Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Part One: What Love Can Do, That Dares Love Attempt
A/N: The title of this – and the title of each subsequent part – is taken from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Mostly because I thought it would be cute, but also largely because David Tennant is on the front cover of my copy being a particularly dashing Romeo.
This is actually just a one-shot but something like 5000 words long, so I've split it up into five sections. This is the first and it deals with events leading up to Rose's death. I obviously don't think this will actually happen - but what's wrong with a bit of artistic license?
Disclaimer: I don't own DW, or R&J. 'Nuff said.
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"What the hell…?" Yvonne breathed, dropping her gun slightly in surprise as her heavily-mascared eyes widened. Originating from somewhere near Rose's feet, light green gas began to fill the room, distorting their vision and giving everything a slightly hazy edge.
They had been in this room for three hours now – the Doctor, Rose and Yvonne Hartman, the director of Torchwood – chased into the bowels of Torchwood tower by armies of Cybermen and promptly locked inside. The Doctor had been trying to think their way out of there for the vast majority of that time, the footsteps of the Cybermen clanging and pounding audibly ever closer. Several came to a halt right above them and all seemed to stamp a foot; the ceiling shuddered with an almighty bang and some dust floated down as their emotionless, electric voices could be heard buzzing overhead. If they came downstairs and stopped threateningly outside their tiny cell, like a promise never quite delivered, it wouldn't be the first time that hour. However, despite several glances upwards, the occupants of the room had their eyes fixed much more firmly on the waves of green flooding around them.
"Doctor? What is it?" A note of urgency rang through Rose's voice as she turned up her nose and stepped nervously away from the previously unnoticed tiny holes in the floor through which the gas was being emitted.
He held a finger up to silence her for a moment, but she didn't pay much heed.
"I've smelt this before…I recognise it!" Rose exclaimed, gesturing emptily with her hands. "I was with you…" The Doctor merely frowned, trying to place it too. "Reminds me of…of Cardiff! and – " but suddenly everything became a little too hazy; the room lurched sideways and Rose went with it, only stopped from a painful collision with the floor by the Doctor's arm as he'd rushed forwards to break her fall.
Gripping her arms a little harder than was probably necessary, he asked, "Are you OK?"
She coughed. "Um…yeah…I think so…just a bit out of it." Trying to make light of it, she smiled through her cough.
"Stay off the booze," Yvonne advised bitterly, and they ignored her.
"I don't like this…" the Doctor muttered darkly, pulling Rose to the other side of the room and indicating that Yvonne should follow them, away from the source of the smoky green tendrils that seemed intent on wrapping themselves around every living thing in the room. "What were you saying about Cardiff?"
"I dunno. I jus'…the smell, it jus' made me think of Cardiff. I've never even been, 'cept for with – with the old you."
Noting the way Rose suddenly had to blink to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head and the way that even Yvonne was now struggling to stand, the Doctor realised with a horrified jolt exactly what the gas was.
He groaned, putting a hand to his forehead and rubbing his temples. "Chloroform!"
"English, please," Rose muttered, knees buckling under her. He pulled her to the ground and she seemed to settle a little. Most of the gas rose steadily upwards, a few tendrils going smokily awry, against the pack, and tangling themselves about Rose's feet.
"Chloroform. Usually found in liquid form, tons of old black-and-white movie criminals used it to knock the good guys out for the count. You were right when you said Cardiff. Sneed. It was on his handkerchief when he knocked you out…that's what a small dose will do. Any bigger and it can be lethal."
The girl beside him took a deep breath then looked immediately like she regretted doing so. To his left, Yvonne sank to the floor but inclined her head to show that she was fine.
"So…we're stuck in here with a gas that knocks us out if it's kind and kills us if it's not, Cybermen marchin' overhead and no way out?" Cause of death: nasty green gas or deletion at the hands of clanging robots. What a choice!
He nodded silently.
"Hmm, well, not exactly ten out of ten for originality, is it?"
Somewhat astounded and pleased by her flippant attitude (and also wondering if she quite comprehended the danger of the situation), he laughed. "If we get out of here alive, remind me to tell you to never change."
A blush crept over her cheeks but she fought it down, thinking there were more important things to be said, to be asked, and making a conscious effort to close her mouth. "If we get out?"
Sometimes he wishes he'd never let her feel safe with him. No-one was ever safe with him. She should know that by now. "You know it's never certain."
