Hello! Massive apology for the lateness but I've had the week from hell because my internet broke down again. Plus I thought I was gonna be able to get everything done this week, all my writing finished but then all of my tutors give me essays to write. On the fantastic side though, Torchwood was amazing! I loved it! Never realised how much I missed Jack until I heard his voice again.
Oh, is anyone else not getting any emails from at all? I missed two chapters on my favourite fic and three review alerts because I didn't get any emails. Is this just me?
Thanks in advance. Kind of a filler chapter but it explains a lot. Hope you like! Please read and review even if I can't reply!
Missed Perceptions
He just existed now. After feeling that amount of pain, of loneliness in her soul, he could do nothing but exist. It was all too familiar to him. Loneliness. How could she feel like that for so long with him never knowing about any of it? His long fingered hand lay limply in hers as he sat by her bedside religiously, watching her breathe slowly in and out. He'd never realised until that moment how much he needed her. Maybe more so than before he'd changed. He couldn't tell her. Maybe he never would but it didn't mean he'd never felt anything at all. Unlike some people thought, he still could love, mourn and feel like anyone else. It'd been guarded and Rose had set it free.
He thought back to when he first met her. Reluctant to trust anyone then, she'd still gotten under his skin and made him smile hard. Only mere hours into knowing her and he'd fallen despairingly in love. Rose wore him down, ripping away his armour of leather and staring straight into his soul. No ordinary human could do that, surely? What amazed him the most was that he knew she still thought of herself as stupid, primitive and a coward. Someone who wasn't his equal. He'd heard of some skewed self-perceptions in his time but none was as screwed up as his Rose's. How could anyone be so wrong about themselves? She was beautiful; inside and out. He had to make her see it one day.
One day. But now she was teetering precariously on the edge between oblivion and freedom. Stuck in her mind. That was torture. She wouldn't be able to escape her own loneliness anymore until she awoke and he showed her. This just baffled him. Why was Rose reacting like this to the transfer? Normally, the water transition was just about stable. It only reacted when there was something inside the host already. Some anomaly. He was missing something, he knew it. He just had to find it again.
Rose…Rose…why won't you come back to me? The Doctor thought, why's this going so wrong? It doesn't make sense. His eyes sunk down in defeat. He was tired. Barely able to stay awake, barely able to stay with her. He needed to move, his feet were tapping on her wooden floor. Reluctantly, he stood and took his hand away from Rose's grasp, letting her arm drop swiftly and gently towards her duvet. He looked back at her once, memorising the contours of her face before wrenching his eyes away and heading towards the kitchen, in desperate need of tea.
His footsteps pounded in his own head, each one echoing his sense of loss and loneliness. He was over nine hundred years old, a genius and he was stumped. He was fatigued, alone and mourning for Rose when she wasn't dead. This must've been how she felt. He thought, how could she have stood for it? The kitchen was unusually silent. Normally, he'd want the soft hum of the console, the sound of grinding engines and the presence of the TARDIS in his mind but now…now, he was glad for the quiet. He needed to think. He was about to switch on the kettle when he spotted the steam and smelt the familiar odour of free radicals and tannin coming from his favourite mug. Unsurprisingly, it was his favourite because Rose had bought it for him. Plain white with black lettering that said, 'Trust me, I'm a Doctor.' Clichéd but brilliant all the same. He smiled in thanks at the TARDIS, bringing the tea to his lips.
The soothing liquid swam down the Doctor's throat gloriously, calming the aching muscles lined on all sides. He moaned and stared at the ceiling as its warmth filtered towards his stomach. It spread over him and he was sated. He was still trying to think of anything to link the pieces of this puzzle together but they stubbornly didn't want to fit. He felt like grabbing a pair of scissors and cutting them until they did fit, like some kind of impatient fiver year old. He smiled. Rose always said that he acted like a kid sometimes. When she woke up, he'd have to tell her how right she was. If she wakes up, he corrected himself. And it was still a big if. His sigh turned into a groan as he tried to think. Maybe it wasn't something in Rose. Maybe it was something she'd picked up. No, he dismissed, the TARDIS scans for illnesses everyday. She would've told me if there was something wrong. He took another sip and his eyes fell to the floor. Scott, though. He could've passed something into her body through his own energy, the Doctor thought for a moment, his tongues swirling around the tea before he swallowed it. No. That kind of thing would've killed him and last time I looked he wasn't dead. Damn it, could he think of nothing?!
He went through everything in his mind slowly. Everything he knew, all the facts, trying to piece everything together to make a whole. Rose needed his help and he was getting nowhere. He cursed himself inwardly as he took another sip of tea. If he just knew more, worked it out slowly then he could help her like he promised. He was determined not to break that vow to her. He wouldn't let himself. The Doctor ran a hand through his new, longer, hair. His fingertips noted the softness, the bumps on his scalp. Everything was new, so new and unused. Well, almost everything. He blushed and went back to his tea. Okay, I'm going off course a bit, here. Get back on track. He spoke aloud to anyone who would listen. "Right, Scottamanavor is an Emotivate lifeform, but this is Paris in 3010. He really shouldn't be here." He sipped again, the oiled cogs in his super-brain working overtime.
"He's been stranded, he needs to get back to his own time by using Rose's strength. His people can sense time travellers a mile away and use that background radiation as fuel to use his own teleport…" His thoughts drifted to the man's words, "Once in a century. That's what he said. He didn't need just any time traveller. He needed that link, that loneliness to get to her strength….but it went wrong. It was something he didn't anticipate. Their systems, her very being wasn't compatible with his so it shut his system down and left Rose trapped in her own mind." He finished solemnly.
Why? He thought, why weren't they compatible? By all rights and merits, Rose should be dead by now. Almost did die…Time would've been ripped apart by him, sent scattered throughout the galaxy if it'd worked. But Rose stopped it. Something inside her is trying to keep the timeline safe by using her as a form.
It suddenly clicked in the Doctor's brain. The vortex. A part of it was still in her, acting through her to stop the anomalies. That's why he felt her pain! They were linked through her power! If Rose couldn't stop it, couldn't resist it… If she kept in her own head…her mind would be burnt out. She'd be a shell. He had to get her out.
A pained scream echoed through the TARDIS, reverberating off the walls. The mug slipped from the Doctor's loose grip and smashed on the floor, the pieces scattering everywhere. The stone cold tea flowing like blood as the Doctor ran through it.
A/N: evil cliffhanger? You bet. You gotta keep coming back for more! Oh and I'm working on a sequel to What We Used To Be, so look out for it! Cheers and tell me what you think!
