Chapter 50 - As it was
The Doctor put the TARDIS into the vortex, taking a strengthening breath before walking around the console, stopping at the top of the stairs. Rose was standing where he'd left her, looking around the room. He couldn't judge the look on her face. Did she like it? Did she hate it?
"What do you think?" he asked, putting his hands together and wringing them. A nervous tick he was clearly now stuck with. He waited.
"It's bigger," Rose said, giving the same remark as she had with his new screwdriver.
"Still not compensating," the Doctor assured and heard Amy stifle a laugh behind him. Rose, however didn't laugh. Rose said nothing at all.
She walked over to the stairs, carefully running her hand along the rail as she took the steps up. The Doctor stepped to the side to let her pass. She walked over to the console, putting her hand against the time rotor for a moment.
"Hello," she said softly. The TARDIS hummed in welcome. The Doctor would bet the ship had missed Rose too. Ever since the gaming station and the first appearance of Bad Wolf the ship had seemed to have near maternal instincts where Rose was concerned.
Rose walked along the console, letting her fingers run over the new buttons and gears while the Doctor and Amy watched her and she smiled. Rose smiled. That was a definite smile.
"Do you like it?" the Doctor asked, unable to stand the suspense another moment.
"I do," Rose said, her eyes running over the walls and lights. "Not as much as before but... it's nice. Very nice. Amazing even." The Doctor breathed an obvious sigh of relief.
"I think it's unbelievable," Amy said with a brilliant smile. Rose's eyes shifted to her. She smiled back.
"You've changed quite a bit since I saw you last, Amelia Pond," Rose remarked.
"And you haven't changed at all. You must tell me how you did that. Both of you," she said, pointing between the two of them.
"Time travellers," the Doctor said, nodding. "It's all very... timey wimey."
"Does he do that a lot?" Amy asked Rose, pointing at the Doctor with her thumb. "Make up silly words?"
"Yeah," Rose allowed. "At least... he used to." The Doctor's gaze snapped up to Rose at this. But she wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were on her shoes.
Amy looked from one of them to the other, clearly sensing the tension.
"Perhaps I should... leave you two alone to... talk," she said. She walked past them and headed up the stairs, going deeper inside the TARDIS.
"Take the first right, second left, through the garden and then another left!" the Doctor called after her. "I think that's where she put the library."
"You can drop me off at the Shadow Proclamation," Rose told him as Amy disappeared with a wave of her hand. "The sooner the better." The Doctor turned his eyes on her, folding his arms across his chest. He watched her for a moment seeing the tension in her shoulders, her flickering gaze and the restlessness of her fingers. She was on edge but for what reason he couldn't tell and he felt he rather desperately needed to know. He needed to get her talking. It was the only way to possibly begin to bridge the gap between them.
"I'm not dropping you off anywhere until you talk to me," he said. Rose gave an exasperated sigh.
"What is there to talk about?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know." The Doctor shook his shoulders. "How about if you're ok?" he suggested. "Last I saw you, you were half dead." Rose leaned back against the console.
"Well, I'm alright now," she said. "As you can see."
"Alright never actually means alright," the Doctor pointed out, his eyes narrowing on her. She gave him a glare.
"Only you say you're alright when you're not." Rose caught herself. "Sorry, I should say you did."
"Because I'm so different now." The Doctor's voice was hard. Rose's gaze ran over him quickly but it was like even though she looked she didn't see. She threw her hand out causally towards him, as though one only had to look at him to see that he was.
The Doctor took a step towards her. "Perhaps if when you looked at me you actually saw me..." he said. "...you'd see that I'm not that different." Rose's gaze flickered up to his.
"Yeah?" she said.
"Yes," he told her, staring her down and trying by sheer force of will to get her to see. Really see. He was him. Still the Doctor. His hearts still beat in the same rhythm, his mind still spun in the same directions and every inch of him still wanted her. Would always want her. Bond or no bond he felt attuned to her all the same, helplessly caught in her field of gravity but with no desire to ever escape it. Loving Rose had brought him a lot of pain and he feared it would bring him a lot more. But it was all worth it. Because he'd never known joy like the kind she brought to his soul either. Never quite felt as though he belonged as much as when she had her arms around him. Home for him was no longer a place lost to time but a human girl and stubborn old ship.
He took a step closer to Rose and the air seemed to shift between them. Something moved deep within Rose's eyes, some flutter of emotion. Confusion? Fear? Surprise? But then her gaze fell before he had any hope of trying to discern it. Rose turned away from him and he felt bereft. As though she'd taken some part of him with her. She wandered off around the console.
