The Way of Things, Chapter 25
Title - The Way of Things (25/45)
Author - jlrpuck
Rating - K+
Pairing - Peter Carlisle/Rose Tyler
Spoilers - For both Blackpool and S2 of Doctor Who.
Disclaimer - Characters from Blackpool and Doctor Who are the property of the BBC, and are used with the greatest of love and respect; no profit is intended from the writing or sharing of this story.
Summary - A post-Doomsday story, set in the Alt!Verse. It's been over three years since Rose and the Doctor said goodbye. What happens when she not only meets his doppelganger, but has to work with him?
Author’s Notes - Rose has finally told Peter about the Doctor. How will Peter react, and what will its effect be on their nascent relationship?
earlgreytea68 and arctacuda have been fabulous betas-I know I say it every time, but it really can’t be said enough. This was another of those chapters that was tweaked up until about an hour ago; and I guarantee this wouldn’t have turned out nearly as well as it did without EGT’s suggestions and input. In spite of being ensconced in a library, rosa_acicularis has been awesome about doing a final read-through and providing comment. misssara11 is the one who encouraged me to start writing in the first place, and who read over my early efforts at this story.
Posting super early today, as I have meetings starting in, oh, a half hour. Cheers!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33 | Chapter 34 | Chapter 35 | Chapter 36 | Chapter 37 | Chapter 38 | Chapter 39 | Chapter 40 | Chapter 41 | Chapter 42 | Chapter 43 | Chapter 44 | Epilogue
“Y’ see...almost everyone has a double between universes. I didn’t, and I never met Jake’s, but everyone else does.” She looked at him, watched him wait for her to finish her statement.
“The Doctor was yours.”
~ - ~
Peter stared at Rose, stunned. A thousand thoughts crashed through his mind at her simple statement, as he tried to process what she had said and what it meant. She was still looking up at him, tentatively-he could see the worry grow, the concern in her eyes increasing, her body becoming tenser the longer he stayed silent.
He looked like her former lover. He was having a remarkably difficult time processing that simple fact. Maybe because it wasn’t that simple. If he was understanding things correctly, he didn’t just resemble him, remind her of him, maybe use the same phrases every once in a while. If he was understanding things correctly, he looked exactly like her former lover. Was, possibly, indistinguishable from him.
Rose extricated herself from his light embrace, scooting so there was space in between them. She stared out into the garden.
“I wish I had told you sooner.”
He followed her line of sight, gazing at the tall hedge at the opposite end of the space. He had no response to that that wasn’t bitingly sarcastic, and silence descended. He wished she had, too; wished he’d known that he had a twin, and a twin whom Rose had loved. Still, he had to say something, had to get them out of this painfully awkward situation, get himself home so he could lick his wounds. He already knew why it felt like such a body blow.
“Not like there was really a time, was there? ‘Hallo, nice to meet you, you know, you look like the man I loved.’ Not much of a conversation starter, is it? Might have made things even more awkward, truth be told.” He was rambling, his mind so occupied by the thoughts running through it that his tongue was carrying on unchecked.
Rose sighed. “Yes, well, perhaps you’re right.”
Silence returned, and he sighed. Rose shifted uncomfortably next to him; he could tell she wanted to speak, but was reluctant to do so now that the closeness between them had gone. “Is there anything else, then?” he finally asked, trying desperately to keep his voice casual.
Rose laughed mirthlessly. “Anything besides me telling you that I travelled through time and space for several years with your twin before leaping universes and settling in this one? No, I think that pretty much covers everything.”
He could feel her eyes on him, watching him, waiting for any further reaction. He wanted desperately to ask her more questions--would you go back if you could? What do I mean to you, then?-but settled on contemplative silence, his mind rattling through the facts as he thought he knew them in light of the facts she had just conveyed. She’d just told him many of the things he’d been searching out in his spare time these past weeks, things that explained so much about her background, about the little things that made her different. He should have been dancing with glee at having so many questions answered. And yet all he could focus on was the impact to his emotions.
His mind strayed back to their interlude in the boxwood; standing there in the bright spring light, Rose pressed against him, he had realized just how much he had come to care for her. Their kiss, her running her fingers through his hair…he’d realized that what he was feeling went beyond lust, strayed precariously close to something much stronger, much deeper-much more long-term. Which was ridiculous, given that he’d known her for a month-and, as he’d just learned, he really hadn’t known her at all.
He was unsure how much time passed before she stood, looking down at him with bright eyes. “I suppose you’ll want to be leaving now.”
He arose, standing apart from her, his hands in his pockets. “Unless there’s anything else you’d like to see?” He wanted to run, to hide-but he wasn’t going to be rude. No, he would take the high road on this one. Or at least try.
She gave a mirthless laugh, her eyes straying to his hidden hands before looking away. “Your tour was thorough and quite enjoyable. I can’t imagine there’s much-if anything-we haven’t seen.”
She was giving him an out, and he was selfish enough to take it. “Quite right.” He saw her flinch in reaction to his statement-he’d hit a nerve, somehow. He was tempted to reach out, to take her hand, but the question of what she saw when she was with him prevented him from doing so. Whatever nerve he’d hit, it wasn’t a nerve he’d put there; it was a nerve his twin had put there, and it was bloody ridiculous to be walking this minefield of every word coming out of his mouth possibly being an echo of some unknown twin’s words in some parallel universe. He instead inclined his head. “Shall we?”
The walk back to the car was silent, the noise of their feet on the gravel the only sound travelling between them; the bright noises which had accompanied them on their earlier tour mocked them, he felt, and he was relieved when they reached the car park after the incredibly tense exit from the garden. He handed Rose into the car, cursed the feeling that stole over him when her hand was in his, and stalked around to the driver’s side fighting the urge to kick or punch anything in his way.
