The
Shadow Of Your Smile -
A
fanfic by ParisBelle
Doctor Who is not my character, nor is Rose, they are the BBC's – this is just a fan fiction! The song "Shadow of your Smile" was from a film, I didn't write it!
This is written after "Doomsday" of the recent 2nd series, and on the fact that I cannot actually remember whether one year passed or three when they met up for their final goodbye. I'm making it one. Reviews welcomed, Flames can go away! This is my 1st Doctor Who fic, so please be gentle!
"I swear I saw him Mum..."
"Darling you can'thave done, you know it's not possible."
"It's the Doctor, Mum, anything is possible!"
"Sweetheart, I know it is, but he said so himself... maybe you should go and see someone about this..."
Once again, I got the shrink talk from Mum. Once again, I told her I'd seen him, this time out the corner of my eye, standing in the garden by the old shed while I was doing the washing up. It had been almost three years and still I saw him everywhere, still Mum looked at me with those pitiful eyes every time I mentioned something regarding him.
"...I mean, I know he was an incredible man," she said, ruffling my 2 year old brother James' hair as he sat on the sofa, "but even if there was another hole in space I doubt he could re-trace things and come all the way here to see you."
Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence Mum. Three years and she seemed to have forgotten everything I did with him, how he could do almost i anything /i ... what I meant to him. I knew he didn't say it out loud but he was I going /i to, I could tell...
"I don't want you dwelling on it, is all. Three years is a long time to think on the past. You have to let him go sometime, Rose. He will have done the same, he told you that he had to before..."
I didn't need reminding. I stormed out of the room, James talking avidly about Thomas the Tank Engine, because now I wasn't there he knew Mum would listen to him. How hard could it be for her to just hear me out? I'd been right the last time, I'd heard the Doctor's voice, she believed me then; I was i seeing /i him this time and she thought I needed to 'talk to someone'! Maybe if he'd actually spoken to me it'd have made a difference. Maybe I should have actually said "I wanna play with Thomas!" to get her undivided attention.
It didn't help that I kept seeing things on the internet about him. He cropped up in the records of Torchwood all the time. "The elusive man known only as 'The Doctor'... "The Doctor, who reportedly battled the Cybermen" ... "The mysterious Doctor"... only he wasn't so mysterious to me. It got to a point where we were so close we were almost like yin and yang. I knew what he was thinking, he knew what I was going to do. He knew he could always count on me, he believed in me, and I never once lost my trust in him. Except maybe the time when he regenerated, but then who wouldn't be disturbed? I mean I saw him explode and then he was in this... weird... okay maybe not weird but slightly more eccentric, body, he collapsed the moment he crash-landed the Tardis and I'd never seen him that way before.. He only woke up at the last minute! Well, I say "only"... he still managed to save the earth with a satsuma.
Oh yes, my Doctor was like a one-man army. Only he had me alongside him. And occasionally handy pieces of fruit.
His mind was so complex, it's a wonder I got to know him at all. It fazed me when he woke up, but it just seemed that when he did all those feelings he never expressed were allowed to come to the surface. I was close to him before, but now he allowed me to be closer. He still never told me the important things, like how he was feeling, but it did get to the point where I knew just by looking at him, by looking into those puppy-dog eyes.
I loved him. I'm glad I told him. And I'm glad that there might be someone else for him, someone else who might finally realize what it was like to be Rose Tyler, completely and utterly besotted by the greatest man in the Universe. I hope he never forgets me, because I will never forget him, but THAT is what appeared to be my Mum's problem with the whole thing.
I saw him twice in the next week. Not that I was looking out for him or anything, he just popped up. I saw him in WH Smiths by the art folders while I was buying some crayons for James and again just outside Greggs the Bakers' among the crowds. Just standing there, hands in his pockets, same brown suit. I thought it could go on forever, unless he …transformed… regenerated – again, then I wouldn't know who he looked like. He might forget me then…
I was reminded of Sarah-Jane a lot. She was in the exact same situation I was in, and she didn't get a proper goodbye until years later. Years and years in fact, though when I explained this to people I was reminded constantly by my Mum that she was on i earth /i , not in a parallel universe that was almost impossible to get to. My argument was that if there was an almost-identical duplicate of my Dad and Mickey and the others in this world, what if there was one like the Doctor? Then my Dad reminded me that there wasn't even a Rose Tyler in this world unless you counted the dog.
