fanfic | doctor who | diamond sea - chapter 16
Title: Diamond Sea
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rose Tyler, the Doctor ... and others
Rating: M - swearing|violence|romance
Spoilers: DW series 2|28 through Doomsday, EDAs, Big Finish Audios
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Betas: iansmomesq and drox - many thanks for a heap of help on this one!
Chapter 16
Rose woke to find Mickey staring down at her. It took her a moment to take in the hospital gown and the bleak surroundings. She screwed her eyes shut and tried to get some control over her muddled memories.
“Rose?” whispered Mickey hopefully.
“I’ve got to stop waking up in hospitals,” she groaned. Mickey wrapped her up in an awkward but well-meaning hug that she returned with as much strength as she could.
“How long was I out?” she asked.
“Oh, only about fourteen hours or so. Nothing really … considering.”
“No, I guess not.”
“You woke up before him. He’ll hate that, the Doctor will. Always likes to feel so bloody superior …” Mickey didn’t have time to finish his sentence before Rose was swinging her legs out of the bed and attempting to stand. He barely caught her as she swayed dangerously, the position change sending all her blood to weird and unhelpful places.
“Where is he?” Rose asked urgently.
“Two rooms down …”
“You brought him to a hospital?”
“Steady on,” he frowned. “Not stupid, am I? This is a UNIT hospital. There were a few soldiers that remembered everything. UNIT is on our side … on his side.”
She took a deep breath and stood. The ugly linoleum floor was cold under her bare feet. She made it to the door before Mickey’s smothered laughter made her pause and frown at him angrily. “What? What is it?”
He pointed at her with his free hand, the other doing a poor job of covering his grinning face. “Only that if you go wondering around the place like that you’ll never live it down.”
“What the hell are you … oh,” Rose snatched self-consciously at the open back of her gown. “So don’t just stand there! Find me something to wear!”
-:-
Wobbling down the corridor in her borrowed UNIT fatigues, Rose felt as if she were still stuck in the Time War. The presence of soldiers and the horrific state of the coffee that had been pressed into her hand combined to give her an eerie sense of déjà vu. It was only the occasional smile on someone’s face, or a glimpse at untouched Cardiff city that brought her back to reality … this reality.
The reality where the Doctor had regenerated and she’d sent him away … one of him, anyway.
Rose paused in the doorway, handing Mickey her hardly touched coffee without even looking at him. Looking small and pale, the Doctor lay in the centre of the hospital bed. It really was him - the same Doctor who had burned in the matter transducer. The Doctor who’d disappeared as he regenerated only to reappear in the wake of the TARDIS. When she’d held him in her arms as she passed out, Rose had felt as though she were dreaming, and yet here he was.
He was connected to several machines, many of them showing error messages, the flashing amber exclamation marks serving to remind everyone that the alarms had been turned off. Because, of course, the Doctor didn’t comply with the machine’s definitions of ‘acceptable ranges.’
Rose took several steps closer, until her hands rested on the bed rail. There was a tube looped around his face and an intravenous line taped to the back of his left hand.
“What are you giving him?” Rose asked in a small voice.
“Only oxygen and saline,” came a new voice from the doorway.
Rose turned to find a young blonde woman in a lab coat, a clipboard tucked under her arm. The young woman stretched out a hand and smiled. “Doctor Amy Blake.”
“Rose Tyler,” said Rose, shaking the proffered hand.
“Yes … I should think so,” smiled Blake. “Not that you’d remember me, but I operated on Beatrix MacMillan and got transferred to Cardiff as medical support on the last day of the Great War.”
“It was the Time War,” Rose corrected.
“Of course,” Blake acknowledged quickly, sparing a glance for the Doctor. “I know he’s not human and I remember … I remember what he did for us.” She looked back at Rose, her eyes suspiciously damp. “What you did for us … all of you,” she continued, including Mickey in her thanks.
“Yeah, well,” Rose managed awkwardly.
“I have to say, it seems monstrously unfair that so few of us remember,” Blake added nervously.
“So, the Doctor …” Rose interrupted.
