War Not Easily Won
Summary: AU in which Eleven comes back to Pete's World to put flowers on Rose's grave. He finds a better adventure instead.
Ship: Rose x Eleven.
A/N: This chapter backtracks a bit from where the last one left off. Important to note that before you start reading. I know this update was like really late, but hey, it's 6k words. I tried to make up for my tardy update in word count x) In this chapter, a crapload is happening; there is a bad pun, cute fluff, and really, really angsty stuff coming your way. The last part, where Rose is telling her story, I purposely limited my use with tags. This was to focus mainly of Rose's story and the Doctor's responses to vital points. Thank you, and enjoy! x
Trigger Warning: There are mentions of self-harm (with intent concerning Bad Wolf), suicide, substance abuse, and non graphic depictions of torture in this chapter and the next.
( interlude & part four; wounds that never healed and rose's confessions )
Rose doesn't sleep well, though it is not a new occurrence to her. She's fairly used to resting for only a couple hours before she wakes up again - four hours a night, tops, and she's good to go. It isn't a healthy routine for a human, but then again, she's not exactly human anymore.
So she gets up. She's only momentarily fazed by the fact that she's in her old room in the TARDIS - a room she hasn't been in for two hundred years - before she remembers the events that had only occurred in the past eight hours or so. The threat to shoot him, then the kissing, and the sex, and the fighting - oh, Rome was not built in a day, but she and the Doctor had made it seem like so.
Hours ago, the had a cuppa. Then she went to sleep. But really, she wasn't sleepy, no, not at all. No, she had rather not been present in the unraveling of all her secrets. So she left him to his own accord. He was at the whim of his own curiosity.
It shouldn't have bothered her, the fact that she had let him be, but it did.
So here she is, awake and staring up at the ceiling because she didn't feel like getting out of the warmth of her old bed. This... strangely feels like home. No, it isn't the Powell Estate, or the Tyler Mansion, and it isn't the house she and John shared off in Greenwich. But it feels just as comfortable they once did; perhaps because the TARDIS once was.
It's like she never left.
What did she get herself into? Rose knows this is lost territory for her, and for the good of Earth as she knew it, it shouldn't have been found again. Definitely.
Because she is currently anchored to her responsibilities, and she is not a nineteen year old girl in over her head anymore — Rose is not naive, not young, not inexperienced; she is well over two hundred years old, and she of all people should know that she is drawn out from necessity. If she leaves, she is just acting on what she wants, what she desires. Not on what she needs to do.
Perhaps, she thinks, that's why she gave him her journal, her files. That maybe, just maybe, he will realize her reasons for needing to stay behind. Perhaps that's also why she'd rather be alone in her room than be with him as he reads. Because she knows that if he asks her to come one more time, she might say yes.
Her lack of self-control is terrifying, really.
Rose wonders what he's up to now. Horrified? Terrified? Disgusted? She would be too, if she were him. So weak, so stupid she was, so...
Human?
Yes, perhaps, but that is no excuse for what she did.
She is already walking to his room before she even realizes it.
0o0o0
His room has changed, but she expected it to. After all, it's been four hundred years for him, and things were bound to be different in all respects.
There is an unpeeled banana on his desk, though; his affinity for fruits (minus the pears) seems to not have changed.
His room is a bit more metallic than what she remembers. His old room - the one she fell in love with - had been a burst of color here and there, more spontaneous and less modest, and oh so loud. This regeneration's room - it's dark. There's a quietude. There's something of an eerie stillness. It's painted a darker shade of grey and his bedspread is monochromatic. Blacks and whites here and there, more linear, less sporadic.
It's different. She doesn't know how she feels about it, really.
Rose makes her way to his desk, intending only to throw the browning banana peel into the bin, but is caught by surprise by the pictures pinned to his bulletin board. She recognizes two of them - Amy and Rory, was it? The Girl Who Waited and the Last Centurion. They were a lovely couple, lovely people. They were good to the Doctor.
