Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow –
Part Five: I Will Lie With Thee Tonight
A/N: Final part! Yay, I actually did it before Army of Ghosts aired :D Thank you so much for all your reviews; you've all been lovely!
Enjoy, and have fun (or not...) watching Army of Ghosts tonight!
Disclaimer: As ever, I own nothing!
--
"The next girl…" Rose ventured, but the Doctor cut across her.
"Don't talk about that."
"No, I want to. You can…you can fall madly in love with her and have houses and carpets and doors, I won't mind," she insisted as he shook his head. "Just…I know that I've only been around for the tiniest little part of your life, but you completely turned mine around, and if it was you lying here now, I could never, ever forget you, not even if I got old and mad. I jus' wanna know that you'll remember me, even if it is only for a little while. I don't want to be forgotten," she pleaded quietly. Like all humans, she clung to her one way to live on after facing the inevitable – memories.
I could never forget you. "I remember every single person I've ever travelled with, Rose. I couldn't forget you – or any of them – if I tried."
It wasn't the answer she was looking for, but it was enough.
--
Everytime her eyes fluttered shut the Doctor felt his hearts jolt and he held his breath, desperately listening for any sign of hers. This happened far too often and became a regular occurrence, so much so that whenever she slipped into unconsciousness he wanted to shake her awake again, reassure himself that she was still hanging on. At first he'd counted – three, four, five times out cold in an hour – but after a while numbers escaped him and he simply sat, numb and pensive, waiting for her to wake again.
"Is there anything you want?" he asked, as her eyelids parted weakly.
"Nothin' that ain't here already," she told him blearily before half-laughing at her own sentimentality. "But…" she looked around her at the clinically white walls. "I don't really wanna die in a hospital room. Not if I've got a choice anyway. Could I…could you show me the stars one more time be-before…?" she bit her lip and looked away, unable to go on. Embarrassed at her request and scared to admit she was dying as though saying it out loud would make it happen faster, she hoped she'd said enough.
He laughed slightly, a little puff of air blown out through his nose accompanied by a smile. "You never cease to amaze me, Rose Tyler. Not even now."
With that, he stood up and leant over the bed, pushing one arm under her knees and another behind her neck before lifting her completely off it. Slightly startled and worried by how light she was, as though she was literally wasting away, he carried her across the room to the door, kicking it open a little too forcefully and making her smile as he winced.
"Ooooh!"
"That'll teach you to kick doors," she reprimanded, burying her face in his shoulder with a smile.
--
Woman Wept being the (appropriately) chosen destination, the Doctor landed the TARDIS while keeping one eye trained on Rose, who sat huddled up on the chair by the console with a blanket draped over her knees. They had last been here together in his Ninth incarnation and she had marvelled at the light of two moons shimmering through the ice-solid waves they'd wandered beneath, hand in hand. Hoping that the scenery would cheer her instead of making her more melancholy, he picked her up again and carried her out of the doors.
"I coulda walked, y'know," she mumbled, arms around his neck.
"The hell you could," he retorted as he lay her down on the silvery sand, backing up a little to lean against the TARDIS himself. She eyed him, half-frowning, half-smiling. "What?"
"I'm not contagious. Least I don't think so…"
The corners of his mouth twisted up and he took his massive coat off, spreading it across the ground for them both to sit on. She shuffled across to it, still lying and bringing a large quantity of sand with her, and he sat crossed-legged looking up at the sky.
"C'mon then. Name some stars."
He laughed. "Where to start?"
Looking up the sky, she raised her arm perpendicular to her body and scanned the stars. "That one," she said finally, settling on the brightest in a line of three right above her head. Her arm tired quickly and she dropped it back to her side as soon as he'd seen her chosen star.
"Ahh. You've chosen a good one." He grinned down at her, delighted, making that funny little 'heee' noise she'd come to recognise as a pleased laugh. "Good job I didn't take you to Australia or right about now you'd be asking me to name the 'saucepan-shaped one'."
Rose snorted. "What is it then? You're not telling me you don't know!" she teased, reaching over to prod him.
"Orion's belt," he exclaimed excitedly, almost bouncing on his legs. "Ooooh, I love this one. Probably the best known constellation in your sky; contains all the best nebulas too. There's one shaped like a horse's head…" he shook his own in slight disbelief. "Never get tired of looking at that one." When he realised Rose was laughing at him, he hurriedly returned to Orion's belt. "Can you see it? He's a hunter. Standing next to the river Eridanus – that's the constellation bordering Orion – and him and his dogs are giving poor old Taurus the bull a right beating."
Rose raised her eyebrows incredulously, apparently unable to decide whether the Doctor or the astronomers were more crazy. "Dogs?"
"Canis Major and Minor," he said, tracing their shapes with a finger, but all Rose could discern was a few bright stars twinkling down at her. With a sigh, he leant his head in her direction, allowing himself to see the stars from her perspective and lifted her arm to point at the right section of the sky. "There."
"Where?"