“Yes, yes of course,” she assented. “He’s basically unharmed physically. A few abrasions, some broken ribs, bruising - that sort of thing. However, his brainwave activity is very erratic. We’ve tried EEG but the machine blew up. We managed MRIs but with nothing to cross-reference the data with …” she shrugged. “Honestly, we’ve got no way of telling if he’s sleeping, in a coma or worse.”
Rose nodded to herself as Blake shuffled nervously in her scuffs. In the bed, the Doctor lay unmoving. His silence was punctuated by the slight hiss of oxygen. It didn’t take her long to reach a conclusion.
“Right,” Rose said, suddenly businesslike. “Both of you, off you go.”
“Um …” said Doctor Blake, clutching her clipboard.
“Rose,” Mickey said warningly.
“Oh go on!” Rose snapped. “I’m not going to do anything dramatic, I just want to be alone with him.”
Mickey eyeballed her with his best ‘you better not be planning something’ look before ushering the confused Blake from the room and closing the door behind him.
Rose turned back to the Doctor. His slight form was perfectly arranged in the bed, his hands by his sides and his ankles together. “Looks like you’re laid out for a funeral,” Rose muttered, bending to untie her laces. “You’re all neat and tidy and proper … that’s not the Doctor I know.”
Toeing off her boots and wincing slightly as she lowered the bed rail, Rose set about rearranging him. She picked up his nearest arm and laid it across his chest. With a curse for her own bruises, she managed to roll him slightly on his side, one leg sprawled over the other, creating just enough space for her to wriggle in behind him, supporting him with the curve of her body. In a final act of defiance, she reached up and mussed his hair, sending curls out in all directions.
Satisfied and undeterred by his lack of response, Rose nestled her chin in the gap between his neck and shoulder, passing one arm over him to rest her hand on his.
“That’s better,” she told him. “I can’t talk to you when you look like something out of Madame Tussaud’s. Reminds me of those shop dummies...”
Rose rubbed her thumb across the back of his hand as she collected her thoughts. She’d thought it would have been easier to talk to him when he wasn’t running off at the mouth. Somehow, his silence made it more difficult instead.
“Let’s see,” she began finally. “I’m not that great when it comes to stories …”
She started at the beginning … before the beginning, really. She started as far back as she could remember. She told him all about herself - all her hopes and dreams and childish fears. She told him how mad and dangerous and simply fantastic it had been to travel with him. She told him how it had felt to love him … and how that love had changed over the years, growing into something more complex and yet simple at the same time.
Rose spoke about his loneliness and his rage. She revealed the few times she’d been afraid of him and the many times she’d been afraid for him. She admonished him for not taking better care of himself and thanked him for risking everything to save them all, yet again.
When her voice grew hoarse she reached over him and poured herself a dusty glass of water that she swallowed in three painful gulps, eager to return to her narrative before her train of thought or her courage deserted her.
She kept her eyes glued on the small window that showed a bleak section of street frontage. From time to time, a car would slide past or a pedestrian would make their slower progress across her line of sight. To Rose, these simple proofs of normalcy were very precious and she cherished each scowl on someone’s face as it rained, each sputter of an untuned engine or burst of conversation.
However much she yearned to put the War behind her, Rose knew she’d never be able to while the Doctor lay here alone. She couldn’t move on without discovering if he was still in there, somewhere, or whether this body was a mere husk - an empty shell that once held him. Either way, she had to know.
The Doctor had always been her last hope. She placed her trust in him, learned to accept that he was fallible, maybe, but she’d trusted him all the same. Holding his cold form against her, trying to warm him with her voice and her memories as well as her body, Rose realised she’d thrown her lot in with him again. Somewhere during the War, this Doctor had ceased to be a version of someone she’d once loved and become precious in his own right.
So she forced herself to speak of that day in Torchwood. She gritted her teeth and she told him where this little chapter of her life had started. It might have been the day she died, but Rose had a feeling it was the first time the Doctor had realised just how much he meant to her. For those fleeting seconds where their eyes had met and she’d pledged never to leave him … in that bittersweet moment he’d understood.