There's three other pictures, she sees, their names on the bottom of the polaroid. A pretty girl who looks worldly and young, Clara; a gruff looking man, Nathan, with tattoos stacked like rungs of a ladder on his neck; a middle aged woman sporting mousy brown hair and what appears to be her son, and their names are Leanna and Liam; the people in the photos all look like they're sad and happy all at the same time.
She knows that feeling too well.
She wonders why they left, or how. Who they are, what they've done, and if Liam had received his A-Levels or if Clara had fell in love with the Doctor too. They have stories, all of them. She hopes they had happy endings.
The Doctor snores suddenly and it startles her; Rose turns her head to see if he had scared himself awake and sees the journal left abandoned on his desk. Frowning, she picks it up and sits herself on the foot of his bed. He hadn't finished it.
Why?
Oh, she wouldn't know - she hadn't read it herself, even after all these years, for she is terrified to recount her days. She doesn't want to wallow in her own pain, shackled to her fear. She wants it far away from her, distance so great that she won't even remember - she just doesn't want to face it, honestly.
That's not very fair to the Doctor.
Her eyes linger on the page he left off - the day after the Medusa Cascade, the first day with John. She still called him Doctor, but that was when he was the only one left her life. Now there's the Doctor, and it's all a bit confusing now, to distinguish between hers and... him.
She remembers that day well. It wasn't necessarily happy, but it was a good start. For her. For him.
Yes, it was a good day.
She skips ahead to the beginning of war and she stops herself. She couldn't do this to herself. She shouldn't. It's not healthy.
All of it should just stop. She wants it to go away and just disappear from her past, hell, she wishes she never looked into the heart of the TARDIS, because if then, if then she would be dead by now. She wishes she never met the Doctor. A shop girl with no A-Levels wouldn't have been so sad.
There is no decadence in infinity.
The Doctor wakes up, then, and her heart sinks down to her stomach and she kicks herself for having thought those things about him. She looks at him, him at her, and the silence is too strenuous for her liking.
"Couldn't sleep, not really. Surprised you did." She sits criss-crossed, the journal now laying beside her.
"I had a good bedtime story," he tells her, pushing himself off his back and into a like sitting position.
She asks him where he left off; he replies accordingly. She has to smile at that - honesty rings loudly in this form. So straightforward, so clear to the point. Rose admires it, but it also tells her that he is so unlike his last form. Whereas her Doctor was so human to be alien, this one is too detached to be human.
How did her Doctor die? His tenth form - how did he die and why did he turn into this one?
She hands him the journal. Pondering on the object at hand, she says words that both of them want to hear. There's truth in them, but not enough to satisfy him. "This book saved my life." True, very, but only so. Thoughtfully, but hesitantly, she adds, "Also caused my failed suicide, but y'know. Different strokes of life."
That's a bit harsh, now that she thinks about it.
"I have questions."
I don't have all the answers, she thinks ruefully. But she doesn't say that. Instead, she questions whether or not they are questions for her, or for what he has already read.
Of course it's the latter.
And he asks why. Question number one, always why. Why this, why that.
She tells him why, and he is unhappy with her reason, no surprise there. So the Doctor forces her hand in choosing to narrate her own story for him, but a part of her thinks that she lets him. Only because she thinks it's about time to heal, and what better way to do so with a Doctor present?
0o0o0
The Doctor makes tea while she settles into a seat at the table. The kitchen isn't much different than before, the only difference being that there appears to be a mini-cooler by the fridge and it is stocked with fish fingers.
She won't ask. She'd rather not know.
"My second-to-last companion...make that plural, actually," the Doctor says, frowning at the last bit, "Loved to cook. So don't think I've gone all domestic. I never had a mother and son companion-team before them, but hey, first for everything."
Rose smiles. Leanne and Liam, she assumes.
The Doctor looks back at her as he pours tea into their cups. Beaming, he says, "Speaking of firsts, have you ever tried fish fingers and custard?"
"Fish fingers. And custard," she repeats slowly, looking at him like he just told her that he was secretly the Queen of England. "You serious now? Custard? You're not pissing around with me, are you now?"
"No," he says with a smirk. He slides her cup over to her, then takes a seat just right across. He lowers his voice, leaning in, as if they had a secret to share. "And if I do say so myself, it's bloody fantastic."
