Pages from a Broken Book: Inertia
Title: Page Three: Inertia
Author: azriona
Beta: the ever lovely jlrpuck
Rating: PG
Warning: Spoilery like crazy for Journey’s End.
(And yes, continuation of He Has Nightmares and His Name.)
Summary: Inertia: A tendency to do nothing or remain unchanged.
Characters: Rose & 10.5
A/N: Your generous reviews have convinced me; I'm continuing. For convenience, I'm turning it into a series, and calling it Pages from a Broken Book. Each story will be one page, so Inertia is Page Three. Hopefully this will make it easier for you all to find and follow.
(Page One is He Has Nightmares; Page Two is His Name.)
Inertia
He wakes every morning in his lonely bed. Sometimes Rose is there. Sometimes she isn’t. The sunlight streams in through the crack in the curtains, and it always surprises him how long it takes for the fog of sleep to melt away from him. He hates the feeling of waking slowly, of struggling to determine where he is, what time it is, what is happening around him.
He doesn’t like sleeping. The nightmares aside, it’s a waste of time. He has little time to spare.
He showers and shaves, every morning, and dresses in clothing that looks similar enough to his old suits. Rose tried to get him to wear jeans, or jumpers, or anything that was not trousers and a button-down shirt, but these things are his armor. He wasn’t able to find his brown pinstripe suit - the shopkeepers laughed when he asked - and he knows she doesn’t like the blue. But he’s found something close in the brown trousers he wears now, with the small black checks that disappear when you step away. He likes them.
He likes them. This feeling, he can be sure, is his own. It’s the first feeling, he thinks, that he truly feels is his, not the leftovers of the Other Him. He takes it and runs with it, and owns four pairs of the trousers, because Rose won’t let him wear the same pair every day.
The kettle whistles in the kitchen - it stops abruptly and he decides Rose is already awake. She wakes early, is always dressed when he emerges, has usually started breakfast. It’s almost like it was before (he became human), except reversed. He never slept before (he became human), but she still made breakfast for them both.
“Good morning,” she says when he steps into the small kitchen. It’s a small house, only the two bedrooms. His bedrooms is smaller than the galley kitchen, though only by inches. There is a breakfast nook that’s really a nook, and a living space with couch and television and overflowing bookshelves. There’s barely room for the two of them in the kitchen, and he half smiles at her, rubbing the back of his neck as spies the mug of tea waiting for him on the table.
“Good morning,” he says, and gives her a kiss as he passes her, on the bit of skin in front of her ear. This is also part of the morning routine, and he finds he doesn’t mind it as much as he does the rest. Waking, and dressing, and drinking tea are all very human things to do in the morning, he imagines.
Kissing Rose is human, too, but he’s the only one who gets to do it, and that makes it different.
“I thought we’d go somewhere.” Rose’s voice is quiet; she sounds as if she’s trying to be cheerful. He wonders how long she stayed with him, after he woke from his nightmare. He can’t remember if she was there when he fell asleep again or not.
He’d know by looking at her face, but she doesn’t look at him. She concentrates on the pan with the eggs. He doesn’t like eggs, but hasn’t quite determined if it’s him or the eggs, and he knows Rose likes them enough for breakfast and dinner besides. His hand rests on her arm, where he’d touched her with the kiss, and he is loathe to move it.
“Where?”
“It’s only...” She looks up in that peculiar human habit of searching for words that might drop down from the sky, and he waits. “Before, we were always traveling, you know? We never stayed in one place for long. And you’ve been here for a week, and except for buying clothes, you haven’t really left the house.”
“I went to your mother’s for dinner.”
“I’m talking about an adventure.”
“I’d think dinner with Jackie qualifies.”
“Oi,” says Rose in protest, but she turns to him with a smile. “Is that Donna?”
“Yes,” he says, and leans in to kiss her again, because she’ll close her eyes when he does, and he doesn’t want her to see how much hearing Donna’s name pains him. He won’t see Donna again; all he’s got left of her is her cheek. It’s weak cheek, even, because his heart isn’t in it. Taking the mickey out of Jackie feels more like something he needs to do, and less like something he wants to do.