"Didn't know if I'd ever be back here," she admitted, sounding a little wistful. Like the TARDIS had been reduced to nothing but a fond memory.
"This is your home," the Doctor pointed out.
"It was."
"How can you say that?" he asked, truly feeling appalled. "This will always be your home."
"Home is where the heart it," Rose said quietly as she continued away. The Doctor stalked after her.
"And your heart's no longer here, is that what you're trying to say?" he asked.
"Dunno where my heart is," Rose said, sadly thoughtful. "Feels like I lost it on the way. Or perhaps I misplaced it in the move."
"Are you trying to be funny because you're not," the Doctor told her, swallowing hard. Rose stopped for a moment and glanced up at the wires hanging from overhead.
"No," she said. "Just... I dunno... nostalgic perhaps." Her eyes ran over the console. "It's been a while since I was here after all.
"Rose..." She walked away, moving slowly around the console and he followed. "Rose, exactly how long?" He took a deep breath, hoping she'd answer him this time. "How long has it been for you?"
"It doesn't matter," she said.
"It matters to me."
The Doctor caught up to her. He clasped her elbow and turned her slowly towards him. Her gaze was down. He urged her face up with just the tip of his fingers under her chin. With obvious reluctance she let him. He looked at her face. Her beautiful, familiar face and forced himself to see what he was so afraid to look for. Signs of ageing. Fine lines, the loss of skin elasticity, harsher angles. But Amy was right. She looked exactly the same. "Tell me," he urged.
"Not as long as for Amy," she said, backing away.
"How long?"
"A few months."
"Months?" Bad, but not as bad as he'd thought. He probably had the TARDIS to thank for that. The ship had managed to catch up to Rose early. She turned away.
"Yeah, maybe four or five..."
"Didn't bother to count?" Again the Doctor was reminded that she no longer felt for him what he would always feel for her. But he couldn't ask for that. He knew he couldn't. Not only was she human but he'd abandoned her. It would take a long time to even begin to rebuild any kind of trust much less hope that she might come to love him again.
"A lot has happened," she said as she moved away. He followed.
"I noticed that," he said. "You're working for the Shadow Proclamation now? How did that happen?"
"I struck a deal with the Architect," Rose said.
"A deal? What kind of deal?"
"I do believe that is none of your business," she told him, tracing her fingers along a set of blue buttons. The Doctor had to stop himself from telling her that everything involving her was his business because that was no longer true. She obviously didn't need him anymore. Despite the bond being broken she didn't seem to have any trouble keeping control so she didn't need him for that and she had her own way of travelling through time and space so she didn't need him for that either. In that scrap of time that for him were a mere few minutes he'd become antiquated, obsolete, no longer useful.
"What exactly do you do for them?" he asked, trying to keep the pettiness out of his voice but probably failing.
"I don't do anything for them," Rose said.
"I don't understand."
"I gave the Architect a piece of information and in turn she allows me access to all the Shadow proclamations resources."
"A piece of information?" the Doctor asked, feeling a chill of worry run down his spine. "Like a secret?"
Rose turned, folding her arms across her chest and leaning her hip against the console. She looked at him squarely.
"I didn't tell her any of yours, if that's what you're thinking," she said, sounding disgusted that he might even have considered such a thing. He hadn't. No matter if she couldn't love him she would never betray a confidence. Not Rose.
"It wasn't," he told her with absolute certainty. "But what did you tell her?" Rose sighed and pushed away from the console.
"Again, none of your business."
"What did you take from that prince guy then?"
"Nothing he hadn't already agreed to give," Rose answered evasively.
"Which was...?"
"Information."
"I assume you're not going to tell me what that information was," the Doctor said.
"You assume correct."
"Rose..." He walked over to stand close to her. Probably too close but in a way he felt as though the bond was still there. Still pulling him in. Rose Tyler would always be like gravity. "I..." He fell silent. He wanted to tell her again how much he loved her. How this was killing him. Fearing he'd loose her. But since it hadn't gone over well last time he'd tried he decided to keep it to himself. "Is it true what he said?" he asked instead. "The prince. Do they lock you up?"
"Sometimes," Rose admitted. "At night."
"And you're ok with that?"
"It's harder to keep control when I'm asleep," she said. "It is as much for my protection as everyone else's." She walked away again, moving slowly around the console. It was like chasing mist, he thought. Constantly drifting away before him, always out of reach. Fading and elusive.
"You wouldn't have to do that," he said. "If you stayed here. In the TARDIS."
"I can't stay here," she said.
"Why?"
She stopped but didn't turn around. Her head hung forwards as though there was a great weight on her shoulders and he wanted nothing more than to take some of that weight. But how could he when he didn't understand her anymore, much less what she carried.
