Red Bicycle Chapter One: Christmas Presents (1/8?) (Doctor Who)
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: T/PG-13
Status: Incomplete (but not by much)
Title: Red Bicycle
Pairings/Characters: The Doctor (Ten), young!Rose, young!Mickey, younger-Jackie, Boe!Jack; Ten/Rose, Ten/young!Rose
Spoiler Warnings: This story is AU post-Doomsday. It could take S3 into account, but it might not. I read my ficathon prompt over and over and this is the one idea that kept coming back. It is Rose pre-Doomsday, however, I do realize that it was one of the looser interpretations of my prompt. There is a very ambiguous reference to a Torchwood character (not Jack) in later chapters but you'd have to watch closely to catch it. The thing that's most important to understand about this story is that the Doctor has been through the events of Doomsday (at least) and the others have not.
Beta(s), other credit fancy_galloway for beta-ing, jedi_of_urth for her plotting help
Summary/Public Notes: The Doctor decides to do something reckless to ease his conscience. A Time Agent is given an assignment that may change the history and future of the Universe. A teenage girl on a Council Estate in London is caught in the middle.
*[This summary could do with some work.]
**The reason for the delay is a good one: I had two important essays, a governor's school application, and a research paper I had to work on during the writing period. I also have an icon challenge that needs doing in the next week.
This story is a response to a challenge at the time_x_space Ficathon
Red Bicycle
Chapter One: Christmas Presents
The Doctor couldn't remember the last time he had seen Rose Tyler's face but it might as well have been centuries for the way it felt. He had been considering buying a noseless puppy from Barcelona to dull the ringing in his ears caused by the relative silence onboard the TARDIS…
~~~~~
Yesterday
When he had reached the planet he felt the balmy air blowing around him. He could smell the lily-blanketed ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. Most of the buildings were orange and vaguely Spanish in appearance. Not that anyone on the planet had ever heard of Spain or their planet's Earthly namesake. In fact, nearly none of them knew of Earth. Barcelonans were not terribly keen on scientific development, taking most of their technology from nearby planets in exchange for the many exotic fruits and fragrance oils the planet produced. Deep space exploration was the last on the list of the average Barcelonan's priorities.
Along a street, shop vendors bustled about among throngs of middle class citizens. Each one trying to finagle the highest price for their goods while maintaining a kind of ridiculous pleasantness that in the Doctor's current frame of mind he found grating, but usefully distracting. One man, who looked humanoid except for the high positioning of his slightly pointed ears, his rounded nose, and the bluish tint to his otherwise pale skin, waved his hand at the Doctor for attention as he tried to walk past, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his long brown overcoat. He spoke to the Doctor in the rolling language of the Barcelonans.
“Oi, there, sir! You look like a man who could use some of my fine goods!” His voice lowered to a whisper that only the Doctor could hear, “Don't let these other conmen and village wenches fool you, kind sir. They try to rob you for materials sewn by the peasantry of Barcelona's filthiest slums. I can offer you clothes, sheets, curtains, finery of all kind, spun on the wheels and sewn on the very looms in Her Lady of Barcelona's Palace! …for half price.”
The Doctor smiled, half friendly, half condescendingly. “Thank you, but… aren't the Lady of Barcelona's looms generally reserved for the time approaching the anniversary of Her Majesty's Coronation? Further, the only time the goods made there are available to the public for purchase is at the Coronation Feast which is not for a further two months.”
The months on the planet Barcelona were 93 days long, each day lasting twenty-two hours and the years 1095 days. This was one of the reasons that the culture on Barcelona was so centered on entertainment and leisure, and was one of the many reasons tourists, gullible tourists, frequented the planet. The weather was very rarely cold or damp and the plants were full and green because of such a long growing season. Still, it was another reason Barcelona depended so heavily on its importing business and its markets. It was very difficult to grow edible food to match the rate of consumption by the planet's citizenry because the plants themselves seemed to have taken upon themselves whimsical attitude that was pervading in the society: that nothing needed to be done in any real hurry; a simple fruit tree took two Barcelonan months to bear.
“Eh…” the shop vendor replied dumbly.
“'Good day,” the Doctor continued curtly with another winning smile, and turned to continue to walk a bit aimlessly through the market.
A few vending booths down on the other side of the street the Doctor saw something that caught his attention. Something shiny- when his eyes focused he realized that it was blonde hair. Shiny blonde hair, long and belonging to a petite woman who had bent down to pick up the lost toy of a small child who was screaming with the greatest displeasure his tiny lungs could muster. When she gave the red and blue painted widget he calmed down and cooed with delight as his hands struggled but managed to hold the thing much more carefully this time. The woman paused to rub her fingers over the child's nearly bald head and the baby squealed and put all four fingers of one hand in his mouth as a response.
The woman's booth was spread over a larger space than some of the others but it was much sparser. She had a little tent, supported by four high wooden stakes. From pole to pole there was a low, chicken wire fence that was rigged all except for on one corner and halfway across at the front, the result of which was that beneath her shelter all but a small space for any patron to stand was enclosed.
