Fic: Ghosts
Title: Ghosts
Author: lpmufinfiend
Pairing: Implied Rose/Ten; Rose/Alt!Ten
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 480
Spoilers: through Journey's End
Summary: The Doctor returns. Nothing happens.
Inspired By: Ghosts-- Ladytron. listen here.
**********
It rains in London, and the streets are soaked in an accustomed, ungrudging way. The Doctor finds himself far from his mark. But then, a day and place-- in conjunction, a multi-dimensional location-- have never proven themselves to be as he expected them. And this is to say more than he'll admit. Accuracy is a thing done for him by supposed-to, by TARDIS, by careful accident. He watches himself round a corner, eyes upon his shoes as they move across the cobbles, which move for the water very slowly. His Timelord feet would have felt them do, like sand pulled by an ocean current's backswing, collapsing beneath his arches. This man feels nothing. He only walks.
The man in his body, in possession of a mortality that might have been his own, crosses a side-street at a weary jog. He tosses his only upward glance into the oncoming traffic; nothing spared for the Oncoming Storm. The Doctor reminds himself that it's better that this Doctor doesn't see his proper self, but the former can hardly help his twinge of disappointment as his doppelganger disappears into a rough-looking bar.
The window closes in two minutes-- the Doctor's freckle of loose time is almost spent. He still isn't certain what he hoped to find here, or what his ship wanted him to, but he knows what he found. His own, old empty self, rattling around the space allotted him, in rabid search of... What? Is he meeting her inside? The look in his eyes spoke of no such goal.
Bless his Rose; this is the job of taming all over again. Only now, she has no call box for a cage, no time out of time to fix him in. It almost makes him sorry-- almost. But he'd studied his options and decided two hundred thousand times before his mouth had ever fit around his answer-- and he knows he'd do it twice, if this universe asked it of him. He knows what he cannot feel-- Rose's someday will be different from today. The man at the bar will go home to her, curse his lust for motion without, and allow himself to move within her. He will tie his someday hopelessly to hers, once he learns to need-- double knots and triple knots. Rose and the man at the bar will die together when they are old and look nothing like themselves, when they've forgotten themselves and forever, when habit asserts itself over innovation in both their minds. If he never says the words again, the once will have been enough for her, and she will go on knowing-- her trust will not go stale.
The Doctor turns his back to the street and grasps the handle of the TARDIS door. It flickers invisible beneath his hand; this last of hopes wanes within his sight.
He won't come here again.
**********
Author: lpmufinfiend
Pairing: Implied Rose/Ten; Rose/Alt!Ten
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 480
Spoilers: through Journey's End
Summary: The Doctor returns. Nothing happens.
Inspired By: Ghosts-- Ladytron. listen here.
**********
It rains in London, and the streets are soaked in an accustomed, ungrudging way. The Doctor finds himself far from his mark. But then, a day and place-- in conjunction, a multi-dimensional location-- have never proven themselves to be as he expected them. And this is to say more than he'll admit. Accuracy is a thing done for him by supposed-to, by TARDIS, by careful accident. He watches himself round a corner, eyes upon his shoes as they move across the cobbles, which move for the water very slowly. His Timelord feet would have felt them do, like sand pulled by an ocean current's backswing, collapsing beneath his arches. This man feels nothing. He only walks.
The man in his body, in possession of a mortality that might have been his own, crosses a side-street at a weary jog. He tosses his only upward glance into the oncoming traffic; nothing spared for the Oncoming Storm. The Doctor reminds himself that it's better that this Doctor doesn't see his proper self, but the former can hardly help his twinge of disappointment as his doppelganger disappears into a rough-looking bar.
The window closes in two minutes-- the Doctor's freckle of loose time is almost spent. He still isn't certain what he hoped to find here, or what his ship wanted him to, but he knows what he found. His own, old empty self, rattling around the space allotted him, in rabid search of... What? Is he meeting her inside? The look in his eyes spoke of no such goal.
Bless his Rose; this is the job of taming all over again. Only now, she has no call box for a cage, no time out of time to fix him in. It almost makes him sorry-- almost. But he'd studied his options and decided two hundred thousand times before his mouth had ever fit around his answer-- and he knows he'd do it twice, if this universe asked it of him. He knows what he cannot feel-- Rose's someday will be different from today. The man at the bar will go home to her, curse his lust for motion without, and allow himself to move within her. He will tie his someday hopelessly to hers, once he learns to need-- double knots and triple knots. Rose and the man at the bar will die together when they are old and look nothing like themselves, when they've forgotten themselves and forever, when habit asserts itself over innovation in both their minds. If he never says the words again, the once will have been enough for her, and she will go on knowing-- her trust will not go stale.
The Doctor turns his back to the street and grasps the handle of the TARDIS door. It flickers invisible beneath his hand; this last of hopes wanes within his sight.
He won't come here again.
**********