She told herself she was okay despite the tears that hovered at the edges of her vision. She wished he could hear her. She hoped that he did. The worst part about being stranded here was wondering if the future Doctor had managed to carve out a little piece of happiness for himself. Every day since that day in Norway, Rose had longed for a split second of contact - just enough to reassure herself that he was okay. Just enough to ease her mind.
She told him that, too.
“I might have been dead,” she whispered. “But you were mine.”
-:-
Alone in the Doctor’s hospital room, Mickey Smith just wanted to do the right thing.
It had been weeks since the final battle of the Time War and there had been no change to the Doctor’s condition. He told himself it was genuine concern for Rose that made him object to her constant presence at the hospital.
He felt guilty whenever he thought of the Doctor. He couldn’t pin down the exact reason, but Mickey had a feeling he had something to be ashamed of … and that irritated him.
“What have I got to feel bad about?” Mickey asked the unresponsive form in the bed. “I’ve never done anything to you, but you walked in and took her from me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you did it again. Except this time you brought the Time War with you.” Mickey gripped the foot of the bed and pressed his lips together. “Did you see what it did to her? Did you see how all the fighting changed her?”
The Doctor lay on his side as Rose had left him, his face turned into the pillow. He looked like he was sleeping.
“And now what?” Mickey snorted. “You’re just going to lie there? Let her look after you?”
Mickey put his hands on his hips and turned his back on the Doctor, his heartbeat thundering in his own ears. All he saw was Rose visiting the Doctor every day for the rest of her life - stretching on forever. There was nothing he could do about it.
“You know what?” Mickey said suddenly, shaking a finger at the crumpled form in the bed. “At least the first one of you had the decency to die properly. Him she could mourn. Him she got over. What the hell is she supposed to do about you?”
Mickey bit his lip when he realised he was shouting. The Doctor didn’t so much as twitch. Mickey sank into the chair beside the bed and hung his head. He still hadn’t decided what to do. Rose would be back any minute …
He pushed himself to his feet, thinking of all the times the Doctor had left Rose behind … all the times she’d gone running back to him.
In the end, it wasn’t much of a choice at all.
-:-
Rose paid close attention to the uneven cobbles so that she didn’t trip. Her legs still felt like jelly and she didn’t quite trust her eyesight in the uncertain light. She’d returned to the Doctor’s room to find Mickey looking downcast. At first, she’d worried that there’d been some sort of change for the worst, but the Doctor slept on, oblivious to Mickey’s black mood.
When the words had finally spilled from his lips, Rose couldn’t understand why Mickey looked so upset. It was fantastic news … miraculous news! It had brought her all the way out to the docks - her first real foray into the world since the end of the War and the longest she’d been away from the Doctor.
She eyed her fellow pedestrians nervously. It still felt strange to be walking out in the open like this. The hair on the back of her neck was standing on end and she flinched at every squeal of tyres and sudden outburst of laughter.
By the time she made it to the warehouse she was a nervous wreck. Her palms were sweaty and her skin was crawling. It was worth it though, when they finally cleared her and she set her eyes on it.
Stark and alone, the TARDIS stood in a pool of light. Several UNIT soldiers stood on watch in the large open space, their rifles held loosely across their chests. Wordlessly, they stepped aside and allowed her access. Rose didn’t even spare them a nod as she approached. All her attention was on the time and space machine.
Mickey’s words replayed themselves in her mind, his morose tone at odds with the elation she felt. “Rose, they’ve found the TARDIS …”
It had appeared out of nowhere about six in the evening, sitting on the pier as if it had always been there. It was locked and the signage was dimmed.
Rose reached out a tentative hand, letting it rest on the battered blue shell with a reverent air. “Hello old girl,” she whispered, moving around the box, letting her fingertips trail lightly over the exterior. When she came full circle she leaned in and pressed her cheek against the door, her arms wrapped around in an almost comical attempt at a hug.
Rose Tyler hugs the TARDIS, she thought to herself. Too bloody right.
“Thankyou,” she whispered. “You brilliant, brilliant old thing.”