When the baby was appeased the woman went back behind a makeshift counter and continued sewing something intently, occasionally stopping to rearrange some children's clothing which seemed to be most of what she had for sale. Among the clothes that hung on a line above her head and among the folded ones on a shelf behind her there were little bits of beaded jewelry and toys that were colourful but obviously not worth their weight in gold… or any form of currency for that matter.
Still, the woman seemed happy. Happy to be doing her day's work and happy to look at the baby each time it raised its high, melodic voice in glee. The baby wore a one piece dull yellow outfit that was perhaps practical for a baby but was nowhere near as elaborate as the woman, presumably his mother, was sewing. The woman herself had dark cloth boots that just showed beneath a long, flowing but simple, faded red skirt and a dark blue blouse. Her blonde hair hung down to her waist and was tucked simply behind her ears; ears that were too low for a Barcelonan. Their positioning was quite similar to that of the Doctor's own ears.
While he was watching the woman he was actually trying to see her, trying to stop seeing only dim reflections of Rose superimposing over every thought. As the woman tended to her baby with a simple and obvious happiness the Doctor kept hearing Rose's laughter in his head. He remembered a conversation he'd had with Rose when they had visited the 2012 Olympics in London about the young Chloe Webber. He found himself wondering, now more than ever as he watched the young mother, if Rose would be a good mother- wondering if she would ever have children. For the moment he felt an odd, almost burning sensation that he wouldn't even allow himself to identify, that he'd also felt for the split second he had thought Rose was pregnant during the last conversation he'd had with her. Something about the idea of her having a normal life pained him. He knew it wasn't fair and a more sensible part of him wanted just that for her.
The Doctor's contemplation of the simple picture before him was somewhat interrupted when a little girl whose ears were also too low to be a Barcelonan's but whose hair was not blonde, but rather very deep brown ran to the woman, carrying a small, white, noseless puppy as carefully as she could with one little arm. “Mummy, Mummy!” she called insistently while grabbing her mother's skirt about the waist and tugging it with her free hand. “Mummy!” she called again even as her mother opened her mouth to speak with a smile on her face.
“Yes? What have you got there?”
“A puppy!” the little girl replied proudly as she set the little dog down, safe in the confines of the make-shift pin.
“Whose is he?”
“It's a she,” the little girl explained, not being able to hide the excitement in her voice nor in the way she jumped about as if she were about to burst if she didn't move. “And she's a stray. She doesn't have any family, not anybody. Can we keep her, Mummy? Can we?”
The woman looked away and bit her lip and with that the Doctor slowly felt compelled to approach, fingering the Barcelonan credits he had actually thought to bring along just in case. No point going shopping to distract yourself if you haven't got any money.
“I'm sor-…” she began, looking down at her daughter's eyes sadly, only to be interrupted by the Doctor.
“'Morning, madam! Tell me, is that dog for sale?” he asked brightly, a smile on his face though the woman was not aware of the reason. The Doctor gave the little girl a passing, compassionate look, but her mother didn't see.
The woman eyed him a bit suspiciously, partially because he had startled her; slowly her look softened. “Yes, sir.”
“Mum!” the little girl cried with the utmost in verbal agony. “No! She's mine. The man will eat her!”
The Doctor actually laughed at the idea in spite of himself as the little girl protested but put his hand over his mouth to disguise it as a bit of a cough.
“Annaleise,” the woman hissed with a bit of a scolding look.
“But-…” the little girl began as her lower lip began to shake and her eyes began to well with tears.
“Excuse me a moment, sir.” With that the woman turned and knelt a bit, her hands on her daughter's shoulders. “Annaleise,” she whispered, “We've got to sell it. You said it didn't have a home… not anyone?”
The little girl nodded, trying her best not to cry with a stubbornness that made her little back arch slightly as she stood up as straight as she could. “But now she's got me… I won't leave her alone.”
The words from the little girl's lips made the ringing in the Doctor's ears even louder, reverberating, only he wasn't even hearing Annaleise's voice.
“But you won't be leaving her alone, Ann. She'll have this nice man and we'll have each other.” The young mother's voice lowered even more, as if in shame, “We need the money, Anna…”
The little girl nodded with more understanding than she should have at her age, a kind of jaded wisdom. She nodded curtly, walked over and dutifully hoisted the puppy and brought it to her mother. She gave it a final affectionate squeeze before relinquishing her grasp. The puppy yipped excitedly and whined a bit, completely confused.
“How much?” The Doctor asked, reaching down into his pocket.
“Anything you can give, sir,” the woman whispered earnestly, gently soothing the puppy by stroking its back as she set it down on her counter. “Business has been slow today and I've got to buy something for them to eat before dark.”
The Doctor gave her all he had in his pocket; an entire month's wages for a shopkeeper on Barcelona. Just a handful of shiny coins, but they went a long way.
“But… sir…” The woman's eyes said the rest for her as she tentatively touched one of the coins and then looked up into the Doctor's eyes. Hers were bright blue.
“You said anything I could, that's what I can,” he replied with another smile.
The woman started to protest but the Doctor shook his head once at her and gestured toward her children with her eyes.