"Rose, just talk to me," he said. "I'll understand if only you explain it." He watched her shake her head. He walked around her. "Rose..." he tried but she kept her eyes averted as though she simply couldn't bear to look at him. It hurt. He couldn't help it. It hurt.
"Am I not good enough?" he asked and she drew in a hasty breath at that, taking a step away from and he followed. "Is it this face?" he wanted to know. "Am I not... attractive enough anymore? Is that it?"
"Doctor, don't," she said as she continued backing away. "Don't do this."
"Then talk to me," he insisted. "Tell me what it is that you don't like." Rose shook her head.
"Just stop it," she said. "You're being stupid."
"Stupid?" he asked. "You won't even look at me!" he burst out, harsher than he had intended.
But she still didn't look at him. She never did. Not really. Not even when she glared at him did she really see him. Rose kept her gaze on the floor, blonde tendrils of hair that had come out of her braids shielding most of her face from him. It was driving him mad.
The Doctor slammed his hand down hard on the console. "Rose, look at me!" She jumped at his outburst but didn't do what he asked.
"I have to go," she said and turned away and he was pretty sure she didn't mean just the room. He grabbed her arm, spinning her towards him.
"Why won't you look at me?!" he demanded, shaking her and instantly being appalled at his own actions. He rarely got this physical with her and never really had to use force to make her listen to him. It scared him. The lengths she could push him to. "Why can't you see me?" he asked with sorrow.
He watched as her eyelids fluttered and he saw small pearls of water getting caught on the very tips of her lashes. Instantly he eased his hold on her, reaching up his hand and brushing his knuckles softly against her cheek. She shivered at the contact. "Rose..." he said so softly it was nothing but a whisper. And she finally raised her eyes and looked at him. They were shiny with tears. The moisture reflected the lights from overhead, making her eyes shine with it. But it was a sad kind of light. The kind of light you'd find at a grave or from a star that was long since dead.
"Because you died." She said it like an accusation, her voice thin and frail. "I can't look at you because it's like ripping up a fresh wound." She tore free from his hold. He let her go, didn't try to stop her. Rose stepped back, her legs unsteady. "You were gone," she said. "And I couldn't..."
"But I'm here now," he tried, surging towards her only to have her draw away.
"No," she said. "Don't. I don't want that." His arms fell useless to his sides.
"Why?" he asked, sounding lost and confused. "Why don't you want me?" She stepped further away, shaking her head. He turned to the console, clutching the edges. "You won't even give me chance," he said, looking up at the time rotor before him. "This isn't like you," he realised. "You give everyone a chance. Even Daleks for gods sake."
"I'm sorry."
The Doctor could feel her moving away before he heard the soft hum of the TARDIS as Rose landed the ship and he wanted to stop her. He wanted to scream and howl but he just ran his fingers through his hair and did neither. "I have to go," she said and walked away. Always walking away. If she didn't stop doing that it was going to break him.
He watched her hurry down the stairs, and moved after her before he realised what he was doing. The Doctor forced himself to stop. He clasped the railing next to him so tightly it hurt. Let her go, he told himself. She wants to go. She doesn't want you. Let her go. But there was no fighting gravity. She would always pull him in and he would always follow, drawn like a moth to a flame, tragically yearning for what he knew had the power to destroy him.
The Doctor rushed down the stairs and ran across the floor, getting in front of Rose just before she reached the doors.
"Rose."
"Just get out of the way, Doctor" she said, her voice sounding sad and tired. But he shook his head.
"I can't do that," he said.
"Don't make this harder than it already is."
"It's plenty hard already."
She laughed mockingly. "You think this is hard?" she asked. "You don't know anything." His eyes narrowed on her.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked.
"Five minutes," she said. "To you, you were gone five minutes."
"And I counted," he told her. "Every breath I took without you I felt." And again she laughed, mocking his words. Then she fixed her eyes on him and for the first time he saw her in them. The girl behind the facade of indifference and evasive answers. And that girl was hurt. Unbelievably hurt.
"Five months," she ground out, it clearly taking great effort to push the words past her lips. "Five months, eighteen days, six hours and four minutes." She took a trembling breath and he could see her pulse flutter madly at the base of her throat as he began to understand what it was she was really saying. "That's how long," she said. "And I felt every last crippling second of it."