Rose reached inside her t-shirt and fingered her key. The temptation was strong … but she let the chain flop back against her skin and withdrew her hand. It didn’t seem right, somehow, to go inside without the Doctor.
One of the UNIT soldiers shifted uncomfortably. Rose chose to ignore him, giving the TARDIS a gentle pat instead. “I’ve only got two questions,” she whispered into the flaking blue paint. “Are there really two Doctors now, or did I imagine that bit? And how did you get back here?”
The time and space machine stayed resolutely dark and silent. Rose stifled her disappointment and gave the woodwork one last exuberant squeeze. “Never mind,” she sniffed. “You’ve probably got your reasons.”
-:-
Two days later, Rose looked up as the door to the Doctor’s room opened quietly. Her mother’s anxious face appeared and Rose couldn’t help but break into a smile. “Hi mum.”
“Hi sweetheart,” Jackie said softly. “Can I come in?”
“Of course you can. Mickey seems to think I’m baring my soul in here, so he stays away most of the time.”
“So you’re not, then?” Jackie clarified, taking the seat beside Rose. “Baring your soul?”
“No,” Rose shook her head, giving the Doctor’s hand a squeeze. “I’ve done that already.”
“Oh,” said Jackie, unsure whether to be pleased or concerned by this revelation.
“Right now, I’m reduced to reading him crossword questions and reciting Spice Girls’ lyrics,” Rose admitted, grinning bashfully. “If he remembers them, he’ll kill me when he wakes up.”
Jackie smiled in spite of herself at the thought of the Doctor awaking with an encyclopaedic knowledge of British girl bands. “It’s late … are you going to stay here all night?” Jackie pressed.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Rose admitted easily. “It’s what I do most nights.”
“But sweetheart, they’re taking good care of him here. You should get outside … go to dinner with Mickey and me …”
“While the Doctor lies here all alone? No thanks,” Rose interrupted.
“But it’s been weeks, Rose, weeks with no change. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you popped out for a bit of fresh air and a bite to eat.”
“No, probably not,” Rose agreed. “But I’d rather stay here.”
“Fine,” Jackie said, a hint of irritation in her voice.
Rose pursed her lips and shook her head. “He died saving us, mum. He trusted me enough to risk his life on my say so … and he’d never leave me alone in a place like this.” She paused and met her mother’s eyes.
Jackie wondered when her daughter had become so grown up. Rose no longer spoke of the Doctor like some teenage crush; she spoke of him like a best friend or a partner … like an equal.
“Okay then,” Jackie acknowledged, patting Rose’s knee. “So stay here and keep him company. Mickey’s taking me out for a proper seafood dinner. We’ll bring you back something, if you like …”
“Thanks for coming, mum,” Rose smiled, giving Jackie a quick hug without dropping the Doctor’s hand. “I know you don’t like hospitals.”
“Oh,” said Jackie, standing and taking one last look at her daughter and the Doctor. “It isn’t as bad as I thought.”
-:-
Later that night, Rose rolled the Doctor onto his right side and propped him up with pillows. On the nurse’s advice, she turned him every two to three hours, getting up through the night at the beck and call of her digital watch.
UNIT had provided a camp bed that she’d set up in the far corner of the Doctor’s room. Realistically, it would have made little difference if she’d slept in one of the adjacent rooms, or even down the hall in the barracks. Somehow, though, sleeping where she could hear him breathe reminded her that he was really here. He kept away most of the nightmares. Those that snuck through were quickly dispelled when she woke in his presence.
Rose didn’t like feeling dependent, but she figured they were doing each other a favour. She was looking after him while he was … sleeping? Healing? Doing whatever it was he was doing. It felt like a fair trade.
She crossed to the door and flicked off all but the bedside light, leaving a narrow bar of soft illumination across the Doctor’s face. Like she’d done every night since she’d woken up, Rose slipped between the rough army blankets and turned to face him. She counted ten of his shallow breaths before she let her eyes close and wished him goodnight.
One of these days, she’d wake up and find him staring back at her. She just knew it.
TBC ...