“Thank you, sir,” she said and reached out and touched his hand that was still just on the edge of the counter. Then she gently nudged the puppy over to him so he could pick it up and as he began to pick it up she took his hand again with a bit more force, causing him pause. “You won't hurt it, will you?”
The Doctor replied in his sincerest tone, “Of course not.”
Going just outside the booth he turned around on his heels and smiled, catching Annaleise's eyes and her attention. Seeing that Annaleise's blue dress was obviously of her mother's craftsmanship but that it only had three beads. One of them was in the middle of a bow on the center of the collar and the other two at the end of two strings that helped the dress hold its shape that were tied together in the back. The Doctor looked up at the intricate beadwork that decorated all the other little girl's dresses that hung on the line. This woman would not be able to keep the dog by her own means and would sell it gladly for her children.
“You know,” he began as he turned back around and then kneeled before the tent at the edge of the little fence. “You know- Anna- was it? - I think this dog's a bit too young for me. What do you think?”
The little girl approached cautiously and her mother looked on even more so.
“It's just a baby,” Annaleise replied earnestly as if she were explaining some very important fact of life to the strange but friendly man before her.
“Well,” the Doctor said, speaking softly to the little girl, “I think maybe this puppy might like to hang round someone more its own age. So, I tell you what… maybe you could take care of it for me?”
Her mother took a step forward and started to speak but before the sound formed into a word the Doctor looked up at her and winked with a smile.
“But, sir,” Annaleise replied with a sad tone, “…the puppy's yours now.”
“Yes. Yes it is. But I think if it's mine I ought to look out for all its best interests, right?”
The mother laughed a bit, pressing her fingers to her lips as she watched.
“In-ter-refs?” Annaleise asked with a slight cock of her head.
“Interests. I ought to make sure my puppy has what's best for it for the rest of its life.”
“Yes,” Anna replied with more conviction now.
“Well, I think my puppy would be happier if I let her stay here with you and your family. I'm… on my own…,” his own words caused him pause and for a moment he broke eye contact with Annaleise and his shoulders dropped just a bit as he looked at some indistinct spot on the ground just to the side of the little girl. Quickly snapping back to himself he caught the little girl's eyes and again and once again took upon a jovial, engaging demeanor, “…and a little puppy that used to have so many brothers and sisters would be much happier, I think, with a family like yours. And if my puppy is happy then I'll be happy… even if my little dog isn't with me.” With that he gently gave the dog into the little girl's arms and she laughed with delight.
“Mummy, can I?” she asked. “Can I take care of the nice man's puppy?”
“Just a minute, Anna,” the woman replied with a soft laugh in her own voice, pleased by the happiness on her daughter's face. “Sir?” she asked with a gesture of her eyes and head to draw the Doctor back to her counter.
“Sir, that's very kind of you… but, I can't let you leave with nothing for all this money. I really shouldn't be taking this much money from you at all… for anything. And I wouldn't if they,” she nodded to her children, “…didn't need it so badly.”
“They're yours?” he asked, the look in his eyes conveying concern rather than nosiness.
“Yes, they're mine.” A smile nearly as wide as her face seemed to colour her very spirit as she looked at the baby in the highchair and her little girl playing with the noseless puppy as it nipped at her gently. Her smile faded a little and she looked back at the Doctor, speaking in an even quieter voice, “They're all I have.”
“No other family?”
“No. My parents are long at rest and their father…” She paused and turned away; going to straighten some of the newly completed dressed that hung to the side so the Doctor wouldn't see her eyes redden. “…he died. War took him. I was pregnant with the baby when,” she paused for a moment to look at her son who was happily playing with his toy, “…he never saw his son. That's why I brought them here. War never touches this soil… I've tried to protect them from that life. But… sometimes I think Annaleise remembers…”
“I'm sorry.”
The woman smiled and sniffled at the same time, her demeanor having changed from being generally happy to seeming rather defensive. “No one can be sorry until they've lived it.”
“I have,” the Doctor replied simply, a bit coolly but sincerely.
The woman's shoulders dropped a bit and she looked at him from her work. “You lost someone?”
“Everyone,” he said cryptically without leaving any room for further questions. “But Barcelona hasn't been at war for years. They're pacifists… barter their way out of every argument, never leaving any room from confrontation. But then, you're no Barcelonan, are you?”
The woman looked him squarely in the eye again as she replaced a dress on the line. “Human,” she said. “And yourself?”
The Doctor smiled a bit wryly. “Not.”
“Why did you buy that puppy?” she asked.
“A present,” the Doctor replied after a pause. It was a way of diverting any further questions about what had brought him there but was true as well. He had been trying to buy a present- a way to escape the past that wouldn't leave him alone- or rather had.
“Oh, well I most certainly can't let you give it back to us, then. I can't let you get away with nothing.”
“Tell you what- wait, what was your name?”
“Rosalind.”
Again the Doctor looked at her, her blonde hair, her bright eyes, and he really didn't see her… Instead he, for a moment, only saw Rose, heard her voice, her laughter, her tears… everything came rushing back as it had so often in the last few days no matter how he tried to stop it.
Rosalind went on and pointed at the baby in the high chair, “…he's Ramsey and she's Annaleise.”