All the blood drained out of the Doctor's face. "It was like someone had torn my insides out," she said, the words breaking up into fragments as she spoke, pain making her falter. "I know why Omega tried to tear the universe apart and I know why it drove him mad. It's what happens, Doctor. You break inside. And it hurts." Rose clutched her chest. "Hurts so much you think it will kill you except it doesn't. Your heart still beats and you can't understand why. How can something so broken still work? Why doesn't it fall apart?" Tears born out of as much anger as they were born out of pain gathered in her eyes. "In the end you're willing to do anything to simply stop the pain. Anything to make yourself whole again. "
The Doctor stared at Rose with horror, realising just what he'd gone and put her through.
"The bond's not broken."
Again she laughed. That horrible mocking laugh. "Of course it's not broken," she told him. "Were you not listening to what everyone kept telling us? It can't be broken. Not by anything. We will be like this until we are both dead!" She spat the word out as though it was foul.
"I don't understand," he said. "I can't feel you. I can't..." He stopped as she held up her arm. The one that didn't have the manipulator on it and pulled down the sleeve. There was a bracelet around her wrist, about three centimetres wide and made of some kind of rough metal. But through its centre ran a bright blue line, it's colour so intense it nearly glowed. He got a very bad feeling at the sight of it. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked.
"If you think it's the blue crystal Annabelle Conn got from Poosh then, yes," Rose said. The Doctor clasped Rose's hand. She twitched, instinctively trying to pull free but stopped herself and let him have a closer look.
He held her hand up in front of his face, retrieving the sonic out of his pocket. He ran it over the bracelet, the tip flashing green. He flicked his wrist and the small metal claws extended at the top of the screwdriver, giving him the readings. The bracelet was a crude construction but clever. Extremely clever. Too clever for the Shadow Proclamation. "Who made it?" the Doctor asked even though he was quite sure he knew and when Rose didn't answer him he realised the answer was indeed obvious. "Making a deal with the Shadow Proclamation wasn't enough?" he asked as he put his sonic back inside his jacket pocket. "You went and made a deal with the devil as well?"
"No deal," Rose said. "Self preservation." The Doctor's eyes shifted to Rose's.
"How's that?"
"I would have gone nuclear eventually," Rose said. "I just made it clear I would make sure to take her with me."
The Doctor's eyes returned to Rose's wrist. He ran his thumb experimentally across her skin. He felt nothing of the rush he'd become used to. And if he tried to feel her mind he couldn't feel anything at all. As though she wasn't even there.
"So this is why," he said. Rose pulled free.
"Yes," she said. "It works the same as that room on the Dalek crucible, just portable."
"It's clever," he said. Rose pulled her sleeve back down to hide the bracelet.
"It stops me hurting anyone."
"I bet it pretty much stops you feeling much of anything either," he said.
"It was the best we could do. Lian and Red are trying to work out the rest."
"Who?"
"You didn't meet them. They were the ones who did the scans when we were there last. When you were busy breaking Annabelle Conn out of prison."
"Right, the same Annabelle Conn you now apparently trust," the Doctor pointed out.
"I don't trust her," Rose spat. "But I trusted her obsession with staying alive. Lian and Red are really the ones that's been helping me..." she stopped for a moment before continuing. "...helping me understand what you did."
"And what exactly was that?" the Doctor asked, a hint of betrayal he couldn't mask in his voice.
"Something impossible," Rose replied. "Lian's a romantic at heart. She thinks it's your love for me and mine for you that keeps me alive. The unknown element that stops the energy inside me from ripping everything apart."
"I assume this, Red has another theory," the Doctor said, watching her darkly.
"Not really. They simply use different names for the same things. Red just likes to boil it down to a science. But it's really quite simple. You tied every cell in my body to yours through both a telepathic and empathic link and as long as that remains strong the energy remains stable."
"Then why do you loose control?" the Doctor asked, even though he knew the answer already he wanted to see if she had arrived at the same conclusion he had.
"The Huon particles," Rose said. "They are what allowed your DNA to bind with mine despite our... incompatibility, but they're sensitive to chemical imbalance in the body especially such caused by strong emotions."
"Adrenaline, endorphins..."
"Fear, hate, passion."
"That's what you would call a paradox," the Doctor remarked. "Your connection to me keeps you balanced but being with me has a tendency to..."
"Unbalance me?" Rose suggested.
"Yeah, something like that."
"It requires more of us. Less fear more trust. Or how would you put it?" she asked, looking at him curiously. His eyes met hers.
"What saves us can equally destroy us." Rose watched him silently. "But I guess that is just the nature of things," the Doctor said. "Isn't it?"
"Yeah," Rose agreed after a while. "I guess it is."
"But it doesn't have to be though," the Doctor pointed out. "I mean, you're here now." He held out his arms to indicate the space around them. "You're in the TARDIS. You're with me. We don't have to hold back anymore. You can take the bracelet off." Rose clutched her hand instinctively around her wrist.