Besides, Mickey has already been taken out of any equation they’re likely to have now. He remembers how upset Rose was, when they’d left Mickey behind the first time. He wonders if she feels the same now.
Rose’s lips are soft and willing. He likes Rose’s lips. He thinks this might be his own feeling as well, because certainly the Other Him didn’t kiss her that often before. Here, human, he’s kissed her every day.
“Where would we go?” he asks. Donna’s memory is safely put away, and the eggs are nearly burning. He lets go of Rose’s arm and moves away to sit at the table.
“I - I don’t know.” She struggles for a moment, between speaking and dishing out the eggs. He drops the sugar in his tea - two, not three - and waits. “I couldn’t decide if it should be very exciting or very quiet. I think exciting, but I’m not sure where to begin.”
He isn’t sure either. “I never went looking for excitement. Not intentionally anyway.” The plate of eggs and toast appears before him, and he pokes at the yolk with his fork, letting the yellow run across the white and into the toast. “We don’t have to go anywhere.”
“Yes, we do,” says Rose firmly. “Pete rang this morning. He has all your documents, and there’s a passport. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve watched you, and you aren’t happy here.”
“I’m happy,” he protests.
“No, you aren’t. We’re going. I don’t know where, but if you haven’t decided by tomorrow morning, we’ll just get on the first zeppelin and go.”
He thinks about this. “Like putting the TARDIS on random.”
“Exactly.”
For half a minute, he feels something unusual - something he only barely remembers from before. Something bubbling up and peeking out before hiding right back down in his gut, where it’s safe and almost familiar.
“Let’s do that,” he says quickly, before the feeling dissipates, and her eyes widen, a bit startled.
“Random?”
“Yes,” he says, dropping his fork with a clatter and reaching for her hand. “Put the zeppelin on random, and go.”
Her warm fingers wrap around his hand. He can feel her studying him as she considers. He tugs on her gently, not wanting her to take any longer than necessary. “Rose-"
“You’re waking up,” she says under her breath, half to herself, and he tugs on her hand again, anxious. She smiles. “Do you even want to finish your eggs?”
“I don’t think I like eggs.”
Rose laughs. “Pete said he’d leave your papers in the mailbox - go and look, and if they’re there, we’ll leave.”
“Today?” he asks, and the hopeful tone surprises even him. Rose hears it and bursts into light, the smile exactly the same as the one she gave him on the street, before he’d been hit by the Dalek, before he’d been split in two.
“Today,” she says, almost jubilant.
He grins at her, feeling the bits of skin on his cheeks crinkle, cracking, and almost forgets to let go of her hand when he jumps up from the table. The mailbox is just outside the door to the house, and he stands on the step, basking in the sun. Everything in him ticks away; his nerves are firing, his brain is whirring into action from a week of repose. In the box is a thick envelope. He pulls it out and races back inside, where Rose has finished her eggs in record time and is putting the dishes into the sink.
“Open it up, let’s see them,” she says, watching him.
There is a brand-new passport, maroon and gold, and a thin driver’s license. There are several sheets of paper - birth certificate, doctoral degrees, and the like. He opens the passport and sees his own face looking up at him, stern and pale.
He looks at the name, and his heart stops for a moment. He is startled enough to forget it is human.
Rose watches him, still, leaning against the counter. “I wasn’t sure-"
“No,” he says, trying to find his voice. “I mean - yes. I didn’t-"
“I knew you didn’t like Smith, not really. And I didn’t think you’d want to be Tyler - I mean, I wanted you to have something of your own. Well...not quite your own. I thought-”
“I like it,” he said firmly, and he thinks he almost does.
“Good.” She still looks nervous, and he leaves the passport on the table and walks over to her, cupping her cheek. She smiles up at him, but carefully, because it’s only the first kiss where they faced each other, the first kiss that did not include one of them passing the other by. “Hello, Mr. Noble.”
“Hello, Miss Tyler,” he whispers, and for the third time that day, kisses her, so she can’t see the loss in his eyes.