“L-Lovely names,” the Doctor replied, once again broken from a world of mirrors he couldn't seem to escape for long.
Rosalind's cheeks coloured slightly. “Thank you.”
“Well, as I was saying, Rosalind, you just give me that necklace-…” he gestured toward the cheapest-looking of the beaded necklaces, “…and we'll call it even?”
“Sir, that's not-…”
“Come on, I could just walk away. You don't want money for nothing?”
Her brow furrowed a bit, not knowing quite how to take that but she couldn't hold back a little smile for long. “No, sir, I don't.”
“Didn't think so,” he replied and put the necklace gently down in his pocket and turned to walk away. “Thank you, Rose…,” he cleared his throat and a bit lethargically cleared his throat and corrected himself, “Rosalind. Have a nice day.” Then he started to walk out of the market, back toward the TARDIS.
“Sir!” Rosalind called as he got about four yards away. “I want to thank you; you've done so much but… I don't even know your name.”
He stopped and turned to look at her and her happy little, broken family once again with a bit of a broken smile. “Just the Doctor. And you're welcome.” And with that he walked away, never to see Rosalind, Annaleise and Ramsey again, his last memory of them being the sound of Annaleise's laughter and the puppy's high pitched yip.
~~~~~
He had returned to the TARDIS without a puppy and was even more reminded of the pain he was trying to forget. He wasn't sure why he'd thought a puppy would help- he hated loud, messy animals. Really the idea of a puppy being a solution to a problem sounded much more like an idea that Rose would come up with than one coming from his own mind. The silence was excruciating at times, but what was worse than the silence was the feeling he sometimes got that every word she'd ever said reverberated off the walls.
The Doctor remembered what Blon Fel Fotch Passameer-Day-Slitheen had told him once. Maybe he was, at times, one to run away daring not to look back. It panged his conscience every time he tried to push something about Rose out of his mind, every time he tried for a moment to move on. Always moving on, he used to say, but not anymore, because no matter how far he tried to run the closer he got… the closer back to that impassible wall between worlds.
When his logical side took over he tried to plot some plan of action, some course that would lead him back to himself. Lead him out of the dark tumult of emotions that were far too human for the logical side of him to understand, let alone abide. He couldn't stand just sitting still- he had to be moving, but now there was nowhere to go.
For days he'd tried to avoid looking at the railing around the TARDIS's console but the harder he tried not to the more he seemed to gaze upon the purple and blue glint of fabric from a shirt. A shirt Rose had haphazardly tossed there when they had made a stop on the arctic planet and she ran back onboard to change into a sweater. He'd always promised Jackie he'd bring her back but this time he often desperately wished he hadn't.
When given the choice he'd always tried to do the right thing. He had tried to protect the one person who had meant everything- the one person who, though he tried to make no distinction, had always been the most important. He'd tried to ensure her safety, tried to keep his promise to Jacqueline Tyler with no reservation; had Rose only possessed the capacity to really listen to him she would have been trapped but safe with her family and the Doctor would have missed her, but maybe then it wouldn't have hurt so much every time he thought about it. There would have been closure; he would have had the consolation of having done the right thing. But Rose Tyler was nothing if not stubborn.
She had come back through the gap, literally tearing through the Universe to get back to him- to leave her family for him. Before that he had known she loved him but until that moment he never even allowed himself to imagine how much. Now her words haunted him as they were her final testament to the life she had led on her proper 'version' of Earth. After all of it she was willing to leave, forever, both her life and her family for him.
“I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never going to leave you.”
She'd refused to do the logical thing, the reasonable thing, and had nearly paid with her life. It seemed that fate, whatever that really was, had intervened and not allowed her… them… to have what they'd both fought for in the end. Maybe there was something to fate… maybe this was how things were supposed to be. Rose was with Jackie. Rose was safe. But if this was how things were meant to be then why did they feel so wrong?
He had to let go of this. How could he expect her to if he couldn't do the same? But there was something very lacking in this. Something everything, including Rose, had denied him: closure. He had done the best he could to give it to her but he had no way of knowing if she was suffering in the same way he was.
After a few more moments of deep thought, pressing his hands together at the palms and fingers and then pressing both his forefingers against the center of his lips he pulled the necklace he had bought on Barcelona from his pocket and remembered his conversation with Rosalind.
“Why did you buy that…?”
“A present.”
It was a silly idea really and he hadn't meant it. A person couldn't buy themselves a present anymore than they could buy themselves a future. He hadn't really meant it though whimsically he wished it was possible- to buy a way to move on. Maybe you could; after all he never had been too clear on money, he thought with an odd smile against his fingertips. Rosalind, of course, had thought that he meant he was buying a gift for someone. But to buy a gift you have to know someone worth giving it to… That hadn't occurred many times in his life, only once in recent memory, but it had happened…
“Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas.”
“Who says I'm not? Red bicycle when you were twelve.”
He suddenly found himself bolting from his chair and turning the knobs and dials on the TARDIS's console and a familiar whooshing sound emanated from her. The sound didn't seem to ring quite so emptily now… it was suddenly filled with purpose now. The Doctor smiled but there was sadness behind it.