Rose vigorously shakes her head as she sips her tea, her eyes rolling as he lets out a noise of disappointment. She purses her lips, faking a gag as the Doctor gets out from his seat and makes his way to the fridge. Out of all the weird and alien things he's ever done, this one has to take the cake. "I think you're on something, you're mad!" she teases with a laugh.
"Not on something, onto something, Rose Tyler," he tuts, setting before her readily-made fish fingers and fresh custard. "Courtesy of the TARDIS."
"Do I have to?" she whines. The idea itself was utterly... disgusting. Of course, the Doctor always had an affinity with disgusting things, so it's no surprise to her that he would even be remotely satisfied with a meal like that.
"If you can face the Dalek nation and Cybermen, you can eat fish fingers and custard."
"I'm going to kill you if I vomit," she tells him, reluctantly picking up a piece of fish with her fingers.
"I've got two regenerations left; I'm not worried."
"I'll kill you twice, then," she counters mockingly. Without so much of another word, he leans back into his chair and crosses his arms, nodding pointedly at the bowl of custard.
"Go on. I'm waiting."
She closes her eyes as she dips it into the pastry sauce. "I'm not doing this," she says to herself, ignoring the "Yeah, you are," from the Doctor. She must've had the fish only centimeters from her mouth before she feels him take her hand to push it properly in. She muffles in protest, but even her gob couldn't do much with a custard-covered fish finger inbetween her teeth.
The taste of disgust never came, but instead, she finds herself actually enjoying it. Opening her eyes, she chews, nodding in surprise.
"Good, huh?" the Doctor asks, grinning.
"You were right," she admits thoughtfully. "It's good." She reaches over to grab another fish-stick-and-custard, continuing. "How did you discover this, anyway? It's kind of random."
"Remind me to tell you about Amelia Pond," he says softly, watching her intently. There's an undeniable sadness in his eyes, and she pities him. Amy probably was lost, horribly, terribly. His eyes cast down and she regrets even asking.
"Yeah?" is all she says.
He perks up, then, and it's all she can manage to not hug him to pieces right then. He squints his eyes at her, then licks his thumb as he says, "Hold on, you've got something on your face."
Out of instinct, she pauses before she takes a bite out of the fish finger. It didn't feel like there was something on her face...
Then the Doctor pushes the fish finger into her face and that's probably what he was referring to.
"Doctor! I swear to God," she laughs, falling out of her seat to avoid further custard-covered-attacks to her face. "Stop!" she shrieks as he follows her, his finger edging dangerously to her cheeks.
Quickly, she rises, heading towards the sink (where hopefully he stocked paper towels like a normal man) to wash the custard off her nose. He comes after her, laughing like a child in a candy store, and immediately she shields herself from him, giggling as she does so.
"Okay, okay, I'm done, no more custard!" he retracts, his voice inches away from her ear. There's a laugh buried in his words, and she could practically hear his smile on his lips.
"Promise?"
"I promise to you," he says softly.
Rose turns and she's caught with a towel smeared in custard in her face; she feels like a slap is warranted, but she is stuck between the counter and the Doctor. His hand steadies them both with his fingers ghosting on her hip, hers gripping the lapels of his coat. They are both all smiles and all dimples, and she manages to sputter out a light-hearted, "Piss off, Doctor," inbetween.
Her eyes are immobilized, locked on his as the laughs in their curses die down and silence falls around them. He rests his forehead against hers, then there is warmth and there is a skip to her heartbeat; when his arms wrap around her waist, she decides that the blame rests entirely on him, of course.
"You've got some on your..." he murmurs, his eyes flickering to her eyes, then to her lips.
"Yeah?" she whispers. She is smiling when he chuckles, when his cheeks turn a bright red.
"You make it worse when you smile," he tells her, then he's closing the gap between them and she finds herself with no intent of stopping him.
Then they're kissing, and it's right, and it's wrong, and suddenly she is the fire and he is the water that cools her. She is death and he breathes life, and she is the angel falling and he is the devil forgiven.