"You'll manage something. You always do." The confidence in her, the complete trust she radiated, made him feel worse than ever.
He couldn't quite summon up the energy or the desire to tell her that so many had died while with him, how so many had died at his hands. A brief "Not always", voice hollow and resigned, was all he managed.
"We've always got out." Yvonne simply watched as Rose reasoned, clearly wondering exactly what other scrapes they'd been in.
"We've just been lucky. I don't always manage it. Regeneration? Done it nine times, and lost a fair amount of people along the way."
Accustomed as she was to aliens and the paranormal, the Torchwood Institute leader's eyes almost popped out of her head at that. The 20-year-old shop girl from London, though, took it all in her stride, despite not knowing quite what to say.
"Oh."
"Oh is right."
"But you'll be OK?" she asked in a small voice and he turned to look at her, his brown eyes boring into hers. "Whatever happens to me, you'll be OK?"
Reply came in the form of a very resigned smile and she wasn't sure whether to take that as a yes or not. Her eyes watered, perhaps in fear, perhaps as a reaction to the gas. She didn't know anymore. It took more thought power than she currently had to work it out.
"We could…we could just sit on the holes?" Rose suggested helpfully, face lighting up with optimism.
"Nah. Whole room'd explode, taking someone's backside with it. No offence Rose, but I'm rather attached to mine."
Looking as though she didn't quite know whether to laugh or cry, Rose settled for sighing and leaned her head back against the cold stone wall, as far away from the gas as possible.
"You – " Yvonne rounded on the Doctor suddenly, pointing a perfectly manicured, accusative finger at him. "Why isn't this affecting you? I haven't seen you cough or wheeze or – or anything!"
"Different biology," he sighed. "Binary vascular system. Two sets of veins and arteries for the gas to work its way around…means I have twice as long."
Yvonne's lip curled, showing clearly that she didn't quite know whether to be disgusted or envious. Rose, meanwhile, looked to him anxiously, realising what this meant. If they died in that room, he would not only have to watch it without even beginning to feel the effects of the gas himself, but he would have to spend a significant amount of time locked up with two corpses.
A mutter came from Yvonne. "There's got to be a way out…"
All out of ideas and rather exasperated, Rose snorted to cover her panic. "Don't ya think we would've found it by now? It's not as simple as walking up to the big green neon exit sign." Only the pitch of her voice, slightly higher than normal and wracked with coughs, gave away her distress.
While Yvonne rolled her eyes, the Doctor reached for Rose's hand and smiled encouragingly. "More's the pity." Slipping her hand into his, her lips curved upwards slightly in response and she held back another cough.
Smatterings of dust floated down from the ceiling as the Cybermen proceeded to march, closer and closer, thud, thud, thud…
"So what do we do?" Yvonne shouted, slightly hysterical, eyes bulging. "We just sit in here and wait to see what kills us first?"
Rose looked to the Doctor, pleading in her eyes. "I know you can work something out," she whispered.
"You have far too much faith in me."
"Will you two please focus on the issue at hand, that being the fact that we are about to suffocate to death and/or be trampled on by giant metal men?"
Rose shook her head, coughing violently as Yvonne placed a hand over her mouth and sank further to the ground. "Not if I can help it," Rose protested as strongly as could be expected when faced with imminent asphyxiation.
"Oh? And what exactly are you going to do, blondie? Cough your way out of here?" Yvonne spat scathingly.
"That gas in getting in from somewhere," she pointed out practically. "Maybe we can get out the same way."
Rolling her eyes impatiently, Yvonne retorted, "It's coming in through tiny holes in the floor."
"So?"
The Doctor had to give it to Rose; she gave as good as she got. That glare would have been enough to send a Cyberman reeling.
"We -are - not- woodworm." Every syllable was pronounced slowly, with a large pause between each as though she was talking to a small child.
"Well I don't know! At least I'm tryin' to help!"
"Some help you are! All you can do is sit there looking pretty!" Yvonne shot back, hoisting her gun higher.
Rose opened her mouth to reply but the Doctor brought his hand crashing down on the floor and she closed it abruptly. "That," he said warningly, looking to each of them, "is not helping." How was it fair that he saved the universe on a weekly basis and yet still always ended up with squabbling females for company?
But Rose's eyes had shifted to the gun. "Let's shoot our way out."