The ride back to town, as well, was nearly silent. He simply wasn’t in the mood to make conversation. Rose tried, asking him about one of the castles she saw a sign for, and then inquiring if he was interested in joining the team for supper. He gave her a painfully brief summary of the castle’s history, and tersely declined the dinner invitation with the excuse that he had other plans. He could see Rose close her eyes in resignation before turning to stare out the window.
He dropped her at her hotel, the pain in her eyes causing his heart to lurch. “See you Monday, then,” she’d said softly as she closed the door; he watched her walk through the lobby doors with her head bent and her shoulders hunched. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her, to let her know it would be ok-but he simply couldn’t get past the last bombshell she’d dropped. He looked like her dead-permanently missing, rather-lover.
The freshness of her revelation still left him bewildered. Suddenly, quite a few things made sense: the reactions of Mickey and Jake and Rose when they’d first met him; Rose's penchant for giving him such odd looks and responses when they’d started working together; her near-desperate need to avoid him in those first weeks; the underlying sadness behind those eyes whenever she looked at him.
He remembered their trip to the warehouse, what seemed like ages ago now; the way she’d looked at him after they’d run through the rain. He’d thought then that she was finally seeing him; he now wondered if he’d just borne a striking resemblance to her missing lover that particular day, and if that was what had driven her to kiss him back so fervently. All of their time together since that day...He liked to think she saw him when she looked at him; but now he had to admit there would always be a little niggling doubt in the back of his mind, always the question of whether she was in the present with him, or in the past with the Doctor. Wait. Always? Where had that idea come from?
He looked up with a start, shocked to realize he was in front of his house. He'd made it home in one piece--remarkable, as he'd not been paying attention-and it was with great pleasure that he slammed every door he passed through during the trip from car to house to bedroom.
He viciously kicked his shoes across the room, couldn’t get his shirt off fast enough-wanted away from anything that would remind him of the picnic, anything that might still smell of Rose. Trousers, pants, socks, all were stripped off and flung away in an effort to distance himself from that afternoon, while his mind raced in vicious circles. Had any of it been real at all? Or had he been unwittingly been playing a part for her? Had anything been Rose Tyler and Peter Carlisle?
Naked, he walked to the bathroom, caught sight of his reflection. Two nights earlier, he’d stood in this bathroom and looked at himself in that mirror and wondered what the hell Rose saw in him. Well, now he knew the answer: He was a dead ringer for the swashbuckling, time-travelling alien she’d loved. And possibly still loved. Possibly would always love and would always miss every time she looked at him. He hastily turned on the taps and stepped in to the shower before the water had had a chance to warm. The shock of the chilly water helped to calm him down, and he stood under the running water in silence.
Rationally, he tried to tell himself he was reacting beyond all reason. Rose had told him about a former lover; she hadn’t told him that she’d murdered someone. He knew she’d been worried about telling him, knew as well that she had taken a leap of faith by confiding so much in him; but he just couldn’t get over the fact that he apparently looked just like this Doctor-this man she had lost. He couldn’t stop the questions chasing through him.
Was Rose’s reaction to him an echo of what she had had with the man? Did she look at him and compare the man in front of her with the Doctor, finding flaws where Peter didn’t measure up? Was she settling for him because she was trapped and she could pretend he was her lost lover? What had she even been doing with him?
He felt duped; felt like he’d been teased and led along, all to fill a hole left in someone else’s heart. He felt sick, as well-remembering once more his sense as they were in the garden that day, that his interest in Rose was far from casual, recalling that he had wondered what it would take to keep their relationship going once she left. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so strongly for someone in such a short period of time; he’d fought against it for so long, felt so relieved when he’d let himself finally give into the feeling...
But it was all for naught, apparently.
He slammed his hand against the shower stall in frustration, in anger. He wanted to bang his head against the tile for being so stupid. He’d known there was something going on with Rose-indeed, he’d wondered if it wasn’t related to an ex-boyfriend during those first awkward days-yet he’d still allowed himself to get far too involved. And now...now...he just wasn’t sure he’d be able to cope with filling in for a ghost. Not even if it meant being with a woman he...He slammed his fist against the tile again, the pain far more preferable than finishing the thought.
The water continued to pour over his body as he leaned against the wall, eyes closed as hopelessness and disappointment flowed through him.
~ - ~
Rose sat in her room in stunned silence. She’d expected Peter would be upset, but she hadn’t foreseen his reaction being so disastrous. Neither had she expected his rejection to hit her quite so hard. She’d been deceiving herself--and worse, deceiving Peter--by waiting so long to tell him about the Doctor. And she’d been deceiving herself and Peter even more by telling herself that her revelation, when she finally chose to see it, wouldn’t be that bad.
She’d made it back to her room before her tears started to fall. She’d fought them, not wanting to cry because some git couldn’t be arsed to accept her and who she was, what she had lived through. But Peter’s reaction had stung-she’d finally allowed herself to think that, perhaps, he was a man worth getting to know better, that he might even be someone she could spend a lot of time with. She wanted to scream, to throw things, most especially to yell at him for his reaction; but she settled for sitting in the centre of her bed and feeling excessively sorry for herself, wishing she’d never told Peter about the Doctor.
If she were honest with herself, the thing she most regretted about the day was that she’d waited so long to tell Peter. Maybe, if she’d told him sooner, they’d have been able to avoid this. She lay on the coverlet, trying desperately to work out what she should have done differently; what she could have done to spare both herself and Peter the pain her revelation had caused.
She fell asleep at some point, curled in a ball, and awoke to a gentle knock on her door. The room was dim, and she padded over and opened the door a crack, casting a bleary eye into the bright light of the hall.
“Jesus, Rose, what happened?” Mickey was through the door in the blink of an eye, folding her into a hug. She sagged against him, and he soothingly rocked her as she tried to keep her emotions in check. After a moment he reached behind them, gently pushing the door shut before walking Rose over to the foot of the bed and guiding her to sit. Staring at her feet, she noticed the room brighten as Mickey switched on a few lamps before feeling him sink into the mattress next to her.