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Full mp3 album will be available with next chapter for those on dial-up
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rose Tyler, the Doctor ... and others
Rating: M - swearing|violence|romance
Spoilers: DW series 2|28 through Doomsday, EDAs, Big Finish Audios
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Betas: iansmomesq and drox - many thanks for a heap of help on this one!
Chapter 16
Rose woke to find Mickey staring down at her. It took her a moment to take in the hospital gown and the bleak surroundings. She screwed her eyes shut and tried to get some control over her muddled memories.
“Rose?” whispered Mickey hopefully.
“I’ve got to stop waking up in hospitals,” she groaned. Mickey wrapped her up in an awkward but well-meaning hug that she returned with as much strength as she could.
“How long was I out?” she asked.
“Oh, only about fourteen hours or so. Nothing really … considering.”
“No, I guess not.”
“You woke up before him. He’ll hate that, the Doctor will. Always likes to feel so bloody superior …” Mickey didn’t have time to finish his sentence before Rose was swinging her legs out of the bed and attempting to stand. He barely caught her as she swayed dangerously, the position change sending all her blood to weird and unhelpful places.
“Where is he?” Rose asked urgently.
“Two rooms down …”
“You brought him to a hospital?”
“Steady on,” he frowned. “Not stupid, am I? This is a UNIT hospital. There were a few soldiers that remembered everything. UNIT is on our side … on his side.”
She took a deep breath and stood. The ugly linoleum floor was cold under her bare feet. She made it to the door before Mickey’s smothered laughter made her pause and frown at him angrily. “What? What is it?”
He pointed at her with his free hand, the other doing a poor job of covering his grinning face. “Only that if you go wondering around the place like that you’ll never live it down.”
“What the hell are you … oh,” Rose snatched self-consciously at the open back of her gown. “So don’t just stand there! Find me something to wear!”
-:-
Wobbling down the corridor in her borrowed UNIT fatigues, Rose felt as if she were still stuck in the Time War. The presence of soldiers and the horrific state of the coffee that had been pressed into her hand combined to give her an eerie sense of déjà vu. It was only the occasional smile on someone’s face, or a glimpse at untouched Cardiff city that brought her back to reality … this reality.
The reality where the Doctor had regenerated and she’d sent him away … one of him, anyway.
Rose paused in the doorway, handing Mickey her hardly touched coffee without even looking at him. Looking small and pale, the Doctor lay in the centre of the hospital bed. It really was him - the same Doctor who had burned in the matter transducer. The Doctor who’d disappeared as he regenerated only to reappear in the wake of the TARDIS. When she’d held him in her arms as she passed out, Rose had felt as though she were dreaming, and yet here he was.
He was connected to several machines, many of them showing error messages, the flashing amber exclamation marks serving to remind everyone that the alarms had been turned off. Because, of course, the Doctor didn’t comply with the machine’s definitions of ‘acceptable ranges.’
Rose took several steps closer, until her hands rested on the bed rail. There was a tube looped around his face and an intravenous line taped to the back of his left hand.
“What are you giving him?” Rose asked in a small voice.
“Only oxygen and saline,” came a new voice from the doorway.
Rose turned to find a young blonde woman in a lab coat, a clipboard tucked under her arm. The young woman stretched out a hand and smiled. “Doctor Amy Blake.”
“Rose Tyler,” said Rose, shaking the proffered hand.
“Yes … I should think so,” smiled Blake. “Not that you’d remember me, but I operated on Beatrix MacMillan and got transferred to Cardiff as medical support on the last day of the Great War.”
“It was the Time War,” Rose corrected.
“Of course,” Blake acknowledged quickly, sparing a glance for the Doctor. “I know he’s not human and I remember … I remember what he did for us.” She looked back at Rose, her eyes suspiciously damp. “What you did for us … all of you,” she continued, including Mickey in her thanks.
“Yeah, well,” Rose managed awkwardly.
“I have to say, it seems monstrously unfair that so few of us remember,” Blake added nervously.
“So, the Doctor …” Rose interrupted.
