The Only Thing To Fear (3/4)
Title: The Only Thing To Fear
Characters: Rose Tyler, The Doctor
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: 12A
Timeline: Late Season Two
Disclaimer: Characters you recognise belong to the BBC.
Beta: The marvellous glory_jean
A/N: A Tenth Doctor character study, of sorts, written for my entry in the Time in Flux ficathon at doctor_rose_fic. My episode was Fear Her; thanks to lorelaisquared for the extension; it’s a shame the Muse decided not to play ball in the end but I can't have everything. The chapters are comparatively short but cut for dramatic effect, so I hope you enjoy; parts will be posted daily until I have them all up.
Summary: If the only thing he has to fear is fear itself, will the Doctor be brave enough to go for what he’s wanted for so long?
Prologue Part One
He is content, eventually, that whatever has been taking the children isn't human. The residual energy in the places where the children have been disappearing has him convinced of that. Whatever it is, it's using an incredible amount of power to do it; an amount unattainable to humans, or at least unattainable in this time period. So intrigued is he that he almost manages to forget Rose's utter non-reaction to his manly hairy hand and his gentle attempt at flirting. It's a tame attempt by their standards, which is probably why. He'd make a better fist of forgetting, though, had the next conversation gone more to his liking. But she's insisting on calling a cat - a cat, of all things - beautiful and ignoring his existence completely in order to concentrate on it. This is the last time he experiments with back-combing. She's doing nothing for his ego.
He mutters something about not being a cat person to cover his attitude when he clocks that she's noticed his less-than-impressed frame of mind. But, when his conscience pricks him, he cannot deny that he is jealous. Jealous, him! And of a cat, to boot. He gives himself a mental shake, telling himself that he needs to get it together and talk to Rose. Properly talk to her. His mind made up, he walks back towards her intending to broach the subject but then the bloody cat upstages him by disappearing entirely and yet another chance goes begging in a cloud of ion residue.
Three times he's tried inside ten minutes, and to still be nowhere is not improving his mood any. Perhaps 'subtle' isn't the way forward? He's buggered if he knows, at this stage, and decides to put a tiny amount of space between them for a short while to give him time to think up a new plan. He sends her on ahead of him, and it is not until she rounds the corner and is out of sight that he remembers what had happened that last time, on Rekpar. Swearing comprehensively under his breath, he sets off after her at a canter.
He makes it round the corner just in time; in true Rose fashion, she's managed to find trouble already and she's lying on the floor under attack from some thing or creature that, at this distance, looks like something electrical.
He is not panicking. He never panics, not even slightly, about Rose. I thought I’d stopped lying to myself? Anyway, he's here; she'll be fine.
"Stay still!"
A stab of fear shivers through him as he shouts at her, hoping she'll realise it isn't in anger, and scrambles in his coat pocket for the sonic screwdriver. He is not going to lose her, not here, not like this; a quick fumble to change the setting and he's aiming for the creature. Whatever it is, the sonic causes it to convulse briefly and collapse into a small ball that drops into Rose's outstretched hands. He doesn't care what it is at that point; doesn't care about the ionic residue they've found everywhere or about anything at all really beyond trying to process the fact that Rose has been in trouble, Rose has been attacked, and if he hadn't moved when he had then -
But he had been in time, he tells his brain fiercely, he's saved her and she's fine. His brain is still sending him messages about checking, about being sure, and for once he mentally tells the rest of creation to look after itself for the next few minutes and reaches out for Rose, pulling her up off the ground and into his arms and holding her there for a few long moments in a tight embrace. He's losing his touch, a vicious little voice in his mind tells him; he is letting Rose become far too important to him. So what if he is, he demands, refusing to let himself push his own buttons. He's just as entitled to love somebody deeply as any other person in the universe. Maybe even more so. He's given and given until he can give no more, and still the Universe insists on trying to take more from him. He's sacrificed everything and everybody else, but he'll not give Rose up too.
"Okay dokey?" he asks Rose, his voice shaking slightly with the effort it takes to keep it level and pitched normally. She doesn't seem to notice anything different about it but he reiterates his promises in his head that he doesn't intend to let her out of his sight. If he keeps promising himself, he thinks, perhaps one day yet he might deliver on it.
He takes them back to the TARDIS, ostensibly to analyse the 'scribble creature' but also because he wants to make sure Rose really is all right and the best way for him to do that is to keep her with him. Her arm links with his as they make their way back but he's not so easily lulled into a false sense of security any more, not where she is concerned.
When they’re back in the TARDIS he puts the strange ball-shaped object to the back of his mind briefly as the perpetual conundrum of how he is expected to deal with his feelings for Rose rears its head again. He turns it over repeatedly in his mind, only a tiny part of him focussing on the scans of the weird object he is meant to be concentrating on, and so when the TARDIS analysis shows it to be made of nothing more sinister than graphite he feels slightly wrong-footed.
"It's graphite! Basically the same material as an HB pencil."
"I was attacked by a … pencil creature?"
This thing, created by whom- or whatever has been taking these children, had attacked her, and all he can think of is how he can possibly tell this amazing woman that he is in love with her. Talk about making a mess of his priorities! But then something she says about the scribble creature appears to spark something in her mind and, for a moment, everything's about Rose.
"You said it was in the street."
"Probably."
"The girl." It is, he quickly realises, a statement and not a question.
"Of course!"
If it makes sense to her, it makes sense to - but hang on a minute. He has been so focussed in on Rose that he didn't -
"What girl?"