When she has to breathe, they break apart like they've been shocked, like teenagers caught by parents. She presses up against him when he dips his fingers against the waistband of her knickers and gasps like she's seen the face of God when his mouth finds her pulse point.
"You taste like custard."
"Whose fault is that?"
Their lips touch again, and that is when she forgets everything, everyone, everywhere. Nothing means anything to her, not a word, not a face, nothing but his lips on hers and hands on her skin and he-
"You think so loudly when we kiss," the Doctor says suddenly, parting slightly so he can look at her. "Like you're screaming."
"Can't help it," she tells him, and it's true. She hasn't had a reason to keep her barriers all the way up nowadays... not since...
"Not since prison, then?" he finishes for her, stepping back. He nods mindfully, staring at her like he's searching for something worthwhile to deduce and conclude. He swallows. "Rose."
"Yeah?"
"I..."
No, he's not going to do this to her. Not when she could stop him right this second.
"Please don't say you love me," she whispers. She bites her lips as she rests her hand on his chest to push him away gently. "The - John only told me that he loved me six times in our time together. Six times. Each one, I knew he meant it. I could tell you all the days he told me that he did, right to the second, exactly what we doing."
"Rose, you don't have to..." the Doctor trails off, suddenly reaching for her hands. She pulls them away, as if a wounded animal.
She continues anyway, her mouth moving at a pace she didn't know possible, her words spewing out like they were nothing to her. But they meant everything, God did they mean so much.
"He told me the day you left us. Then five months after that, right after we... he told me again three years later, when I told him I lost our child - we weren't compatible, but you didn't know that, did you? The next time he told me, we were in New York City, exactly ten years after the first time he told me, and I was in the hospital because I died for him. He told me again two years after that, when I decided to bake him a banana cake with ball bearings..." she says, and her heart is racing and the tears in her eyes are starting to fall.
"The last time he told me, thirty years later, was when he was on his deathbed and I didn't know. It was over the phone - over the phone, Doctor! I was on my way home from the planet Yurisha and... and I didn't know, and he died without me. Couldn't wait, the bastard. Couldn't wait for me - you couldn't..."
And she breaks.
Next thing she knows, she's in his arms and she's crying. She's falling apart, and damn it she's doesn't want to. And she was doing so well, so goddamn well.
"You're not him," she cries into his chest, trying desperately to pull away from him. "Doctor -"
What is she trying to say? An apology? Another bullshit reason why she can't go with him, another bullshit reason why he shouldn't try to make her open it to him? It's all pretenses now, there's no truth between them, it's different, it feels different, it's not the -
"It's not the same, I know," the Doctor coos, tightening his hold on her.
Lashing out suddenly, she pushes him off her, a force so great he stumbles backwards. "Get the fuck out of my head," she snarls, pointing at him. "You've got no right."
"Then stop screaming your thoughts at me, would you?" the Doctor screams back. He gestures to himself, then barks, "God, it's like you want me to hear you! You're so... so fucking hypocritical, Rose! You want me, then you don't, then you do and then you scream. What do you want?"
"I-I don't know!" she yells. "I just— I just.."
"Ah, there we go, the moment of truth! You don't know! Brilliant!" the Doctor mocks, turning around to walk towards the table. He shoves a chair aside, shouting brashly. "You're complicated, that's what you are. You and this—" he picks up the journal laid forgotten on the table and throws it at her feet, "—stupid journal! Complicated! And you won't let me help you, you won't let anyone in. Care to tell me why? No, of course not."
The Doctor is frighteningly angry. That is a given. For a thousand years, he has been a very, very angry man, and he is known for his temper in other worlds than her own. Yes, he is angry, but when is not?
She, on the other hand, she's livid. Absolutely, red-in-the-face, passionately livid. A fire-like heat rises within her, and her thoughts and conscience of mind easily separate into two different beings. Divided by this and this alone, Rose Tyler is a dangerous being. After all, she's just as angry as him, isn't she?
She's already holding a knife by the time he turns around to face her.
The Doctor is treading back into black waters, and she is only luring him in. His expression falls once he realizes just what she's about to do.
"Rose? What are you doing?"