“What happened?” he tried again.
She raised her eyes to his. “I...” She swallowed. Peter was not worth this many tears. “Told Carlisle. Everything.”
“Shit.” Mickey breathed the word, compassion in his gaze before the ramifications of Rose’s current state caught up to him. “That bastard did this?” Mickey stood, pacing the room in contained fury. “I’m going to kill him. With my bare hands. After I let James work on him. And Jake.” Mickey turned to her, stopping. “And then I’m going to let your mum at him. That sonofabitch.”
Rose gave him a half-hearted smile, sniffling; she’d kept the tears at bay, but only just barely. “He...I don’t know that I can fault him, Mickey. Not really.”
“Are you kidding me? Look at you! He didn’t have to make you cry!”
“No, ‘s not like that. He...he was fine for most of it. Almost all of it.”
Mickey sat next to her again, taking her hand. “Tell me what happened.”
Rose recounted the night before, leading into the morning and finally ending at her afternoon with the DI, skipping over the kisses that had peppered her time with Peter and ultimately focusing on her decision to tell the DI about her life before Torchwood. She told Mickey about the chat on the garden bench, how Carlisle had seemed surprised, but not horrified or even upset with her story of travelling in the TARDIS. “He worked out pretty quickly that you had done, too,” she added.
“Remember the word that comes before ‘bastard’ where Carlisle’s concerned,” Mickey said, darkly.
Rose once more smiled weakly, and continued. “He really seemed ok. He was able to joke about it. Asked about mum, and Pete; was there a Rose in this world? Asked if I loved the Doctor.” Mickey squeezed her hand. “So of course I told him I did, because it was the truth. And I told him I’d made my own life here after Bad Wolf Bay-not that I told him about Norway. Not in detail.”
She paused, and Mickey remained silent. She swallowed. “And then...then...I told him about the Doctor. About how the Doctor was our universe’s twin of him.”
“And that’s when he lost it.” Mickey sighed.
“Sort of, yeah. He was still...he was still Peter, but like that first week we knew him. It got worse the longer he knew; the drive back, he just...he shut down, and by the time we got back here, that was it. Not even a goodbye. Just...his eyes were so hard, Mickey. I felt like I was the lowest scum he’d ever seen.”
Mickey wrapped an arm around her. “You did the right thing, Rose. Telling him. No matter what, it was the right thing.”
Rose managed a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Did I?”
“Rose-” Mickey began, tenderly.
“Look at me, Mickey.” To punctuate her point, she sniffled and swiped hastily at her eyes. “I’m a wreck. If I’d just kept my bloody mouth shut, Peter and I would probably be…ordering takeaway right now.”
“And what? You’d just live the rest of your life and never tell him?”
The rest of her life? she thought. When had things gotten that far?
“You were right to tell him,” Mickey insisted. Rose closed her eyes and sighed.
“I know. It just...hurts, to get that reaction.”
“Do you want the platitudes? He doesn’t deserve you if he can’t deal with it? He’s a fool? I don’t think I’d be lying if I said those, but they’re not going t’ help.” Mickey was rubbing her back with his hand now, and she leaned against his shoulder.
“No, they won’t. They might not even be true.”
“Don’t say that-” Mickey began.
“He isn’t a fool. He’s anything but a fool. And I made him feel foolish, that was the problem. I should have told him from the very beginning, like you said.” She sniffled again, feeling miserable, staring at the hotel room’s ornate carpet and going over and over every conversation she’d ever had with Peter. “But I can’t figure out when it would have been a better time to tell him. As soon as we were introduced? Obviously not. Back when we were barely talking as it was? Oh, yeah, because that would have helped matters. Before we…”
But she’d been over and over it. After the snog in the car, when he’d asked her to dinner and been so hopeful and delightful and charming? Certainly not; how could she have? He hadn’t known her then, would have backed off and never even gotten involved, and she’d wanted to go to dinner with him, damn it. On the blanket during their picnic, pointing out shapes in the clouds? Of course not. Maybe after he’d told her about Blackpool? But it had been such a meaningful moment, Peter placing such trust in her, and how could she have ruined it? There had been no good time to tell him. There had been no moment when this would have ended well. She’d been a bloody idiot for thinking otherwise. Mickey had clearly held out hope that her telling Peter would work out well; he’d been surprised to find her in this state. She briefly wondered if he’d have changed his counsel if he’d known how Peter would react.
She sighed, sitting up straight and looking at her oldest friend. “How did you do it? When you were here, all alone, when you stayed back? How were you able to do it?”
Mickey shifted, leaning back on his arms, staring at the ceiling as he thought. “It was hard. But I had an advantage-I knew who I was replacing, and Jake knew who I really was. The rest? The rest was just details. The hardest part was already taken care of. It was just a matter of Jake and me getting to know each other. I never had to put myself on the line and see if he’d still love me after.” He sat back up.
“Yeah.” Rose sighed. “Well.” She looked around the room before returning her gaze to Mickey. “Moping about it isn’t going to make the DI change his mind-and it’s going to give me a headache if I do it for too much longer. I’ll have all night and part of tomorrow to wallow, too.”
“Rose...”
“No, Mickey-it’s the DI’s problem if he can’t handle fate playing a joke. I did what I thought was right, given the circumstances, and I don’t know that doing it any other way would have made it better. Our problem is finding McGreevy so we can get the hell out of this town.” She knew there was bitterness in her voice, but she didn’t much care. All she wanted to do at the moment was to wrap things up and get away from this claustrophobic grey place.
“Right. In that case-” Mickey stood. “We had figured you’d still be up for supper, ‘s why I stopped by. We’re meeting in the lobby at seven, so you’ve got...forty-five minutes to get spruced up. ‘Damn the torpedoes’ and all that.”
