Months. It had been months, and she still jumped at shadows.
Slowly, Rose sighed and leaned back into her seat. She'd spotted him out of the corner of her eye. A tall blur or brown. But it wasn't the Doctor. It never was. Just an average man, late for work.
But she was doing better these days. Not too long ago, when her loss was still excruciatingly fresh, this little mishap would have been enough to bring on tears. Now she was just left with a twisted gut, and a distinct lack of interest in finishing her tea.
She leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table and resting her forehead on the heels of her hands. A low, exhausted moan escaped her throat. 'Is this ever going to end?' she wondered. It was draining in the extreme. Her hopes skyrocketing, unbidden at every flash of blue on a street corner, at every sound resembling his laugh, or the TARDIS's engines, only to hurtle back down to reality when it turned out to be something quite mundane. But then, to stop reacting to these things would be to admit that she would never see him again. And that was one reality she was not ready to reconcile herself with. Not yet.
Taking a moment to compose herself, Rose stood, gathering her cell phone (she refused to use earpods) and attaché case. Slipping the former into her jacket pocket, she strolled towards the exit, letting the half empty Styrofoam cup fall into the waste bin as she pushed her way outside.
The sun was leisurely making its way to the horizon. There was still an hour or two of light left, so she did up her coat and decided to walk. After the mild shock in the Café, she needed some time alone in her own head.
She wouldn't be needed back at Torchwood tower for a while yet anyway. Technically she was off for the rest of the evening, but she'd offered to come back later to help Mickey with something. Truth be told, there wasn't much else for her to do.
It was strange, the way life worked out. You could never quite plan for it. She hadn't really thought she'd work behind a computer desk. Not when she'd been a shop girl, and certainly not after she'd met the Doctor. But to her surprise and great chagrin, working for Torchwood seemed to involve an inordinate amount of sitting, and a greatly reduced (if not completely nonexistent) need to run for ones life.
She knew the reason for this, in her heart of hearts. In short, it was her Mum. In long, it was her Dad.
Now that she'd got her girl back, and the Doctor was effectively out of the picture, Jackie had no intention of seeing Rose get hurt working as a field agent. Pete Tyler hadn't known Rose for even a fraction of the time Jackie had, but he could tell that simply sitting her at a desk and telling her to stay wasn't going to work. He'd gotten around the problem by setting her up as a consultant. Anything to do with temporal muckups was bumped down to her. She'd spent a few years rattling around as a time traveler, after all. She was certainly qualified.
Unfortunately, without the ability to skip forward- or backward for that matter- and look for trouble, she was forced to wait for something in this field to go wrong. She'd only had one genuine, hands on case since getting trapped here. Most of the time, she was forced to knock around the tower doing odd jobs. Like helping Mickey reinvent the cell phone, for example.
It irked her no end how often he was sent out on assignment while she was left behind. But with the ire came a bitter tang of shame and humility. It wasn't nice, being the tin dog. It really wasn't.
But there was another reason she couldn't stand holding up in the office. If the Doctor did find his way back into this universe, then she wasn't going to find him by sitting in a swivel chair with her hands folded on her lap.
Where you found smoke, you'd find fire. And where you found trouble, you would most definitely find the Doctor.
She winced, ever so slightly, as his face appeared in her mind. Despite the good times they'd had together, and they had a great many, it was always her last memory of him that came back to stab her.
It had been branded painfully in her mind, an excruciating scar to remember him by.
If she closed her eyes, she could still taste the salt in the air. Hear the dull pounding of waves in the distance. Or was it simply the pounding of blood in her ears?
For a while she'd believed, really believed that he'd found a way. Of course he had. Why wouldn't he? He was the Doctor. He was brilliant and there was nothing he couldn't do.
She'd prepared herself emotionally to say goodbye to her Mum, to Mickey, to Pete, even Tony. But those were not the farewells she'd ended up having to say.
It hadn't even been a proper goodbye. They hadn't had enough time. She remembered the feelings, the actual physical pain she'd felt when he'd faded for good. As if the universe had decided that they were not entitled to even this small amount of closure. It had been so unfair, she'd thought she might scream or snap into pieces right there on the beach.
That was about all she could take. Rose Tyler made a b-line for the nearest street bench and sat. Fortunately the pedestrian traffic was pretty low in this part of the city, so there was no one to see her take the much needed emotional pit stop. She concentrated on breathing deeply and stemming the tears that were threatening to flow. What would the Doctor think of her now? Wandering around Parallel London alone, mooning over him like a character from a dime store romance. Wasn't she supposed to be living a fantastic life? Didn't she owe him that much?
Slowly, a Zeplin trundled overhead. The heavy thrum of its engines was a welcome distraction from her own thoughts. She sat back, closed her eyes, and let the white noise wash through her mind. It was amazing how soothing it felt, not to think at all. Like sleeping while awake and forgetting everything for a few precious seconds. And when the Zeplin had passed, ferrying its rich passengers wherever they'd been headed, she felt a remarkable calm, underlined with only a twinge of loss.
She did not want to admit it was over, that this was her life now. But if she kept on like this, she'd be a burnt out husk by the time she was thirty.
She'd once absorbed the time vortex just to see him again, and if there was a way of crossing between their dimensions without irrevocably shattering both then she'd be off like a shot. But in the mean time she'd let it be. No more jumping at shadows. No more false starts and senseless hope.
"I'm sorry, is this seat taken?"
Her eyes snapped open.
A tall, gangly man with a blue pinstripe suit and a heart-stoppingly familiar face dropped onto the bench next to her and grinned.
Her stiff resolve of all but ten seconds ago dissolved, like a sand castle bowled over by a particularly exuberant wave.
~AN~
Not much going on in this chapter. Just a bit of angst on Rose's part. Though it was supposed to set up the timeline a bit too. In case it was not clear though, From Rose's standpoint, it has only been a few months since she and the Doctor parted ways in Doomsday.
Hopefully we'll get into some meaty 10/Rose stuff next time.
(Nothing explicit I'm afraid. I don't really do that. The T rating is mainly for thematic elements. But it should be fun nonetheless.)
Once again, I have no beta for this, so if you have any constructive crit in regard to storytelling, character portrayal, pacing and the like, please please PLEASE share!
On that note, I want to say a giant, enormous THANK YOU for the warm reception, everyone!
Like I mentioned before, it was a spur of the moment decision what lead to my posting this, so I'm thrilled you guys are as intrigued as you apparently are.
If you have any questions about the story, or just want to talk about it, please leave a review and I will reply to you.
Communication is a wonderful thing.