And the pretty boy is concerned. His eyes are wild with fear and worry, and anger had dissipated the moment he had seen the knife. Too bad she can't say the same for herself.
"You want to know why I'm too fucking complicated?" she taunts, pressing the edge of the knife to her inner left wrist. "Call this a visual presentation," she says in a whisper.
She's drawing a line down her skin and blood seeps through her cut flesh. Tears flow faster down her cheeks as she whimpers in minute pain. She is used to the hell before the healing, and she is definitely someone accustomed to the pain. It only lasts for seconds, and then she feels it.
A warm sensation floods her—she feels her blood clot around the cut, her discomfort fleeting and her skin sewing back up—and she is glowing. This is the root of her complexity, as the Doctor kindly put it. This is the root of why she is who she is. This is the Bad Wolf, and this is how she cursed and blessed all at the same time.
Gold light shrouds her.
Then, she drops back in reality.
The Doctor is there by her side by the time she regains awareness; he is holding her wrist as his voice wavers in his whisper, "You didn't have to do that."
"But I did," she replies, yanking her wrist from his hands. She glares at him then, unadulterated venom in her words, "The deeper the cut, the longer the pain, the longer the healing, right? I get shot, I heal for one day. I get beaten to death? I'm in a coma for a week. But I survive. Always. Pain is irrelevant without the threat of death."
"You talk as if from experience." His voice is quiet. He stands there as if she had struck him.
"Don't be so daft. You've seen the scars. I died five times for sure but maybe for more. I can't tell anymore," she says, shifting her eyes at the journal by her feet.
The Doctor sighs deeply. He lifts a hand and runs it through his hair, biting his lip in frustration. "I want to understand."
"What do you want to know?"
"What happened to you?"
She turns away from him slightly. "Let's try this again," she tells him, bending down to pick up the journal. "We sit down, and we talk. No fighting. No..touching. Okay?"
He swallows and nods curtly. "Okay."
0o0o0
"Did he tell you my name?"
"No, well... We never married... He did tell me one part, the first part. Do you want me to.."
"No, that's between you and him. Well, it's all meta-shmeta, but you know what I mean."
Rose laughs. "Yes, of course, Doctor. He did tell me why he — you — chose to be called the Doctor. You wanted to be known as a healer. Backfired a bit, but a nice thought."
"Ah, yes, well to be fair, I was a mere child then. Always thinking the best but receiving the worst." He looks away, then back to her. "So you didn't have kids."
"I was able to conceive. I couldn't carry her out full term, but I suppose that was the thing wrong with me, I guess. Immortal beings and all. Nice life though, still. Always with the Doctor and had work wasn't really work to me. Traveling was grand, being an international diplomat even better. Picked up a few accents on the way. American, French, and Joohoovian are the best ones to imitate, if you ask me." Rose folds her hands together and sighs. "A nice life, yeah. My brother, Tony, he — well, he wasn't very understanding of me and my life choices. Always antagonizing me and my job. But he and John got on well enough when he wasn't having a hissy fit. When he died, he was only thirty-three. Car crash, coma, no will for his children and his wife...so young, he was. John and I did the best we could helping out his family, but in the end they moved away for security reasons and I didn't get a chance to say goodbye."
"Security reasons?"
"Someone had attacked Torchwood around our twenty-sixth anniversary. Nearly killed Pete and a few other high officials. We were ordered to be wary of attacks on family, so Kate — that's her name, Tony's wife — took her three kids and fled to America. We stayed put. With good reason, though. Pete was in... critical condition, died from complications years later still. Someone had to run Torchwood, you know."
"You?"
She shakes her head at that. "No, no. Not officially. Position went down to this top bloke, Peyton Scouten. Real professional, real old. Rich, though, that's why it went to him. But I ran it with him, though no credit was ever due to me though. I suppose that's okay, because when we screwed up, Scouten took the blame."
She laughs, then, and continues, "Never been director until now. It's all for the best though. They need old minds, with what the war and all. I still remember the times of peace. You'd be lucky to find a lick of harmony around here."
"Old minds know best," the Doctor confirms. He winks and reaches for his cup of tea. "Do you look old?"