It was a stupid suggestion in the first place, anyway. I knew in my heart there's only one Doctor, and I still do. Only one Doctor for me, anyway, and he was the last of his people. He would have felt someone if there was anyone else.
It was kind of heartening, in a way, because I could feel him out there. I knew he was living, like the time I felt him on the other side of that wall, listening. I can feel him now. And, this might sound a bit sad, but I always said goodnight to him when I go to sleep, wherever he was, and hoped that whatever he was doing he was doing good at it.
It happened when I was dreaming. I was dreaming plain things, things I wouldn't normally consider twice: such as dreaming of fields and Mickey selling ice cream but only with cherries for toppings, and I don't like cherries, when everything disappears. There's nothing except a light down the dark corridor where I'm now standing, staring into nothingness. I can hear drips of water from behind me and further on down the tunnel. There's nowhere else to go but onwards, I reason with myself, and start down the soggy path. This place is oddly familiar. Occasionally I catch a hint of green, a swash of blue and I can smell a familiar metal fragrance filling the air. Someone's talking, but I can't hear them properly, just whispers. Two people… no wait… not even people, I don't think...
"Hello?"
My voice echoes around the halls, carries down the corridors. I wince a little at the sound it makes. The whispers have stopped. I'm now drenched in silence until the voices come again, louder than before, as if they're right next to me, but now it sounds as if it's just one person with a rather… multi-dimensional voice.
"Does she know? I don't think she does… This way…"
"Who IS that?" I cry, louder than before, but again it only bounces off the walls, leading to nowhere. I look around - there's nothing there.
"Follow it."
"What?"
"Follow it…"
"Follow WHAT? Hello?"
"What you have been following for years."
Suddenly it's like I understand. Something inside me is telling me to go forwards, keep on going, that I'll get there in the end, to where I've wanted to be. My feet are almost carrying themselves, and still that so familiar scent comes back to me. What IS that? It's so hard to make out, to recall… such a complex smell…
My hands are shaking. The whispers don't stop. I feel like my heart's in my mouth and its thumping ten to the dozen. I can't describe exactly how I feel but it's almost like… it's almost like anticipation, excitement. My breathing's going slower, steadier, controlled because if I don't control it I'll start hyperventilating. This is nerve-wracking, and as I trace my hands along the walls they trace a sort of jagged, weaving pattern because I'm so shaky.
I walk for what seems like an hour when I hear something moving beneath me. Something that shouldn't be there – I look down, and realize I've been walking on what looks like see-through grating for the past five minutes… just see-through enough that I can see something squirming along. The light, which has been seemingly coming from nowhere on my journey here, flickers brightly. Something's not right. I stop a moment, bending to see what on earth it is but nothing's there.
The whispers turn nasty. They're shouting at me, I can hear footsteps behind me, it's like a gaggle of people are running, alarm bells are ringing in my head to run, run, they're going to kill you, RUN!
This is much less like a dream, more like a live-in nightmare. I round every single corner I come to, trying to shake off whoever it is that never seems to be more than an inch away. The air has gone freezing cold, the voices are growing louder, harsher, someone's telling me to keep running but my legs are so heavy they're like stone… I can't feel anything but fear as I feel it grow closer behind me…
Something familiar whirrs - the ground underneath me collapses and I'm going to fall with it when I'm stopped… two arms have wrapped themselves around me from infront, hoisting me up. I feel the smooth material of a suit under my hands… I can see extremely familiar alien designs on the walls as the whirring of a ship sounds in the background… I hear two heartbeats as I've fallen against this someone's chest, and as I'm pulled up to safety I'm looking at two brown, puppy-dog eyes.
My Doctor's eyes.
He holds me in his arms, just us standing there. The long, lanky Doctor and his smaller, fiery counterpart as I liked to say. He looks as surprised as I am. His mouth is open, and he's looking at me in utter shock and confusion. My expression mirrors his, except my mind starts to spin. I feel something rise in my chest, the back of my eyes are stinging, and my heartbeats are coming faster. I swear my hands are shaking but I can't feel them, I'm numb – numb apart from the severe ache and yet sweet bliss that is making my eyes water.
