A/N: Yay for quick updates. I am home for reading week, so hopefully I will update faster (and maybe even have the story done before the end of the week! like 4 more chapters left!). Don't mind the mistakes yadda yadda yadda, tell me if I make them blah blah no beta blah. As always, read and review :)
Chapter Eight:
The sun had just set as the funeral ended, and the stars were beginning to peak out of the vast black sky. It cast a kinder light on the graveyard than the bloody sun, brining the world into the serene embrace of nighttime. Rose sighed and looked again to where the Doctor had disappeared only half an hour before. She was furious at him for abandoning Treasa and her family in their time of grief, and even angrier that he abandoned her when she needed a hand to hold. The townsfolk slowly made their way back to their houses, a few lingered to say their last goodbyes. Sean stayed the longest, murmuring prayers and regrets over the stone that marked where Treasa lay.
Rose stalked back to the house, moodily. Both Cathal and Áine Mac Gearailt noticed her attitude and, thankfully, remained quiet after the funeral. Cathal opened the door for the two women, and let them into the empty house. He quickly busied himself making a fire to warm up the small space. The spring brought warm days but the evenings were chilly, and Rose shivered in her thin linen dress with a simple wool shawl that Áine had lent her. Evidentially, it was not warm enough. Rose stared at the goose pimples that appeared slowly on the back of her hand and wrist.
"I'll be makin' some tea for ye, dear?" Áine asked while fetching clay mugs out of the rustic cupboards. She filled a small pot with water and placed it over the newly burning fire.
"Yes, I'd like that," Rose sat down at the table across from Mr. Mac Gearailt and picked absentmindedly at a string that hung astray on her shawl.
"I'll 'ave been a 'ard day for everyone," Mr. Mac Gearalit said absentmindedly, watching his wife pick out some dried herbs from various clay jars that were lined along the windowsill. Rose looked up and met his eye before averting hers quickly. She nodded before resuming her picking at the wool garment.
"Aye," Áine agreed, nodding her head. "Terrible thing that is, losing a child. Poor girl. Can' imagine how her mother is feelin'. An' in such an awful way. Violent an' bloody. I'll tell ye that it was no wolves that done that. Mrs. Cionaoith was tellin' me that Mr. de Paor heard poor Sean sobbin' earlier 'bout what 'appened. Said he said that the 'eart was gone! Said her eye had turned red an' her hair turned black. She was goin' on 'bout witchcraft. I don't know how much I believe tha' but I'll tell ye it ain't no wolf that be eatin' only the 'eart an' leavin' the rest." Áine continued prattling on about this and that from the village gossip.
Rose sunk into the conversation, nodding where it seemed appropriate. It was comforting, in a way, to know that gossip had never changed. Áine reminded her of Jackie. Sometimes her mother got hold of news or scandals that occurred in their complex and she would be on the phone for hours, getting to the bottom of it with all her friends. Rose would be fascinated by how quickly it all came together when her mother had her mind set on rooting out the gossip.
"An' I hope ye don' mind dear, I am makin' you a barley tea, it'll warm ye up," Áine said fondly, stirring a concoction over the fire. "An' I feel like a cuppa always makes ye feel better, gives ye somethin' to do with yer hands." The older lady eyed Rose picking at the loose thread.
"You remind me of my mum," Rose said, longingly. "She would make tea for me whenever I was sad, or angry or lonely."
"An' where is yer mother now? Back in London, missing her daughter?"
Rose could see the regret in Áine's eyes when she asked the question. There were few other reasons for a single young woman to be in the company of man. Rose didn't reveal how close Áine had struck home, and guilt washed over her. "She's gone," Rose whispered, secretly wishing she had the phone that she left in the TARDIS. "Far away. An' my Da' died when I was young."
"We've all seen a fair share o' death 'round here, but it doesn't make it any less sad," Áine said kindly, setting down the cup of tea in front of Rose and another in front of herself and her husband. She took a seat beside Rose and sipped carefully. "Aye, Cathal an' I lost our first child to the bloody flux, an' the next in the womb an' after that I lost the 'eart to try again." She looked forlornly at her husband who returned the miserable gaze.
"I'm sorry," Rose muttered. She felt guilty for missing her mum, who was, to her at least, still alive, when everyone around her had seemed to have lost so much. She shifted uncomfortably.