Jump to Page Four - The Quiet Persistence of Noise
Author: azriona
Beta: the ever lovely jlrpuck
Rating: PG
Warning: Spoilery like crazy for Journey’s End.
(And yes, continuation of He Has Nightmares and His Name.)
Summary: Inertia: A tendency to do nothing or remain unchanged.
Characters: Rose & 10.5
A/N: Your generous reviews have convinced me; I'm continuing. For convenience, I'm turning it into a series, and calling it Pages from a Broken Book. Each story will be one page, so Inertia is Page Three. Hopefully this will make it easier for you all to find and follow.
(Page One is He Has Nightmares; Page Two is His Name.)
Inertia
He wakes every morning in his lonely bed. Sometimes Rose is there. Sometimes she isn’t. The sunlight streams in through the crack in the curtains, and it always surprises him how long it takes for the fog of sleep to melt away from him. He hates the feeling of waking slowly, of struggling to determine where he is, what time it is, what is happening around him.
He doesn’t like sleeping. The nightmares aside, it’s a waste of time. He has little time to spare.
He showers and shaves, every morning, and dresses in clothing that looks similar enough to his old suits. Rose tried to get him to wear jeans, or jumpers, or anything that was not trousers and a button-down shirt, but these things are his armor. He wasn’t able to find his brown pinstripe suit - the shopkeepers laughed when he asked - and he knows she doesn’t like the blue. But he’s found something close in the brown trousers he wears now, with the small black checks that disappear when you step away. He likes them.
He likes them. This feeling, he can be sure, is his own. It’s the first feeling, he thinks, that he truly feels is his, not the leftovers of the Other Him. He takes it and runs with it, and owns four pairs of the trousers, because Rose won’t let him wear the same pair every day.
The kettle whistles in the kitchen - it stops abruptly and he decides Rose is already awake. She wakes early, is always dressed when he emerges, has usually started breakfast. It’s almost like it was before (he became human), except reversed. He never slept before (he became human), but she still made breakfast for them both.
“Good morning,” she says when he steps into the small kitchen. It’s a small house, only the two bedrooms. His bedrooms is smaller than the galley kitchen, though only by inches. There is a breakfast nook that’s really a nook, and a living space with couch and television and overflowing bookshelves. There’s barely room for the two of them in the kitchen, and he half smiles at her, rubbing the back of his neck as spies the mug of tea waiting for him on the table.
“Good morning,” he says, and gives her a kiss as he passes her, on the bit of skin in front of her ear. This is also part of the morning routine, and he finds he doesn’t mind it as much as he does the rest. Waking, and dressing, and drinking tea are all very human things to do in the morning, he imagines.
Kissing Rose is human, too, but he’s the only one who gets to do it, and that makes it different.
“I thought we’d go somewhere.” Rose’s voice is quiet; she sounds as if she’s trying to be cheerful. He wonders how long she stayed with him, after he woke from his nightmare. He can’t remember if she was there when he fell asleep again or not.
He’d know by looking at her face, but she doesn’t look at him. She concentrates on the pan with the eggs. He doesn’t like eggs, but hasn’t quite determined if it’s him or the eggs, and he knows Rose likes them enough for breakfast and dinner besides. His hand rests on her arm, where he’d touched her with the kiss, and he is loathe to move it.
“Where?”
“It’s only...” She looks up in that peculiar human habit of searching for words that might drop down from the sky, and he waits. “Before, we were always traveling, you know? We never stayed in one place for long. And you’ve been here for a week, and except for buying clothes, you haven’t really left the house.”
“I went to your mother’s for dinner.”
“I’m talking about an adventure.”
“I’d think dinner with Jackie qualifies.”
“Oi,” says Rose in protest, but she turns to him with a smile. “Is that Donna?”
“Yes,” he says, and leans in to kiss her again, because she’ll close her eyes when he does, and he doesn’t want her to see how much hearing Donna’s name pains him. He won’t see Donna again; all he’s got left of her is her cheek. It’s weak cheek, even, because his heart isn’t in it. Taking the mickey out of Jackie feels more like something he needs to do, and less like something he wants to do.
