Fic: When Empty, My Hand Reaches-- Ten2/Rose
Title: When Empty, My Hand Reaches
Rating: G
Characters/pairings: Ten2/Rose (implied)
Warnings/spoilers: Through Journey's End. Also, angst galore.
Author's Notes: My first attempt at writing Ten2. Who knows. Maybe there will be a sequel sometime.
A kind of numbness had settled over Rose, a cold that had nothing to do with temperature seeping through to her marrow. She felt as if she had crystallized as the world moved around her. She could hear the tumbling of the waves, tasted the salt in the wind that lashed her hair around her face, felt the shifting of the sands beneath her feet, could track the cries of the gulls streaking through the air. She was only dimly aware of the warm hand in hers, of the hooded brown eyes lingering on her, hoping and not daring to hope.
He had left, had slipped away in silence. There was no tearful goodbye this time, only the grinding groan of the TARDIS engines.
Yet, here he was, his fingers curled around her own, his grip still strong and somehow a little bit desperate. Her mind struggled to comprehend it, to accept it. A paradox. Here but not here.
She could feel his single pulse as she held his hand. One heart. She had kissed him, and it had felt like the breathless pause of time that hovers at the edge of a precipice.
Who was this man, if not the Doctor?
She looked at him, and he gazed back. There was no manic smile thrown her way, no flare of adventure lighting his eyes, only a fathomless emptiness, a flicker of fear, and her. Suddenly that old cliché of “falling into somebody's eyes” became very real to her.
A pair of ice blue eyes set in a battle-weathered, hawkish face had once looked at her almost exactly like this. A torrent of memory and conflicted emotion swept through her, and it all suddenly became too much to bear. She pulled her hand free, folded her arms around herself, and turned to face the ocean.
Somewhere to her left, she saw him put his hands in his pockets and look away from her.
~~<~~@@~~>~~
The Doctor-- he refused to think of himself as anyone but-- scuffed the toe of his trainer against the carpet in the hotel room, trying to feel its texture through the rubber of his soles. There was a time when the rasp of carpet fibers against rubber, the exact resonance of the sound it made, the degree of tension as the fibers bent against the pressure of his foot, the scent permeating it all, would have given him a decent amount of information about the composition of the carpet. It would have been noted, perhaps absently, and tucked away into a corner of his mind for recall if later needed.
Carpet. Beige. Medium length fibers. That was all he could discern. He actually considered tasting it for a brief fraction of a second before discarding the idea as foolish.
He felt muted, his senses dulled. How was he going to live like this? And Rose...
She was keeping her distance. She had very deliberately asked for a separate room when, at Jackie's insistence, they had stopped for the night at a small but comfortable hotel during their journey back to London. She hadn't looked at him when she said it. He had kept his hands in his pockets, a gesture that once meant nonchalance turned to a defensive stance, because all he had really wanted was to feel her hand in his. He had let his hand gently encircle the piece of coral in his pocket, the cutting of the TARDIS the other him had left him instead.
The hotel clerk must have been blind to the tension radiating from the group, and between Rose and the Doctor specifically, because he had housed the two in adjacent rooms. She was there somewhere on the other side of the door, moving about. He could hear the hiss of the pipes as she ran water, the hollow echo of a television.
Oh, but he wanted to go to her. Instead, he stood, silent and still, in the center of the room.
A knock on the door between their rooms six minutes and... and... and some seconds later startled him out of his reverie. He blinked, but then moved to open the door. Rose stood, her arms wrapped around herself, framed by the doorway. Her hair was wet, her face clean and devoid of makeup. She wore the clothes she'd had on earlier, sans jacket. He said her name on impulse, and then opened the door wider and stepped back. “Would you like to come in?”
She glanced at him, flashing a weak smile, and stepped into his room. She looked around, as if taking in her surroundings, though undoubtedly the space was identical to hers. “I was just...” she began, before shrugging helplessly. “I mean, they're gonna order some food. Mum and Pete. We were wondering if you wanted something.”
He straightened and slid his hands into his pockets. The coral cutting hummed softly in the back of his mind as his fingers brushed against it, still so very young. Newborn. “Yes, actually. Starving. Still metabolizing the meta-crisis. Bit like regeneration, actually, with the need for energy replenishment. Remember how--” he faltered, and she looked at him for a long moment.
“Right,” she said finally. “Well, I'll tell them.”
“Rose...” he reached a hand tentatively towards her face, but she flinched back almost imperceptibly. He dropped his hand.
She looked at her feet. “Sorry,” she murmured. Then, in a choked voice, “He really did leave us.”
He swallowed hard. “I'm right here, Rose.”
“I-- I know. I think. I mean... I'm sorry.”
“Right,” he said, and then was spinning on his heel, pacing away from her, letting words fill the space between them. “Anyway, though, I thought I'd start drawing up plans for a new sonic screwdriver. I mean, can you imagine me without a sonic screwdriver? I mean, technically, one could open doors and unlock handcuffs and build shelves without one, but really, it's so much better with one. You really never know when you might need it. Did you know that the male Huffaleepas of S'nood start to sing when you use setting six thirty-two? Evidently it triggers a release of hormones that instigate a mating call. Though it might not do that here. That's something to think on, you know? How much might be--”
He broke off as he heard the soft click of a door latch, barely audible over his own voice, and turned to see that Rose had left, closing the door behind her. He pressed his hand against the door for a moment before leaning in and resting the side of his face against it, closing his eyes. He could hear her crying.