He tutted, shaking his head in mock despair. "Hopeless! Right there. The three stars you saw first are his belt – hence the name, although sometimes they're called As Tres Marias. After the three Marys of the New Testament, that is. Bit religious, if you ask me, and a bit funny to name a warrior's belt after three holy women, but whatever floats your boat I suppose. Go back to the belt, and look up a bit…that's his shoulder. Go down again and you'll see his sword hanging off his belt." His companion looked as bemused as ever. "No?"
She shook her head, shivering a little as the gentle breeze seemed to rip right through her. It all just looked like a few bright spots in the sky; it was quite beyond her how they made the shape of a man and his dogs, let alone a sword and a bull. Besides, though she wouldn't admit it, thanks to Yvonne's poison she could barely see him clearly enough to discern his facial expression, let alone burning clouds of gas thousands of light-years away. "Nope." Then, something occurring to her, she asked, "where's his head?" and the Doctor exploded into laughter.
"Bit of a sad story, really," he mused after a moment's silence. The expression on Rose's face clearly indicated that she was completely lost so he elaborated, gesturing madly with his hands and eyebrows while he told the tale. "The Greeks had a story, one that explained why Orion was in the sky. Answer for everything, that lot," he added mutinously and Rose's blue lips twitched into a smile. "Artemis – goddess of the moon – fell so madly in love with him that she stopped lighting up the sky at night. Through the usual twists and complications and idiotic actions that make up Greek tragedies, she was tricked into shooting an arrow at a 'spot' in the waves."
"Lemme guess, it turned out to be Orion?" she put in.
"Got it in one, hit the nail on the head…all the usual metaphors. Later, after she found out what she'd done, she placed his body in the stars. The Greeks believed that the moon always looks so sad at night because of her grief."
Rose looked sadly up at the two moons of Woman Wept. "Can you imagine that?" she asked quietly, gasping at a sudden pain between her ribs. "Killing someone you love?"
"It's bad enough watching them die," he said softly and she knew the matter was closed.
--
Unable to sit still for long, the Doctor was soon up and walking about agitatedly, hands in his pockets. "I should never have taken you with me."
She tilted her head back into the sand to look at him. "Don't say that. I chose to come."
"I offered. I asked. Twice!" He seemed almost shocked at himself and a hand flew out of his pocket, two fingers held up to illustrate his point. "I never ask twice! Don't normally even ask, come to think of it."
"Was I that special?" she grinned, tongue poking between her teeth before it was hastily retracted and she became serious once more. Cursing himself, he could do nothing but watch in horror as a spasm took over her body, shaking her from head to foot for a full minute.
When it was over, and he was kneeling at her head, busying himself with lightly pushing her hair off her pale and shaking face, pretending it was useful, she spoke again. Though the sound of her voice comforted both of them – it acted as a reassurance that she was still there, still with him enough to talk and hold a conversation – it was weak, diminished, and did little to help them now. "All this, travelling round the universe in a big blue box, it might be old hat to you but to me? I've lived more in these past two years than I ever would have done in all my life if you'd left me at home – in five lifetimes."
"If I'd left you at home, you would have lived past twenty. You wouldn't be dying right now if I'd just let you go." All of her hair was now out of her face but he couldn't bring himself to take his hand away. He kept it resting lightly over her forehead, thumb occasionally, involuntarily, moving across her skin.
"You don't know that. I could've been hit by a bus or anything. Suffocated by a jumper. Died of complete and utter boredom. Spent the rest of my life wondering who you are and about this life of yours…'cause I never would have forgotten you, you know. And I'd so much rather it ended like this."
"Scared? After running for your life? After I failed you?"
Whatever he said, whenever she died, she knew she'd always be scared. This didn't make much difference, and she couldn't think of a single way she'd rather go out than lying under the stars on a beautiful planet with the Doctor's fingers lingering over her skin. "After an adventure, after the best two years ever imaginable, with you. You've shown me so much…"
"Too much."
"My dad…" her voice quivered. "Even though you knew it was a bad idea, even though I completely betrayed your trust, you still took me there. You still forgave me afterwards."
He was silent. She reached a hand up, behind her, to his face.
"I got to see my daddy," she said, as if that settled things. "How many people are ever that lucky? You took me to see him and you gave us both the most wonderful thing. Time."
He pushed her hand away bitterly and began to pace again. "It's my fault. I was supposed to protect you…I promised I'd look after you."
What she said next made him stop in his tracks and look down at her, astonished and forlorn, knowing her words would echo through his mind for a long time to come.
"He can do that now."
--
"S'pose at least I can say it was interesting…" she muttered, quite out of things to say.
"Death doesn't have to be interesting. Your death doesn't deserve to be interesting. You should've died when you were – eighty, and old, in your sleep wearing a nasty old night-gown and one of those hideous hairnets. Not like this."
"Oh, thanks, condemning me to eternal boredom and bad hair, are you?"
