Fic - Tales Told in a Minor Key Part Three
Title: Tales Told in a Minor Key
Author: larielromeniel
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: G for this chapter
Third Vignette: All That We Love Deeply
Doomsday is fixed, and the Doctor takes Rose home. This story is part of my Tracking Torchwood series, but it's not strictly necessary to have read that to understand this vignette.
Author’s note: Over the past few weeks, I’ve been visiting my late mother’s home, sifting through memories. Between that and the recent death of David Tennant’s mother, this story demanded to be written. Unbeta’d, so all errors are my own.
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations are NOT MINE and I make no money from this.
Previous vignettes
You Go To My Head
Elegy
One of Dad’s bowling trophies, liberated from the cupboard.
A pair of dangly pearl earrings. Not real, of course, but the best Mum could afford for her wedding.
A photo album bound in brown leather.
Fragments of a life interrupted.
Rose looked over the small collection of mementoes she’d gathered in the flat. This place had been her whole world once. Now it was distilled to just a few trinkets.
Once the Doctor decided she’d recovered enough to take the TARDIS out of the Vortex, she asked him to take her home for a little while. “I don’t want strangers going through Mum’s things,” she’d said.
So he’d taken her home, setting the time coordinates for a couple of days after Canary Wharf. He went out into London with Jack and Madhukar to discreetly check on the aftermath, leaving her alone to sift through old memories.
Her gaze fell on the tiny bottle made of bezoolium. Rose sniffled a little as she remembered the day she brought that home. The day her whole world got turned inside out.
Blinking rapidly to try to keep the tears away, she looked around and spotted the newspaper the Doctor had picked up from the doorstep. Unfolding it, she read the headline blazoned across the top: Death Toll Rises From Battle of Canary Wharf. Below that, in smaller print: List of the dead begins on Page Three.
She opened the paper and flinched when she saw Yvonne Hartmann’s face smiling up at her from the middle. There were a few lines about Yvonne’s career as director of Torchwood, all a careful fabrication with nothing to indicate that she was the reason for the whole list in the first place.
There were other pictures scattered within the grey columns of names. Some of them had short obituaries; something to let people know that they were loved, that they’d made a difference somehow.
Rose flipped through the pages, so many pages. She froze when she saw her own picture on one of them. Rose Tyler, 20, Powell Estates, missing, presumed dead.. And just above it, Jackie Tyler, 40, Powell Estates, missing, presumed dead.
Nothing more than that. Just the names. The paper probably had her picture from that year when everyone thought she’d been kidnapped. But nothing more than that.
Now the tears did come.
The outside door opened. “I sent the others to go check on Downing Street. And your mother’s goldfish have a new home,” the Doctor said, coming in. “The little boy three doors down was happy to take them-Rose?”
She couldn’t answer him. She was gasping for air through sobs, and she didn’t know why. We said goodbye. We said everything there was to say. Mum is happy. Why am I crying?
Arms enfolded her and cool lips were pressed to her forehead. “It’s all right, Rose. Go ahead and cry. You need this.”
She let him lead her over to the sofa. They sank down onto it, and she leaned into him, still weeping. He just held her, one hand making small circles on her back.
After a while, she felt wrung dry of tears. She pulled back from the Doctor’s shoulder to see him gazing at her tenderly. “Feeling better?” he asked softly, pulling a handkerchief from his jacket pocket.
She nodded as she dabbed at her eyes. “Yeah. Dunno why I started bawling like that. I think I just…” she hiccupped, and went on, “I think I just realized that while Mum is still alive, and happy, for me she may as well be dead. I’m never gonna see her again, or Dad. I’m never gonna have more of them than this.” She motioned at the items she’d collected around the flat.
His eyes followed her gesture, then returned to her. “Oh, Rose. These are just things. You have so much more than that. You have all the memories and all the love you shared. That will always be there, whether you’re inches away from each other or a universe away.” He reached out and cupped her cheek. “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. Helen Keller. Blind, but she saw more clearly than most stupid apes.”
He said it with such affection that she laughed a little and snuggled back into his arms. “She was right. You’re a part of me,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head. “Oh, I know.”