Besides, Mickey has already been taken out of any equation they’re likely to have now. He remembers how upset Rose was, when they’d left Mickey behind the first time. He wonders if she feels the same now.
Rose’s lips are soft and willing. He likes Rose’s lips. He thinks this might be his own feeling as well, because certainly the Other Him didn’t kiss her that often before. Here, human, he’s kissed her every day.
“Where would we go?” he asks. Donna’s memory is safely put away, and the eggs are nearly burning. He lets go of Rose’s arm and moves away to sit at the table.
“I - I don’t know.” She struggles for a moment, between speaking and dishing out the eggs. He drops the sugar in his tea - two, not three - and waits. “I couldn’t decide if it should be very exciting or very quiet. I think exciting, but I’m not sure where to begin.”
He isn’t sure either. “I never went looking for excitement. Not intentionally anyway.” The plate of eggs and toast appears before him, and he pokes at the yolk with his fork, letting the yellow run across the white and into the toast. “We don’t have to go anywhere.”
“Yes, we do,” says Rose firmly. “Pete rang this morning. He has all your documents, and there’s a passport. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve watched you, and you aren’t happy here.”
“I’m happy,” he protests.
“No, you aren’t. We’re going. I don’t know where, but if you haven’t decided by tomorrow morning, we’ll just get on the first zeppelin and go.”
He thinks about this. “Like putting the TARDIS on random.”
“Exactly.”
For half a minute, he feels something unusual - something he only barely remembers from before. Something bubbling up and peeking out before hiding right back down in his gut, where it’s safe and almost familiar.
“Let’s do that,” he says quickly, before the feeling dissipates, and her eyes widen, a bit startled.
“Random?”
“Yes,” he says, dropping his fork with a clatter and reaching for her hand. “Put the zeppelin on random, and go.”
Her warm fingers wrap around his hand. He can feel her studying him as she considers. He tugs on her gently, not wanting her to take any longer than necessary. “Rose-"
“You’re waking up,” she says under her breath, half to herself, and he tugs on her hand again, anxious. She smiles. “Do you even want to finish your eggs?”
“I don’t think I like eggs.”
Rose laughs. “Pete said he’d leave your papers in the mailbox - go and look, and if they’re there, we’ll leave.”
“Today?” he asks, and the hopeful tone surprises even him. Rose hears it and bursts into light, the smile exactly the same as the one she gave him on the street, before he’d been hit by the Dalek, before he’d been split in two.
“Today,” she says, almost jubilant.
He grins at her, feeling the bits of skin on his cheeks crinkle, cracking, and almost forgets to let go of her hand when he jumps up from the table. The mailbox is just outside the door to the house, and he stands on the step, basking in the sun. Everything in him ticks away; his nerves are firing, his brain is whirring into action from a week of repose. In the box is a thick envelope. He pulls it out and races back inside, where Rose has finished her eggs in record time and is putting the dishes into the sink.
“Open it up, let’s see them,” she says, watching him.
There is a brand-new passport, maroon and gold, and a thin driver’s license. There are several sheets of paper - birth certificate, doctoral degrees, and the like. He opens the passport and sees his own face looking up at him, stern and pale.
He looks at the name, and his heart stops for a moment. He is startled enough to forget it is human.
Rose watches him, still, leaning against the counter. “I wasn’t sure-"
“No,” he says, trying to find his voice. “I mean - yes. I didn’t-"
“I knew you didn’t like Smith, not really. And I didn’t think you’d want to be Tyler - I mean, I wanted you to have something of your own. Well...not quite your own. I thought-”
“I like it,” he said firmly, and he thinks he almost does.
“Good.” She still looks nervous, and he leaves the passport on the table and walks over to her, cupping her cheek. She smiles up at him, but carefully, because it’s only the first kiss where they faced each other, the first kiss that did not include one of them passing the other by. “Hello, Mr. Noble.”
“Hello, Miss Tyler,” he whispers, and for the third time that day, kisses her, so she can’t see the loss in his eyes.
Jump to Page Four - The Quiet Persistence of Noise