This was a really bad idea…
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: T/PG-13
Status: Incomplete (but not by much)
Title: Red Bicycle
Pairings/Characters: The Doctor (Ten), young!Rose, young!Mickey, younger-Jackie, Boe!Jack; Ten/Rose, Ten/young!Rose
Spoiler Warnings: This story is AU post-Doomsday. It could take S3 into account, but it might not. I read my ficathon prompt over and over and this is the one idea that kept coming back. It is Rose pre-Doomsday, however, I do realize that it was one of the looser interpretations of my prompt. There is a very ambiguous reference to a Torchwood character (not Jack) in later chapters but you'd have to watch closely to catch it. The thing that's most important to understand about this story is that the Doctor has been through the events of Doomsday (at least) and the others have not.
Beta(s), other credit fancy_galloway for beta-ing, jedi_of_urth for her plotting help
Summary/Public Notes: The Doctor decides to do something reckless to ease his conscience. A Time Agent is given an assignment that may change the history and future of the Universe. A teenage girl on a Council Estate in London is caught in the middle.
*[This summary could do with some work.]
**The reason for the delay is a good one: I had two important essays, a governor's school application, and a research paper I had to work on during the writing period. I also have an icon challenge that needs doing in the next week.
This story is a response to a challenge at the time_x_space Ficathon
Red Bicycle
Chapter One: Christmas Presents
The Doctor couldn't remember the last time he had seen Rose Tyler's face but it might as well have been centuries for the way it felt. He had been considering buying a noseless puppy from Barcelona to dull the ringing in his ears caused by the relative silence onboard the TARDIS…
~~~~~
Yesterday
When he had reached the planet he felt the balmy air blowing around him. He could smell the lily-blanketed ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. Most of the buildings were orange and vaguely Spanish in appearance. Not that anyone on the planet had ever heard of Spain or their planet's Earthly namesake. In fact, nearly none of them knew of Earth. Barcelonans were not terribly keen on scientific development, taking most of their technology from nearby planets in exchange for the many exotic fruits and fragrance oils the planet produced. Deep space exploration was the last on the list of the average Barcelonan's priorities.
Along a street, shop vendors bustled about among throngs of middle class citizens. Each one trying to finagle the highest price for their goods while maintaining a kind of ridiculous pleasantness that in the Doctor's current frame of mind he found grating, but usefully distracting. One man, who looked humanoid except for the high positioning of his slightly pointed ears, his rounded nose, and the bluish tint to his otherwise pale skin, waved his hand at the Doctor for attention as he tried to walk past, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his long brown overcoat. He spoke to the Doctor in the rolling language of the Barcelonans.
“Oi, there, sir! You look like a man who could use some of my fine goods!” His voice lowered to a whisper that only the Doctor could hear, “Don't let these other conmen and village wenches fool you, kind sir. They try to rob you for materials sewn by the peasantry of Barcelona's filthiest slums. I can offer you clothes, sheets, curtains, finery of all kind, spun on the wheels and sewn on the very looms in Her Lady of Barcelona's Palace! …for half price.”
The Doctor smiled, half friendly, half condescendingly. “Thank you, but… aren't the Lady of Barcelona's looms generally reserved for the time approaching the anniversary of Her Majesty's Coronation? Further, the only time the goods made there are available to the public for purchase is at the Coronation Feast which is not for a further two months.”
The months on the planet Barcelona were 93 days long, each day lasting twenty-two hours and the years 1095 days. This was one of the reasons that the culture on Barcelona was so centered on entertainment and leisure, and was one of the many reasons tourists, gullible tourists, frequented the planet. The weather was very rarely cold or damp and the plants were full and green because of such a long growing season. Still, it was another reason Barcelona depended so heavily on its importing business and its markets. It was very difficult to grow edible food to match the rate of consumption by the planet's citizenry because the plants themselves seemed to have taken upon themselves whimsical attitude that was pervading in the society: that nothing needed to be done in any real hurry; a simple fruit tree took two Barcelonan months to bear.
“Eh…” the shop vendor replied dumbly.
“'Good day,” the Doctor continued curtly with another winning smile, and turned to continue to walk a bit aimlessly through the market.
A few vending booths down on the other side of the street the Doctor saw something that caught his attention. Something shiny- when his eyes focused he realized that it was blonde hair. Shiny blonde hair, long and belonging to a petite woman who had bent down to pick up the lost toy of a small child who was screaming with the greatest displeasure his tiny lungs could muster. When she gave the red and blue painted widget he calmed down and cooed with delight as his hands struggled but managed to hold the thing much more carefully this time. The woman paused to rub her fingers over the child's nearly bald head and the baby squealed and put all four fingers of one hand in his mouth as a response.
The woman's booth was spread over a larger space than some of the others but it was much sparser. She had a little tent, supported by four high wooden stakes. From pole to pole there was a low, chicken wire fence that was rigged all except for on one corner and halfway across at the front, the result of which was that beneath her shelter all but a small space for any patron to stand was enclosed.
