Fic - Fear and Trembling - Ten/Rose - PG - (1/1)
Date Published: July 27th 2009
Title: Fear and Trembling
Rating: PG
Characters: Ten/Rose
Word Count: ~1500
Summary: Rose learns what it is the Doctor does while she's asleep.
Disclaimer: The names, images and logos identifying the BBC and their products and services are subject to copyright, design rights and trade marks of the BBC. Used without permission for non-profit, non-commercial personal use.
Fic Type: One shot.
Beta: Once again, hippiebanana132 takes up the challenge of making my fic actually presentable.
Author's Note: Written for challenge 2.03 of writerinatardis. The prompt was: The Doctor has a strange, unusual, or very silly hobby. Rose just found out about it.
Excerpt: “Thank you, Rose Tyler,” he whispered quietly. “Thank you for everything.”
Fear and Trembling
The Doctor stood alone. Barren battlefields burning at his feet, slain bodies in every direction. The blood of so many, dripping from his hands. Above him the usual burning copper sky radiated brilliant gold, the stratosphere alight with the last traces of the Dalek fleet. He could see it all. The crisp trees silhouetted in despair against the desolate lands, life torn from every stem and branch. The lifeless bodies of his comrades, his friends. Behind him, the remnants of the Citadel, its once proud stance now broken by the storm of war.
Tears blinded him. This body was fresh, raw. A regeneration. His skin still tingled with the life of old, the particles of life dissipating from him as smoke from fire. Even as he was living this planet was dying. All gone. He could still see the fear in their eyes, taste it in his own mouth as the clouds of Radium bombarded their defences, the Daleks growing clever in their slaughter. Most had suffocated on contact, the chemical element in the gas making it impossible to regenerate.
The Doctor’s fingers twitched by his empty pocket. The device, the concentrated ball of energy that had destroyed all existence within the designated area. Not simply erase from time - no, that would be too complex. To burn and to suffer, skin melting onto skeletons as the entire planet went up in flames. It wasn’t even known it would work on the Daleks, whose exoskeleton masked their inner evil. But it had to be done.
And as he watched, the ever burning planet began to crumble before his eyes. The screams filled his mind from his beloved ones, those he had betrayed. None were to survive; the wave should have destroyed all it came into contact with.
But he lived. They died and he lived and so it was to be until the end of time.
“Doctor?”
The Doctor whirled around, his hearts panicking as they beat in his chest. She shouldn’t be here; she should be asleep.
“Rose!” he said with some surprise, instantly stepping away from the platform and towards the door. “What are you doing here?”
She gave him a strange frown. He knew his light smile would not distract her for long. “Couldn’t sleep,” she offered simply, then looked over his shoulder to where he had been standing, in front of a vast sheet of glass. “What were you doing?”
He glanced back too, pulling at his ear. “Oh, you know. Just some research. It’s not important.” He went to her, touched her elbow. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”
“TARDIS woke me. Bloody hell, are you okay?”
He forced out a smile so tight it was almost painful. “I’m fine.”
“You look terrible.” Her hand went to his face, angling his head towards her as she looked him over tenderly. Then she released him and he exhaled his breath slowly. “What were you doing?” she repeated slowly. He stood back from her, a vain attempt to shield from her what was in the room.
“Nothing. Nothing important.”
His voice was cold, he realised. Cold and scared. Rose didn’t buy it and walked towards him. He turned away from her, staring up to the sheet of glass pleadingly - as though it could help him.
“Rose, please,” he tried, straining his voice. “Just … Just go. Back to bed. Anywhere.”
The hand on his shoulder was comforting, but he did not turn. Without his jacket or tie - both of which hung patiently on a bar across the room - he felt naked, borne to her in a way she should not ever see.
“What does it do?”
She was indicating the platform, the sloping glass before it. The Doctor’s breath hitched as he looked up at it.
“It … remembers.”
“It what?”
He turned to face her again, courage stealing him away and raising him for its own. “It lets you see things, Rose. It helps me remember things I - I shouldn’t forget.”
The muscles in his face twitched as he watched her and suddenly her words from a few seconds before came back to him.
The TARDIS woke me.
“Why are you here?” he muttered coolly.
Rose didn’t answer immediately, instead searched his eyes with hers, her chestnut gaze relentless as questions flittered through her mind.
“I don’t know,” she replied at last, removing her hand from his shoulder. “I woke up and I just had this sense that you - I dunno … ” A charming flush prickled at her cheeks, partially hidden by the darkness of the room. “That you needed me,” she finished with a breath.
The Doctor blinked. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m fine.” Once again the smile was fake, but he couldn’t stop.
“You said so.”
“I did, didn’t I?” The Doctor gave a nervous chuckle, desperate to be anywhere but there. He couldn’t let her see … She’d leave, for certain, knowing what he’d done.
The look she was giving him was sceptical at best. “This a hobby of yours, then? Coming here when I’m sleeping?”
He glanced guiltily to where all his secrets lay. “I suppose you could say that,” he answered wryly. “Rose, I - ”
But when he looked back, he didn’t have the words. Looking at her, in all her sympathy, brought something out in him that rose like the rising tide. He could feel it cascading down on him; he tried so hard to fight.
She reached for his hand. “You can tell me,” she whispered quietly and before he knew it he had her embraced in a tight, warm hug. Her hands held him close and he rested his cheek on the crown of her head, staring distantly at the metallic wall of the TARDIS room.
“They’re gone, Rose,” he said quietly into her hair, his eyes slipping shut. Behind his lids he saw the burnt sky again, saw the ashen faces of the dead and the glimmering gold of his skin. “I killed them.”
From his chest, he heard, “It lets you see, doesn’t it?” He pulled back slightly, enough to look her in the eye. “It takes you back.”
Slowly he nodded, his mouth too dry for words. He wondered if she would ask him why. Why he came here, why he put himself through the endless torture of that terrible day. But she didn’t. Instead she leaned up and planted a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth. He stilled, unsure of her intent. Then she leaned further, whispering in his ear.
“It’s not your fault. Doctor, it’s not.”
“But I - ”
“You saved them. All of them. Better with the love from their own than the hate from the Daleks. Right?”
He was astounded by her wisdom, even as his tears caught on the lump in his throat. He breathed steadily, calming himself as he watched her.
“You can’t know,” he murmured gently as she pulled back from him. Moving some hair from her face, he touched her jaw tenderly with his finger. “You can’t possibly know.”
“But I do,” she said, so defiantly he very nearly believed her. “I know you’re still suffering from this. I see it on you every day, all the time when we save planets and fight for our lives. But Doctor, they live in you. You gave them that. And I - I’d have done the same. For my family and my friends. For you.”
He wasn’t sure he could take it much longer.
“Please don’t keep coming here,” she finished boldly, tears at the edge of her own voice.
“Oh, Rose. Please don’t cry. Not like that, not over me.” He wiped a stray tear away from her cheek, smiling. It was a bitter-sweet smile, certainly, but the most real he had given all evening. Then it faded and in the few moments of serenity he was left with, he stepped forward and closed the gap between them, planting his lips on hers.
His mind was once again filled with memories, but of gold and awe and warmth. Of fear and trembling, and also of love. She was taking from him what he had taken from her: the burden of loneliness.
“Doctor,” she breathed as he pulled back. Her eyes were dark, but in them shone tears. His tears. Then she gave a shy smile, bringing her fingers up to her lips as another, deeper, blush took her cheeks.
His hands slipped to her shoulders and he looked at her in earnest. “Thank you, Rose Tyler,” he whispered quietly. “Thank you for everything.”
And as he pulled her into another embrace, the sharpened memories of his past began to dim.
End.