~~<~~@@~~>~~
Rose turned her face against the door from inside her room, pressing her palm to its grainy surface as she struggled to control the tears that had suddenly begun to choke her. She was being terrible to...to him (she couldn't bring herself to call him the Doctor), just horrid, and none of this was his fault, but she couldn't cope right now. Not after what she had put herself through just to get back to the Doctor, only to have him slip away without so much as a goodbye.
Bad Wolf Bay, her own Aberdeen.
She took a deep breath and pushed away from the door, swiping at the tears on her face. She really, really needed to get a hold of herself. There was no use wallowing in self-pity. She strode to the phone and dialed her mum and Pete's room to tell them that the Doctor wanted something to eat as well. She realized belatedly that she hadn't asked what he had wanted.
She sat cross-legged on the bed, aimlessly flipping channels on the telly, not really focusing on anything as she waited for the food to arrive.
There was a sharp series of raps on the exterior door, and she jumped, instantly on alert, before realizing that it was probably just the food. She opened the door to see her mother on the other side, holding two plastic bags.
“It's Thai,” Jackie said, looking at her daughter closely. “Only place that was open this time of night. They don't usually deliver, but Pete got them to come out for extra money. I told him they'd do it if he paid 'em enough, I did, though he didn't believe me, can you imagine? One day, that man will listen to me when I talk. You wait.” She held the bags out to Rose. “We didn't know what... what he'd want, or how much, so we got him the sampler. How are you doing, Rose?”
The shift in topic was so abrupt that Rose almost didn't catch it. She took the bags and shrugged. “Oh, I'm all right. Don't worry about me, Mum.”
“Love, I hardly do anything but worry about you,” Jackie said softly, smoothing a still-damp lock of Rose's hair from her face. “Go on. Give him his food. And don't be hidin' in your room all night from him. Lord knows I've hated that man sometimes, but right now, you need each other, and that's no lie.”
She started to say that it wasn't him, but stopped herself. “Thanks, Mum,” she said instead, with a small smile. “I'll give it to him.”
Hefting the bags in one arm, she closed the exterior door, and knocked lightly on the Doctor's. There was no answer, so she rapped again, straining listen. No sound came from inside the room, and she chewed her lip for a brief moment before opening the door.
Her stomach gave a little flip. He wasn't there. She started to call to him, but still couldn't bring herself to call him Doctor, so settled for a slightly cracked, “Hello?”
Setting the food down on the dresser, she did a quick sweep of the room, pushing open the door to the bathroom.
He had most certainly left.
She felt a surge of anger at that, and her hands curled into fists. Of course he left. He's good at that, she thought, before immediately feeling guilty for her anger. Was this her fault? Had her coldness driven him away, so quickly?
She had been entrusted with him. He had needed her, and she turned him away, too caught up in her own confusion and grief to care.
She had to find him, to set things right, if it was still possible. If he would listen to her. He had every right not to.
She ran outside, not even bothering to retrieve her jacket from her room.
~~<~~@@~~>~~
The Doctor walked at a leisurely pace, stretching his senses to test and experience this new world. The air was cold, he realized. It actually felt too cold for comfort. Another thing he would have to adjust to, this change in core body temperature. He found himself longing for his ankle-length coat, and not just because it completed his outfit.
He took a breath and paused in his walk, dropping his head back to look at the stars. They looked the same. Appearances are deceiving, he thought. Or are they?
The echo of rapidly approaching footfalls drew his attention, and he turned to see Rose running towards him. An instinctive smile flourished on his face, and he stepped towards her.
“Doctor!” she shouted breathlessly as she neared him. “Please, just... will you hear me out? I understand if you don't want to stay; God knows I've been dreadful to you, but just... just listen for a minute?”
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
She reached him, panting a little, and the look on her face made him want to take her in his arms, but he held himself in check. “Doctor, just... just don't leave without talking to me about it first? Please? This whole... thing...” she gestured helplessly, “It's all going to be an adjustment. For you too, I know, and I've been horrible...”
“Horrible? Rose, no.” He stuttered a little as what she'd said sank in. “Leave? You think I'm leaving?”
“You ran off. I thought... I thought you were angry.”
He suddenly chuckled. “I was going for a walk. I wasn't leaving. Not for more than, oh, a half hour or so.” He looked at her, his eyes cataloging every precious detail her features, started to reach out to touch her cheek but quickly restrained himself. “I wasn't angry, Rose. Not with you. And I wasn't going to run away from you.”
She held his gaze for a moment, silently, before nodding. “I'm glad. That you're not leaving. I don't...” her teeth worried at her lower lip. “I don't want you to go.”
He smiled broadly at her. Her lips twisted into a reluctant but impulsive grin, and then she was reaching out a hand to him. He clasped her hand in both of his, and then pulled her against him gently, wrapping his arms around her. She held him tightly, resting her head on his shoulder, and he dropped a kiss into her hair, breathing in her scent. Her shampoo, probably the hotel's provision, smelled of strawberries, but her unique scent lingered beneath, so very beguiling, as it always had been. “I'm not going anywhere, Rose Tyler,” he murmured against her head.
And it was then that he realized she had been calling him Doctor.