Turn Your Back, Look Away and Blink
by Lumendea
Chapter Twenty-One: Hero
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who and gain nothing from the creation of this story
…
The clasp opened easily enough and the energy rippled in the air unseen to Rose but felt to John even as he tried to ignore it. Despite the warmth of the woman in his arms his whole body suddenly felt cold like he'd been dropped in ice water. His created memories shifted and vanished as his real experiences melted into the Doctor's mind and took over the surface memory. John's thoughts and awareness blurred into the Doctor's before the mind of the Time Lord overwhelmed the body and a second heart began to beat.
The Doctor blinked in surprise as he felt the warm lips against his own and hair twisted in his fingers, but he did not pull away. A sense of dread overtook him as he tried to think of what to do, then the memories set in. The feelings and the presence he had felt when locked away in the watch rose like a storm in him. He breathed in through his nose the smell of Rose Tyler, all his senses sought to reaffirm that she was there with him. Not daring to open his eyes or let her go, the Doctor shoved his concerns to the back of his mind. He had come back with her in his arms.
Rose felt the kiss change a moment later as his fingers twined more tightly in her hair and pulled her tighter against him. There was a clang on the floor as the watch fell from the Doctor's hand just before that arm wrapped around her waist. Leaning into him, Rose relaxed and let him kiss her, currently lacking the mental focus to realise that John had opened the watch. Sliding her arm around his neck, Rose sighed against his lips and tilted her head at the pressure of his fingers at her temple.
The Doctor let her pull away long enough to take a quick breath, but captured her lips again swiftly. He wasn't ready to face reality outside of this moment yet and was not willing to let her go. The Doctor kept his hands from shaking as part of his mind focused firmly on kissing Rose and the other part of him was trying to make sense of how she was here and remind him of why he shouldn't get involved with her.
His brain was a mess as the last aspects of John were reabsorbed by his own mind and the memories of Rose and his human-self pushed forward. In the back of his mind, he could hear her telling him at Bad Wolf Bay that she loved him and her confessions to John. Only the increasing pressure of her hands on his arms snapped him out of his emotional mist. Finally, needing to breathe, Rose pulled away and took a deep breath before looking up. She froze as she looked at him and saw a spark of hesitation in his eyes, but understood that the Doctor was back.
The Doctor stepped back from Rose and knelt down to pick up the watch, trying to avoid looking at her. Still the coward, every time. Looking at the watch in his hand for a moment, he turned it over before looking back at the stunned woman in front of him.
"Doctor?" She whispered, taking a tiny step forward, fear and a million other emotions crossing her eyes. A crash outside caught his attention and a dark frown took over his features as he turned from her.
"Wait here in the TARDIS," the Doctor ordered as he pocketed the watch. "I'll be back soon."
Stepping outside the TARDIS, the Doctor blinked as Martha stood up and looked at him hopefully. "Wait in the TARDIS Martha."
A smile spread over Martha's face, only to be replaced by an embarrassed and worried look a moment later. Not waiting for her to say anything, the Doctor walked past her and Timothy and out the door of the barn. He barely resisted the urge to slam it behind him.
…..
Cautiously, Martha stepped into the TARDIS to find Rose missing from the control room. A sigh of relief escaped her before she had the chance to process it. She'd been expecting to find either an angry Rose Tyler or a crying Rose Tyler. Glancing at Timothy, she watched the boy sit down in the jump seat to wait.
"I'll be down the hall," Martha told him quickly before dashing toward Rose's room as dread and worry churned in her gut and she felt guilty for her earlier excitement at the Doctor's return.
The door was slightly open and Martha paused as she heard crying inside. She hesitated for a moment before she knocked on the door frame and called out for Rose. A moment later Rose opened the door the rest of the way, revealing that she had changed into jeans and a blue shirt.
Giving her a soft smile, Martha reached out and squeezed her hand, "I'm sorry." She found that she really meant it.
Rose nodded and stepped aside to let Martha enter her bedroom, the low lights barely let them avoid the mess that Rose quickly started cleaning up. "I guess I've outgrown being messy," Rose muttered as she folded up a few shirts on the bed. She noticed Martha sit down on the bed calmly, "No, I don't want to talk about it. I told John that it would never work because let's face it I could never live my life in this time period."
"You thought about it?" Martha asked gently.
Rose sighed and drummed her fingers nervously, "It crossed my mind late in the game. I knew I had no future, but he's the Doctor and that man has pretty much made my heart do flips since I met him."
"I know the feeling," Martha said softly, "He's cute."
A small smile crossed Rose's face as she glanced at the picture on the table of her with the Doctor and Jack before he had regenerated. For a moment she was tempted to say nothing but decided against it. Martha really didn't need to know just how stupid she was for him. Shaking her head, Rose put the clothes away with a sigh.
"I just can't help but think what now?" Rose admitted weakly. "I mean I don't know how I even got here. I have no family, I'm legally dead and things with the Doctor are beyond weird right now."