"I'm not taking it off," she said. The Doctor halted and looked at her.
"Why not?" he asked. It took a moment for Rose to answer.
"Because I wouldn't be able to leave if I did," she said and her words felt like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He had to struggle for a moment to catch his breath.
"But you don't have to leave," he tried to say. "You can stay..." She looked at him sadly, the quiet determination in her face breaking him apart. "The Doctor in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler," he said. "...as it should be."
Rose took a trembling breath, closing her eyes. "As it was," she said.
"You don't mean that," he said, shaking his head. She was telling him she'd moved on but how could he accept that when no amount of time and certainly not five months, however painful could ever make him move on from her. But it wasn't those five months, he reminded himself. It was him. He'd changed while she'd stayed the same. She was in love with a shape and a smile that was gone. He could never be that exact same man for her ever again no matter how much he might want to. And she knew it. She'd known it from the moment she woke up in Amy's room and had flinched away from him. She hadn't wanted him then and she didn't want him now. The only thing tying her to him was the bond and that was something he'd forced upon her. No matter how foreign the concept, how impossible and ridiculous, he had to accept that Rose Tyler no longer loved him.
"I really am sorry," heard her say, wishing she hadn't spoken at all. He didn't think he could stand her pity.
"For what?" he asked without looking at her. "Not loving me anymore? Hardly your fault is it."
"Don't say that," Rose told him. "I'll... I'll always love you, you know that."
"Wanting me then," he corrected and to this she said nothing which was answer enough.
So the Doctor stepped back. It took all his strength, every last ounce of willpower to fight every instinct he had and let her go. Rose opened her eyes and looked at him. There was sadness within them. She wasn't indifferent, he thought. She was Rose and Rose could never not care. And just like a part of her might always care, at the end of the day he would always do what she asked of him. Even if it meant it would break him to do it.
Rose's gaze dropped as she walked by him. Somehow the Doctor made his feet move. He got all the way to the stairs. He clasped the railing to stay on his feet.
"You should have let me die," he said, not sure where the words came from. If they were a conscious thought or torn directly from his hearts. He couldn't tell the difference. Wasn't even sure it mattered. "It would have been a kindness," he said and walked up the stairs.
The Doctor heard Rose say something but he didn't know what. Maybe he'd only imagined it and perhaps that was for the best. For now he was standing but one more word from her might be the thing that sent him to his knees. But when she said it again he couldn't help but turn around.
"What?" he asked. She stood with her hand on the doorknob. Still as a statue, like she'd been frozen in time. And for one horrible, dark second he wished she was so that he might keep her forever.
"I can't do it," she said and he narrowed his eyes on her. He knew he'd heard the words but didn't dare believe them, didn't dare to let even the barest hint of hope flare in his chest.
Then Rose let go of the handle and spun around. Her beautiful eyes met his across the room.
"I can't do it," she said again. "I'm not ready." He stared at her face. "Oh, dear god I'm not ready."
Then she was running across the floor and he was already rushing down the stairs towards her. Rose slammed into him, throwing herself into his arms. He caught her and held on in total disbelief. Her legs were around his ankles and her arms tight around his neck. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she mumbled over and over again and he just held on because there was nothing else he could do.
"Don't be sorry," he mumbled as he buried his face in her hair. He took a deep breath, drawing in the scent of her, his mind flooding with memories and sensations he'd never thought to experience again. "Just don't leave me, Rose. Please, don't want that. Don't ever want that." His arms tightened around her as thought that might be enough to make her stay.
Rose didn't say anything. Made no promises. But in that moment it wasn't important. He was holding her, the weight and shape of her as familiar as though it had been branded into his skin. His body knew hers. Even this new one. To him it didn't matter. He'd always know. His hand ran up into her hair, probably making more of a mess of it than it already was and all he could think was that he had her back. Rose. He had Rose.
"You were going to let me go," she mumbled. "You were really going to let me go."
"Because you asked me to," he told her. "I'd do anything you asked of me..." He swallowed hard. "...even that." Her hold on him tightened and he thought he must savour each precious second, every moment of feeling her body against his, of having her wrapped so tightly around him he wasn't even sure where he ended and she began.
"I like the bowtie," Rose mumbled into his shoulder.
"You do?" he asked in surprise. She nodded. "Well, bowties are cool," he said and was sure he felt her smile against his neck. "Was that a smile?" he asked.
"No," she told him and he could hear it in her voice despite her denial.
"That was a smile," he said. "You smiled."
"Oh, shut up, Doctor," she told him, and there it was, he thought. That's how she used to say his name. Just like that
