Merry Christmas and a Happy Who Year!
We still don't own Doctor Who but we do own this story so please enjoy (and sorry about the angst)
Dancing with the Past
The youngest Doctor and Rose walked ahead of the eldest Doctor.
He stood there, lost; looking at Rose's and his previous selves entwined hands with an unreadable expression.
Was it possible that he was jealous of HIMSELF?
Maybe this was a bad idea. Even though he had to go through with it.
As though sensing the battle in his head, Rose looked back at him, her face softening in sympathy as she took in his wet eyelashes, bloodshot eyes and downright downcast appearance. The one of a man who'd held things in for too long.
"You coming?" she asked, sympathy evident one more.
"Can't be that bad can it?" she asked, then frowned. Of course it could. She thought of her mum, to whom it seemed the world ended when her Tesco Bag For Life lasted only a couple of weeks.
"What happened?"
The Doctor looked startled. What could he say to her, to the Rose that he would fall in love with- To the Rose that so soon would be a universe away from him?
So near and so far.
He opened his mouth soundlessly, and then closed it again.
By this point Rose had whispered something into the ear of her Doctor and let go of his hand. She gave him the chips and then she walked over to him, this man who was grieving for her though she couldn't know it.
Rose's Doctor looked at him and suddenly felt so sorry for himself. Not that that was anything new, but he had hoped that he would be happier in his next self. The body he was looking at, the Doctor- him- seemed in despair.
At least he had Rose, and could treat her, tell her how special she was, make her laugh.
It seemed that Mr Ten would have to live without her- or maybe someone else, though how he was acting...
"Stop guessing your future!" he hissed, clenching his fists, knowing that he couldn't cope without Rose and hoping that in the future he could, impossible how it seemed.
It didn't look like he could. He gave a nod to Rose and indicated with his head where he was going to stand, against a lamppost, looking out along the river and wandered off.
The Doctor watched his previous self walk away and felt grateful.
He was easily embarrassed when emotional- especially in front of himself.
He was drawn out of his misery by Rose rubbing his back, feeling his skin tingle.
"What happened?" she asked kindly.
His hearts ached. She just wanted to help, she was like that. And that would be the end of her and him.
"Urr," he began, rubbing his chin.
For a man so often endowed or afflicted- endowed, he liked to think- with verbal diarrhoea, he still didn't know what to say.
"You don't have to say," Rose said hurriedly, in case it offended him to be asked.
No. He would say. That was what he came here to do.
He would tell her the truth, omitting certain information- obviously- but still to tell her the truth. He always told Rose the truth. He always HAD.
"I...I...I had a friend," He started, feeling the feeling of the tears he'd tried to hold back all through Donna's questioning and the weeks afterwards rise again, because of her.
Rose felt sorry for the man with tears rolling down his face.
She didn't even know him, but felt for some reason like she owed it to this man to comfort him.
"Well...my friend and I," he gulped, steeling himself.
"My friend...and I: we travelled around a bit. We went to New-"
He coughed briefly. "New York" He smiled at the memory of the apple grass, then the smile fell. Not those flashbacks again.
"That was where...where I fell in love with her."
Rose smiled at this romance. She loved romance just as much as romance loved being romance. But she could tell it did not have a happy ending.
"Take your time," she soothed, rubbing his back again.
"I had loved her before we went to New York." He swallowed, wishing he could go back to his ninth self and tell her everything. "But there it became plain that I was in love."
Rose put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. He smiled softly, sadly.
"I could never get up the nerve to tell her that I was in love with her, because I thought she didn't love me. I mean, why would she? She'd gone for the pretty boys in the past. There was no way she'd love a guilty old beggar like me."
He gave a small sob but continued telling Rose the story of her future.
"And then I took her home for a visit and...Something happened...and she- she- she had to leave."
The last few words came out in such a rush that it took Rose a moment to decipher them, by which time he was sobbing.
Rose rubbed his shoulder. What could she do to help him?
The Doctor's mind was racing: how could he phrase the next bit without the obvious words-TARDIS, supernova, universes?
That time in the parallel universe, with the Cybermen and... Rose's phone! That would do it.
"I...I managed to phone her for the last time...and she told me...she told me she loved me."
He bit back a sob.
"And...and...I was about to tell her that I loved her too when...the line... went dead"
The Doctor sobbed loudly thinking back to that time on the beach with Rose and those final words they spoke.
"I...I love you!"
"Quite right too."
A smile.
"And I suppose... if it's the last time... Rose Tyler..."
