The Dark Intestine
Title: The Dark Intestine
Series: Journeys in the In-Between
Characters: Ten/Rose
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot!
Warnings: PG
Notes: Sequel to Honey Trap. Set during Doomsday.
Adam ate the apple.
Eve ate Adam.
The serpent ate Eve.
This is the dark intestine.
Ted Hughes, "Theology"
1. The Ant-Hill and Clock's Dial
Now you have peace Hamlet you accomplished what you had to
and you have peace The rest is not silence but belongs to me
you chose the easier part an elegant thrust
but what is heroic death compared with eternal watching
with a cold apple in one's hand on a narrow chair
with a view of the ant-hill and clock's dial
From: "Elegy of Fortinbras" - Zbignew Herbert, translated by Czeslaw Milosz
The Doctor rested his forehead against the wall. She was gone. For a moment, a moment that would live forever, like a razor blade in his soul, he felt her, felt her anguished cry, her hurt, her fury, her love, and then it was gone and he was alone. He was totally alone.
He knew he needed to move, although he had no desire to deal with what came next - the questions, the authorities, the forms and the slow seep of banal reality. He was leaden. Limbs, hearts, nothing worked but by autonomic impulse. If he could will it, they would cease because, as he stood there, the yawning white before him, he knew - death would have been easier than this. He did not fear death - he and death were old acquaintances. He’d known grief, he’d known loss, he’d known death. This - he did not know this. This was not just loss. This was… this was more. This was… he did not have the words to comprehend what this was.
He pushed away from the wall, turning his back on it.
Her death would have meant his death, of that he was entirely certain, whether in the void or in careless disregard, it would have come. But this? How was he supposed to survive this? Watching time move forward, knowing she was out there, living, but without him.
He’d thought he could do it, had been prepared to, as he’d lowered the yellow button over her head. He’d looked into Jackie’s eyes and seen that she understood the choice that needed to be made. He’d promised, to put her first, to be worthy of the trust Jackie had placed in him. Jackie would have given up Pete to stay with Rose, to let him keep Rose, and he’d seen then the clarity of the sacrifice that had to be made. And so he’d made it.
He’d wanted her safe, but the moment she’d gone he’d understood the true import of that choice for him. He’d known it would wound him, he wasn’t a fool, but he’d had no concept of just how much. He’d felt like his hearts where being torn apart, the sudden cessation of Rose within his mind and soul, like a physical hurt assaulting every part of his body with fiery pain. He’d felt it before, after Gallifrey, but he had never imagined Rose had become so much to him that the loss of her would render him so bereft. He should have known - he’d made her home, after all - but it seemed he was doomed to only partial sight when it came to her.
When she’d come back, it had been like the lights had suddenly been turned back on, sending the monsters scurrying back to their dark corners. He’d tried to force her away, brutal truth barked at her through his acute relief, so intense it burned him, but she’d simply bent like a reed before his tempest, leaching back inside him like a caress. His terrified rage had yielded to her gentle touch, smothered by the sensation of her soft strength. Time and the TARDIS had sung with him, both captured in the whirlwind of his relieved joy. But he’d been blind. The moment had distracted him from the beyond. She had fallen. The doors had slammed shut and the monsters were freed once more, cavorting freely, for everything was shadow now.
Aware of nothing but absence, the Doctor walked slowly away from the wall. Around him, the eddies of Time twisted and turned, but he brushed through them, unseeing, unsensing. The future was as ashes in his mouth - everything had come to dust, as he had always known it would. There was no triumph in I told you so, though - he would have given his remaining lives to have been wrong. Instead, he would spend them incomplete.
‘Help us! Please!’
He stepped through the debris, the dead, the dying, the part converted and the grieving as if they were not there. He’d saved them. Saved two worlds. The price had been too high. He had no help left to give.
*************
The TARDIS was still. Caught from the negligent corner of a straying eye, it was what it had become - a forlorn, worn, ravaged wooden box, old in years and older still in care. She slumped where she had been left, tucked into a corner that smelt of stale sweat and fag ends. Normally, she shone out, not diminished by the seedy holes into which she was shoehorned, but no longer. In the half-light of the shaded corner, beside a wall blown out by gunfire, she shrank in upon herself. A curl of paint slowly fell, drifting to lay amidst the detritus of London’s Torchwood, as the smells of neglect slithered up her exposed sides, clinging to the fractures, exploiting the grief that had breached her splendid isolation.
Her little wolf was lost.
A key in her lock, a heavy step on the grating - she was insensible, until the swell of grief rose up to meet her own, twisting in the air above her still rotor, creating a new song.
Into the wail, a lament.
‘I lost her!’
There were no more words.
Time moved forward. The Doctor and his TARDIS did not.
