Fic: Giving In (1/1)
Title: Giving In
Character(s): Ten. Rose and Mickey
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Sadly, not mine.
Setting: Set between the last few minutes of School Reunion and the first few minutes of Rise of the Cybermen. We all know what happened in those episodes and the one in-between, yes?
A/N: An introspective look at the Doctor as he analyses the relationship developing between himself and Rose.
Summary: He is in love with her.
He is in love with her.
He’s finding it difficult to accept the fact - and it’s certainly not something he’s admitting to anyone else, and that includes Rose - but it’s the only conclusion he’s drawn that makes any sense. Certainly the only thing that explains his irrational jealousy of the Idiot. Even his previous self had known that he was no threat to a potential relationship with Rose. Subconsciously he knows that she and Mickey are no longer a couple - in Rose's eyes, anyway - but getting his conscious mind to believe that is, and has always been, an uphill struggle.
He's in love with her.
He is irrationally jealous of any other man who has anything to do with her. But an over-active inferiority complex, and a niggling fear that she’ll just not want him that way means he's unwilling to act on it directly - although he almost manages to ruin everything by simply blurting it out anyway in the middle of the street. He’s more or less happy about how he manages to bite it back; however desperately he wants to say it - and he does - it isn’t the right time. Instead of trying to find the right time, however, he puts a barrier between them - invites the Idiot to travel with them - and spends the next few weeks letting himself getting increasingly agitated and worrying about whether she will choose to settle for what Mickey is offering.
The two of them slip into a sort of holding pattern; neither making advances nor completely withdrawing.
It is quietly driving him mad.
And that, to an extent, explains his behaviour with Reinette - in a sense, he is dealing with the likelihood (in his mind) that she’ll choose the Idiot and leave him. Even if his behaviour makes sense to no-one else it makes sense to him.
Of course, when it turns out that Rose is in dire peril his attention cannot be shifted from her. That’s been the case since he first met her, and he thinks it’ll always be this way. In fact, he thinks that it is harder for him not to give her his undivided attention; Rose captivates him in a way no other of her kind has ever managed.
Reinette thinks he threw himself and the horse through that time window for her benefit. It suits his purpose to have her believe that, although he knows in his hearts that whilst it is the truth it’s also a lie: he came through for precisely one reason - to preserve the time-line so he doesn’t lose the woman he loves. It is hardly his fault Reinette has the (wrong) impression that she’s that woman, is it?
Thinking he is trapped in eighteenth century France - “catch me doing that again”, he says - he soon becomes quiet and withdrawn and spends his time yearning for the woman he’s left behind. He’d had no choice but to leave her, he knows this, but the bitter knowledge does nothing to ease the pain of being without her. So when Reinette shows him the fireplace, his way back home, he doesn’t think he has ever felt so grateful towards anyone for anything. He’s through and has Rose in his arms again in a heartbeat and he clutches at her, grateful beyond measure that he hasn’t had to wait years to see her again.
Five-and-a-half hours, apparently, is all the time he’s been away from Rose. He think it’s likely that it’s been quite a lot longer for him, but he’s back now and doesn’t intend to think about it again. But he decides, almost against his better judgement as he is fairly sure that Rose will take things the wrong way, to offer Reinette a turn around the universe as a thank-you gift. It isn’t as if he has anything else he can offer her. Of course, he botches it up (as usual), and by the time he returns to Versailles it’s to a grieving King Louis XV and a letter written in the hand of a dead woman. He grieves her, too; he’ll never have the chance to show her the stars as he promised her.
But Reinette’s death makes him even more determined not to waste a single moment of the time he has with Rose. Nothing lasts for ever, not even for a Time Lord, and the life of a human is like a candle in the wind compared to his. But he loves her, is in love with her, and is finally determined to do something about it.
In the weeks that follow he finally makes his move - he’s still frightened that she’ll choose the Idiot over him, and to an extent he feels as if the Idiot has forced his hand, but in general he’s happy enough at the progress they’ve made - and he and Rose become closer and closer as a result. The Idiot spends most of his time on his own, on the outside of the Doctor-and-Rose club, and occasionally he feels a little guilty about it. But then he sees Rose again and his ability to keep his attention on anything else is shot to hell. He thinks it doesn’t matter.
He’s wrong.