She tapped the man gently on the shoulder, unaware that he was reliving her goodbye to him.
"I've got a phone- you could phone her."
The Doctor shook his head.
"I...her...she...it's gone"
How could he ring her? It would be ringing the same number as the phone itself. Drat her for keeping the same sim card.
Rose took this to mean that he couldn't phone this woman.
He was sobbing again so Rose did the one thing she could think of, the one thing that her mother had done for her countless times- she pulled him to his feet and enveloped him in a hug.
He tightened his arms around her and held her like nothing else in the universe mattered anymore- because to him it didn't- and he was so happy and sad at once, and he was crying into her shoulder- the very last time he'd get to hug her, and he was crying, and she stood there rubbing his back, being his rock as she always had but never would be again. She was whispering words that might comfort him and wishing that this man could find the woman that he loved and could hold her as tightly as he was holding her now.
If only she could somehow make it better for him. If she could just get hold of his heart and make it whole again, make it work once more.
But how could she? She was just a person- a person on the outside and she could never be the glue to piece this man's heart together. Never.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, feeling it only right to apologise for the folly of the universe. God, if only she could stop this sort of thing from happening.
He moved so quickly that she was startled, and almost went off balance.
"Don't apologise! Oh, please don't. It's not your fault. It's never your fault. I told her to stay with the family, and then she wouldn't! She came back to me, and I didn't have the heart to say no to her again. I'd already left her once, you see," he whispered, lowering his tone slightly and glancing fearfully at the brooding Nine, who was staring at the river massively, leaning upon it with a cynical expression.
His voice was becoming very like the water, Rose noted. Soft and quiet, and hushed- but fast- a crazed torrent of words and regret and guilt and aching love.
"I should have sent her back! Why didn't I send her back! It wouldn't have been as bad! She could've stayed with her families and played happy family, and I'd have been fine- oh God. I'm blaming her for it now!" he exclaimed wildly, gazing around him. "What am I doing here? Why'm I here, of all places? Why'm I-"
But he caught himself just in time, slowing his breathing down slightly. He deserved this.
"I can't blame her. If I blame her it's all wrong. If I blame her- no. I'm not blaming her. It was my fault. I should've sent her back. And then this wouldn't have happened- well- it would- but I let myself hope!"
He ran his hands through his hair, pacing wildly.
"It's just like the rest. Susan. Sarah Jane. Romana, for goodness sake. Ace. Jack! They all end up gone, and I promise them forever and they promise it and- I LOVE HER!"
With that he slumped, exhausted, onto the bench, leaning forwards and putting his head in his hands in a depressed manner.
Rose had stood quite still all through the monologue, somehow realising that if she interrupted then she'd make things worse.
It was a lot for her to take in. Too much for her human brain to process at once, she seemed to realise.
She pulled her jacket more tightly around herself and walked to the bench, taking her time, not sitting directly next to him in case he wanted some space.
It had to be put into perspective, she realised. Make it seem as though she was in this situation.
Well. Someone she'd hate to lose.
Her mum?
She bit her lip involuntarily. Maybe.
Mickey?
Oh, he was special, certainly. But that was her old life. This was her new life.
Her new life...
The Doctor? What if she lost him?
She shivered, not from the wind but from the coldness sinking into her stomach, as though she'd swallowed a vat of ice cream on a boiling hot day and the chill wouldn't unfreeze.
And suddenly she knew how this man felt.
"I understand," she whispered, extending a shaking hand to him and pursing her lips, moving closer to him, for even in his despair she could be comforted- comforted by this complete stranger!
Wordlessly, he put an arm around her, huddling into her like a child did to its mother.
How long they sat like that, both had no idea of. Perhaps it was a mere hour, or maybe longer- days, weeks- enough time for hundreds of people to pass and stare inquiringly at the two whose cheeks and eyes were reddened by the salty tracks of their tears, and enough time for the leather jacketed person to seem to draw some comfort from the odd scene too, stopping to chat to a drunken American man with too many men and women trailing after him to stay long, and to draw a glimmer of recognition from that odd-but-quite-attractive suited man with the girl when he passed with the entourage.
Perhaps it wasn't that long at all- it just felt like it- yet both knew, and both broke apart simultaneously.
And both were comforted by each other's presence, as one had been in the past, and one would be in just a few months' time.
Written by Scout Girl and Let'sDoTheTimeWarpAgain
BETAed by Let'sDoTheTimeWarpAgain and Scout Girl
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