Rose laughed. “I’ll find my red frock.” Her smile faded. “Thanks, Mickey. I’ll be alright.”
Mickey gave her a hug. “I know. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to kick his ass into another universe, though. He’s no right to do that to you, not when you did the right thing.” He pulled back, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “Lobby, seven o’clock. See you then.”
~ - ~
Peter finally exhausted the supply of hot water well after he’d lapsed into an emotional stupor. He’d relived every moment with Rose from the past five weeks, had examined every interaction they’d had, trying to find a clue to what had happened, why things had gone the way they did. What had he done? Where did he go wrong? The questions simply wouldn’t stop, even if his emotions had finally bottomed out.
Exhausted and shivering, he slowly turned the taps off. He stood for a few minutes in the silence, the sound of water dripping the only noise in the room; the cold dampness of the enclosed space suited his mood quite well.
He finally opened the stall door and reached for a towel, drying himself slowly as his mind mulled over what he’d learned. He hurt, physically and emotionally, from those four words; four words, said so casually, as though it wouldn’t change things between them. She had to have known. Maybe that’s what she did, played with men and then took delight in telling them that they were dead ringers for lost loves. Maybe she scouted out poor fools like him, made them feel like they’d won the lottery, and then got a rush off of yanking the rug out from under them. It was a vicious game he’d seen played before, and it would be just his luck to fall victim to such a scam.
He viciously ran the towel over his hair, his fingers raking the rough material over his scalp, trying to erase the memory of the feel of Rose’s fingers in his hair that day. He knew that wasn’t what Rose would do; had seen her struggle with telling him, seen the torment she’d felt as she wrestled with the story. She could have kept it from him indefinitely, trusting that he’d not work things out on his own, or that someone from work or her family wouldn’t let it slip at some point in the future. In her own way, she’d warned him up on the picnic blanket the night of their first date-his heart clenched painfully as he once more remembered that night. “There are...things...” she’d said. Her ‘'things’ just happened to be of a slightly greater magnitude than most other people’s things.
He threw the towel aside before padding back to his room, the cool air against his bare skin once more serving to ground him, to keep him from getting too carried away. He wanted to break things, to create a physical manifestation of the turmoil he was feeling; but all he’d be left with after that was a lot of sharp edges and no relief from the feelings he was experiencing. He’d been down that road once before, when his wife had left him, and all he’d felt after tearing the house apart was even more self-loathing at his lack of self-control.
If he was perfectly honest-if, in fact, a mate had been telling him the tale-he’d be inclined to say he was getting too wrapped up in one small detail, letting it colour everything else he’d experienced with Rose. Everything he’d seen-everything-pointed to a person who cared about others. He’d seen her bend over backwards to help not only her team, but Penington. She cared deeply for her friends, seemed exceedingly loyal to them; and she had made him genuinely laugh, something he’d thought he’d forgotten how to do. He’d thought she might care for him, quite deeply; something in her expression in the hedge that afternoon, in her eyes...
He closed his eyes, focused on keeping his breath steady. He just couldn’t be sure of how much of that was because of him, and how much of it was because of who she saw when she looked at him. The warmth in her eyes when she’d gazed up at him, the reactions of her body to his when he was near, the enthusiasm of her kisses-were they truly a reaction to him? Or were they echoes of the way she’d react to the man she lost? He felt his stomach churn at the thought of her looking at anyone else the way she’d looked at him, of kissing someone else the way she’d kissed him, and he took another deep breath.
He needed time to think, to figure out what to do so he could face her and her team with equanimity on Monday. He was, after all, a professional, even if he wasn’t sure what in the hell was going on in a relationship he may or may not be having with his co-lead investigator. There was still work to be done, and he’d be damned if he’d let this get in the way of him finishing the investigation.
He pulled on his pyjama bottoms, still laying where he’d carelessy tossed them that morning, and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. The breakfast dishes were still stacked in the sink, the dinner plates lined neatly in the drying rack where Rose had placed them; he took a deep breath, fighting the tightening in his chest as he envisioned Rose standing in front of him, limned in morning light. His chest tightened as he remembered them kissing-several times-in the small space, her body pressed against his, him fighting his desire to lay her before him and shag her senseless. He briefly felt an urge to break every piece of crockery in front of him, before tamping it down. Losing control wasn’t going to solve anything, no matter how much instant gratification it might produce.
He forced himself not to think as he tidied the dishes, removing any evidence of Rose’s presence in the kitchen. He dried the last plate, set it on top of the others with exaggerated gentleness, closed the door to the cabinet with a relieved sigh. That chore done, he made a supper of beans on toast--opting for comfort rather than nutrition.
Balancing his steaming plate and a glass of water, he made his way into the parlour. More evidence of Rose’s stay awaited him, and he set the plate and glass down with a clatter before swiping the bundled blanket aside. The throw pillow got tossed across the room, practically into the hallway, and the small vase of wildflowers followed behind, petals and water spraying across the wall and the floor as the vase landed against the pillow with a thud. He wanted no reminders of the previous night.
He was halfway through his meal when the phone rang-the mobile, not the house phone. Someone wanted to find him, and he hated himself just a little bit more for the brief hope that it was Rose on the other end of the line. He put the plate down resignedly, moving into the kitchen with haste as the tinny music of his ringtone grew louder. He glared at the caller id, his stomach dropping as he saw Penington’s name flash on the screen. This could not be good. He opened the phone with a sharp flick of his fingers.
“What?” He answered rudely, letting the frustration of the day pour onto his DC with one syllable.
“Sir, sorry to bother you. But something’s come up.”
Bugger and damn. “What is it, Penny?” His voice was still terse, but nowhere near as hostile as it had been. He felt worry clench his gut-what if something had happened to Rose...?
“The warehouse you and Miss Tyler searched is alight, sir.”