"Rose…"
"Don't. Please." She reached a hand up to his face and he once again removed it, this time lacing his fingers through hers before allowing her to drop it. "Without you I'd never have had a clue. It's been…fantastic."
The hand didn't move, but his mouth did. However, she stopped him before he could insist, once again, that he'd been wrong to ever take her with him.
"Now ain't the best time to tell me you're having second thoughts about dragging me across the universe with you, Doctor."
"I don't regret a single second of it, Rose, but if I could make it so I'd never asked you and this'd never happen, I would." It wasn't that he didn't care. It was that he cared too much, far too much to lose her.
"Nice to know. I wouldn't."
"You wouldn't? If you could go back, change it all?" He looked to her curiously, settling lightly on his coat again, terrified that the next silence wouldn't be interrupted – that she'd die and he wouldn't be there to hold her hand.
"Says the Time Lord! … But no. Not a single second of it. 'Course I wish I was getting longer, but only if it was this kinda life. I wouldn't trade any of it in for another fifty years of being a shop-girl."
Remotely proud of her adventurous spirit, the thought that her life – a life that could have been so full, could have been lived so much more – was ending seemed bitterer than ever. "I wish there was something I could do," he gestured violently, feeling helpless. "You've got no idea what it's like to be sitting here just watching you…" a grimace passed over his face as his tone became almost disgusted, "die and not be able to help."
"It's OK. Seriously," she added when he looked doubtful. Supposing he, having lived so long, probably feared death even more than she did, she carried on and let all her thoughts spill out. "'Cause I've seen everythin'…I've sped through galaxies people of my time don't even know exist, fought gas-mask zombies and human trampolines and God knows what else." She grinned briefly, tears still coursing down her cheeks. "I've danced inside a police box. Dunno how many people can say that…"
He couldn't return the expression. Instead, he put one shaking hand over his face and rested the other lightly on her neck, as if reassuring himself she was still there, heart still beating, still hanging on. "I've spent two years with you…I can't ask for anything else."
--
"Would you – lie with me?" He met her eyes, his own almost as pleading as hers. "Please?"
He didn't need any more encouragement than that. Wordlessly, he stretched his legs out and shifted sideways towards her. He lay on his back, their arms separating their bodies with their hands still joined at the end. Rose began to shift but the Doctor, sensing what she was about to do, warned her not to turn.
"Won't make much difference now, will it?" she smiled sadly and he allowed her to curl into him, even guiding her slightly with his free hand.
Slowly, she moved until she was completely on her side and he let go of her hand so that she wouldn't have to lie on her own arm. He placed his arm under the curve of her neck instead and brought his hand back to rest in her hair, which he brushed away lightly, letting his fingers glide gently over her skin even after he was done. They traced a path down to her bare arm, now covered in delicate bruises as blood pooled together in shadows beneath the skin. He could feel her shaking slightly, unwilling, against him and reflected that it was a horrible way for a life to end. Not only so soon, but so drawn-out…especially for someone who had lived the last two years in the way that Rose had. It was such an anti-climax. He suddenly realised that she hadn't made a single complaint in the past three hours and marvelled at her courage and resolve.
She brought her knees up to herself, one of them pushing slightly forwards and overlapping his leg, tilting her head to rest against his neck and shoulder. He leant his own against hers, holding onto the feel of her breath playing shallow and uneven across his skin, willing it to be regular and deep once more. She reached for his other hand and he took hers without hesitation once again, gripping just as tight as before and bringing their linked hands to rest somewhere near his double-heartbeat.
Both of his hearts pulsed strongly and he briefly thought how unfair it was that all they could do was get faster while hers faded into oblivion. If he could keep her near that heartbeat, maybe it would be enough for the both of them…
As if reading his thoughts and feeling, like him, that perhaps his two heartbeats could somehow compensate for the one she was fast losing, Rose instinctively shifted her hand a few centimetres up his body and felt the steady thumps echo through her.
"What's that one, then?" she whispered weakly, eyes screwed shut in pain against his shoulder.
He looked down at her, confused, though he realised she was talking about stars again. "Which one?"
"Any one."
Finally, he realised she just wanted him to talk. Keeping his eyes on her and without as much as looking at the sky, he began to describe the constellation of Andromeda (named after the princess, the 'ruler of men'…he thought it rather appropriate) and, bordering it, Cassiopeia, though neither were at all visible from where they lay. "The stars in that one make the shape of a queen sitting on a chair," he told her, pulling on his ear.
A soft mumble came from somewhere near his shoulder. "Bet it looks nothing like it."
He laughed, though he realised she'd never see it herself now. "No. No, it doesn't. More of a wiggle really…" he conceded fairly.
He'd known as soon as he couldn't ID the poison that there was no hope for her but he'd frantically tried everything else in his power anyway. He knew now, as her breathing became more ragged, that the end was near and he tightened his hold over her because of it. And he knew, finally, as the light breeze across his skin ceased that it was all over, but he couldn't let her go. He wasn't ready.