Guns and Roses: The Drabble Challenge
Twenty-Two: Mad
0o0o0o0o0o0
The door shook with the amount of force she used to slam it behind her.
"Miss Tyler, may I—"
Rose shut up her parent's butler with a single glare as she stomped off towards the wine cellar with plans to stay there for the next few hours.
It did not take long for her mother to catch up; Rose heard footsteps down the stairwell just as she was muscling in the corkscrew on a bottle of red.
"Rose Marion Tyler, what on earth are you goin' on about?"
"I can't do this anymore, Mum," Rose said bitterly as she yanked at the cork with a sharp pop. "I'm tired of bein' supportive and understandin' and the goddamn emotional bag-boy all the time."
Jackie examined her daughter critically. It had hardly been a week since Bad Wolf Bay, and it looked like the only time the girl slept was on the zeppelin back from that beach. She warned Rose not to go back to work, to try and get some rest and slow down after saving the universe once more. But, as usual, Rose was too stubborn to see that she was running herself into the ground.
"Alright love," Jackie sighed, reaching into the cabinet as well. "How 'bout you pour me a glass and you can tell your mum what that Doctor did to you now?"
Rose knew better to argue, and the two of them ended up in the quiet sitting room adjacent to the cellar.
"Why the hell do I have to be the one to make him better?" Rose snapped. "I swear this one is too much like the last. He doesn't give a rat's arse if he hurts someone. Completely mental, he is."
"You're exhausted, sweetheart," Jackie told her. "Anybody would be, after the hell you just been through."
"That's not it, though. I swear the universe is conspiring to dump as many poor broken sobs on me that it can. I'm not some fucking antidote for every genocidal alien with a god complex."
"Granted, one did turn out to be a god."
"And at least he cared enough to lie to me if it made me feel better," Rose grumbled before she could stop herself. She passed a hand over her face, and let out a mirthless chuckle. "Loki and the Doctor. What a pair those two would make, ruinin' my life and making me fall for them at the same time. What's wrong with me? Am I just a magnet for failed love stories?"
"Rose, you want to know why you keep attractin' all the wrong sorts? It's not because you are stupid, or selfish, or weak," Jackie Tyler said. "It's because you are good. You are everything that's right and true to this world. You are a shinin' light to people who are lost. My baby…you are so amazin'. You faced monsters of every shape and size, and you defeated them all. How can these Lokis and Doctors not love you?"
Rose's eyes began to sting, and she stared up at the ceiling, forcing herself to stay calm.
"I miss him, Mum," she choked out. "And this Doctor is all I've got and I'm afraid I'm gonna lose him, too." Jackie didn't need to ask who she was talking about, but she took her daughter's hand as she swallowed back tears.
"Rose, let me tell ya somethin' about relationships. They aren't gonna work if only one of ya's puttin in the time. You've changed, sweetie, even if the Doctor can't quite see that yet. You've got your own issues to sort out. If the Doctor loves you, he'll realize that he needs to take time to care for you, too."
"I guess you're right," Rose sighed with a watery smile. "I just hope he'll listen to me for once."
"Oh he better," Jackie said with a tight grin. "Or else he'll be answerin' to me."