~ - ~
Chapter Twenty-six
Author - jlrpuck
Rating - K+
Pairing - Peter Carlisle/Rose Tyler
Spoilers - For both Blackpool and S2 of Doctor Who.
Disclaimer - Characters from Blackpool and Doctor Who are the property of the BBC, and are used with the greatest of love and respect; no profit is intended from the writing or sharing of this story.
Summary - A post-Doomsday story, set in the Alt!Verse. It's been over three years since Rose and the Doctor said goodbye. What happens when she not only meets his doppelganger, but has to work with him?
Author’s Notes - Rose has finally told Peter about the Doctor. How will Peter react, and what will its effect be on their nascent relationship?
earlgreytea68 and arctacuda have been fabulous betas-I know I say it every time, but it really can’t be said enough. This was another of those chapters that was tweaked up until about an hour ago; and I guarantee this wouldn’t have turned out nearly as well as it did without EGT’s suggestions and input. In spite of being ensconced in a library, rosa_acicularis has been awesome about doing a final read-through and providing comment. misssara11 is the one who encouraged me to start writing in the first place, and who read over my early efforts at this story.
Posting super early today, as I have meetings starting in, oh, a half hour. Cheers!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33 | Chapter 34 | Chapter 35 | Chapter 36 | Chapter 37 | Chapter 38 | Chapter 39 | Chapter 40 | Chapter 41 | Chapter 42 | Chapter 43 | Chapter 44 | Epilogue
“Y’ see...almost everyone has a double between universes. I didn’t, and I never met Jake’s, but everyone else does.” She looked at him, watched him wait for her to finish her statement.
“The Doctor was yours.”
~ - ~
Peter stared at Rose, stunned. A thousand thoughts crashed through his mind at her simple statement, as he tried to process what she had said and what it meant. She was still looking up at him, tentatively-he could see the worry grow, the concern in her eyes increasing, her body becoming tenser the longer he stayed silent.
He looked like her former lover. He was having a remarkably difficult time processing that simple fact. Maybe because it wasn’t that simple. If he was understanding things correctly, he didn’t just resemble him, remind her of him, maybe use the same phrases every once in a while. If he was understanding things correctly, he looked exactly like her former lover. Was, possibly, indistinguishable from him.
Rose extricated herself from his light embrace, scooting so there was space in between them. She stared out into the garden.
“I wish I had told you sooner.”
He followed her line of sight, gazing at the tall hedge at the opposite end of the space. He had no response to that that wasn’t bitingly sarcastic, and silence descended. He wished she had, too; wished he’d known that he had a twin, and a twin whom Rose had loved. Still, he had to say something, had to get them out of this painfully awkward situation, get himself home so he could lick his wounds. He already knew why it felt like such a body blow.
“Not like there was really a time, was there? ‘Hallo, nice to meet you, you know, you look like the man I loved.’ Not much of a conversation starter, is it? Might have made things even more awkward, truth be told.” He was rambling, his mind so occupied by the thoughts running through it that his tongue was carrying on unchecked.
Rose sighed. “Yes, well, perhaps you’re right.”
Silence returned, and he sighed. Rose shifted uncomfortably next to him; he could tell she wanted to speak, but was reluctant to do so now that the closeness between them had gone. “Is there anything else, then?” he finally asked, trying desperately to keep his voice casual.
Rose laughed mirthlessly. “Anything besides me telling you that I travelled through time and space for several years with your twin before leaping universes and settling in this one? No, I think that pretty much covers everything.”
He could feel her eyes on him, watching him, waiting for any further reaction. He wanted desperately to ask her more questions--would you go back if you could? What do I mean to you, then?-but settled on contemplative silence, his mind rattling through the facts as he thought he knew them in light of the facts she had just conveyed. She’d just told him many of the things he’d been searching out in his spare time these past weeks, things that explained so much about her background, about the little things that made her different. He should have been dancing with glee at having so many questions answered. And yet all he could focus on was the impact to his emotions.
His mind strayed back to their interlude in the boxwood; standing there in the bright spring light, Rose pressed against him, he had realized just how much he had come to care for her. Their kiss, her running her fingers through his hair…he’d realized that what he was feeling went beyond lust, strayed precariously close to something much stronger, much deeper-much more long-term. Which was ridiculous, given that he’d known her for a month-and, as he’d just learned, he really hadn’t known her at all.
He was unsure how much time passed before she stood, looking down at him with bright eyes. “I suppose you’ll want to be leaving now.”
He arose, standing apart from her, his hands in his pockets. “Unless there’s anything else you’d like to see?” He wanted to run, to hide-but he wasn’t going to be rude. No, he would take the high road on this one. Or at least try.
She gave a mirthless laugh, her eyes straying to his hidden hands before looking away. “Your tour was thorough and quite enjoyable. I can’t imagine there’s much-if anything-we haven’t seen.”
She was giving him an out, and he was selfish enough to take it. “Quite right.” He saw her flinch in reaction to his statement-he’d hit a nerve, somehow. He was tempted to reach out, to take her hand, but the question of what she saw when she was with him prevented him from doing so. Whatever nerve he’d hit, it wasn’t a nerve he’d put there; it was a nerve his twin had put there, and it was bloody ridiculous to be walking this minefield of every word coming out of his mouth possibly being an echo of some unknown twin’s words in some parallel universe. He instead inclined his head. “Shall we?”
The walk back to the car was silent, the noise of their feet on the gravel the only sound travelling between them; the bright noises which had accompanied them on their earlier tour mocked them, he felt, and he was relieved when they reached the car park after the incredibly tense exit from the garden. He handed Rose into the car, cursed the feeling that stole over him when her hand was in his, and stalked around to the driver’s side fighting the urge to kick or punch anything in his way.