Author: larielromeniel
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: G for this chapter
Third Vignette: All That We Love Deeply
Doomsday is fixed, and the Doctor takes Rose home. This story is part of my Tracking Torchwood series, but it's not strictly necessary to have read that to understand this vignette.
Author’s note: Over the past few weeks, I’ve been visiting my late mother’s home, sifting through memories. Between that and the recent death of David Tennant’s mother, this story demanded to be written. Unbeta’d, so all errors are my own.
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations are NOT MINE and I make no money from this.
Previous vignettes
You Go To My Head
Elegy
One of Dad’s bowling trophies, liberated from the cupboard.
A pair of dangly pearl earrings. Not real, of course, but the best Mum could afford for her wedding.
A photo album bound in brown leather.
Fragments of a life interrupted.
Rose looked over the small collection of mementoes she’d gathered in the flat. This place had been her whole world once. Now it was distilled to just a few trinkets.
Once the Doctor decided she’d recovered enough to take the TARDIS out of the Vortex, she asked him to take her home for a little while. “I don’t want strangers going through Mum’s things,” she’d said.
So he’d taken her home, setting the time coordinates for a couple of days after Canary Wharf. He went out into London with Jack and Madhukar to discreetly check on the aftermath, leaving her alone to sift through old memories.
Her gaze fell on the tiny bottle made of bezoolium. Rose sniffled a little as she remembered the day she brought that home. The day her whole world got turned inside out.
Blinking rapidly to try to keep the tears away, she looked around and spotted the newspaper the Doctor had picked up from the doorstep. Unfolding it, she read the headline blazoned across the top: Death Toll Rises From Battle of Canary Wharf. Below that, in smaller print: List of the dead begins on Page Three.
She opened the paper and flinched when she saw Yvonne Hartmann’s face smiling up at her from the middle. There were a few lines about Yvonne’s career as director of Torchwood, all a careful fabrication with nothing to indicate that she was the reason for the whole list in the first place.
There were other pictures scattered within the grey columns of names. Some of them had short obituaries; something to let people know that they were loved, that they’d made a difference somehow.
Rose flipped through the pages, so many pages. She froze when she saw her own picture on one of them. Rose Tyler, 20, Powell Estates, missing, presumed dead.. And just above it, Jackie Tyler, 40, Powell Estates, missing, presumed dead.
Nothing more than that. Just the names. The paper probably had her picture from that year when everyone thought she’d been kidnapped. But nothing more than that.
Now the tears did come.
The outside door opened. “I sent the others to go check on Downing Street. And your mother’s goldfish have a new home,” the Doctor said, coming in. “The little boy three doors down was happy to take them-Rose?”
She couldn’t answer him. She was gasping for air through sobs, and she didn’t know why. We said goodbye. We said everything there was to say. Mum is happy. Why am I crying?
Arms enfolded her and cool lips were pressed to her forehead. “It’s all right, Rose. Go ahead and cry. You need this.”
She let him lead her over to the sofa. They sank down onto it, and she leaned into him, still weeping. He just held her, one hand making small circles on her back.
After a while, she felt wrung dry of tears. She pulled back from the Doctor’s shoulder to see him gazing at her tenderly. “Feeling better?” he asked softly, pulling a handkerchief from his jacket pocket.
She nodded as she dabbed at her eyes. “Yeah. Dunno why I started bawling like that. I think I just…” she hiccupped, and went on, “I think I just realized that while Mum is still alive, and happy, for me she may as well be dead. I’m never gonna see her again, or Dad. I’m never gonna have more of them than this.” She motioned at the items she’d collected around the flat.
His eyes followed her gesture, then returned to her. “Oh, Rose. These are just things. You have so much more than that. You have all the memories and all the love you shared. That will always be there, whether you’re inches away from each other or a universe away.” He reached out and cupped her cheek. “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. Helen Keller. Blind, but she saw more clearly than most stupid apes.”
He said it with such affection that she laughed a little and snuggled back into his arms. “She was right. You’re a part of me,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head. “Oh, I know.”