Who Fic - Crossed Wires - EoT AU
Crossed Wires PG, Ten/Rose
What if, at the end, Rose paused just a moment longer before heading upstairs?
Doctor who is not mine etcetera.
~*~
It all would’ve been fine if he’d managed to hold himself in for five seconds more.
As it was, he couldn’t help but double over with the pain, teeth gritted and hand pressed against the wall so that he didn’t fall over completely. He didn’t even get to see Rose disappear into the stairwell. His last glimpse of her and he’d missed it.
Vision swimming from pain and tears, his heartbeats pounded low and painful in the base of his skull as he shuffled through the thin layer of snow to reach the corner - one hand feebly scraping along the bricks that were his only support and guide.
Oh how are the mighty fallen - the Time Lord Victorious creeping back to his TARDIS like a kicked puppy and the love of his last two lives forgetting about him already as she raced home to a world he could never inhabit, will never inhabit again.
Feet dragging, the Doctor paused for breath at the corner before starting a staggering pathway to the TARDIS - the world before his eyes a dazzling kaleidoscope of Christmas lights and darkened windows.
He barely got halfway before he fell, knees shaking so badly that they trembled and collapsed beneath him. Long legs they were - strong legs. Legs that had run him to safety more times than he could count but were now useless to him if they couldn’t carry him to the end of this, his last journey.
The snow was cold beneath his hands and knees. Teeth gritted, worrying his head like a dog with a bone, he drew on his last ounce of strength and prepared himself to crawl to the TARDIS if necessary...
But as the Ood song filled his mind and he looked up in surprise, he felt a warm hand against his back. Another at his chest, a warm body pressing against his side...he barely dared to hope until he turned to find concerned, hazel eyes and a familiar mouth pursed with worry.
“You really are out of it aren’t you?” Rose said, teasing as gently as ever. His hearts stung. “Come on mate, on your feet...”
And oh that was so her, to help a stranger in need just because she could. To come back for him even though he might be drunk or dangerous or just downright psychopathic...he finds himself crying as she helps haul him to his feet and when she notices she dabs at his face, completely focused on him.
“Hey, don’t cry,” she chides him, laughing a little. “You’ll be right. Just need to get you home yeah? Which way?”
“I’m fine,” he mumbles, the Ood song soaring now in his mind and making him even dizzier. He clings to Rose even as he’s telling himself to disentangle his grasp enough to stumble to the TARDIS alone - he can’t let her see the inside of it, can’t let her see him any more clearly than she already has, can’t risk causing a paradox by crossing her timeline like this...
Rose, as always, is undeterred.
“You just fell over,” she says, not unkindly. “In the snow. You’re so drunk you can’t even stand up straight.”
“I’m not drunk,” he protests, taking a tentative step forward. Rose comes with him, steadying and supporting him. “Sick.”
“Yeah. From grog.”
He half smiles at that. “Oh I wish.”
And she laughs again at him, lugs him forward another step and it’s so much easier with her here helping him. The journey is so much faster and less painful than it could have been and he’s so far beyond grateful that he lets her guide him all the way up to the TARDIS.
His vision has cleared a little by then and he gets the door open with only slightly clumsy hands before turning to her with a grateful smile.
“This is me then. Thank you for...everything Rose.”
The name slips out before he’s even realised what he’s done - stupid stupid stupid - and he darts inside the TARDIS and tries to shut the door on her before she can chase after him. She’s too quick though, a trainer clad foot in the doorway and then she’s pushing her way inside, knocking his feeble body back with no troubles.
“This can’t be your...” she begins and then stops, gobsmacked. “It’s...this...” she breathes and takes an instinctive step backwards. The TARDIS however, has brightened her lights in welcome and Rose stands, spellbound for a long moment at the soaring roof.
The Doctor, sagging against the railing, feels the familiar tingling start in his hands and he looks down in horror as the skin begins to glow golden bright. It doesn’t take long for Rose to notice it too - despite her obvious distress at the disproportionate size of the TARDIS.
“Your hand!” she cries, recoiling in horror before casting a second, terrified look around the console room. She looks like a caged animal, everything about her screaming fight-or-flight. “What is this place?”