When the baby was appeased the woman went back behind a makeshift counter and continued sewing something intently, occasionally stopping to rearrange some children's clothing which seemed to be most of what she had for sale. Among the clothes that hung on a line above her head and among the folded ones on a shelf behind her there were little bits of beaded jewelry and toys that were colourful but obviously not worth their weight in gold… or any form of currency for that matter.
Still, the woman seemed happy. Happy to be doing her day's work and happy to look at the baby each time it raised its high, melodic voice in glee. The baby wore a one piece dull yellow outfit that was perhaps practical for a baby but was nowhere near as elaborate as the woman, presumably his mother, was sewing. The woman herself had dark cloth boots that just showed beneath a long, flowing but simple, faded red skirt and a dark blue blouse. Her blonde hair hung down to her waist and was tucked simply behind her ears; ears that were too low for a Barcelonan. Their positioning was quite similar to that of the Doctor's own ears.
While he was watching the woman he was actually trying to see her, trying to stop seeing only dim reflections of Rose superimposing over every thought. As the woman tended to her baby with a simple and obvious happiness the Doctor kept hearing Rose's laughter in his head. He remembered a conversation he'd had with Rose when they had visited the 2012 Olympics in London about the young Chloe Webber. He found himself wondering, now more than ever as he watched the young mother, if Rose would be a good mother- wondering if she would ever have children. For the moment he felt an odd, almost burning sensation that he wouldn't even allow himself to identify, that he'd also felt for the split second he had thought Rose was pregnant during the last conversation he'd had with her. Something about the idea of her having a normal life pained him. He knew it wasn't fair and a more sensible part of him wanted just that for her.
The Doctor's contemplation of the simple picture before him was somewhat interrupted when a little girl whose ears were also too low to be a Barcelonan's but whose hair was not blonde, but rather very deep brown ran to the woman, carrying a small, white, noseless puppy as carefully as she could with one little arm. “Mummy, Mummy!” she called insistently while grabbing her mother's skirt about the waist and tugging it with her free hand. “Mummy!” she called again even as her mother opened her mouth to speak with a smile on her face.
“Yes? What have you got there?”
“A puppy!” the little girl replied proudly as she set the little dog down, safe in the confines of the make-shift pin.
“Whose is he?”
“It's a she,” the little girl explained, not being able to hide the excitement in her voice nor in the way she jumped about as if she were about to burst if she didn't move. “And she's a stray. She doesn't have any family, not anybody. Can we keep her, Mummy? Can we?”
The woman looked away and bit her lip and with that the Doctor slowly felt compelled to approach, fingering the Barcelonan credits he had actually thought to bring along just in case. No point going shopping to distract yourself if you haven't got any money.
“I'm sor-…” she began, looking down at her daughter's eyes sadly, only to be interrupted by the Doctor.
“'Morning, madam! Tell me, is that dog for sale?” he asked brightly, a smile on his face though the woman was not aware of the reason. The Doctor gave the little girl a passing, compassionate look, but her mother didn't see.
The woman eyed him a bit suspiciously, partially because he had startled her; slowly her look softened. “Yes, sir.”
“Mum!” the little girl cried with the utmost in verbal agony. “No! She's mine. The man will eat her!”
The Doctor actually laughed at the idea in spite of himself as the little girl protested but put his hand over his mouth to disguise it as a bit of a cough.
“Annaleise,” the woman hissed with a bit of a scolding look.
“But-…” the little girl began as her lower lip began to shake and her eyes began to well with tears.
“Excuse me a moment, sir.” With that the woman turned and knelt a bit, her hands on her daughter's shoulders. “Annaleise,” she whispered, “We've got to sell it. You said it didn't have a home… not anyone?”
The little girl nodded, trying her best not to cry with a stubbornness that made her little back arch slightly as she stood up as straight as she could. “But now she's got me… I won't leave her alone.”
The words from the little girl's lips made the ringing in the Doctor's ears even louder, reverberating, only he wasn't even hearing Annaleise's voice.
“But you won't be leaving her alone, Ann. She'll have this nice man and we'll have each other.” The young mother's voice lowered even more, as if in shame, “We need the money, Anna…”
The little girl nodded with more understanding than she should have at her age, a kind of jaded wisdom. She nodded curtly, walked over and dutifully hoisted the puppy and brought it to her mother. She gave it a final affectionate squeeze before relinquishing her grasp. The puppy yipped excitedly and whined a bit, completely confused.
“How much?” The Doctor asked, reaching down into his pocket.
“Anything you can give, sir,” the woman whispered earnestly, gently soothing the puppy by stroking its back as she set it down on her counter. “Business has been slow today and I've got to buy something for them to eat before dark.”
The Doctor gave her all he had in his pocket; an entire month's wages for a shopkeeper on Barcelona. Just a handful of shiny coins, but they went a long way.
“But… sir…” The woman's eyes said the rest for her as she tentatively touched one of the coins and then looked up into the Doctor's eyes. Hers were bright blue.
“You said anything I could, that's what I can,” he replied with another smile.
The woman started to protest but the Doctor shook his head once at her and gestured toward her children with her eyes.
