Fic: Ambition, 2/3
Title: Ambition, 2/3
Author: Kesshin
Characters: Rose, Nine
Rating: PG-13. The F-word's in this segment, by the way... Just so you know.
Spoilers: Season one, up to 'Father's Day'
Disclaimer: I lack the creativity, heart, and/or interesting drugs necessary to come up with something like Doctor Who. But I'm working on that.
Summary: Rose and Nine have fun with cooking and creepy pseudo-butterflies. Then they talk. Or, at least they try. Some midnight escapades involving sheet-stealing sort of get in the way. It's all about as shippy as I ever get, and so very weird.
Part 1 is here----->
This Way
Part 2 is here----->
A nine-year-old Rose had once asked her mother for something educational. She hadn’t specified exactly what that something should be, except that it should be a trip somewhere.
‘Isn’t that lovely, sweetheart? Always wanted to visit the catacombs. Just never had an excuse, and now I do.’
The ‘lovely’ object in question was an ornately carved urn. The tour-guide opened it and lifted it above his bald head so everyone could see. Then he lowered it, allowing the shorter members of the tour to get a peek at the ashes inside.
“Mum, what is that?”
The tour guide answered, “That’s a genuine cremated body, pet. Much more efficient than burial.”
Rose didn’t know what ‘efficient’ was. She did, however, know what ‘cremated’ was because ‘cremated’ had happened to her dad. She threw up her lunch in a conveniently placed trashcan off the side of the tunnel.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
She stands framed in the doorway. The carpet is soft beneath her feet. One step further and that carpet will end with a precise slash and the floor will be wood. Rose doesn’t want to take that step, but she will. If she needs to.
A nine-year-old Rose once visited her mother’s room in the middle of the night. Several times, actually, but this particular time took place after their trip to the catacombs.
“What is it, Mum?”
There was a break in the sobbing.
Two small feet, size three, pattered over to the frilly old bed. She laid her head in her mother’s lap and hugged the leg-shaped bulges that puckered the covers.
A laugh sparked in the darkness. It was tired but very alive, raw, “Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry. You know that, don’t you?”
A hand rested atop Rose’s head, “You know that, right? I didn’t think,” another laugh, “at all, really. I miss him.”
Rose hugged harder.
“Hello?”
Right, then. That makes it two times she’s tried talking. That just leaves shouting and physical contact. She tells herself that it isn’t right to shout, what with the Tardis humming peacefully in the background and darkness flowing along the halls like the Doctor’s spilled his ink again. He never does want to use ballpoint pens. It has to be the fountain kind. He looks absolutely ridiculous, lanky man with a leather jacket scribbling away. Letting a dusty feather brush against his nose because he has to bend that close to the paper… She really is getting sleepy. And nervous.
It will be much more gentle if she touches his shoulder. Maybe shake him a bit.
With that resolution made, her foot makes that decisive step of its own off of carpet and onto wood and Rose is in the Doctor’s room.
Pillars support a ceiling that could hold two stories’ worth of apartments. The few decorations present are mostly architectural, tasteful. All arches and glass and statues of odd little things, newspapers and books lying about. Something resembling moonlight streams in from a casement. It’s like a loft from the better part of New York City had a short but heart-felt affair with a gutted Greek temple.
The room is cold; the bed is in the exact center. Rose tiptoes forward and feels nine years old again. It can’t hurt to try talking one more time, she thinks. Then she stops thinking because she can see him now.
He sleeps in sheets and nothing else. His face is still, the blank slate that becomes painted with expression when he’s awake. In sleep that face is positively regal, with only the slightest, bitter wrinkle about the brow betraying turmoil underneath. She wants to press a finger to that wrinkle so she does.
He shifts. The press becomes a poke.
“You sleep in the nude?”
Slowly, his eyes open. He blinks. He raises the sheets with a languid hand.
“Oh. Well, yes. Never took you for the briefs kind. Sorry. But, they are white. I just thought, with the sheets…”
“What do you want, Rose?”
“I was hoping you could put the sheet back down, that’s a priority.”
He does.
“I was also hoping that you could answer my question.”
His face stiffens. “Yeah, sorry; I’m a little busy right now,” The Doctor puts his head back onto the pillow, wincing as he eases further under the covers, “R.E.M.ing and all that,” his eyes close, “Sleep’s good for the brain, Rose. Everyone should get all they can.”
She watches his breathing even out. Watches his chest rise and fall. It’s time for her to leave, she knows.