“You need to go. Now,” he tells her, urgently. The glow surrounding his hand has dissipated when he reaches for her temple to blur her memories away but Rose still jumps back from his touch, circles her way even further into the room and he’s so close to burning now. He can’t stay any longer, he has to get her out of the TARDIS. “Rose you need to leave.”
Her eyes widen. “How d’you know my name?” she whispers, terrified. “Who are you?”
His body takes that as its cue to spasm painfully and he cries out and doubles over instead of answering. She takes a hasty step forward, then jumps back again as he forces himself upright and struggles out of his coat, missing the coral strut entirely as he desperately tries to dispose himself of it.
“I don’t have time for this,” he tells her thickly, more than aware of the irony as he drags himself step by painful step up the ramp. She watches him advance with wide, terrified eyes but doesn’t move. “I’m dying. There’s nothing you can do about it and I need you to leave. Leave and forget me. Forget everything you’ve seen tonight.”
Absently, he realises, that he’ll have to go back again. After his regeneration he’ll have to go back to this New Years Eve and wipe her memories of all of this. His hearts tighten at the very thought. He’s already said his goodbyes...
“But what’s wrong with you?” she asks, voice very small. “Wh-what d’you mean you’re dying?”
He is touched by her concern, this stranger she’s only just met who is literally blowing apart her personal timeline with every second that passes. He’s forgotten, he realises, how young she was when he first met her. How gentle. How uncertain. He is reminded, briefly, of his last regeneration and how frightened she was then.
And so he reaches out and picks up her hand in his. She startles, looks down at it then up at him - not with fear but with curiosity and something like longing. A longing to fix him, to heal she doesn’t know what. He smiles crookedly.
“It’s alright,” he assures her. “Go home. I’ll be fine.”
She stares at him for a long moment and then looks down once again at his hand, curved around the back of hers in that perfect fit that he’s always marvelled at. It doesn’t matter which angle you place these two bodies of theirs in, they always seem to match up, like an isomorphic puzzle.
She squeezes her fingers shut over his for the briefest of moments. Then, bright eyed, she looks up at him, studies his face one last time before letting their hands slide apart. That last tenuous touch between them disappears as she makes her way down the ramp and the Doctor doesn’t dare look back as he makes his way around the console and begins to ready the TARDIS for flight.
As soon as he’s heard the door open and then snick shut softly he sends her up into orbit above the Earth - and then he stops. Leans against the console and looks up at the time rotor with an unspeakable loneliness in his hearts and an ache of loss that is yet to come.
His skin is all but sparking now with regenerative energy, the glow overtaking every inch of skin as he makes his weary way around the console, breath hitching as he comes to the realisation that he’s still not ready to go.
After all of his goodbyes he’d thought...
His train of thought comes crashing to a stop as he realises that Rose is still standing at the bottom of the ramp, one hand pressed against the door and the other on the knob.
“What?” he demands, voice cracking. She turns at his voice, clearly upset and not the least bit angry.
“Sorry,” she mumbles blankly, turning back to the door and wiping away inexplicable tears. “I’m going, I’m...”
She opens the doors onto a dazzling view of the Earth.
“Oh my god,” the Doctor blurts, feels the sick-burning glow of regeneration beginning to choke him. Everything is golden, wisps of light feeding off his body, unbidden now. He’s past the point of no return, can’t hold back the tide any longer and Rose is here and shouldn’t be - shouldn’t be shouldn’t be! Stupid! This is all wrong, so wrong...
“Shut the door.” He commands and Rose jumps, slams it and turns so that her back is pressed safely against it.
“You’re glowing!” she looks completely awestruck. “Like...like an angel or something.”
“I-” he chokes on the words. “You need to stay back. Just...stay there. It’ll all be over soon. I-”
Rose, being Rose, immediately strides forward. Panicked she may be, terrified even, but she’s still worried about him.
“What’ll be over?”
“I’ll be...I’ll be...” he tries to finish the sentence twice, loses his nerve and then finally says what he’s really thinking. “I don’t want to go!”
Rose, terrified, compassionate, worried beyond belief, reaches out to hold his trembling shoulders but doesn’t quite touch.
“It’s okay!” she babbles, hands fluttering uselessly. “You’ll be okay yeah? You told me you’d be okay.”
But he’s beyond it now, so beyond anything, that all he can do is let his tears fall as the tide rushes over him and his body falls apart around him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t...I-”
And then he explodes with light from the inside out.