(no subject)
It is the same every year. Sometimes he thinks of himself like the Poe Toaster, passing through the same location like clockwork each year since the loss, leaving only the faintest trace.
He does so love this place. He loves the golden arm hanging from the wall, the one that appeared in A Tale of Two Cities. He loves the portraits of Dickens through the years, the pictures of England in Dickens’ time. Of course, he doesn’t need the pictures to know-a literal case of been there, done that.
He lingers over the books, running a finger delicately down the spines. Numerous editions of A Christmas Carol, something that amuses him now-the trip with Rose, Donna’s crack about ghosts and Dickens and Christmas, the redemption of Kazran Sardick: his life in each incarnation has become a cosmic joke hinging on A Christmas Carol. He can’t say he minds. Nine hundred and eight years old, it’s nice to have some consistency sometimes.
Finally, he picks one up, as he has every year. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He always smiles-Dickens never did write down that bit about the blue Elementals. He almost wishes he had; it would have been fun to see all of academia arguing over what that one symbolized. He supposes, though, that some things are meant to be left unfinished.
He pays for the book and before he leaves stops at the guestbook, signing it the same as ever. Dame Rose of the Powell Estate.
***
He’d left Amy and Rory that morning after telling them to walk around London, meet him back at the TARDIS that night. Amy had said it was boring, the present day, but Rory had picked up on some hint of the Doctor’s mood and told her it was a good thing-traveling around in time and space, it was easy to become unmoored, and getting reacquainted with the present day could be a good thing, couldn’t it? He’d taken Amy off somewhere and left the Doctor to make his yearly sojourn.
Their flat at the Powell Estate remains deserted, even after all these years. Losing both Rose and Jackie to the tragedy at Canary Wharf had seemingly left everyone in a state of shock, and no one has wanted to touch their flat, clear out their belongings. He sonics the door open and lets himself in.
Really, it would make more sense to do this every Christmas. Christmas was their time. Christmas was when they’d seen Dickens in the first place. Christmas was when she’d joined him even though he was a different man, when he’d held out his hand under a rain of ash and told her he’d love for her to come.
It is for that reason, though, that he keeps himself busy each Christmas, saving the world or just a few people. He saves the world so he does not have to dwell on thoughts of smiling at her in that silly pink paper crown, or thoughts of grabbing her hand and telling her how glad he was to have met her. No, he cannot be thinking those things at all. So he goes on her birthday each year instead, hoping each year that she is happy and thriving and growing without him. This year and the year before, he has hoped she is happy and growing and thriving with him, that other self he’d left her with.
He takes his time in the flat, lingering in the living room, the tiny kitchen, before he makes his way to her room. He likes to remember those days before Canary Wharf, the day it all ended (or so he’d thought at the time). As much as he’d groaned and resisted and tried to bribe her with trips to her favorite eras in order to get out of seeing Jackie, he really had enjoyed coming to this place.
Sometimes he wishes he still could. It was almost like having a home to go back to.
Finally, he wanders into her bedroom, setting the book on the dresser. It is the fifth of its kind. In 2007, shortly after Canary Wharf, he had left her Bleak House. The title had seemed fitting, when he’d thought of the empty flat. 2008, David Copperfield-the boy who’d persevered against all odds, like Rose Tyler, shop girl turned Defender of the Earth. 2009, A Tale of Two Cities-about a man and his double, the same as him. 2010, Great Expectations-because he hoped so dearly that she was doing well in that other world.
And now he lays down The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
“Oh, no! He was so nice,” she’d said, when he’d told her Dickens would die before completing it, and that had been one of his first glimpses at her compassion, her love for nearly any person she met, regardless of how long or how short a time she’d known them.
He sits on the cold and empty bed, speaking to the air. “The Daleks are back. You’d have laughed at that. Each time we destroyed them and each time they come back. Multicolored, now. You would’ve been wondering where the pink one was.
“Erased from time, I was. Had to reboot the whole universe back to the way it was. Might’ve even restored you, for a while there. Never got a chance to look. I wanted to. Couldn’t risk it. Timelines and all that.”
He is silent for a long while before he dares to say it, the words he has never let himself speak aloud, much as he wants to at times. “It’s easy to be jealous of him, you know. The one adventure I could never have-except that I could. Probably am having it now. And it’s for the best, eh? He won’t leave you on your own.”
Sun filters in through the dirty window and he sighs. “If I’m being honest, it’s a mixed blessing, really. It’s not the same without you. And sometimes, when I’m not too busy being angry or strong or even happy for letting you go, I just feel… sad. Because I miss you. One last day with my beloved, that was what he said to me. You don’t even know what I’d give. Maybe you do-you fought your way back. Twice.” He smiles faintly at that. “The Bad Wolf, all across time and space.”
He gets up-he cannot linger, as much as he wants to. He has Amy and Rory to get back to, and a man who can see all of time and space cannot linger in the past.
He kisses his fingers and presses them to the cover of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, stroking it with his thumb, lovingly. And for a second, out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he can see her, golden hair fluttering loosely in the sunlight, pink cloth glowing warmly.