“Yes, yes of course,” she assented. “He’s basically unharmed physically. A few abrasions, some broken ribs, bruising - that sort of thing. However, his brainwave activity is very erratic. We’ve tried EEG but the machine blew up. We managed MRIs but with nothing to cross-reference the data with …” she shrugged. “Honestly, we’ve got no way of telling if he’s sleeping, in a coma or worse.”
Rose nodded to herself as Blake shuffled nervously in her scuffs. In the bed, the Doctor lay unmoving. His silence was punctuated by the slight hiss of oxygen. It didn’t take her long to reach a conclusion.
“Right,” Rose said, suddenly businesslike. “Both of you, off you go.”
“Um …” said Doctor Blake, clutching her clipboard.
“Rose,” Mickey said warningly.
“Oh go on!” Rose snapped. “I’m not going to do anything dramatic, I just want to be alone with him.”
Mickey eyeballed her with his best ‘you better not be planning something’ look before ushering the confused Blake from the room and closing the door behind him.
Rose turned back to the Doctor. His slight form was perfectly arranged in the bed, his hands by his sides and his ankles together. “Looks like you’re laid out for a funeral,” Rose muttered, bending to untie her laces. “You’re all neat and tidy and proper … that’s not the Doctor I know.”
Toeing off her boots and wincing slightly as she lowered the bed rail, Rose set about rearranging him. She picked up his nearest arm and laid it across his chest. With a curse for her own bruises, she managed to roll him slightly on his side, one leg sprawled over the other, creating just enough space for her to wriggle in behind him, supporting him with the curve of her body. In a final act of defiance, she reached up and mussed his hair, sending curls out in all directions.
Satisfied and undeterred by his lack of response, Rose nestled her chin in the gap between his neck and shoulder, passing one arm over him to rest her hand on his.
“That’s better,” she told him. “I can’t talk to you when you look like something out of Madame Tussaud’s. Reminds me of those shop dummies...”
Rose rubbed her thumb across the back of his hand as she collected her thoughts. She’d thought it would have been easier to talk to him when he wasn’t running off at the mouth. Somehow, his silence made it more difficult instead.
“Let’s see,” she began finally. “I’m not that great when it comes to stories …”
She started at the beginning … before the beginning, really. She started as far back as she could remember. She told him all about herself - all her hopes and dreams and childish fears. She told him how mad and dangerous and simply fantastic it had been to travel with him. She told him how it had felt to love him … and how that love had changed over the years, growing into something more complex and yet simple at the same time.
Rose spoke about his loneliness and his rage. She revealed the few times she’d been afraid of him and the many times she’d been afraid for him. She admonished him for not taking better care of himself and thanked him for risking everything to save them all, yet again.
When her voice grew hoarse she reached over him and poured herself a dusty glass of water that she swallowed in three painful gulps, eager to return to her narrative before her train of thought or her courage deserted her.
She kept her eyes glued on the small window that showed a bleak section of street frontage. From time to time, a car would slide past or a pedestrian would make their slower progress across her line of sight. To Rose, these simple proofs of normalcy were very precious and she cherished each scowl on someone’s face as it rained, each sputter of an untuned engine or burst of conversation.
However much she yearned to put the War behind her, Rose knew she’d never be able to while the Doctor lay here alone. She couldn’t move on without discovering if he was still in there, somewhere, or whether this body was a mere husk - an empty shell that once held him. Either way, she had to know.
The Doctor had always been her last hope. She placed her trust in him, learned to accept that he was fallible, maybe, but she’d trusted him all the same. Holding his cold form against her, trying to warm him with her voice and her memories as well as her body, Rose realised she’d thrown her lot in with him again. Somewhere during the War, this Doctor had ceased to be a version of someone she’d once loved and become precious in his own right.
So she forced herself to speak of that day in Torchwood. She gritted her teeth and she told him where this little chapter of her life had started. It might have been the day she died, but Rose had a feeling it was the first time the Doctor had realised just how much he meant to her. For those fleeting seconds where their eyes had met and she’d pledged never to leave him … in that bittersweet moment he’d understood.
