(Untitled)
The fact that Rose Tyler had no idea where she was didn't phase her overmuch. Not now, anyway - it would later, but right now, the simple truth that she'd managed not to fall to her knees or puke up her breakfast was enough of a triumph that it kept her busy.
It took her a minute (okay, several minutes) to actually look around the room she'd ( Read more... )
It took her a minute (okay, several minutes) to actually look around the room she'd ( Read more... )
Just the explanation made her head hurt. Literally, the edges of her vision dimming as her hand found the banister next to her, but she sucked in a breath, plastering on a small smile before her brows knit.
"Just... the way you do." She looked behind her, then leaned to look around the center console. "You've got a new- I mean. Have you got someone new?" She was biting her lower lip again, her tongue between her teeth. It'd never sat well with her that he swapped them out like worn out pairs of shoes, that he'd said there would be no one else, then there he was, with Martha and Donna and who knew who else.
But that was neither here nor there.
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"A new...oh. No. No, not for a while now. Just bouncing around on my own, you know. Traveling. The way you do."
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"D'you have some sort of - I don't know, asprin or something? M'head, it's killing me." She pulled in a breath, her hand rubbing the back of her neck.
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He gesticulated wildly about his head. Human brains...not meant for that sort of thing, really.
"You need to be here? Of course. Right. That's why you...with the canon and the...Jack? Jack helped you? You saw him, then?"
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"So, uhm. Where are you going? I mean, I'm guessing I ended up here and now for a reason." She was holding herself back, and it felt like that distance was a palpable thing, and it was one she wouldn't break.
Still, she looked away. "He died. Saving the world. Just thought you should know."
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"I'm going...I don't know where I'm going. Eventually I've got to go see the Ood, but right now, you know me, I'm just traveling."
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"Didn't know I was coming here. I mean, here, specifically, so-" She laughed, a tight, awkward sound. "Sorry I didn't ring ahead or anything." She shoved her free hand into the front pocket on her jacket, mostly because the other was still clinging to the banister - the world kept dimming and brightening, and she'd rather not just fall over. Not here. Not when he was standing in front of her.
Not when he'd left her, and she'd fought her way back here, and there's wasn't so much as a It's good to see you. No, Rose was ignoring the dimming, the pounding headache.
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"It's good your here. Can halep me choose a destination, eh? We can go somewhere together."
He seemed excited about that idea. It was the most excited he'd been in years.
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"How can y'do that? Act like you didn't just leave me-" She looked up at him then, her face twisting. "You left me. I shouldn't have kissed him, but you left me." She shook her head, sucking in a breath, and stepped around him - and started finding the right knobs and levers, turning and flipping and reaching. She'd not know what she was reaching for, and then there it'd be under her fingers, and she'd just know what to do with it.
"I thought-" She looked up at the column, knowing he was going to stop her any second now (hell, she'd have stopped her the moment she'd appeared on his ship), "I thought that I mattered." She finally looked at him then, every single bit of good humor gone as she yanked the last lever.
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"You dis matter. Do matter. You matter enough to have a normal life and not all...this. Aren't you happy with him? He's me. We're us. Best of both worlds, eh? Home and family. Mortgage and a little fence with flowers and the man of your...er...he has to love you, right?"
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"Sacrificed himself to save the world, and no, no home and family and normal life. The girl who made the Doctor I met into the man who you are has been gone since the first time you left me in Normandy." She sucked in a breath through her teeth. "I'm the head of Torchwood Six, and Special Advisor to Capt. James McCaren of the Valiant, or, I suppose, I was until I started having dreams that left me running willy-nilly all over the universe after you."
She bit her lip so hard it turned white. "He died eight months ago. Daleks." Who else?
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"I'm sorry," he said. I'm so sorry. But you? What about you? You don't look well at all..."
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Words sort of failed, and she reached out for him - the first time in what seemed like a lifetime.
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