Angsty angsty angst. Love the arguing :P
Rose scrutinised the Doctor's face, recognising the expression that he normally wore when he was going to try and wriggle out of something. He was rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture that Rose normally found endearing, though right now her insides were seething with so much frustration that she had to fight the urge to smack his hand and stop him from doing it. He had to be one of the most infuriating men in the universe. Sure enough, he tried his normal avoidance tactics, and Rose nearly found herself banging her head on the wall.
"I'm not sure what I'm feeling now, Rose, can we please do this another time?"
"Nope. There is obviously something really wrong."
The Doctor wouldn't look her in the eye. "Really, there isn't."
"No, you can't do this to me, not again," Rose said, trying to get rid of the pleading note that was creeping into her voice. "You can't shut me out, not now! We're here together, for the rest of our lives, you've got to be honest with me!"
"I'm trying Rose, I am, but I didn't force you to stay here with me! If you choose to be with me then you have to accept that it's going to be hard!"
"I don't have a choice!" Rose stopped and counted to five before continuing at a lower volume, trying to remember that Tony was asleep in the same room to stop herself from completely losing it. "You know perfectly well that I do not have a choice here, and neither do you. I love you, and there is no way that I can ever leave you. Don't you see? That's what's so infuriating! I know I'll never leave you, I just can't, which means that the only chance we've got is if we work through it and actually talk to each other!"
The Doctor sighed, breathing deeply through his nose and closing his eyes. Rose wasn't sure whether she was going to see anger or sorrow when he opened them again and, to be honest, she was a little scared of finding out.
"I'm not sure if I can do it, Rose," he finally murmured, and Rose felt as though she'd been punched in the stomach. In fact, she felt as if she was still being punched in the stomach, repeatedly. She knew she was staring at the Doctor blindly, could feel him staring right back, and yet it all felt strangely distant, as if she was seeing it all through a sheet of glass. She was desperately trying to make herself look at this objectively, because if she focused on the implications of what the Doctor had just admitted to her she might break down there and then.
It was no use. This man, this man she had loved for so long, who she had travelled with and fought for and been willing to die for, who she sometimes wanted to strangle and always wanted to kiss, the man who she would never leave because they were meant to be together, had told her that he might not be able to do this. He might not be able to grow old with her. Rose's whole future shattered like glass in front of her. Not that her life wouldn't carry on without him. She would still work at Torchwood, going on missions and having adventures and enjoying her work, she would spend time with her mum and dad, watch Tony grow up, have fun with friends and family, she would read books and watch films and meet people. Her life would not end. But somehow knowing this did not make Rose feel any better, because the idea of living a life without the Doctor, not growing old with him and living with him and seeing him every day, made tears spring to her eyes and ice shoot through her veins.
It had only taken about ten seconds for Rose's to brain to shoot through all of these thoughts and arrive at this heartbreaking conclusion – the shock and seriousness of the situation seemed to make her brain fire at top speed.
Rose didn't really know how to put any of what she had thought into words, so she decided just to start slowly. "Do what, exactly?" she said slowly, hearing a sharp edge in her words and wondering whether the Doctor could detect it too.
Apparently he couldn't.
"You know what," he said, leaning on the back of the sofa and giving her one of those looks that said 'come on, Rose, use your brain.' Rose scowled - she wasn't stupid and she wasn't going to have the Doctor treat her like it. She stood up and took a few steps forward, turning around to face him as he sat on the sofa.
"Well, obviously I don't, so why don't you just fill me in." Rose was hugging herself, arms wrapped around her middle, fists clutching handfuls of her top in an attempt to keep her calm. "You say you don't think you can do it. Well firstly I'd like to know what 'it' is, and secondly I want you to tell me what the hell you're going to do if it turns out you can't do whatever it is that you don't think you can do."
Rose watched the Doctor's brow furrow for a split second, taking a sort of bitter satisfaction in the fact that she had managed to confuse him, even if only for a moment. He sprung up and turned to face her as though he couldn't stand to sit down any longer, and Rose was acutely aware of the fact that they were standing in almost exactly the same positions that they had been in when arguing the other day. That argument seemed like years ago. So much had happened since then, the only difference now was that Rose was the one standing in the corner, and the Doctor was the one who was next to the door.
The Doctor jolted Rose out of her thoughts by finally giving her his answer. "I don't think I can be as open as you want me to. I'm finding it hard enough to adapt to being here, never mind baring my emotions more than I ever have in my life. There's so much stuff happening! There's Torchwood and you and me arguing, you and me living together and... and being together and what to do in the future and all that stuff. I can't change who I am overnight!"
"I'm not expecting you to know everything that you want to do in the future, or to change who you are, but right now we're sort of stuck in limbo, neither here nor there and I can't deal with it much longer."
"Rose, why can't we just stay as we are? This is fine—"
"No it isn't!" Rose couldn't stop herself from shouting, only distantly aware of the fact that Tony hadn't been woken up by it. "It isn't fine, Doctor, I don't want to be like this, we spent years dancing around the edges of this one and now we've been thrown in the middle and it appears you can't hack it. Sometimes it's like you really want this, you seem ready enough to accept certain parts of this relationship that we haven't explored before, and yet whenever anything goes wrong you shut me out! If you can't deal with this then maybe you should go!"
Rose stopped. She could almost see the tension in the air, it seemed as if they were stuck in that moment between the moment someone drops a glass and the moment that it shatters on the kitchen floor. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to pretend that she hadn't just said it, but she couldn't hold off the smash of the glass forever.
The Doctor looked confused and outraged and hurt and angry at the same time, arms hanging by his side, fists clenched. "You can't really mean that," he whispered, though his voice sounded too loud in the silent room.
"I do," said Rose, still not quite understanding what she was doing.
The Doctor gave her one last look with dark, pain-filled eyes before spinning around, snatching up his jacket and storming out of the door, slamming it behind him. Rose flinched at the sound as though the door had hit her as it crashed shut.
Somewhere behind her, Tony woke up and started to cry.
Awww, I hate making them argue. Luckily, at some point there will hopefully be a happy ending - if I broke them up I would never ever forgive myself :) Thanks for the reviews, keep 'em coming!