She told herself she was okay despite the tears that hovered at the edges of her vision. She wished he could hear her. She hoped that he did. The worst part about being stranded here was wondering if the future Doctor had managed to carve out a little piece of happiness for himself. Every day since that day in Norway, Rose had longed for a split second of contact - just enough to reassure herself that he was okay. Just enough to ease her mind.
She told him that, too.
“I might have been dead,” she whispered. “But you were mine.”
-:-
Alone in the Doctor’s hospital room, Mickey Smith just wanted to do the right thing.
It had been weeks since the final battle of the Time War and there had been no change to the Doctor’s condition. He told himself it was genuine concern for Rose that made him object to her constant presence at the hospital.
He felt guilty whenever he thought of the Doctor. He couldn’t pin down the exact reason, but Mickey had a feeling he had something to be ashamed of … and that irritated him.
“What have I got to feel bad about?” Mickey asked the unresponsive form in the bed. “I’ve never done anything to you, but you walked in and took her from me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you did it again. Except this time you brought the Time War with you.” Mickey gripped the foot of the bed and pressed his lips together. “Did you see what it did to her? Did you see how all the fighting changed her?”
The Doctor lay on his side as Rose had left him, his face turned into the pillow. He looked like he was sleeping.
“And now what?” Mickey snorted. “You’re just going to lie there? Let her look after you?”
Mickey put his hands on his hips and turned his back on the Doctor, his heartbeat thundering in his own ears. All he saw was Rose visiting the Doctor every day for the rest of her life - stretching on forever. There was nothing he could do about it.
“You know what?” Mickey said suddenly, shaking a finger at the crumpled form in the bed. “At least the first one of you had the decency to die properly. Him she could mourn. Him she got over. What the hell is she supposed to do about you?”
Mickey bit his lip when he realised he was shouting. The Doctor didn’t so much as twitch. Mickey sank into the chair beside the bed and hung his head. He still hadn’t decided what to do. Rose would be back any minute …
He pushed himself to his feet, thinking of all the times the Doctor had left Rose behind … all the times she’d gone running back to him.
In the end, it wasn’t much of a choice at all.
-:-
Rose paid close attention to the uneven cobbles so that she didn’t trip. Her legs still felt like jelly and she didn’t quite trust her eyesight in the uncertain light. She’d returned to the Doctor’s room to find Mickey looking downcast. At first, she’d worried that there’d been some sort of change for the worst, but the Doctor slept on, oblivious to Mickey’s black mood.
When the words had finally spilled from his lips, Rose couldn’t understand why Mickey looked so upset. It was fantastic news … miraculous news! It had brought her all the way out to the docks - her first real foray into the world since the end of the War and the longest she’d been away from the Doctor.
She eyed her fellow pedestrians nervously. It still felt strange to be walking out in the open like this. The hair on the back of her neck was standing on end and she flinched at every squeal of tyres and sudden outburst of laughter.
By the time she made it to the warehouse she was a nervous wreck. Her palms were sweaty and her skin was crawling. It was worth it though, when they finally cleared her and she set her eyes on it.
Stark and alone, the TARDIS stood in a pool of light. Several UNIT soldiers stood on watch in the large open space, their rifles held loosely across their chests. Wordlessly, they stepped aside and allowed her access. Rose didn’t even spare them a nod as she approached. All her attention was on the time and space machine.
Mickey’s words replayed themselves in her mind, his morose tone at odds with the elation she felt. “Rose, they’ve found the TARDIS …”
It had appeared out of nowhere about six in the evening, sitting on the pier as if it had always been there. It was locked and the signage was dimmed.
Rose reached out a tentative hand, letting it rest on the battered blue shell with a reverent air. “Hello old girl,” she whispered, moving around the box, letting her fingertips trail lightly over the exterior. When she came full circle she leaned in and pressed her cheek against the door, her arms wrapped around in an almost comical attempt at a hug.
Rose Tyler hugs the TARDIS, she thought to herself. Too bloody right.
“Thankyou,” she whispered. “You brilliant, brilliant old thing.”
Rose reached inside her t-shirt and fingered her key. The temptation was strong … but she let the chain flop back against her skin and withdrew her hand. It didn’t seem right, somehow, to go inside without the Doctor.