“Graah!”
The sheets make a most satisfying swishing sound as they’re ripped into the air. You could chill a sun with how coolly he takes it.
“Rose?” he says, so calm.
“Yes?”
“Do you mind?”
“Oh, I do, rather.”
“Right, then.”
Sadly, the Doctor underestimates his Under-Sevens-Gymnastics-Bronze-Medal-Winning traveling companion. She’s pretty fast.
She leaves him grabbing vainly at empty air while his liberated sheets caper off out the door and into other parts of the Tardis.
He watches her leave. Annoyance overtakes him for all of fifteen seconds until gravity catches up. His outstretched arms tip forward, and he lands on the floor.
Annoyance leaves, and he’s grateful instead, that she’s not there.
A familiar pain wracks his body. He’s very cold. It’s all he can do to not cry out, so he swears. There are some bits of Gallifreyan that the Tardis is reluctant to translate. He says all of those. It’s all finished off by a bit of English that she doesn’t have to translate. Just to be polite.
“Fuck.”
“I was going to say ‘you wish,’ but you started crying.”
She’d been watching from behind the doorpost for minutes now. It irks him that he didn’t notice. At the moment he is a little busy trying to ignore two things. One is that he is mostly naked. The other is that Rose is hugging him. Separate, those things are not problems at all because he rather enjoys the freedom of going ‘all natural’ and he certainly enjoys the occasional hug from Rose. It’s just that the two don’t mix.
“Am not,” he says belatedly, “More importantly, where are my sheets?”
“Yes you are and God, you’re a block of ice. I’d better get you a proper blanket…”
“Rose,” he breaks the hug and his hands circle either of her arms, iron bands, “My sheets.”
She knows that look, and the weight it carries. “Okay.”
He’s left freezing on the floor while she retrieves the sheets. Upon her return she wraps them around the Doctor like he’s some sort of half-baked mummy. Then it’s back to business.
“Why are you-” she begins. He stops her.
“You want me to be clear? This is about as clear as I can get, you ready? I do not want to talk about it.”
“Why?”
He disguises a groan of pain with a sigh, “Oh, that’s you, isn’t it? You can’t be content with the way things are, just have to analyze everything to bits.”
He stands. The pain gets sharper and the sheets tangle in his spindly legs, “All those questions.”
There is the sound of feet stumbling and cloth tearing. For the second time in as many minutes, the Doctor falls. Rose keeps him from landing on his face. Barely. She’s flushed with adrenaline and a little fear as she helps him lean against the bed. Her voice trips over itself.
“And here I thought you liked questions.”
The last thing he’d wanted was for her to see him cry. So much for that. But beneath even that is something worse, a thing that he will never, ever want.
The Doctor watches the dewy wetness appear around her eyes with a sort of horror.
“Rose, I’m fine. I really- look, it’s…”
“It’s what?”
“It’s-” the words won’t come. He tries again, “It’s just gruesome and unpleasant and, above all, incredibly uncomfortable.”
“So’s a bad case of the flu!”
“Then that’s what I have, Gallifreyan flu. Naturally superior to the human variety.”
“So it turns you into an icicle and makes you fall over?”
“Yes.”
“Makes you cry?”
“With joy.”
“Not because you’re racked with hideous cramps and muscle spasms?”
“Wouldn’t say so, no.”
“Doctor!”
“Rose!”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Doctor! Tell me what’s wrong!”
When he doesn’t answer, she sits beside him, back against the bed. Her shoulder touches his shoulder. She lets some warmth bleed into him and hopes it does some good.
“I just came to ask about the sodding butterflies, anyway.”
“Don’t sulk,” he says. Don’t cry, he thinks. She’s looking more pissed off than melancholy at the moment. That is a step forward. Or sideways, at least. He likes sideways. He considers.
They watch the pseudo-moonlight creep across the room.
“Well, fine.”
“’Fine’, what?”
“Fine,” he grumbles, twisting his sheet-cocooned body to face her. Two lithe, pale, and obscenely cold arms untangle themselves. He grabs her toasty little frame with vigor. She feels like a hot bath in winter, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever let go.
“And by that I mean that I’ll indulge your ambition.”
She shudders. That could be a sign of discomfort or disgust or hypothermia or… something. It’s too early for hypothermia, anyway.
“My curiosity, you mean?”
He sets his forehead against her forehead. His is cream-colored. Hers is turning a fascinating shade of magenta.
“Have you ever seen a cat, Rose?”