"Do I look old to you?"
"You know what I mean."
She pauses to consider the question. "John built a perception filter for me when I was pushing thirty-five and looked like twenty-three. Telling the girls at work that I just have good genes and that I lived at the gym was starting to get tiring. Lost its charm. Oh, I aged, definitely..."
"But.."
"I retired accordingly. Sixty-five. A billionaire. Without John, unfortunately... cancer crippled him, and, well, he passed when I was on a mission. I was fifty-six, I think. And... as for London, I fled the city when I was eighty-seven. People were starting to fish, and I didn't want to deal with that."
"Where did you go?"
"Scotland. Not too far from home but... far enough." Rose dips her head down and laughs. "Picked up a brogue, dyed my hair black, and took off the perception filter. I was killed for the second time in my life there. Got mugged walking alone at night... never been one for sleep, as it was. Some chav came up to me and took my purse; couldn't have left me alive of course, so he stabbed me with a dull knife. He left the knife in there, took off without another look. I was in the alley for five minutes before I died, and I woke up again in fifteen. Not the worst death, but it wasn't fun, let me tell you that."
"Were you okay though?"
"Oh, yeah. Pulled the thing out of my stomach and went back home. Scars cleared in three months," she says with a smile.
"Lovely," the Doctor says as he cringes. "How long did you stay in Scotland?"
"Only thirteen years or so. Couldn't stay long without arousing suspicion, course. I had no ties to break - just a nursing job to quit and a flat to sell and I was gone. Went to France, next, and broke the perception filter on the way. Other than going back to blonde, my time there was boring. So I went to the States. I worked for the UNIT in New York - where your Martha worked after she stopped traveling with you. It was interesting, honestly. Protecting the world from aliens and ghosts and all. I was able to fix the filter there, too."
"Did you tell anyone?"
"About my immortality? Just two people... my.. Paulie, he had to know. In case I died on missions, or if I healed too quickly. Just so he wouldn't question it, you know? He was trustworthy. Always covered my ass. He was a great man."
"Did you..."
Rose looks up at him, a small grin gracing her lips. "I loved Paulie, but not like you, not like my Doctor. No, I... he understood, yeah. About the - John. Married him though, but it was time to move on. You know? Sixty years passed should be enough time to collect your grievances."
"But?" the Doctor prompts.
"But nothing. It was a happy marriage. He died before we grew old, though. Got shot jumping in front of me. Bloody idiot, he was sometimes. Forgot I could come back to life."
"I'm sorry."
"You have nothing to apologize for."
There's a silence before the Doctor asks, "Who else did you tell?"
There's a ghost of a smile tugging at her lips. "He called himself Tatum, but I don't think that was his name, honestly."
"Who was he to you?" the Doctor says slowly.
"A man I was trapped in space for three days with. Our ship got stuck orbiting around the stars of Canes Venatici. We were waiting to be rescued. I... I didn't see him again after we were back on Earth."
"Did he tell anyone?"
"I wouldn't know. I was around 167 when I came back to London, adjusted the filter to make me appear to be nineteen, and started over. Went to Cambridge, got my degree, held small government positions and expressed interest in working with all that alien stuff. Back to Torchwood I was, with auburn hair and all, working out small missions and little disasters, when war first broke out."
"War?"
"Civil war. The United Kingdom was becoming tyrannical. Think Big Brother, only not as intense. But of course people weren't happy. No, but you see, I was for them. For the common people. Oh, I was well over a hundred years but I still had this grand delusion that things were going to turn out okay. That the good will always prevail. When it doesn't, not really, but in the occasion that it does, there's always a circumstance. Always a condition. Something has to be sacrificed for a happy ending."
"That's not always true."
"No, it's not always true, but it almost is. How do you think I got here, Doctor? Thirty-eight years of prison takes its toll, you know."
"So what happened, then?"
"I was exiled into the country. Rebels killed government officials as foul play, so I changed my name and went back to blonde. I led them, though, I led people into rebellion and into their deaths. God, that hero complex of mine really fucked me over. I killed people either way. Gun to the head or handing a gun to them - it's all the same. A bullet is shot either way."