One of the UNIT soldiers shifted uncomfortably. Rose chose to ignore him, giving the TARDIS a gentle pat instead. “I’ve only got two questions,” she whispered into the flaking blue paint. “Are there really two Doctors now, or did I imagine that bit? And how did you get back here?”
The time and space machine stayed resolutely dark and silent. Rose stifled her disappointment and gave the woodwork one last exuberant squeeze. “Never mind,” she sniffed. “You’ve probably got your reasons.”
-:-
Two days later, Rose looked up as the door to the Doctor’s room opened quietly. Her mother’s anxious face appeared and Rose couldn’t help but break into a smile. “Hi mum.”
“Hi sweetheart,” Jackie said softly. “Can I come in?”
“Of course you can. Mickey seems to think I’m baring my soul in here, so he stays away most of the time.”
“So you’re not, then?” Jackie clarified, taking the seat beside Rose. “Baring your soul?”
“No,” Rose shook her head, giving the Doctor’s hand a squeeze. “I’ve done that already.”
“Oh,” said Jackie, unsure whether to be pleased or concerned by this revelation.
“Right now, I’m reduced to reading him crossword questions and reciting Spice Girls’ lyrics,” Rose admitted, grinning bashfully. “If he remembers them, he’ll kill me when he wakes up.”
Jackie smiled in spite of herself at the thought of the Doctor awaking with an encyclopaedic knowledge of British girl bands. “It’s late … are you going to stay here all night?” Jackie pressed.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Rose admitted easily. “It’s what I do most nights.”
“But sweetheart, they’re taking good care of him here. You should get outside … go to dinner with Mickey and me …”
“While the Doctor lies here all alone? No thanks,” Rose interrupted.
“But it’s been weeks, Rose, weeks with no change. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you popped out for a bit of fresh air and a bite to eat.”
“No, probably not,” Rose agreed. “But I’d rather stay here.”
“Fine,” Jackie said, a hint of irritation in her voice.
Rose pursed her lips and shook her head. “He died saving us, mum. He trusted me enough to risk his life on my say so … and he’d never leave me alone in a place like this.” She paused and met her mother’s eyes.
Jackie wondered when her daughter had become so grown up. Rose no longer spoke of the Doctor like some teenage crush; she spoke of him like a best friend or a partner … like an equal.
“Okay then,” Jackie acknowledged, patting Rose’s knee. “So stay here and keep him company. Mickey’s taking me out for a proper seafood dinner. We’ll bring you back something, if you like …”
“Thanks for coming, mum,” Rose smiled, giving Jackie a quick hug without dropping the Doctor’s hand. “I know you don’t like hospitals.”
“Oh,” said Jackie, standing and taking one last look at her daughter and the Doctor. “It isn’t as bad as I thought.”
-:-
Later that night, Rose rolled the Doctor onto his right side and propped him up with pillows. On the nurse’s advice, she turned him every two to three hours, getting up through the night at the beck and call of her digital watch.
UNIT had provided a camp bed that she’d set up in the far corner of the Doctor’s room. Realistically, it would have made little difference if she’d slept in one of the adjacent rooms, or even down the hall in the barracks. Somehow, though, sleeping where she could hear him breathe reminded her that he was really here. He kept away most of the nightmares. Those that snuck through were quickly dispelled when she woke in his presence.
Rose didn’t like feeling dependent, but she figured they were doing each other a favour. She was looking after him while he was … sleeping? Healing? Doing whatever it was he was doing. It felt like a fair trade.
She crossed to the door and flicked off all but the bedside light, leaving a narrow bar of soft illumination across the Doctor’s face. Like she’d done every night since she’d woken up, Rose slipped between the rough army blankets and turned to face him. She counted ten of his shallow breaths before she let her eyes close and wished him goodnight.
One of these days, she’d wake up and find him staring back at her. She just knew it.
TBC ...
Soundtrack Download - Ships by Pony Up! (which you might have d'loaded last time!)
This song is available for a limited time only on sendspace.
Full mp3 album will be available with next chapter for those on dial-up