"We see death lots here," Mr. Mac Gearailt considered, his low voice was thick with emotion. "But tha' don' make it any less meaningful when people pass. It is always someone's 'usband, or wife or child."The elderly couple exchanged another loaded glance.
"An' all folk 'ave their ways o' dealin' with it. When our first passed, I stayed in my room for a whole moon cycle, not talkin'. Cathal went to the forest for two weeks an' killed a few hedgehog."
"Aye, an' when Fearghus ó Ceallacháin lost 'is mum, he didn't react at all, just took it in stride. His sister cried for a week straight."
Rose nodded and sipped her tea, her thoughts ruminating on the moral of the lesson they were trying to teach her. She supposed that death was just a natural part of life in these times. Well more natural than where she came from. It was an everyday occurrence, nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone had dealt with death at a young age. In Rose's time, most kids didn't attend a funeral until they were teenagers or older. Death was always tragic and preventable. Most were accidents, like her father's. Very few were expected and even less were looked at practically. Here they were just part of everyday life, whether expected, accidental or tragic.
"What about people that can't say goodbye at all?" Rose asked quietly. She looked at the Mac Garealit's through her eyelashes.
"Well there are them too," Áine said, picking up Rose's hinting tone. "Some folk just don't like to accept that death 'appens. Or they're afraid themselves. Some people can't bear that they survive, when their loved ones are gone."
"Some don't want the story to end," Rose said, her tone more bitter than the tea that she was nursing between her hands. "They can't accept that saying goodbye is required to be human. Everyone says goodbye eventually." She all but spat the word 'human'.
Áine seemed taken aback, but Cathal nodded wisely. They didn't speak anymore, just took turns bringing their cup to their lips and tasting the bittered tea. All were deep in thought. Rose could see that Áine was still thinking about her lost children as sadness crept into her eyes. Cathal's expression was unreadable, but Rose suspected that he too was thinking about the babies he had lost.
Rose was angry at the Doctor, but she realized maybe she wasn't angry that he had left Treasa's funeral, though it did grate her nerves. She was afraid that she would be left behind as well, without even a goodbye to comfort her. She had seen it with Sarah Jane, who had lived the rest of her life waiting for the Doctor's return. She had seen it with Madam de Pompadour who waited for her silly man to emerge once again from the fireplace. During that same time, Rose herself felt a taste of what it was like to be left behind. The Doctor had all but abandoned her on a 51st century spaceship, floating in space, at the mercy of terrifying clockwork robots. All this after he had promised, not hours before, to never leave her. She sighed inwardly. Rose never wanted to feel that fear, that panic, that betrayal, again. She forgave him, barely and they moved on. But she still wondered when it would be her time to say goodbye for good.
Rose was still swishing the remains of her tea when Cathal stood up.
"I'll be goin' to bed now," He said, placing his cup on the table. "It's back to a full day o' work tomorrow. G'night."
He marched up the stairs, leaving his wife and Rose sitting at the table, awkwardly staring at the wood grain. Rose could hear him getting ready for bed in the loft upstairs, his footsteps falling heavily on the wooden boards just above her head.
"He'll come back ye know," Áine said conversationally. Rose looked up, she hated that she could feel the hope in her eyes. "They always do."
Rose made a noncommittal noise and resumed playing with the leftovers in the bottom of the mug.
"Men can be a bit thick at times, but I'm sure he means nothin' by it." She sighed and stood up, collecting the mugs from the table and putting them over in the kitchen area. "Just, wait for him to explain himself, then ye can decide."
Rose watched her as she walked up the stairs, joining her husband in their marital bed.
She realized that she was almost jealous of the two. They seemed to respect each other. Cathal took care of Áine and she took care of him. They had lived a long life with nobody but each other. Rose wanted that. As a girl she had played dolls, pretend marrying them to each other. She had always wanted a wedding and a husband and children, even. The Doctor just got there first. The lure of adventure was just too much and she put the rest of her dreams on hold. Maybe it was catching up to her. Maybe being left behind again was just cold hard reality, sneaking up on her.
Rose sighed again. She felt like she had been doing that a lot lately. All she wanted was a big comfy couch to curl up on in front of the lovely fire, and maybe one of the romance novels that she used to nick from Jackie. At least they all had happy endings. The big-breasted bimbos always got their man.
But they never saved the world.