The one thing I hated about our goodbye on Bad Wolf Bay wasn't that he didn't say I love you. It wasn't how short it was, it wasn't the location, it wasn't that I couldn't be with him properly – it was that I couldn't hold him. I wasn't able to touch him, I wasn't able to hug him like I longed to. I'd said what I wanted to say, I was at peace with myself apart from that I'd never gotten a goodbye hug, a goodbye kiss on the forehead, a last hand-hold, whatever. The physical contact had made the Doctor real, not words, and that had been taken away from me as our last goodbye. Now I have him, in my arms – my Doctor.
"Rose Tyler."
Two words. They sum me up pretty well, actually, and I always thought he chose the best words. Might have missed a "My" on the beginning there, but the way he's looking at me I can forgive that. His eyes are so… intense, so locked on mine that I realize I almost didn't register it.
"This can't be real…" I tell him, and all he does is smile, do one of those short little laughs he does as he answers, but he's shaking his head, almost sadly...
"What?" I ask him, barely audible.
The Tardis engines start to sound, that metallic, almost fluctuating noise whenever it's jetting off to a new exciting place. I panic. What is going on? One minute I was in a field, now I'm here, now the Tardis is moving…
"Doctor?"
The Doctor doesn't look panicked. Far from it, he's smiling, albeit faintly. He has a knowing look in his eyes which I notice are shining with tears. I want to ask a question – God I want to ask a thousand questions, but none filter out of my brain to my mouth so I can actually say them. The Doctor moves forward and I'm like lead, stuck to where I stand. He places a soft, sweet kiss at the spot between my eyebrows and the top of my nose – suddenly I know. This is my goodbye. That was my kiss. That was my real closure.
"Doctor…" My voice strangles out the word, I don't want to go, not again, I want to stay here… but as soon as I've spoken I hear the last, shrill howl of the engine, the noise which declares that the Tardis has disappeared, back into the Universe, and my Doctor, still holding me gently, looking torn between a smile and tears, fades with it.
I woke up crying, calling for my Doctor. Not just crying, I was in floods of tears, hanging onto my pillow as I sat up and wailed into the darkness of my bedroom. I'd never felt such a wrench before in my life, not even on Bad Wolf Bay. My Mum ran into the room, looking panicked, though I could hear my brother crying in the background too, woken by me.
"Darling what is it?"
"Mum," I sobbed, not able to say anything else. As Mum rushed into the room to hold me, Dad appeared at my door. He didn't really know what to do, so he went to see to James but he wouldn't have understood anyway. Not like Mum. She knew the Doctor better, she knew how I felt about him, but it still didn't make anything easier. Every single emotion I'd felt for him had swooped back as if they'd never left me body, all in the instant that I saw him again, when I'd felt his arms around me. I'd re-lived them, and then the Doctor had gone again, just as quickly.
I cried well into the morning, my Mum sitting beside me making sure I was comforted. Though, as soon as I got up, having finally slept off my horrid headache, something felt different. I wasn't waking up thinking of the Doctor as I usually was. I was thinking "How long have I slept? What do I want for breakfast?". Of course I remembered the dream, but the effect it had had on me had faded. I didn't feel distraught. I felt oddly at peace, and as I opened my curtain windows to the sunshine outside I knew that I could get on with my life.
It's been six months since that night. Now whenever I hear rumours of the Doctor, instead of the great pang of grief I feel, of loss, of longing to be by his side all I do I smile. I smile at the memories I have of him, the wonderful things we did together, of how we had such a great connection. I remember him with fondness instead of sadness. I don't see him around anymore, but it doesn't matter. He's in my heart, and I know he's still living the same old life, possibly with another girl helping him along, but now I'm not jealous of her. I'm glad he has company, and I hope they can form a bond as strong as we once had. I hope someone can be as lucky as I was, being with the Doctor that way.
Mum's astounded at the way I've changed, and now the shrink talk has been forgotten. But what she doesn't know is that sometimes I see him in my dreams. Just standing there, hands in his pockets, same brown suit, a smile on his face. He doesn't say anything or do anything, but he visits me. Whether it's real or not I don't care and I'm not even going to dwell on it. So long as I never forget him, so long as his memory is alive in me, I will be at peace.
And a person like the Doctor is pretty hard to forget.
The shadow of your smile
When you have gone
Will color all my dreams
And light the dawn
Look into my
eyes, my love, and see
All the lovely things, you are,
to me
Our wistful little star
It was far, too
high
A teardrop kissed your lips
And so, so did I
Now when I remember spring
And every little lovely
thing
I will be remembering
The shadow of your smile
Your lovely smile