Aaaand we're back to the angstyness again. I've had this in my head for a while; it's sort of a companion piece to 'JE Truth Part 1'. Because Ten is a jerk. You know it to be true.
It was very very easy.
It was also extremely hard.
This is your life now: sitting in the back seat of an old car Jackie bought at a reduced government rate, staring out the window, watching the scenery flash by. Rose's hand in yours. The car smells like a wet dog.
Hours of this.
Pete and Jake are friendly, but a bit confused. Tony is adorable, but you don't feel up to playing with the baby right now. Jackie gives you an extended tour of the mansion, with a running commentary on each item: she doesn't know why you laughs at the hall carpet. When she's done, you ask her, could she make some of her tea? Of course she could, darling. You sit at a marbled counter, sipping your tea. It tastes awful. Just like you remember. This is your life now: looking at the magnets on the fridge. Where is Rose? you ask. Oh, she's very busy; got a very important job, you know.
Ah, of course, you answer, smiling.
You rage and scream and yell out your injustices to the stars but they only stare back, cold, indifferent.
It's all about learning. Learning mortality. Learning to be human.
This is what it's about: waking up in the bathroom with no idea how you got there, and throwing up in the sink and then fainting, crash, bang, hitting your head on the tiled floor and getting a concussion. Pete has to bribe the doctors and you're not sure if you're better or not, you can't remember enough Gallifreyan biology.
You love Rose, of course you do: more than anything else in this universe. But when you close your eyes at night, you see Romana, smiling at you across a table in a cafe in Paris. You hear Tegan yelling at you, remember the texture of Sarah Jane's hair and the way Ace's eyes light up when you offer her a new adventure. When you look at Tony, you see Susan.
You only have one heart now, and you're not sure if it's enough.
The people at Torchwood love your knowledge, soak it up, hang on your every word. But when danger threatens, it's Jake and his team who deal with it. When you complain to Rose, she explains, you're too valuable. We can't afford to lose you. And you shiver. No regenerations, no second chances. You're that sort of a man now. It's only you, and this new life, and dreadful mortality looming like a knife.
Sometimes, in the middle of imparting knowledge, you'll trail off, and look puzzled, like you're reaching for something that's suddenly vanished.
You're aware that there's something wrong with you. Chief among this is the fact that you're half Donna. Sometimes you get so uncontrollably angry, or sad, or insanely happy. Humans feel so much, you realize.
If Donna was here, she'd understand, she'd make you feel better just by existing, just by being Donna.
If Romana was here, she'd tell you to stop wallowing and get on with life.
It can't be too difficult: humans do it, after all.
One day they've called you up to deal with yet another alien invasion (this parallel Earth seems just as much a danger magnet as the original) and you stare at the blurry digital image printouts they hand you and you say, "Oh, Terileptils," and they sigh in relief and wait for you to explain, to elaborate, to tell them how to deal with it, to hook up a video link and negotiate with the alien leader- but you can't think and your brain is sticking and you can only repeat, "Teri-teri-t-t-t-" and then there is only blackness.
You wake up in- in what you've begun to think is your bed- white sheets in a room with nondescript blue wallpaper, birdsong outside and climbing roses on the windowsill. Not Rose' room- you've been tiptoeing awkwardly around the subject and haven't yet reached an agreement- your room, yes it's yours, your room, your stupid bloody universe.
For a moment you can't remember how you got there- and then you remember, and you dash to your feet, swaying a bit, and rush out into the kitchen, and Rose is there sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of tea all ready for you, and she looks so old and tired. "The Terileptils-" you begin.
"We had to shoot them down," she says in a monotone. "I'm sorry."
And you can't even remember who they were.
"Here," she says, "have some tea."
This is your life now: brain scans, tests, racking your rapidly shrinking mind, yelling at people, cursing your stupid self, and finally just frantic scribblings in notebook after notebook, alien race after alien race, for bloody stupid Torchwood, Ice Warriors and Silurians and Vervoids, just in case they ever decide to invade this tiny backwater world, and you don't even know if your vanishing knowledge will be used wisely, and this is Torchwood after all.
You keep your own, private notebook, where you write down more personal names, with even more frantic despair.
Voord, Wirrn, Cryon, Daemon, Didonian, Gaztak, Silurian. Paris, 1979, the fifty-first century, San Francisco 1999, the creation of the universe. Adric, Jamie, Tegan, Ace, Fitz. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Sarah Jane.
Gallifrey. Chapters, Castellans, Cardinals. The Panopticon, the Capitol, the Eye of Harmony. Rassilon, Omega, the Other. Maxil, Borusa, Flavia. Drax, Professor Chronotis. The Rani. The Master. Romana. Susan.
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight.
Repeat.
Rose finds you, appropriately enough, out in the rose garden, sitting on a stone bench drawing patterns in the gravel with your trainers, muttering your litany of names under your breath. She sits down next to you and holds your hand. You look at her- her beautiful body, her big brown eyes, her soft expression. Her kindness. Her humanity. For a moment you think of telling her what you've already figured out. That you're losing everything. Everything before her. Everything right up to the moment his ninth self first laid eyes on this fragile young mortal. You think of confiding your darkest suspicions, that this isn't natural, this isn't anything like he'd been led to expect, that this must have been caused. That you must have been forced into the perfect companion for Rose Tyler. You think of cursing your other self aloud, screaming for him to come back with your TARDIS, your memories, your life.
Instead you kiss her. It seems like the natural thing to do. And later, when you go back to her bedroom instead of your own, that seems like the natural thing also. The natural human thing.
You're getting quite good at this humanity lark. And just as well, because what else is there for you now?
One month later
"I'm sorry if it's impolite, but I'm sort of required to ask: are you now, or have you ever been, part of a plot to invade Earth and enslave its peoples and/or eat them?"
The girl with the sad eyes laughed her sad laugh. "Sorry, no," she said. Jake thought she looked faded, rather, an illusion enhanced by the fact that she wore no color, only a dress as pale as her long yellow hair.
"You see, we can't just have people popping in from other universes all the time, it confuses the paperwork something terrible," he said, wondering why he sounded apologetic. "Particularly if they have two hearts."
"Don't worry," the girl said, "I'll be off as soon as you let me have my dimension hopper back."
"Well, I'll see what I can do."
"Here it is," a man's voice said, and he appeared around the corner: he didn't wear the blue suit any more, but rather a plain white t-shirt and jeans. And he'd cut his wonderful hair. Still had the sideburns, though. "Seems to be what it says it is. I guess we can let you have it back, Miss..." His voice trailed off.
"This is Dr. John Smith, our scientific advisor," Jake said hurriedly.
"You look familiar," the scientific advisor said, sounding puzzled and lost.
"I've never seen you in my life," the girl with the sad eyes said. She took the dimension hopper from his outstretched fingers and slung her arms through the straps. With a flash as bright as the memory of a long ago cafe, she was gone.