"You didn't mean -"
"No, Doctor, I didn't mean to be murderer, but that is no excuse. When there is a rebellion at hand, you have to kill. This isn't something you can peacefully talk out. You can't just schedule appointment with the prime minister and list all your grievances and ask them to change it when they won't listen. Checks and cups of tea mean nothing. Rebellion is an act of desperation, and you have to kill to open eyes. Fact of the matter is, you're going to hold a gun to someone's head and you're going to pull the trigger. Then you will spend the rest of the night pretending it was for the greater good."
Rose shakes her head and laughs bitterly. "Funny, isn't it? How isolated values become in the face of adversity? If there's anything worth learning in a long life, it's that we become what we swore never would be out of necessity. I told you I was a killer, that much is. The blood of thousands of people are on my hands only because I thought that the deaths of boys and girls were worth restoring peace in the government. And maybe it was. But see, look at me now. Fate, as it were, forcing my hand into the abandoning the rebellion. I had no choice. I could not die, and I was so weak, Doctor. I could not bear to have to stand to witness the slaughter of the British empire in retribution for my idealism. So I took back my word."
"It was necessary," the Doctor says simply. Like he's trying to assure her.
"Yeah," Rose chuckles. "Yeah, it was necessary, lying to them. Told them that if they surrender, I'll work to get back the old UK. No, no instead I was thrown into a prison underground while the rebellion slowly quieted. They waited. The people waited. And I waited, too. When they found out I could not die, they tortured me instead. Called it scientific research, said that their findings would bring peace. Yeah, well last time I checked, the constant electrocution and drowning and beating of a prisoner of war wasn't going to make the cover of TIME magazine. Didn't stop them, though."
"Did you..."
"Oh, I died, probably more times than I counted. Not that it mattered. Beat me to death and in a week I'll be okay. But it didn't stop there. You know, why test on an animal when you had a human in your hands? Well, not human, but as close as it gets. I was a test monkey for small things at first. They already had my will broken, of course, and I was willing. Sick, right? I was willing to do things for them. Disgusting."
"You had no choice."
Her head tilts slightly. "They shuttled me between worlds, universes, making peace with planets and alliances with other galaxies. I learned how to heel when they desire, to ask how high when they said jump. I learned to love the prison. Called it home. Paradigm Stockholm's syndrome, if you ask me. I'd be a playground for psychologists."
Rose inhales deeply. "Well, shit, look at me now. Released for prison and overseeing Britain like the people before me. Politicians lie, but I am not cruel - though, the ones precedent have said the same exact thing. Why am I different?"
"You are Rose, that's why."
"Yeah, and your Rose wouldn't dare touch a gun. But I am not your Rose anymore."
"Don't say that."
Ignoring him, she continues, "I made valiant efforts to restore the empire as it had been before, but I am old, and it is hard. While people are starving in black markets and while we help the States fight the Far East, my job is not over. I am Rose Smith, not Rose Tyler. Are you sure you still want this person on board your TARDIS, Doctor? If I leave now, I leave a world in hell. Is that what you want?"
The Doctor considers this for a few moments. She watches him fold his hands on the table and whisper a barely audible, "No."
"So that's where we are, then," she murmurs.
The Doctor looks up at her. "I have a question."
"I can answer anything."
"Would you have showed your husband - the metacrisis - John - the last 150 years of your journal? Of your life?"
Rose clenches her jaw. "No."
"And why is that?"
"Because he is my husband, and I love him too much to show him my pain."
"Then why show me?"
Rose smirks. "Because you are not my husband."
A/N: The discussion will continue next chapter! I am so sorry for not updating in like a week. School started recently, and I've been trapped under huge piles of homework. But I'll try to update as often as I can. That being said, updates will be most likely every two weeks or so D: I'm so sorry! On the other hand, my outline calls for about three chapters left after this, so there's that. I truly appreciate all of your reviews and I'm so pleased to see that almost one hundred people follow this story! AHHH that's amazing :)
I must go to sleep now, but please, don't forget to REVIEW! Teehee.