Title: I remember singing
Pairing: Ten/Rose (Nine/Rose in past, Mickey/Jake in very much passing)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst/Fluff
Length: Ficlet - 1,400 words
Disclaimer: Dr Who, at least in its current incarnation, is RTD's.
Summary: "I remember singing." Five years after Doomsday. Can't say much more without spoiling. Sad-fic
Spoilers/Warnings: Character Death. Spoilers for all of New Who.
"Rose? Rose! Team Two, report."
She had been told that she would die in battle. And she had been terrified, of course. She didn't want to die. But, on the other hand (the thoughts she would tell no one – not even him) she had been grateful. Dying in battle meant not being a shop-girl. Meant being with him. And dying in battle alongside him was far, far, less scary than living on earth without him.
But she had been wrong. Should have known that, really. Her and Sarah Jane. Life couldn't go back to normal after knowing him. There were still battles. But there was no alternate doctor, so no Sarah Jane to look up who would know what both of them had lost. Rose had found her anyway - a reporter for what had been the resistance. Rose knew better than to be surprised, and encouraged Torchwood to hire her. Now she was one of their mission specialists, and a good friend. But it had been five years now, and Rose had missed him for every second of that. And there was no one in this universe who remembered him like she did.
"Rose? Babe, what's happening in there?" Mickey never had mastered code-names over the radios.
"Mickey! We need a med-team." Tom, Rose's 2IC on Beta team. Sweet guy.
But she had obeyed the promise her Doctor asked of her the first time she had lost him. She had what anyone would describe as a fantastic life. She saved the earth every day (because his second incarnation had understood better that she could not have an ordinary life) and went to the pub afterwards. She told her baby brother stories about aliens and laughed when her Mum and Dad bickered and made-up in a heartbeat. The field-teams at Torchwood looked at them as legends – her and Mickey and Jake. But when they were drunk, and tongues loosened, they would ask the others about her. Why Rose, adored by everyone on staff, was so quiet and so pale and so sad. And Mickey (leaning a little closer to Jake than just team-leader) would growl and tell them it was none of their business. But later, when they knew each other better, and had bled on each other and for each other dozens of times, he might allow that Rose's heart had been broken. There was something about the way he said it, and about the way Rose's smile hardly ever touched her eyes, that made them nod and say no more about it.
Kat was field medic, and lying on the ground with a laser blast down one side. The blast that had taken Rose in the chest when she pushed her team member out of the way.
They were a close group. A little like (though it pained her to think it) her and the Doctor and Jack. They had their own jokes and language and a stupid habit of descending into geekery. Another thing that he probably hadn't meant for her, because normal didn't mean pub talks that descended into the pros and cons of different blasters. They loved each other though, and he would have liked that. They somehow ended up with two open couples and more close friendships within their two small teams than within the rest of Torchwood's centre. Rose's team had five people. Her and Kat and Tom and Janine and Michael. Mickey's had four. Him and Jake and Amy and Susanna. Officially she had an extra person because she was the negotiating team – her being the negotiator. Rose was good at talking, Mickey joked, and she could be scary if it came down to it. (That may not have been a joke). But she wouldn't carry a weapon. Carried psychic paper for nostalgia's sake even though loads of people were immune and toyed with the idea of getting the tech guys to make her a sonic wrench. But no guns, and so she had four people behind her with weaponry. Unofficially she wondered if it was because, with Kat and Tom a couple, it wouldn't be fair to leave a fourth member with just her. She would lay down her life for any of these people in a heartbeat, and it was not that she was unfriendly or aloof. She was just a little broken. Or, she thought privately, she was shaped to fit one person's habits and conversations and style exactly, and changing that would be betrayal.
"Rose?" Mickey was closer than he should be. He hovered into her frame of vision.
"Did we win?" she asked.
"Don't we always?" he replied, trademark grin on his face.
"Course we do. We have the famous Mickey Smith leading the charge."
"Damn right!"
But he knelt beside her and she saw his expression change when he pulled her jacket back. "Don't worry," she whispered.
It had been almost funny. She had finally grown up, the aliens didn't seem so alien anymore, she sympathised before she jumped back, and she could hold her own in a fight if needed. More importantly, she wasn't jealous anymore. Somewhere between tree people and beautiful French girls she had grown up enough to know that other people would love him too. She had bitched at Sarah Jane and then laughed with her, and in that moment turned into the girl who would hold Reinette's hands in sympathy. And when Rose was finally grown up, finally able to love him absolutely and still let him take another woman's hand, he had become the kind of man who might do it. Before the regeneration Rose had been his world, afterwards he had loved her, but it wasn't her that he kissed. It had been almost funny. Her being ready when now he wasn't. And then they had both screamed, and there was a world between them, and she had waited so much longer than the promised five and a half hours, and he still didn't say it.
He had meant to though.
"It said I would die in battle. Not the Doctor," she corrected, when she saw Mickey's face, "an alien that said it was the Devil."
"Can't believe anything those lot say," he blustered reassuringly.
"It's okay. I'm ready."
She couldn't fall in love again. She couldn't stop loving him, and for all they claimed the human heart had limitless potential... it didn't. There was just him, her shining star, her saviour, and everyone else was pale and dark and faraway. Oh, she loved, of course. Her baby brother, her parents and Mickey and Jake. Tom and Janine and Michael and Kat and the rest at work. She headed Torchwood's second field team, and she was very good at her job.
And she had tried, so hard, to do what he asked. To just live. To forget him. But there was no way of remembering what she had learnt and forgetting the man who let her learn them. No way of staying brave and tender and understanding without realising that she would never have known these things about herself without him. No way, much simpler than any of those, and much more vital, of forgetting the strength of his hand in hers, or the dizzying warmth of him as she was spun around in a wild embrace.
"Don't you even dare, Rose! What would he say if he could hear you sayin stuff like that?"
"He'd be cross."
"Exactly!"
"He'd forgive me."
She was so tired. Five years was a long time to spend with half your heart in another universe. She had felt every second of it. He would forgive her for this. She was twenty-five years old and she was dying, but he would forgive her. Someone was alive because of her, and she knew he would have done the same thing. And he could never really stay mad at her. He might have some other girl now - she was grown up enough to almost hope for it and he shouldn't be alone. But he had loved her a thousand times over and the words didn't matter as much as they should. Five years might be short to someone like him, but it was a long time to just be hanging on. He loved her, and she loved him and she had died five years ago with his last goodbye. He would forgive this weakness.
She smiled up at Mickey. "I remember singing."
He touched her face and said her name, but she barely heard it.
She closed her eyes and followed the voice from her dreams. "Rose."
Fin: Reviews are much appreciated.