Collection
Rating: G
Word Count: 523
Spoilers: Doomsday
Author's Note: So, an update. Surprised? So am I. Anyway, I just felt like something darkish. I'm very, very sorry for how horrible they are. I can't help but blow the bad points of characters I like way out of proportion and make them awful. Be nice. And please review!
He stares at her.
Waits for her to say what he needs to hear.
She stares back at him, crying. Gasping.
God, it's killing her.
She registers his smiling face but doesn't realise. Why he's smiling.
Why he's just smiling.
He stands and lets her cry. Each tear he commits to memory; each gaze, smile and frown to the archive in his mind of expressions just like these. It'll be done soon, anyway, he thinks. Like the others.
And like the others, she reflexively laughs when he asks about the bay, and her family, and doesn't wonder why he's not as focussed on her as she is on him. That's a good laugh, and he replays it back in his head.
Looking at her now, standing in front of him with her tear-stained cheeks and pleading eyes, he thinks he's never seen such a perfect human being before. And then he remembers.
He has.
Still, Rose is exquisite, and he carefully tucks her away between the faded pages of a book that he'll open again later, perhaps when the night was just a little too dark and the stars just weren't shining bright enough.
A tight, grim smile forms on his face, and he pities her when she asks what he'll do next. She really has no idea. She thinks he'll be lost without her.
She's not the first -
As if they mean that much.
Of course, they were his worlds when they were with him, but afterwards . . . the only significant one was the one he had, right then, right there. He was a child adding toys to his collection. There would always be someone brighter and better than they were.
She's struggling now. She starts to speak but chokes the words back.
He inhales deeply and readies himself. He knows what's coming.
I love you, she says, and she smiles and her eyes light up as if she'd just said the most beautiful words in the world.
She has, to him, and he carefully, oh, so carefully, memorises the way she spoke them; her intonations and the way she ran them together and her little gasp afterwards. But as he looks at her, he realises he's not getting as much satisfaction as he thought he would have. Oh well, he thinks, and he sighs. Even the most beautiful things become dull when you hear them a thousand times over.
He feels almost embarrassed for her, for this poor little child who thought she was so much more than she actually was. She overestimated herself and his love for her. Or rather, his love for what she was. A specimen - a polished, shining stone, a rare creature.
A delicate flower.
Too soon he feels himself fading, and the stricken look in her eyes is beautiful. That's the way he'll remember her forever; heartbroken, needing, and totally, madly, hopelessly devoted to him. A perfect addition to his collection.
It's not until he is safe in his TARDIS, and the tears are streaming down his face, that it occurs to him.
No, he thinks, his hands shaking. Perhaps she's not like the others, after all.