-
__
- To be continued...
Author: Kesshin
Characters: Rose, Nine
Rating: PG-13. The F-word's in this segment, by the way... Just so you know.
Spoilers: Season one, up to 'Father's Day'
Disclaimer: I lack the creativity, heart, and/or interesting drugs necessary to come up with something like Doctor Who. But I'm working on that.
Summary: Rose and Nine have fun with cooking and creepy pseudo-butterflies. Then they talk. Or, at least they try. Some midnight escapades involving sheet-stealing sort of get in the way. It's all about as shippy as I ever get, and so very weird.
Part 1 is here----->
This Way
Part 2 is here----->
A nine-year-old Rose had once asked her mother for something educational. She hadn’t specified exactly what that something should be, except that it should be a trip somewhere.
‘Isn’t that lovely, sweetheart? Always wanted to visit the catacombs. Just never had an excuse, and now I do.’
The ‘lovely’ object in question was an ornately carved urn. The tour-guide opened it and lifted it above his bald head so everyone could see. Then he lowered it, allowing the shorter members of the tour to get a peek at the ashes inside.
“Mum, what is that?”
The tour guide answered, “That’s a genuine cremated body, pet. Much more efficient than burial.”
Rose didn’t know what ‘efficient’ was. She did, however, know what ‘cremated’ was because ‘cremated’ had happened to her dad. She threw up her lunch in a conveniently placed trashcan off the side of the tunnel.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
She stands framed in the doorway. The carpet is soft beneath her feet. One step further and that carpet will end with a precise slash and the floor will be wood. Rose doesn’t want to take that step, but she will. If she needs to.
A nine-year-old Rose once visited her mother’s room in the middle of the night. Several times, actually, but this particular time took place after their trip to the catacombs.
“What is it, Mum?”
There was a break in the sobbing.
Two small feet, size three, pattered over to the frilly old bed. She laid her head in her mother’s lap and hugged the leg-shaped bulges that puckered the covers.
A laugh sparked in the darkness. It was tired but very alive, raw, “Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry. You know that, don’t you?”
A hand rested atop Rose’s head, “You know that, right? I didn’t think,” another laugh, “at all, really. I miss him.”
Rose hugged harder.
“Hello?”
Right, then. That makes it two times she’s tried talking. That just leaves shouting and physical contact. She tells herself that it isn’t right to shout, what with the Tardis humming peacefully in the background and darkness flowing along the halls like the Doctor’s spilled his ink again. He never does want to use ballpoint pens. It has to be the fountain kind. He looks absolutely ridiculous, lanky man with a leather jacket scribbling away. Letting a dusty feather brush against his nose because he has to bend that close to the paper… She really is getting sleepy. And nervous.
It will be much more gentle if she touches his shoulder. Maybe shake him a bit.
With that resolution made, her foot makes that decisive step of its own off of carpet and onto wood and Rose is in the Doctor’s room.
Pillars support a ceiling that could hold two stories’ worth of apartments. The few decorations present are mostly architectural, tasteful. All arches and glass and statues of odd little things, newspapers and books lying about. Something resembling moonlight streams in from a casement. It’s like a loft from the better part of New York City had a short but heart-felt affair with a gutted Greek temple.
The room is cold; the bed is in the exact center. Rose tiptoes forward and feels nine years old again. It can’t hurt to try talking one more time, she thinks. Then she stops thinking because she can see him now.
He sleeps in sheets and nothing else. His face is still, the blank slate that becomes painted with expression when he’s awake. In sleep that face is positively regal, with only the slightest, bitter wrinkle about the brow betraying turmoil underneath. She wants to press a finger to that wrinkle so she does.
He shifts. The press becomes a poke.
“You sleep in the nude?”
Slowly, his eyes open. He blinks. He raises the sheets with a languid hand.
“Oh. Well, yes. Never took you for the briefs kind. Sorry. But, they are white. I just thought, with the sheets…”
“What do you want, Rose?”
“I was hoping you could put the sheet back down, that’s a priority.”
He does.
“I was also hoping that you could answer my question.”
His face stiffens. “Yeah, sorry; I’m a little busy right now,” The Doctor puts his head back onto the pillow, wincing as he eases further under the covers, “R.E.M.ing and all that,” his eyes close, “Sleep’s good for the brain, Rose. Everyone should get all they can.”
She watches his breathing even out. Watches his chest rise and fall. It’s time for her to leave, she knows.
“Graah!”
