[fic] Doctor Who - Clean Slate
Title: Clean Slate
Author: winged_requiem
Series: Doctor Who.
Pairing: Doctor/Rose. ... there's three possibilities here if you want to get technical.
Characters: The Doctor (Eleven). Mentions Rose and briefly, Amy.
Rating: PG.
Type: Drabble.
Summary: Prompt - Eleven discovers after the fact that during his regeneration/destruction of the TARDIS she's had to jettison some rooms. Namely Rose's. How he reacts is up to you.
Notes: For doctor_rose_fix's fixathon, specifically for sapphire_child.
It had taken a while for him to do this.
Namely, since his regeneration, saving the world once again, and going back for Amy had come and gone, he hadn't had much time for anything. It had always been there at the back of his mind, but there were always more pressing things to attend to. But now, it was just him, him and the one constant in his life. The one constant, he was finding, that had changed dramatically since its almost violent end.
The TARDIS was different from before. Sure, there was the console room, his room. The rooms he could never really find again, like the swimming pool in the library. After a lot of searching, he'd come to the conclusion it really was gone, with some odd things hanging around instead that he was sure hadn't been there before. Some parts of the TARDIS were fairly much the same as they had been before. Which, were some of the last places he looked, one of the last places he went to.
And, when he got there, he wasn't sure what to think.
It had been an automatic gesture. His hand reached out for a doorknob that was not there, the other pushing against an outline that, for a split second, he could almost see... but now it was just a wall. He looked, and he continued to look, his arm falling back to his side.
... This had been Rose's room.
Except, it was gone. Thrown out, shaken away - shed along with other rooms that he couldn't remember, ones that wouldn't appeal to him much anymore.
But this one. This one stirred an old hurt, a hurt he couldn't quite understand anymore, as he stared at the empty wall. In this form, his eleventh form, he didn't love her like he once had. That, he knew. That, he was always aware of. But.. there were still the memories.
"Rose," he said, slowly, the wall as quiet as ever in response. It was the first time he'd said her name like this, and it tasted foreign, unfamiliar. But the meaning, the meaning that name held... that he could never forget. Not even now. Even with new eyes and a new perspective; he understood, now more than ever.
Would he ever really be able to let her go?
And it still broke his hearts to see the wall empty like this, as he unconsciously reached out a hand again to trace the outline. Left to right, top to middle, slowly rekindling those old thoughts, the thoughts he was starting to bury with his new life, but would never really be able to forget.
Maybe it was a kindness. A clean break, a clean slate, a new start. Maybe it was his constant, the constant friend that saw every heartbreak and heartache that went through his many long years, telling him to move on. The reminder of her room would not bring her back. It wouldn't do anything. She was gone, truly. And this way, it was telling him to be free.
But at the same time, it wasn't. At the same time, it was so unkind he could almost scream.
Author: winged_requiem
Series: Doctor Who.
Pairing: Doctor/Rose. ... there's three possibilities here if you want to get technical.
Characters: The Doctor (Eleven). Mentions Rose and briefly, Amy.
Rating: PG.
Type: Drabble.
Summary: Prompt - Eleven discovers after the fact that during his regeneration/destruction of the TARDIS she's had to jettison some rooms. Namely Rose's. How he reacts is up to you.
Notes: For doctor_rose_fix's fixathon, specifically for sapphire_child.
It had taken a while for him to do this.
Namely, since his regeneration, saving the world once again, and going back for Amy had come and gone, he hadn't had much time for anything. It had always been there at the back of his mind, but there were always more pressing things to attend to. But now, it was just him, him and the one constant in his life. The one constant, he was finding, that had changed dramatically since its almost violent end.
The TARDIS was different from before. Sure, there was the console room, his room. The rooms he could never really find again, like the swimming pool in the library. After a lot of searching, he'd come to the conclusion it really was gone, with some odd things hanging around instead that he was sure hadn't been there before. Some parts of the TARDIS were fairly much the same as they had been before. Which, were some of the last places he looked, one of the last places he went to.
And, when he got there, he wasn't sure what to think.
It had been an automatic gesture. His hand reached out for a doorknob that was not there, the other pushing against an outline that, for a split second, he could almost see... but now it was just a wall. He looked, and he continued to look, his arm falling back to his side.
... This had been Rose's room.
Except, it was gone. Thrown out, shaken away - shed along with other rooms that he couldn't remember, ones that wouldn't appeal to him much anymore.
But this one. This one stirred an old hurt, a hurt he couldn't quite understand anymore, as he stared at the empty wall. In this form, his eleventh form, he didn't love her like he once had. That, he knew. That, he was always aware of. But.. there were still the memories.
"Rose," he said, slowly, the wall as quiet as ever in response. It was the first time he'd said her name like this, and it tasted foreign, unfamiliar. But the meaning, the meaning that name held... that he could never forget. Not even now. Even with new eyes and a new perspective; he understood, now more than ever.
Would he ever really be able to let her go?
And it still broke his hearts to see the wall empty like this, as he unconsciously reached out a hand again to trace the outline. Left to right, top to middle, slowly rekindling those old thoughts, the thoughts he was starting to bury with his new life, but would never really be able to forget.
Maybe it was a kindness. A clean break, a clean slate, a new start. Maybe it was his constant, the constant friend that saw every heartbreak and heartache that went through his many long years, telling him to move on. The reminder of her room would not bring her back. It wouldn't do anything. She was gone, truly. And this way, it was telling him to be free.
But at the same time, it wasn't. At the same time, it was so unkind he could almost scream.