The ride back to town, as well, was nearly silent. He simply wasn’t in the mood to make conversation. Rose tried, asking him about one of the castles she saw a sign for, and then inquiring if he was interested in joining the team for supper. He gave her a painfully brief summary of the castle’s history, and tersely declined the dinner invitation with the excuse that he had other plans. He could see Rose close her eyes in resignation before turning to stare out the window.
He dropped her at her hotel, the pain in her eyes causing his heart to lurch. “See you Monday, then,” she’d said softly as she closed the door; he watched her walk through the lobby doors with her head bent and her shoulders hunched. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her, to let her know it would be ok-but he simply couldn’t get past the last bombshell she’d dropped. He looked like her dead-permanently missing, rather-lover.
The freshness of her revelation still left him bewildered. Suddenly, quite a few things made sense: the reactions of Mickey and Jake and Rose when they’d first met him; Rose's penchant for giving him such odd looks and responses when they’d started working together; her near-desperate need to avoid him in those first weeks; the underlying sadness behind those eyes whenever she looked at him.
He remembered their trip to the warehouse, what seemed like ages ago now; the way she’d looked at him after they’d run through the rain. He’d thought then that she was finally seeing him; he now wondered if he’d just borne a striking resemblance to her missing lover that particular day, and if that was what had driven her to kiss him back so fervently. All of their time together since that day...He liked to think she saw him when she looked at him; but now he had to admit there would always be a little niggling doubt in the back of his mind, always the question of whether she was in the present with him, or in the past with the Doctor. Wait. Always? Where had that idea come from?
He looked up with a start, shocked to realize he was in front of his house. He'd made it home in one piece--remarkable, as he'd not been paying attention-and it was with great pleasure that he slammed every door he passed through during the trip from car to house to bedroom.
He viciously kicked his shoes across the room, couldn’t get his shirt off fast enough-wanted away from anything that would remind him of the picnic, anything that might still smell of Rose. Trousers, pants, socks, all were stripped off and flung away in an effort to distance himself from that afternoon, while his mind raced in vicious circles. Had any of it been real at all? Or had he been unwittingly been playing a part for her? Had anything been Rose Tyler and Peter Carlisle?
Naked, he walked to the bathroom, caught sight of his reflection. Two nights earlier, he’d stood in this bathroom and looked at himself in that mirror and wondered what the hell Rose saw in him. Well, now he knew the answer: He was a dead ringer for the swashbuckling, time-travelling alien she’d loved. And possibly still loved. Possibly would always love and would always miss every time she looked at him. He hastily turned on the taps and stepped in to the shower before the water had had a chance to warm. The shock of the chilly water helped to calm him down, and he stood under the running water in silence.
Rationally, he tried to tell himself he was reacting beyond all reason. Rose had told him about a former lover; she hadn’t told him that she’d murdered someone. He knew she’d been worried about telling him, knew as well that she had taken a leap of faith by confiding so much in him; but he just couldn’t get over the fact that he apparently looked just like this Doctor-this man she had lost. He couldn’t stop the questions chasing through him.
Was Rose’s reaction to him an echo of what she had had with the man? Did she look at him and compare the man in front of her with the Doctor, finding flaws where Peter didn’t measure up? Was she settling for him because she was trapped and she could pretend he was her lost lover? What had she even been doing with him?
He felt duped; felt like he’d been teased and led along, all to fill a hole left in someone else’s heart. He felt sick, as well-remembering once more his sense as they were in the garden that day, that his interest in Rose was far from casual, recalling that he had wondered what it would take to keep their relationship going once she left. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so strongly for someone in such a short period of time; he’d fought against it for so long, felt so relieved when he’d let himself finally give into the feeling...
But it was all for naught, apparently.
He slammed his hand against the shower stall in frustration, in anger. He wanted to bang his head against the tile for being so stupid. He’d known there was something going on with Rose-indeed, he’d wondered if it wasn’t related to an ex-boyfriend during those first awkward days-yet he’d still allowed himself to get far too involved. And now...now...he just wasn’t sure he’d be able to cope with filling in for a ghost. Not even if it meant being with a woman he...He slammed his fist against the tile again, the pain far more preferable than finishing the thought.
The water continued to pour over his body as he leaned against the wall, eyes closed as hopelessness and disappointment flowed through him.
~ - ~
Rose sat in her room in stunned silence. She’d expected Peter would be upset, but she hadn’t foreseen his reaction being so disastrous. Neither had she expected his rejection to hit her quite so hard. She’d been deceiving herself--and worse, deceiving Peter--by waiting so long to tell him about the Doctor. And she’d been deceiving herself and Peter even more by telling herself that her revelation, when she finally chose to see it, wouldn’t be that bad.
She’d made it back to her room before her tears started to fall. She’d fought them, not wanting to cry because some git couldn’t be arsed to accept her and who she was, what she had lived through. But Peter’s reaction had stung-she’d finally allowed herself to think that, perhaps, he was a man worth getting to know better, that he might even be someone she could spend a lot of time with. She wanted to scream, to throw things, most especially to yell at him for his reaction; but she settled for sitting in the centre of her bed and feeling excessively sorry for herself, wishing she’d never told Peter about the Doctor.
If she were honest with herself, the thing she most regretted about the day was that she’d waited so long to tell Peter. Maybe, if she’d told him sooner, they’d have been able to avoid this. She lay on the coverlet, trying desperately to work out what she should have done differently; what she could have done to spare both herself and Peter the pain her revelation had caused.
She fell asleep at some point, curled in a ball, and awoke to a gentle knock on her door. The room was dim, and she padded over and opened the door a crack, casting a bleary eye into the bright light of the hall.
“Jesus, Rose, what happened?” Mickey was through the door in the blink of an eye, folding her into a hug. She sagged against him, and he soothingly rocked her as she tried to keep her emotions in check. After a moment he reached behind them, gently pushing the door shut before walking Rose over to the foot of the bed and guiding her to sit. Staring at her feet, she noticed the room brighten as Mickey switched on a few lamps before feeling him sink into the mattress next to her.