But he blinks and the phantasm is gone, and he leaves the Powell Estate.
He does so love this place. He loves the golden arm hanging from the wall, the one that appeared in A Tale of Two Cities. He loves the portraits of Dickens through the years, the pictures of England in Dickens’ time. Of course, he doesn’t need the pictures to know-a literal case of been there, done that.
He lingers over the books, running a finger delicately down the spines. Numerous editions of A Christmas Carol, something that amuses him now-the trip with Rose, Donna’s crack about ghosts and Dickens and Christmas, the redemption of Kazran Sardick: his life in each incarnation has become a cosmic joke hinging on A Christmas Carol. He can’t say he minds. Nine hundred and eight years old, it’s nice to have some consistency sometimes.
Finally, he picks one up, as he has every year. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He always smiles-Dickens never did write down that bit about the blue Elementals. He almost wishes he had; it would have been fun to see all of academia arguing over what that one symbolized. He supposes, though, that some things are meant to be left unfinished.
He pays for the book and before he leaves stops at the guestbook, signing it the same as ever. Dame Rose of the Powell Estate.
***
He’d left Amy and Rory that morning after telling them to walk around London, meet him back at the TARDIS that night. Amy had said it was boring, the present day, but Rory had picked up on some hint of the Doctor’s mood and told her it was a good thing-traveling around in time and space, it was easy to become unmoored, and getting reacquainted with the present day could be a good thing, couldn’t it? He’d taken Amy off somewhere and left the Doctor to make his yearly sojourn.
Their flat at the Powell Estate remains deserted, even after all these years. Losing both Rose and Jackie to the tragedy at Canary Wharf had seemingly left everyone in a state of shock, and no one has wanted to touch their flat, clear out their belongings. He sonics the door open and lets himself in.
Really, it would make more sense to do this every Christmas. Christmas was their time. Christmas was when they’d seen Dickens in the first place. Christmas was when she’d joined him even though he was a different man, when he’d held out his hand under a rain of ash and told her he’d love for her to come.
It is for that reason, though, that he keeps himself busy each Christmas, saving the world or just a few people. He saves the world so he does not have to dwell on thoughts of smiling at her in that silly pink paper crown, or thoughts of grabbing her hand and telling her how glad he was to have met her. No, he cannot be thinking those things at all. So he goes on her birthday each year instead, hoping each year that she is happy and thriving and growing without him. This year and the year before, he has hoped she is happy and growing and thriving with him, that other self he’d left her with.
He takes his time in the flat, lingering in the living room, the tiny kitchen, before he makes his way to her room. He likes to remember those days before Canary Wharf, the day it all ended (or so he’d thought at the time). As much as he’d groaned and resisted and tried to bribe her with trips to her favorite eras in order to get out of seeing Jackie, he really had enjoyed coming to this place.
Sometimes he wishes he still could. It was almost like having a home to go back to.
Finally, he wanders into her bedroom, setting the book on the dresser. It is the fifth of its kind. In 2007, shortly after Canary Wharf, he had left her Bleak House. The title had seemed fitting, when he’d thought of the empty flat. 2008, David Copperfield-the boy who’d persevered against all odds, like Rose Tyler, shop girl turned Defender of the Earth. 2009, A Tale of Two Cities-about a man and his double, the same as him. 2010, Great Expectations-because he hoped so dearly that she was doing well in that other world.
And now he lays down The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
“Oh, no! He was so nice,” she’d said, when he’d told her Dickens would die before completing it, and that had been one of his first glimpses at her compassion, her love for nearly any person she met, regardless of how long or how short a time she’d known them.
He sits on the cold and empty bed, speaking to the air. “The Daleks are back. You’d have laughed at that. Each time we destroyed them and each time they come back. Multicolored, now. You would’ve been wondering where the pink one was.
“Erased from time, I was. Had to reboot the whole universe back to the way it was. Might’ve even restored you, for a while there. Never got a chance to look. I wanted to. Couldn’t risk it. Timelines and all that.”
He is silent for a long while before he dares to say it, the words he has never let himself speak aloud, much as he wants to at times. “It’s easy to be jealous of him, you know. The one adventure I could never have-except that I could. Probably am having it now. And it’s for the best, eh? He won’t leave you on your own.”
Sun filters in through the dirty window and he sighs. “If I’m being honest, it’s a mixed blessing, really. It’s not the same without you. And sometimes, when I’m not too busy being angry or strong or even happy for letting you go, I just feel… sad. Because I miss you. One last day with my beloved, that was what he said to me. You don’t even know what I’d give. Maybe you do-you fought your way back. Twice.” He smiles faintly at that. “The Bad Wolf, all across time and space.”
He gets up-he cannot linger, as much as he wants to. He has Amy and Rory to get back to, and a man who can see all of time and space cannot linger in the past.
He kisses his fingers and presses them to the cover of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, stroking it with his thumb, lovingly. And for a second, out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he can see her, golden hair fluttering loosely in the sunlight, pink cloth glowing warmly.
But he blinks and the phantasm is gone, and he leaves the Powell Estate.