“Thank you, sir,” she said and reached out and touched his hand that was still just on the edge of the counter. Then she gently nudged the puppy over to him so he could pick it up and as he began to pick it up she took his hand again with a bit more force, causing him pause. “You won't hurt it, will you?”
The Doctor replied in his sincerest tone, “Of course not.”
Going just outside the booth he turned around on his heels and smiled, catching Annaleise's eyes and her attention. Seeing that Annaleise's blue dress was obviously of her mother's craftsmanship but that it only had three beads. One of them was in the middle of a bow on the center of the collar and the other two at the end of two strings that helped the dress hold its shape that were tied together in the back. The Doctor looked up at the intricate beadwork that decorated all the other little girl's dresses that hung on the line. This woman would not be able to keep the dog by her own means and would sell it gladly for her children.
“You know,” he began as he turned back around and then kneeled before the tent at the edge of the little fence. “You know- Anna- was it? - I think this dog's a bit too young for me. What do you think?”
The little girl approached cautiously and her mother looked on even more so.
“It's just a baby,” Annaleise replied earnestly as if she were explaining some very important fact of life to the strange but friendly man before her.
“Well,” the Doctor said, speaking softly to the little girl, “I think maybe this puppy might like to hang round someone more its own age. So, I tell you what… maybe you could take care of it for me?”
Her mother took a step forward and started to speak but before the sound formed into a word the Doctor looked up at her and winked with a smile.
“But, sir,” Annaleise replied with a sad tone, “…the puppy's yours now.”
“Yes. Yes it is. But I think if it's mine I ought to look out for all its best interests, right?”
The mother laughed a bit, pressing her fingers to her lips as she watched.
“In-ter-refs?” Annaleise asked with a slight cock of her head.
“Interests. I ought to make sure my puppy has what's best for it for the rest of its life.”
“Yes,” Anna replied with more conviction now.
“Well, I think my puppy would be happier if I let her stay here with you and your family. I'm… on my own…,” his own words caused him pause and for a moment he broke eye contact with Annaleise and his shoulders dropped just a bit as he looked at some indistinct spot on the ground just to the side of the little girl. Quickly snapping back to himself he caught the little girl's eyes and again and once again took upon a jovial, engaging demeanor, “…and a little puppy that used to have so many brothers and sisters would be much happier, I think, with a family like yours. And if my puppy is happy then I'll be happy… even if my little dog isn't with me.” With that he gently gave the dog into the little girl's arms and she laughed with delight.
“Mummy, can I?” she asked. “Can I take care of the nice man's puppy?”
“Just a minute, Anna,” the woman replied with a soft laugh in her own voice, pleased by the happiness on her daughter's face. “Sir?” she asked with a gesture of her eyes and head to draw the Doctor back to her counter.
“Sir, that's very kind of you… but, I can't let you leave with nothing for all this money. I really shouldn't be taking this much money from you at all… for anything. And I wouldn't if they,” she nodded to her children, “…didn't need it so badly.”
“They're yours?” he asked, the look in his eyes conveying concern rather than nosiness.
“Yes, they're mine.” A smile nearly as wide as her face seemed to colour her very spirit as she looked at the baby in the highchair and her little girl playing with the noseless puppy as it nipped at her gently. Her smile faded a little and she looked back at the Doctor, speaking in an even quieter voice, “They're all I have.”
“No other family?”
“No. My parents are long at rest and their father…” She paused and turned away; going to straighten some of the newly completed dressed that hung to the side so the Doctor wouldn't see her eyes redden. “…he died. War took him. I was pregnant with the baby when,” she paused for a moment to look at her son who was happily playing with his toy, “…he never saw his son. That's why I brought them here. War never touches this soil… I've tried to protect them from that life. But… sometimes I think Annaleise remembers…”
“I'm sorry.”
The woman smiled and sniffled at the same time, her demeanor having changed from being generally happy to seeming rather defensive. “No one can be sorry until they've lived it.”
“I have,” the Doctor replied simply, a bit coolly but sincerely.
The woman's shoulders dropped a bit and she looked at him from her work. “You lost someone?”
“Everyone,” he said cryptically without leaving any room for further questions. “But Barcelona hasn't been at war for years. They're pacifists… barter their way out of every argument, never leaving any room from confrontation. But then, you're no Barcelonan, are you?”
The woman looked him squarely in the eye again as she replaced a dress on the line. “Human,” she said. “And yourself?”
The Doctor smiled a bit wryly. “Not.”
“Why did you buy that puppy?” she asked.
“A present,” the Doctor replied after a pause. It was a way of diverting any further questions about what had brought him there but was true as well. He had been trying to buy a present- a way to escape the past that wouldn't leave him alone- or rather had.
“Oh, well I most certainly can't let you give it back to us, then. I can't let you get away with nothing.”
“Tell you what- wait, what was your name?”
“Rosalind.”
Again the Doctor looked at her, her blonde hair, her bright eyes, and he really didn't see her… Instead he, for a moment, only saw Rose, heard her voice, her laughter, her tears… everything came rushing back as it had so often in the last few days no matter how he tried to stop it.
Rosalind went on and pointed at the baby in the high chair, “…he's Ramsey and she's Annaleise.”