“What happened?” he tried again.
She raised her eyes to his. “I...” She swallowed. Peter was not worth this many tears. “Told Carlisle. Everything.”
“Shit.” Mickey breathed the word, compassion in his gaze before the ramifications of Rose’s current state caught up to him. “That bastard did this?” Mickey stood, pacing the room in contained fury. “I’m going to kill him. With my bare hands. After I let James work on him. And Jake.” Mickey turned to her, stopping. “And then I’m going to let your mum at him. That sonofabitch.”
Rose gave him a half-hearted smile, sniffling; she’d kept the tears at bay, but only just barely. “He...I don’t know that I can fault him, Mickey. Not really.”
“Are you kidding me? Look at you! He didn’t have to make you cry!”
“No, ‘s not like that. He...he was fine for most of it. Almost all of it.”
Mickey sat next to her again, taking her hand. “Tell me what happened.”
Rose recounted the night before, leading into the morning and finally ending at her afternoon with the DI, skipping over the kisses that had peppered her time with Peter and ultimately focusing on her decision to tell the DI about her life before Torchwood. She told Mickey about the chat on the garden bench, how Carlisle had seemed surprised, but not horrified or even upset with her story of travelling in the TARDIS. “He worked out pretty quickly that you had done, too,” she added.
“Remember the word that comes before ‘bastard’ where Carlisle’s concerned,” Mickey said, darkly.
Rose once more smiled weakly, and continued. “He really seemed ok. He was able to joke about it. Asked about mum, and Pete; was there a Rose in this world? Asked if I loved the Doctor.” Mickey squeezed her hand. “So of course I told him I did, because it was the truth. And I told him I’d made my own life here after Bad Wolf Bay-not that I told him about Norway. Not in detail.”
She paused, and Mickey remained silent. She swallowed. “And then...then...I told him about the Doctor. About how the Doctor was our universe’s twin of him.”
“And that’s when he lost it.” Mickey sighed.
“Sort of, yeah. He was still...he was still Peter, but like that first week we knew him. It got worse the longer he knew; the drive back, he just...he shut down, and by the time we got back here, that was it. Not even a goodbye. Just...his eyes were so hard, Mickey. I felt like I was the lowest scum he’d ever seen.”
Mickey wrapped an arm around her. “You did the right thing, Rose. Telling him. No matter what, it was the right thing.”
Rose managed a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Did I?”
“Rose-” Mickey began, tenderly.
“Look at me, Mickey.” To punctuate her point, she sniffled and swiped hastily at her eyes. “I’m a wreck. If I’d just kept my bloody mouth shut, Peter and I would probably be…ordering takeaway right now.”
“And what? You’d just live the rest of your life and never tell him?”
The rest of her life? she thought. When had things gotten that far?
“You were right to tell him,” Mickey insisted. Rose closed her eyes and sighed.
“I know. It just...hurts, to get that reaction.”
“Do you want the platitudes? He doesn’t deserve you if he can’t deal with it? He’s a fool? I don’t think I’d be lying if I said those, but they’re not going t’ help.” Mickey was rubbing her back with his hand now, and she leaned against his shoulder.
“No, they won’t. They might not even be true.”
“Don’t say that-” Mickey began.
“He isn’t a fool. He’s anything but a fool. And I made him feel foolish, that was the problem. I should have told him from the very beginning, like you said.” She sniffled again, feeling miserable, staring at the hotel room’s ornate carpet and going over and over every conversation she’d ever had with Peter. “But I can’t figure out when it would have been a better time to tell him. As soon as we were introduced? Obviously not. Back when we were barely talking as it was? Oh, yeah, because that would have helped matters. Before we…”
But she’d been over and over it. After the snog in the car, when he’d asked her to dinner and been so hopeful and delightful and charming? Certainly not; how could she have? He hadn’t known her then, would have backed off and never even gotten involved, and she’d wanted to go to dinner with him, damn it. On the blanket during their picnic, pointing out shapes in the clouds? Of course not. Maybe after he’d told her about Blackpool? But it had been such a meaningful moment, Peter placing such trust in her, and how could she have ruined it? There had been no good time to tell him. There had been no moment when this would have ended well. She’d been a bloody idiot for thinking otherwise. Mickey had clearly held out hope that her telling Peter would work out well; he’d been surprised to find her in this state. She briefly wondered if he’d have changed his counsel if he’d known how Peter would react.
She sighed, sitting up straight and looking at her oldest friend. “How did you do it? When you were here, all alone, when you stayed back? How were you able to do it?”
Mickey shifted, leaning back on his arms, staring at the ceiling as he thought. “It was hard. But I had an advantage-I knew who I was replacing, and Jake knew who I really was. The rest? The rest was just details. The hardest part was already taken care of. It was just a matter of Jake and me getting to know each other. I never had to put myself on the line and see if he’d still love me after.” He sat back up.
“Yeah.” Rose sighed. “Well.” She looked around the room before returning her gaze to Mickey. “Moping about it isn’t going to make the DI change his mind-and it’s going to give me a headache if I do it for too much longer. I’ll have all night and part of tomorrow to wallow, too.”
“Rose...”
“No, Mickey-it’s the DI’s problem if he can’t handle fate playing a joke. I did what I thought was right, given the circumstances, and I don’t know that doing it any other way would have made it better. Our problem is finding McGreevy so we can get the hell out of this town.” She knew there was bitterness in her voice, but she didn’t much care. All she wanted to do at the moment was to wrap things up and get away from this claustrophobic grey place.
“Right. In that case-” Mickey stood. “We had figured you’d still be up for supper, ‘s why I stopped by. We’re meeting in the lobby at seven, so you’ve got...forty-five minutes to get spruced up. ‘Damn the torpedoes’ and all that.”
