18coda (Lebensstürme) - Whispers Muted In Space
Title: Whispers Muted In Space
Author: lone_wulffe
Theme: nocturne
Fandom: Doctor Who
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Doctor Who does not belong to me in any fashion or form, and neither do I have any claim over the quoted song.
Summary/Comments: [Nine/Rose, mentions Ten/Rose] Set post-World War Three, with mentions of School Reunion and a line in Fear Her.
I need you now
Do you think you can cope?
You figured me out - that I'm lost and I'm hopeless
I'm bleeding and broken, though I've never spoken
I come undone in this mad season
- Matchbox 20, Mad Season
"I thought you said the TARDIS translates everything," Rose's voice floats from the corridor, her entry into the control room heralded by her footfalls on the metal grating.
The Doctor doesn't spare her a glance, buried as he is under the console and his attention focused on the repairs he has to complete before they can resume their travels. "Sure she does. Why d'you ask? And I thought you were s'posed to be wasting a few hours of your life in dreamland."
"Couldn't sleep," comes her simple admission as her footsteps halt at the jumpseat, the sound replaced by a soft shuffling noise as she makes herself comfortable. "Went looking for something to read in the library when I found this book full of these weird circles." His hands still immediately at her description, and he's beginning to suspect he knows exactly what she's talking about. "It obviously isn't any sort of English I know so I thought I'd ask you if you knew anything about it."
Forcing his hands to resume their work, he takes in an unnecessary breath to gain some control over himself before he gives her an answer. "Just... gimme a mo'," he manages to get out, silently congratulating himself when his voice is only a little rougher than it would have been otherwise. Eventually, however, he runs out of things to fix - delays, if he's being honest, but he hasn't been that in a while and he doesn't feel like starting now - and finally it's time to stand up and face Rose, wondering just what he's willing to tell her and how much.
However before he can even get a word out, she's already started talking. "'S your language, isn't it?" she asks quietly from her place on the jumpseat, her eyes searching his for... what, he does not want to know. He clicks his jaw shut, and she takes his silence as a sign to continue. "I thought they looked familiar, and I realised why as I sat here waitin' for you." She nods her head at the TARDIS's console, and he knows without turning his head that she's indicating the scraps of paper stuck all over the place. "Figured they were diagrams or somethin' when I first saw 'em, but they're actually your notes, aren't they?"
Clever girl, his Rose; it's part of why he asked her to join him after all. But before he can say anything - if he could have thought of something to say - she cuts him off. "'M sorry," she murmurs, her words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush even as she hops off the seat, unwilling to meet his eyes. "I didn't mean- I mean, if I'd known..." she trails off, eventually giving up with a huff of frustration when the words seem to elude her and just hugs the book closer to her chest. "I'll just... put this back and try to sleep."
"Rose." His utterance of her name is enough to halt her in her tracks, and she turns to meet his gaze with her hesitant one. He silently beckons her back to the jumpseat even as he moves to sit down. It's just big enough for them, their arms bumping each other and the book that started this turn of events resting on her lap. Still quiet, he can feel her watching him as he draws a breath he doesn't really need and tries to release the tension that has his body in a vice-like grip. The sensation of her hand slipping into his to entwine their fingers - already familiar in such a short time - distracts him, and when he turns to look at her he sees his pain reflected in her eyes.
"I won't ask if you don't want me to," she says softly as she squeezes the hand she's holding. It's an out, and he really should take it. Instead he finds himself asking her if she'd like to learn how to write and say her name in his language, an offer that surprises both of them. Before he even realises it he's guiding her hand to trace circles across the book's cover and listening as she tries to repeat after him, the chiming sound of his native tongue both pricking and mending his still-fresh wounds at the same time. When a particularly large yawn breaks off her latest successful attempt, he nudges her off to bed. Watching her disappear into her room as she wishes him a mumbled goodnight, he thinks that that should be the end of it.
Except... it becomes something of a little ritual as time passes, these moments floating in the vortex where he finds himself telling her in hushed tones tiny inconsequential things - the sight of Gallifrey's twin suns rising, the colour of its grass, the shining towers of his people - while they sit together holding hands. (Much later when he wears pinstripes and a different face and she's met Sarah Jane, he tells her about those he's shared time and space with before her. The night after the Isolus incident he finally tells her about Susan as the fireworks roar outside the TARDIS in contrast to the quietness inside.) He talks about anything and everything until she nods off, pressed against him and having fought off sleep to the very end like the stubborn little ape that she is.
It is these moments that he tells her things he cannot bring himself to admit to her when she is conscious - that he's so very grateful she stays with him despite the danger, that she saves him every time she takes his hand and smiles at him, that he needs her so much it terrifies him. He whispers these truths into her ear and at the fringes of her mind, and when she curls into him and her thoughts seem to reach out for him it almost feels like absolution.
Around them the TARDIS sings, weaving fragments of their time shared into her song to keep for all eternity, their little secrets safe against the deafening silence of the oblivion beyond.