They never fought off alien invasions, or faced down an entire army of Daleks or Cybermen.
Their lives didn't mean much. They were just used for sex and a bit of romance.
Rose's life meant something. The Doctor made sure of it. He had changed her from a simple shop girl to the Bad Wolf. Enlightened her with his barmy blue box by taking her throughout all of space and time. Without the Doctor, she could have ended up marrying Mickey. She didn't want that. She didn't want to just be a shop girl or live on the Powell Estates for the rest of her life.
She may...love...the Doctor. And she did love him. She had figured it out long ago, somewhere between visiting New New York and having a crazed woman on television stealing her face. She loved him with all her heart, but he couldn't settle down and live a normal human life. She didn't even know if he was capable of human love. He couldn't get married and keep a home. She imagined him working at a 9-5 job, as an accountant or banker, and snorted to herself. The Doctor didn't do domestic. Time and space needed him. And he needed her, for as long as time would allow it. He wasn't as strong on the inside as he let on. She knew that, she always knew that.
Rose stood up, suddenly resolute. She needed to find him, to tell him that she understood.
He would be out in the forest, talking to those space bug things. Rose needed to find him.
She went to the back and went into the Doctor's room, instead of her own. It was an identical copy of her room. She got down on her hands and knees and groped under the bed. Her fingers touched soft material and she pulled out her jeans and sweater that looked as though they had been laundered by Áine. They were clean, at the very least. She resumed her search again and pulled out her trainers.
Rose quickly changed into her real clothing, relishing in the feel of the warm wool of her sweater. She suddenly appreciated the freedom that her jeans provided, and the stability from her trainers, instead of the simple slippers. She quickly folded the dress and placed it on the bed, and scrambled out the window. She landed with a thud on the ground outside the house, and stumbled over a few rocks that had been placed there. She cussed loudly, then cussed again more quietly, hoping she didn't wake up the Mac Gearalits that were sleeping just above her head.
Once she was sure there was no stirring in the house, she quickly ran to the edge of the forest. The wolfhounds looked at her suspiciously as she ran through the sheep field, but decided not to do anything about the strange girl. She jumped the low stone wall in a smooth motion and approached the edge of the woods cautiously. Sure the Doctor was out there, but so was the thing that had killed Treasa. And the space bugs. The Doctor said they weren't dangerous, but they still freaked her out.
Rose took a deep breath and stepped into the woods. She wasn't entirely sure where the Doctor had gone, but maybe if she found one of the freaky floating lights, they could tell her. The Doctor said he was going to communicate with them, so she could too.
She carefully picked her path through the forest, remembering how difficult it was to not fall from her previous night time jaunt in the woods. The air around her became closer and the light from the moon and stars couldn't filter through the thick canopy. She could no longer see the light from the village clearing behind her.
It was another half hour before she realized that she was completely and hopelessly lost. Maybe this hadn't been the brightest idea, she thought and she almost ran into a knee-high shrub. At least she didn't have on a dress that was getting caught on things. She reached her hands out, trying to avoid falling into the trees that seemed to have grown thicker and closer together since her last visit.
A panic rose in her throat after the second hour passed. She pressed her back against a tree and slid down, taking a well-deserved rest on the forest floor. She was dirty and exhausting and beginning to wonder if she would ever get out of the maze of trees, let alone find the Doctor.
It was in this precise moment of despair that something caught Rose's eye.
A blue light.
Her heart pounded in her chest, straining painfully against her rib cage. It looked like the Doctor's sonic! She wanted to run up and hug him, tell him she was sorry and tell him how thankful she was that he had found her.
But it floated closer, and Rose realized that it wasn't the Doctor at all. It was one of the space bugs. The lazily looping light edged closer to Rose. She reached out a hand to touch it, and retracted it quickly when it jumped away. Rose stood up, and walked towards it. It jumped away again. She decided that, with no other prospects or hope, it would be better to follow it than sit there and revel in her misery.
She began to walk deeper in to the forest, following the blue light.
Yay for character development. I aired a lot of Rose's feelings in this chapter because it was a) necessary and b) we don't get to see a lot of it on the show, so this is what I assume is happening in her head. I like speculating. And I love Rose/Doctor shipping so there is some of that here. Don't mind the squeals written in the subtext. Hope you enjoyed and if you did, REVIEW and tell me! If you didn't REVIEW and tell me! ~ Hayley :)