“L-Lovely names,” the Doctor replied, once again broken from a world of mirrors he couldn't seem to escape for long.
Rosalind's cheeks coloured slightly. “Thank you.”
“Well, as I was saying, Rosalind, you just give me that necklace-…” he gestured toward the cheapest-looking of the beaded necklaces, “…and we'll call it even?”
“Sir, that's not-…”
“Come on, I could just walk away. You don't want money for nothing?”
Her brow furrowed a bit, not knowing quite how to take that but she couldn't hold back a little smile for long. “No, sir, I don't.”
“Didn't think so,” he replied and put the necklace gently down in his pocket and turned to walk away. “Thank you, Rose…,” he cleared his throat and a bit lethargically cleared his throat and corrected himself, “Rosalind. Have a nice day.” Then he started to walk out of the market, back toward the TARDIS.
“Sir!” Rosalind called as he got about four yards away. “I want to thank you; you've done so much but… I don't even know your name.”
He stopped and turned to look at her and her happy little, broken family once again with a bit of a broken smile. “Just the Doctor. And you're welcome.” And with that he walked away, never to see Rosalind, Annaleise and Ramsey again, his last memory of them being the sound of Annaleise's laughter and the puppy's high pitched yip.
~~~~~
He had returned to the TARDIS without a puppy and was even more reminded of the pain he was trying to forget. He wasn't sure why he'd thought a puppy would help- he hated loud, messy animals. Really the idea of a puppy being a solution to a problem sounded much more like an idea that Rose would come up with than one coming from his own mind. The silence was excruciating at times, but what was worse than the silence was the feeling he sometimes got that every word she'd ever said reverberated off the walls.
The Doctor remembered what Blon Fel Fotch Passameer-Day-Slitheen had told him once. Maybe he was, at times, one to run away daring not to look back. It panged his conscience every time he tried to push something about Rose out of his mind, every time he tried for a moment to move on. Always moving on, he used to say, but not anymore, because no matter how far he tried to run the closer he got… the closer back to that impassible wall between worlds.
When his logical side took over he tried to plot some plan of action, some course that would lead him back to himself. Lead him out of the dark tumult of emotions that were far too human for the logical side of him to understand, let alone abide. He couldn't stand just sitting still- he had to be moving, but now there was nowhere to go.
For days he'd tried to avoid looking at the railing around the TARDIS's console but the harder he tried not to the more he seemed to gaze upon the purple and blue glint of fabric from a shirt. A shirt Rose had haphazardly tossed there when they had made a stop on the arctic planet and she ran back onboard to change into a sweater. He'd always promised Jackie he'd bring her back but this time he often desperately wished he hadn't.
When given the choice he'd always tried to do the right thing. He had tried to protect the one person who had meant everything- the one person who, though he tried to make no distinction, had always been the most important. He'd tried to ensure her safety, tried to keep his promise to Jacqueline Tyler with no reservation; had Rose only possessed the capacity to really listen to him she would have been trapped but safe with her family and the Doctor would have missed her, but maybe then it wouldn't have hurt so much every time he thought about it. There would have been closure; he would have had the consolation of having done the right thing. But Rose Tyler was nothing if not stubborn.
She had come back through the gap, literally tearing through the Universe to get back to him- to leave her family for him. Before that he had known she loved him but until that moment he never even allowed himself to imagine how much. Now her words haunted him as they were her final testament to the life she had led on her proper 'version' of Earth. After all of it she was willing to leave, forever, both her life and her family for him.
“I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never going to leave you.”
She'd refused to do the logical thing, the reasonable thing, and had nearly paid with her life. It seemed that fate, whatever that really was, had intervened and not allowed her… them… to have what they'd both fought for in the end. Maybe there was something to fate… maybe this was how things were supposed to be. Rose was with Jackie. Rose was safe. But if this was how things were meant to be then why did they feel so wrong?
He had to let go of this. How could he expect her to if he couldn't do the same? But there was something very lacking in this. Something everything, including Rose, had denied him: closure. He had done the best he could to give it to her but he had no way of knowing if she was suffering in the same way he was.
After a few more moments of deep thought, pressing his hands together at the palms and fingers and then pressing both his forefingers against the center of his lips he pulled the necklace he had bought on Barcelona from his pocket and remembered his conversation with Rosalind.
“Why did you buy that…?”
“A present.”
It was a silly idea really and he hadn't meant it. A person couldn't buy themselves a present anymore than they could buy themselves a future. He hadn't really meant it though whimsically he wished it was possible- to buy a way to move on. Maybe you could; after all he never had been too clear on money, he thought with an odd smile against his fingertips. Rosalind, of course, had thought that he meant he was buying a gift for someone. But to buy a gift you have to know someone worth giving it to… That hadn't occurred many times in his life, only once in recent memory, but it had happened…
“Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas.”
“Who says I'm not? Red bicycle when you were twelve.”
He suddenly found himself bolting from his chair and turning the knobs and dials on the TARDIS's console and a familiar whooshing sound emanated from her. The sound didn't seem to ring quite so emptily now… it was suddenly filled with purpose now. The Doctor smiled but there was sadness behind it.
This was a really bad idea…