Happy New Year!
*waves*
Remember me?
I'm still alive. Been busy with work and travelling to Australia and a small family health crisis (all is fine now!). Despite my distaste for New Year's resolutions and my lack of tenacity with previous attempts to stick with what I've said I'm going to do, I am going to try being online more and being more social in all areas of my life. Besides, I miss you Rose and Jasmine! And I'm sorry I disappeared just when we were getting to be better friends, np_complete !
For those of you who helped with my mini-meltdown about my cat's behaviour, an update:
Jude has settled down into a wonderfully sweet little friend. He's still got some bad habits, and gets very anxious when I leave the apt, but he's done with the really bad kitty behaviour. Plus, I realized I'm used to older cats (he's just turned three, my previous cats were at least five when I got them) and that my freaking out = him freaking out. I love the furry little munchkin.
Now I'm going to curl up on my couch with a mug of tea (Two Leaves and a Bud - the most yummy tea EVAR!) and a holiday movie marathon to celebrate. But for you, I has fic! Just something small I wrote today - still can't believe my capacity for inspiration came back!
Title: Cleaving
Author: Irish Aithne
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose/Ten II(John Tyler)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: “Journey's End”
Summary: Rose's New Year begins with acceptance and a release.
Disclaimer: Not mine, but if RTD or any of TPTB are listening, I accept gifts in the form of David Tennant/Ten. Especially now that he's not going to be needed for filming.
Author's note: Cleave is a verb that means both to stick together and to divide. Perhaps the best word to describe Rose's state of mind in this vignette.
Music: The Scientist - Coldplay, I and Love and You - The Avett Brothers, Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy
*
Midnight. Shortly after, actually, and the Tyler house is quiet. They're far enough away from the town that the noise of the villagers' New Years revels wouldn't wake them. They hadn't meant to be asleep when the world ticked over to a new calendar and a new time, but their own private celebrations had left them slumbering long before the clock struck twelve.
Rose has woken: she never liked to sleep through profound time changes, even if it is only a year. But its more than just the time. Something is different. She knows how, but not what.
He's changed something in her past. The memories shift and swirl, eddying around the point that was once fixed, but now gone. That same slippery feeling she knows from her own tweaking. Only this time there's no telling which memory has undergone retouching.
He's gone and done it without her permission. Without her. Sin of omission, sin of solitude - either way the question is why. It's the one thing they have left, the memories.
You have a warm body to sleep next to at night, a small voice reminds her. A man who loves you. Begrudging him a memory is petty. After all, he has so many.
Rose sighs and tucks herself into John's body. She fits perfectly, just as she was meant to. And he curves an arm around her in his slumber, so beautifully untroubled. Peaceful; akin to his twin and yet so different.
Cold slides down her neck. It's the key. She's yet to take it off. After the darkness it was all she had to hold on to, convincing herself that the warmth her hands bled into its hardness was his. Rose looks at the face on the pillow next to hers, his breath moving the hairs on her forehead. It's not fair to him that she wears the key, but he's never said a word.
Freeing herself from John's embrace, she sits up and fumbles for the chain's clasp. A moment's work and it is off. The familiar weight is gone from that spot between her collar bones. Saying a prayer for him - that he's safe, that he's not alone, that he's happy - she tucks the key into the small wooden box on her night table. Someday she'll give it to someone else who will want that link to the man in the wondrously strange blue box.
But for now, she has all she needs of him. Of John. The man whose embrace she returns to.
*