Chapter Two
Series: Journeys in the In-Between
Characters: Ten/Rose
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot!
Warnings: PG
Notes: Sequel to Honey Trap. Set during Doomsday.
Adam ate the apple.
Eve ate Adam.
The serpent ate Eve.
This is the dark intestine.
Ted Hughes, "Theology"
1. The Ant-Hill and Clock's Dial
Now you have peace Hamlet you accomplished what you had to
and you have peace The rest is not silence but belongs to me
you chose the easier part an elegant thrust
but what is heroic death compared with eternal watching
with a cold apple in one's hand on a narrow chair
with a view of the ant-hill and clock's dial
From: "Elegy of Fortinbras" - Zbignew Herbert, translated by Czeslaw Milosz
The Doctor rested his forehead against the wall. She was gone. For a moment, a moment that would live forever, like a razor blade in his soul, he felt her, felt her anguished cry, her hurt, her fury, her love, and then it was gone and he was alone. He was totally alone.
He knew he needed to move, although he had no desire to deal with what came next - the questions, the authorities, the forms and the slow seep of banal reality. He was leaden. Limbs, hearts, nothing worked but by autonomic impulse. If he could will it, they would cease because, as he stood there, the yawning white before him, he knew - death would have been easier than this. He did not fear death - he and death were old acquaintances. He’d known grief, he’d known loss, he’d known death. This - he did not know this. This was not just loss. This was… this was more. This was… he did not have the words to comprehend what this was.
He pushed away from the wall, turning his back on it.
Her death would have meant his death, of that he was entirely certain, whether in the void or in careless disregard, it would have come. But this? How was he supposed to survive this? Watching time move forward, knowing she was out there, living, but without him.
He’d thought he could do it, had been prepared to, as he’d lowered the yellow button over her head. He’d looked into Jackie’s eyes and seen that she understood the choice that needed to be made. He’d promised, to put her first, to be worthy of the trust Jackie had placed in him. Jackie would have given up Pete to stay with Rose, to let him keep Rose, and he’d seen then the clarity of the sacrifice that had to be made. And so he’d made it.
He’d wanted her safe, but the moment she’d gone he’d understood the true import of that choice for him. He’d known it would wound him, he wasn’t a fool, but he’d had no concept of just how much. He’d felt like his hearts where being torn apart, the sudden cessation of Rose within his mind and soul, like a physical hurt assaulting every part of his body with fiery pain. He’d felt it before, after Gallifrey, but he had never imagined Rose had become so much to him that the loss of her would render him so bereft. He should have known - he’d made her home, after all - but it seemed he was doomed to only partial sight when it came to her.
When she’d come back, it had been like the lights had suddenly been turned back on, sending the monsters scurrying back to their dark corners. He’d tried to force her away, brutal truth barked at her through his acute relief, so intense it burned him, but she’d simply bent like a reed before his tempest, leaching back inside him like a caress. His terrified rage had yielded to her gentle touch, smothered by the sensation of her soft strength. Time and the TARDIS had sung with him, both captured in the whirlwind of his relieved joy. But he’d been blind. The moment had distracted him from the beyond. She had fallen. The doors had slammed shut and the monsters were freed once more, cavorting freely, for everything was shadow now.
Aware of nothing but absence, the Doctor walked slowly away from the wall. Around him, the eddies of Time twisted and turned, but he brushed through them, unseeing, unsensing. The future was as ashes in his mouth - everything had come to dust, as he had always known it would. There was no triumph in I told you so, though - he would have given his remaining lives to have been wrong. Instead, he would spend them incomplete.
‘Help us! Please!’
He stepped through the debris, the dead, the dying, the part converted and the grieving as if they were not there. He’d saved them. Saved two worlds. The price had been too high. He had no help left to give.
*************
The TARDIS was still. Caught from the negligent corner of a straying eye, it was what it had become - a forlorn, worn, ravaged wooden box, old in years and older still in care. She slumped where she had been left, tucked into a corner that smelt of stale sweat and fag ends. Normally, she shone out, not diminished by the seedy holes into which she was shoehorned, but no longer. In the half-light of the shaded corner, beside a wall blown out by gunfire, she shrank in upon herself. A curl of paint slowly fell, drifting to lay amidst the detritus of London’s Torchwood, as the smells of neglect slithered up her exposed sides, clinging to the fractures, exploiting the grief that had breached her splendid isolation.
Her little wolf was lost.
A key in her lock, a heavy step on the grating - she was insensible, until the swell of grief rose up to meet her own, twisting in the air above her still rotor, creating a new song.
Into the wail, a lament.
‘I lost her!’
There were no more words.
Time moved forward. The Doctor and his TARDIS did not.
Chapter Two