can't you hear it, the beating of war drums?"
"Yes," she's mesmerized by the falling, falling leaves and the tick-tick-ticking of an unnamed clock. "It's the coming of an end."
They hold her when she's sleeping and it helps, but not completely.
Can't you hear it? We do.