Author: lone_wulffe
Theme: nocturne
Fandom: Doctor Who
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Doctor Who does not belong to me in any fashion or form, and neither do I have any claim over the quoted song.
Summary/Comments: [Nine/Rose, mentions Ten/Rose] Set post-World War Three, with mentions of School Reunion and a line in Fear Her.
I need you now
Do you think you can cope?
You figured me out - that I'm lost and I'm hopeless
I'm bleeding and broken, though I've never spoken
I come undone in this mad season
- Matchbox 20, Mad Season
"I thought you said the TARDIS translates everything," Rose's voice floats from the corridor, her entry into the control room heralded by her footfalls on the metal grating.
The Doctor doesn't spare her a glance, buried as he is under the console and his attention focused on the repairs he has to complete before they can resume their travels. "Sure she does. Why d'you ask? And I thought you were s'posed to be wasting a few hours of your life in dreamland."
"Couldn't sleep," comes her simple admission as her footsteps halt at the jumpseat, the sound replaced by a soft shuffling noise as she makes herself comfortable. "Went looking for something to read in the library when I found this book full of these weird circles." His hands still immediately at her description, and he's beginning to suspect he knows exactly what she's talking about. "It obviously isn't any sort of English I know so I thought I'd ask you if you knew anything about it."
Forcing his hands to resume their work, he takes in an unnecessary breath to gain some control over himself before he gives her an answer. "Just... gimme a mo'," he manages to get out, silently congratulating himself when his voice is only a little rougher than it would have been otherwise. Eventually, however, he runs out of things to fix - delays, if he's being honest, but he hasn't been that in a while and he doesn't feel like starting now - and finally it's time to stand up and face Rose, wondering just what he's willing to tell her and how much.
However before he can even get a word out, she's already started talking. "'S your language, isn't it?" she asks quietly from her place on the jumpseat, her eyes searching his for... what, he does not want to know. He clicks his jaw shut, and she takes his silence as a sign to continue. "I thought they looked familiar, and I realised why as I sat here waitin' for you." She nods her head at the TARDIS's console, and he knows without turning his head that she's indicating the scraps of paper stuck all over the place. "Figured they were diagrams or somethin' when I first saw 'em, but they're actually your notes, aren't they?"
Clever girl, his Rose; it's part of why he asked her to join him after all. But before he can say anything - if he could have thought of something to say - she cuts him off. "'M sorry," she murmurs, her words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush even as she hops off the seat, unwilling to meet his eyes. "I didn't mean- I mean, if I'd known..." she trails off, eventually giving up with a huff of frustration when the words seem to elude her and just hugs the book closer to her chest. "I'll just... put this back and try to sleep."
"Rose." His utterance of her name is enough to halt her in her tracks, and she turns to meet his gaze with her hesitant one. He silently beckons her back to the jumpseat even as he moves to sit down. It's just big enough for them, their arms bumping each other and the book that started this turn of events resting on her lap. Still quiet, he can feel her watching him as he draws a breath he doesn't really need and tries to release the tension that has his body in a vice-like grip. The sensation of her hand slipping into his to entwine their fingers - already familiar in such a short time - distracts him, and when he turns to look at her he sees his pain reflected in her eyes.
"I won't ask if you don't want me to," she says softly as she squeezes the hand she's holding. It's an out, and he really should take it. Instead he finds himself asking her if she'd like to learn how to write and say her name in his language, an offer that surprises both of them. Before he even realises it he's guiding her hand to trace circles across the book's cover and listening as she tries to repeat after him, the chiming sound of his native tongue both pricking and mending his still-fresh wounds at the same time. When a particularly large yawn breaks off her latest successful attempt, he nudges her off to bed. Watching her disappear into her room as she wishes him a mumbled goodnight, he thinks that that should be the end of it.
Except... it becomes something of a little ritual as time passes, these moments floating in the vortex where he finds himself telling her in hushed tones tiny inconsequential things - the sight of Gallifrey's twin suns rising, the colour of its grass, the shining towers of his people - while they sit together holding hands. (Much later when he wears pinstripes and a different face and she's met Sarah Jane, he tells her about those he's shared time and space with before her. The night after the Isolus incident he finally tells her about Susan as the fireworks roar outside the TARDIS in contrast to the quietness inside.) He talks about anything and everything until she nods off, pressed against him and having fought off sleep to the very end like the stubborn little ape that she is.
It is these moments that he tells her things he cannot bring himself to admit to her when she is conscious - that he's so very grateful she stays with him despite the danger, that she saves him every time she takes his hand and smiles at him, that he needs her so much it terrifies him. He whispers these truths into her ear and at the fringes of her mind, and when she curls into him and her thoughts seem to reach out for him it almost feels like absolution.
Around them the TARDIS sings, weaving fragments of their time shared into her song to keep for all eternity, their little secrets safe against the deafening silence of the oblivion beyond.