Martha watched Rose move around the room in silence, the girl was working off her nervous energy by sorting through her closet right now. Finally, Martha couldn't stand the stillness of the air and announced, "He missed you, Rose."
The older woman paused and then sighed, "I know, but I don't know if I can go back to being his friend." She rubbed her eyes, "The Doctor tends to just leave things where they fall and I'm worried he's going to shove everything away and ignore it." Rose laughed suddenly and shook her head, looking over at Martha and saying, "I guess I should just get a grip and see what happens right."
…
The Son's eyes were wide in madness and fury as he shouted, "Blast them into dust! Fuse the dust into glass and then shatter them all over again!"
The Father laughed beside him for a moment before the entire Family caught a new scent in their ship. They turned as one to face the Doctor who stepped into the ship timidly. The Son watched with interest as the human creature stumbled and fell onto a series of switches and then turned to him and his family.
The creature walked forward carefully and begged of them, "Just stop the bombardment and I'll do anything you want. Just stop."
With a self-satisfied smirk, he replied, "Say please." He watched the creature pant in fear before him as he did as he demanded.
"Please," John said clearly.
Reaching to his side, he and his Mother shifted the guns to off. He heard his Mother take a deep smell, searching the scent.
Tilting her head his Mother said, "Wait a moment." She smirked at the creature and announced, "Still human."
The creature stuttered and shook his head, "I can't protect them, I know that. Not for a moment." He pulled out the watch and held it out for them to see, "This is how he did it. Took all the alien and put it in here." He swallowed, "I'm innocent in all this! He made me John Smith." The creature called John Smith fell to the side and hit a few more switches.
The Mother sighed and rolled her eyes, glancing at her Family. Raising her chin, Joan shook her head, "He didn't just make himself human, he made himself an idiot."
Her Son smiled and sneered, "Same thing isn't it."
They watched the creature come closer and hold out the watch as it begged, "I don't care about this Doctor so here take the watch. It's what you need, take it and leave."
The Son stepped forward and took the watch from him, turning it over in awe. With a widening smile, he declared, "All that he is in this small device, hidden and locked away." He smiled and sighed, "At last." Grabbing the creature he shoved it back and hissed, "Don't think that saved your life." The creature fumbled back and landed on more levers, but the Son didn't care as he lifted the watch. Smiling softly, the Son put his thumb on the clasp and spoke, "Family of Mine, now we shall have the lives of a Time Lord." The Son flipped the watch open and breathed deeply with his family, but nothing happened. The slow ticking of the watch mocked him for a moment and he hissed, "It's empty!"
The Family looked as one to the terrified creature who asked, "Where's he gone?"
Throwing the watch at him, the Son hissed, "You tell me."
The Doctor raised his arm to catch the watch, letting his face shift from fear to his usual confidence or at least his usual mask of confidence. The Son's eyes widened and the Doctor felt a jolt of anger for Baines, the Headmaster and Joan, but especially the little girl. Standing, he toyed with the watch in his hand and shrugged.
"Oh I think the explanation might be that you've been fooled by a minor olfactory misdirection, little bit ventriloquism of the nose," the Doctor remarked casually. "It's an elementary trick known across the galaxy, but it has got to be said," the Doctor pulled on his glasses and leaned over to look at a gauge, "I don't like the hydro-cenometer." The Family turned to look at him, but he ignored them and pointed to the power lines. "It seems to be indicated that you've got energy feedback all the way through the retro stabilisers and back," he tapped a large metal column, "into the primary heat converter." He looked at the Family, noting their worried expressions with a dark satisfaction, but he kept up his performance. With a cringe, he said, "If there is one thing you shouldn't have done, you shouldn't have let me push all those buttons." The Doctor turned as he shouted, "But," he looked back at them, "I will give you one word of advice," he let a rather nasty grin spread over his features and hissed, "Run!"
The Son could barely believe it as the ship's alarms began sounding and the alarm lights lit the ship in an orange glow. He tensed and shouted to his family, "Get out! Get out!"
Dashing for the door he could hear his Family charging along behind him. The Son scrambled up the stairs as fast as he could as the alarms raised in their pitch. Running out the door, he helped his sister out and joined his parents in running. The explosion was only seconds later, sending him flying forward. The Son cringed as he collided with the cold earth and the light of the burning ship behind him cast shadows into the dark night.
Frowning, the Doctor watched the shaking Family try to raise themselves from the ground. His anger could not be held back any longer, the raw fury of the situation they had brought him into. His guilt for the people who died because he was there and the loss of his future as a human, the loss of the son and daughter he could now never have. The certainty that this situation had been hard on Martha and the bone-deep knowledge that it had hurt Rose.
Running and hiding had been a hope to make sure everyone lived as they should. An attempt at recapturing that one day he'd had so long ago with Rose. It had been his attempt at being kind and they had turned it on him. Stepping forward, he glared down at them, making sure that they all could see in the firelight of their destroyed ship the cold and sharp fury in his eyes. He wanted them to see it because even he could think of nothing to yell that would show them his anger. The Oncoming Storm was awake.