Rose laughed. “I’ll find my red frock.” Her smile faded. “Thanks, Mickey. I’ll be alright.”
Mickey gave her a hug. “I know. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to kick his ass into another universe, though. He’s no right to do that to you, not when you did the right thing.” He pulled back, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “Lobby, seven o’clock. See you then.”
~ - ~
Peter finally exhausted the supply of hot water well after he’d lapsed into an emotional stupor. He’d relived every moment with Rose from the past five weeks, had examined every interaction they’d had, trying to find a clue to what had happened, why things had gone the way they did. What had he done? Where did he go wrong? The questions simply wouldn’t stop, even if his emotions had finally bottomed out.
Exhausted and shivering, he slowly turned the taps off. He stood for a few minutes in the silence, the sound of water dripping the only noise in the room; the cold dampness of the enclosed space suited his mood quite well.
He finally opened the stall door and reached for a towel, drying himself slowly as his mind mulled over what he’d learned. He hurt, physically and emotionally, from those four words; four words, said so casually, as though it wouldn’t change things between them. She had to have known. Maybe that’s what she did, played with men and then took delight in telling them that they were dead ringers for lost loves. Maybe she scouted out poor fools like him, made them feel like they’d won the lottery, and then got a rush off of yanking the rug out from under them. It was a vicious game he’d seen played before, and it would be just his luck to fall victim to such a scam.
He viciously ran the towel over his hair, his fingers raking the rough material over his scalp, trying to erase the memory of the feel of Rose’s fingers in his hair that day. He knew that wasn’t what Rose would do; had seen her struggle with telling him, seen the torment she’d felt as she wrestled with the story. She could have kept it from him indefinitely, trusting that he’d not work things out on his own, or that someone from work or her family wouldn’t let it slip at some point in the future. In her own way, she’d warned him up on the picnic blanket the night of their first date-his heart clenched painfully as he once more remembered that night. “There are...things...” she’d said. Her ‘'things’ just happened to be of a slightly greater magnitude than most other people’s things.
He threw the towel aside before padding back to his room, the cool air against his bare skin once more serving to ground him, to keep him from getting too carried away. He wanted to break things, to create a physical manifestation of the turmoil he was feeling; but all he’d be left with after that was a lot of sharp edges and no relief from the feelings he was experiencing. He’d been down that road once before, when his wife had left him, and all he’d felt after tearing the house apart was even more self-loathing at his lack of self-control.
If he was perfectly honest-if, in fact, a mate had been telling him the tale-he’d be inclined to say he was getting too wrapped up in one small detail, letting it colour everything else he’d experienced with Rose. Everything he’d seen-everything-pointed to a person who cared about others. He’d seen her bend over backwards to help not only her team, but Penington. She cared deeply for her friends, seemed exceedingly loyal to them; and she had made him genuinely laugh, something he’d thought he’d forgotten how to do. He’d thought she might care for him, quite deeply; something in her expression in the hedge that afternoon, in her eyes...
He closed his eyes, focused on keeping his breath steady. He just couldn’t be sure of how much of that was because of him, and how much of it was because of who she saw when she looked at him. The warmth in her eyes when she’d gazed up at him, the reactions of her body to his when he was near, the enthusiasm of her kisses-were they truly a reaction to him? Or were they echoes of the way she’d react to the man she lost? He felt his stomach churn at the thought of her looking at anyone else the way she’d looked at him, of kissing someone else the way she’d kissed him, and he took another deep breath.
He needed time to think, to figure out what to do so he could face her and her team with equanimity on Monday. He was, after all, a professional, even if he wasn’t sure what in the hell was going on in a relationship he may or may not be having with his co-lead investigator. There was still work to be done, and he’d be damned if he’d let this get in the way of him finishing the investigation.
He pulled on his pyjama bottoms, still laying where he’d carelessy tossed them that morning, and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. The breakfast dishes were still stacked in the sink, the dinner plates lined neatly in the drying rack where Rose had placed them; he took a deep breath, fighting the tightening in his chest as he envisioned Rose standing in front of him, limned in morning light. His chest tightened as he remembered them kissing-several times-in the small space, her body pressed against his, him fighting his desire to lay her before him and shag her senseless. He briefly felt an urge to break every piece of crockery in front of him, before tamping it down. Losing control wasn’t going to solve anything, no matter how much instant gratification it might produce.
He forced himself not to think as he tidied the dishes, removing any evidence of Rose’s presence in the kitchen. He dried the last plate, set it on top of the others with exaggerated gentleness, closed the door to the cabinet with a relieved sigh. That chore done, he made a supper of beans on toast--opting for comfort rather than nutrition.
Balancing his steaming plate and a glass of water, he made his way into the parlour. More evidence of Rose’s stay awaited him, and he set the plate and glass down with a clatter before swiping the bundled blanket aside. The throw pillow got tossed across the room, practically into the hallway, and the small vase of wildflowers followed behind, petals and water spraying across the wall and the floor as the vase landed against the pillow with a thud. He wanted no reminders of the previous night.
He was halfway through his meal when the phone rang-the mobile, not the house phone. Someone wanted to find him, and he hated himself just a little bit more for the brief hope that it was Rose on the other end of the line. He put the plate down resignedly, moving into the kitchen with haste as the tinny music of his ringtone grew louder. He glared at the caller id, his stomach dropping as he saw Penington’s name flash on the screen. This could not be good. He opened the phone with a sharp flick of his fingers.
“What?” He answered rudely, letting the frustration of the day pour onto his DC with one syllable.
“Sir, sorry to bother you. But something’s come up.”
Bugger and damn. “What is it, Penny?” His voice was still terse, but nowhere near as hostile as it had been. He felt worry clench his gut-what if something had happened to Rose...?
“The warehouse you and Miss Tyler searched is alight, sir.”
~ - ~
Chapter Twenty-six