The sheets make a most satisfying swishing sound as they’re ripped into the air. You could chill a sun with how coolly he takes it.
“Rose?” he says, so calm.
“Yes?”
“Do you mind?”
“Oh, I do, rather.”
“Right, then.”
Sadly, the Doctor underestimates his Under-Sevens-Gymnastics-Bronze-Medal-Winning traveling companion. She’s pretty fast.
She leaves him grabbing vainly at empty air while his liberated sheets caper off out the door and into other parts of the Tardis.
He watches her leave. Annoyance overtakes him for all of fifteen seconds until gravity catches up. His outstretched arms tip forward, and he lands on the floor.
Annoyance leaves, and he’s grateful instead, that she’s not there.
A familiar pain wracks his body. He’s very cold. It’s all he can do to not cry out, so he swears. There are some bits of Gallifreyan that the Tardis is reluctant to translate. He says all of those. It’s all finished off by a bit of English that she doesn’t have to translate. Just to be polite.
“Fuck.”
“I was going to say ‘you wish,’ but you started crying.”
She’d been watching from behind the doorpost for minutes now. It irks him that he didn’t notice. At the moment he is a little busy trying to ignore two things. One is that he is mostly naked. The other is that Rose is hugging him. Separate, those things are not problems at all because he rather enjoys the freedom of going ‘all natural’ and he certainly enjoys the occasional hug from Rose. It’s just that the two don’t mix.
“Am not,” he says belatedly, “More importantly, where are my sheets?”
“Yes you are and God, you’re a block of ice. I’d better get you a proper blanket…”
“Rose,” he breaks the hug and his hands circle either of her arms, iron bands, “My sheets.”
She knows that look, and the weight it carries. “Okay.”
He’s left freezing on the floor while she retrieves the sheets. Upon her return she wraps them around the Doctor like he’s some sort of half-baked mummy. Then it’s back to business.
“Why are you-” she begins. He stops her.
“You want me to be clear? This is about as clear as I can get, you ready? I do not want to talk about it.”
“Why?”
He disguises a groan of pain with a sigh, “Oh, that’s you, isn’t it? You can’t be content with the way things are, just have to analyze everything to bits.”
He stands. The pain gets sharper and the sheets tangle in his spindly legs, “All those questions.”
There is the sound of feet stumbling and cloth tearing. For the second time in as many minutes, the Doctor falls. Rose keeps him from landing on his face. Barely. She’s flushed with adrenaline and a little fear as she helps him lean against the bed. Her voice trips over itself.
“And here I thought you liked questions.”
The last thing he’d wanted was for her to see him cry. So much for that. But beneath even that is something worse, a thing that he will never, ever want.
The Doctor watches the dewy wetness appear around her eyes with a sort of horror.
“Rose, I’m fine. I really- look, it’s…”
“It’s what?”
“It’s-” the words won’t come. He tries again, “It’s just gruesome and unpleasant and, above all, incredibly uncomfortable.”
“So’s a bad case of the flu!”
“Then that’s what I have, Gallifreyan flu. Naturally superior to the human variety.”
“So it turns you into an icicle and makes you fall over?”
“Yes.”
“Makes you cry?”
“With joy.”
“Not because you’re racked with hideous cramps and muscle spasms?”
“Wouldn’t say so, no.”
“Doctor!”
“Rose!”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Doctor! Tell me what’s wrong!”
When he doesn’t answer, she sits beside him, back against the bed. Her shoulder touches his shoulder. She lets some warmth bleed into him and hopes it does some good.
“I just came to ask about the sodding butterflies, anyway.”
“Don’t sulk,” he says. Don’t cry, he thinks. She’s looking more pissed off than melancholy at the moment. That is a step forward. Or sideways, at least. He likes sideways. He considers.
They watch the pseudo-moonlight creep across the room.
“Well, fine.”
“’Fine’, what?”
“Fine,” he grumbles, twisting his sheet-cocooned body to face her. Two lithe, pale, and obscenely cold arms untangle themselves. He grabs her toasty little frame with vigor. She feels like a hot bath in winter, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever let go.
“And by that I mean that I’ll indulge your ambition.”
She shudders. That could be a sign of discomfort or disgust or hypothermia or… something. It’s too early for hypothermia, anyway.
“My curiosity, you mean?”
He sets his forehead against her forehead. His is cream-colored. Hers is turning a fascinating shade of magenta.
“Have you ever seen a cat, Rose?”
-
__
- To be continued...