Already Dead (1/1)
Title: Already Dead
Author: ninamazing, or Nina
Word Count: 284
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up until 2.13, "Doomsday."
Characters: Ten/Rose.
He can't interfere.
It's taken him several hundred years and quite a bit of bother to learn that, but he knows. He can't interfere.
So he hides-behind bushes, on the other side of windows, under chairs (and that, upon further consideration, had been a bad idea).
Every so often he lets himself do it. He goes back to when she is three, or four, or twelve. He watches Rose Tyler play with her new bicycle, or fold designer shirts at Henrik's, or chew on pencils, or even make coy eyes and sly comments at Mickey on their first date. She's dead in this universe, of course, but not to a Gallifreyan with a time ship. Not to a Time Lord who misses her.
He sees her first row with her mum, sits hidden four feet away when she sobs in her bedroom because all the other girls have got daddies to bring to school for Careers Day. A ghost of a smile hits his lips when he finds her spinning in her newest fancy dress, smiling as she twirls and dips (don't think about dancing), grinning like a fairy. Like a star.
He doesn't go back to the day she met him, or any of the days after. It's for the same reason he shoves away his memories of everything that happened before yesterday, for the same reason he never kissed her when he knew she'd remember it (don't think about kissing).
Someday, he'll run out of days and events in her life in this universe. Nineteen years isn't much. He thinks he'll go back and revisit old moments, again, for awhile.
After that, he doesn't know.
After that, he hopes he's already dead.
Author: ninamazing, or Nina
Word Count: 284
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up until 2.13, "Doomsday."
Characters: Ten/Rose.
He can't interfere.
It's taken him several hundred years and quite a bit of bother to learn that, but he knows. He can't interfere.
So he hides-behind bushes, on the other side of windows, under chairs (and that, upon further consideration, had been a bad idea).
Every so often he lets himself do it. He goes back to when she is three, or four, or twelve. He watches Rose Tyler play with her new bicycle, or fold designer shirts at Henrik's, or chew on pencils, or even make coy eyes and sly comments at Mickey on their first date. She's dead in this universe, of course, but not to a Gallifreyan with a time ship. Not to a Time Lord who misses her.
He sees her first row with her mum, sits hidden four feet away when she sobs in her bedroom because all the other girls have got daddies to bring to school for Careers Day. A ghost of a smile hits his lips when he finds her spinning in her newest fancy dress, smiling as she twirls and dips (don't think about dancing), grinning like a fairy. Like a star.
He doesn't go back to the day she met him, or any of the days after. It's for the same reason he shoves away his memories of everything that happened before yesterday, for the same reason he never kissed her when he knew she'd remember it (don't think about kissing).
Someday, he'll run out of days and events in her life in this universe. Nineteen years isn't much. He thinks he'll go back and revisit old moments, again, for awhile.
After that, he doesn't know.
After that, he hopes he's already dead.