The Longest Farewell - Chapter Seven [7/?]
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AN: There’s swearing in this chapter. I originally wrote the particular instances toned down, however thinking about how my mother might react if this was me? Yeah, the swearing is definitely staying…Also, some of you might question the conversation Rose has with the Doctor in this chapter as being too early, as Father’s Day is a loooong way off. I maintain that Rose probably learned something about timelines early on and she was just so overcome by seeing her dad in that episode that she temporarily went mad and ignored them. People do that sometimes. Anyhow. All recognisable dialogue is not mine, obviously.
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‘I’m not interfering because you’ve got to handle this on your own…just this morning you were all tiny and small and made of clay. Now you can expand.’
DISCLAIMER & OTHER WARNINGS
The sound of Jackie Tyler’s palm striking the Doctor’s face echoed across the flat, making Rose and the police officer wince - him in sympathy, Rose in understanding. Rare though it was, she knew what it was like to be on the end of one of those. It surprised her that she wasn’t the intended target, to be honest, but that might have been because the Doctor had been closer. In any case, she would have deserved it.
She couldn’t believe the entire situation.
Twelve months, not twelve hours.
The Doctor had made a mistake - and that was being nice about it - leaving her mother to spend the past year convinced that Rose was missing or dead. Rose had unknowingly walked into the flat is if nothing had happened, with no explanation as to where she had been. And then to make matters worse, in Jackie’s point of view, some strange man had waltzed in after her.
No wonder her mother was upset. It surprised Rose that she hadn’t called in the army.
Not that they would be any more use than the stupid lump sitting there with a bored look on his face. He probably figured he was witnessing another council house domestic that wasn’t worth his time. She knew what he was thinking - she’d seen the disbelieving smirk on his face when she’d denied her relationship with the Doctor being a sexual one.
‘…and I want ‘im arrested!’ her mother yelled, gesturing at the Doctor who still cradled his face while looking stunned and wrong-footed. Rose would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so serious.
‘Mrs Tyler, your daughter is nineteen -’ Rose opened her mouth to correct him, and stopped. She was a few weeks away from nineteen, actually, but having missed a year, everyone would think she was a few weeks from twenty now. It was very confusing, ‘ - and of age of majority and consent. Both now and at the time of her…departure. Any charges would have to be laid by her.’ He glanced at Rose. ‘Do you have any allegations to make?’
‘Of course not!’ Rose said, at the same time her mother exploded, ‘Well she bloody well wouldn’t would she? He’s had her a year! She’s probably got Stockholm syndrome or something!’
The Doctor tried to intervene again before she could stop him. ‘This whole thing is really a misunderstanding -’
‘You stole her! You took my daughter, did…did something to her that she won’t tell me - get out! Get out, get out, get out!’’ she yelled, and the police officer stood up, probably to lead the Doctor toward the door. ‘Get the fuck out of my home!’
Rose recoiled along with the Doctor at the absolute fury in her mother’s voice.
The Doctor’s penitent expression suddenly went flat, and he nodded once. Then he turned and left the flat.
‘Mum!’ Rose cried in protest, jumping to her feet. ‘He’s trying to apologise!’
‘Ain’t no apologising for the grief I’ve gone through! And you - !’
Rose let out a frustrated sound between a scream and moan and started after the Doctor. She wouldn’t let him leave like this - knowing him, he’d get in the TARDIS and disappear for good!
‘Rose Marion Tyler, don’t you dare- !’
She felt the air behind her displace as her mother tried to grab hold of her, but she pulled away.
‘I’ve got to stop him! I’ll be right back, Mum, I promise,’ she said, trying to impress the sincerity of her words on her mother even as she stepped out the door. She felt like she trapped between a rock and a hard place - needing to ensure the Doctor didn’t disappear, and to soothe her mother. There was a bit of guilt in leaving Jackie again in her state, but her mother and her anger would still be there when she got back.
The Doctor might not be.
The officer chose this moment to attempt to calm her mother again. She heard him talking as she ran from the flat.
‘It looks as if she isn’t in any danger, Mrs Tyler -’
‘You can get the hell out too, you’re utterly useless bastard -!’
There was more yelling, but Rose tuned it out. The Doctor had almost made it to the stairwell, and she had to sprint to catch up with him.
‘Wait!’ she gasped, grabbing his arm and pulling him back to face her.
He was quick to avoid her gaze, and his body language reminded her of a caged animal. She suspected he was leaning heavily towards his default way of dealing with conflict - to run.
Well, that’s not happening, she decided, fighting down her frustration and annoyance over what had happened. Between her mother’s yelling and the Doctor’s instinct to flee, it seemed she would need to be the adult in the situation. And figure out a way that didn’t have him leaving her forever.
‘We can fix it, yeah?’ she tried. ‘It’s just another scrape - got into loads of those together, though, so we can do something.’
‘And what would you have me do?’ he asked coldly.
‘Oh, I dunno, maybe use your bloody time machine?’ she shot back. ‘Let’s go back in the TARDIS and fix this. Bring me back on time so I don’t miss the last year. She won’t know I’m gone.’
‘You s’ppose if it was that easy I wouldn’t have done it the minute I realised?’ he hissed. ‘My ship isn’t a rubber you can use to erase the past. Time doesn’t work that way.’
‘Why not?’
‘It would weaken the timelines,’ he said with an angry huff, like he didn’t want to be talking about this but couldn’t think of a way not to. ‘Bad things happen when you do that. We’re part of events now.’
‘What does that even mean?!’
‘Think about it - we go back, we destroy this entire timeline. We’ll cease to exist and the new timeline will be the one to go on. Everyone whose life changed for better or worse in the past year, that goes away. All good and ill and discoveries and losses and experiences…it’s too large for you to even comprehend how much the entire universe can change in a year.’
Off her mystified expression, he sighed.
‘Let me see if I can make it less complicated. It’s been about three hours we’ve been back?’
‘About.’
‘In three hours, twenty-seven thousand three hundred and sixty babies have been born - and that’s only the human kind. Likewise, nineteen thousand two hundred and sixty people have died. At least four scientific discoveries were made that’ll greatly impact the future. They might not be made again for a long time - if ever - if we go back and change things,’ he told her in a neutral tone. ‘What if one of those is the cure for cancer? What if two people meant to meet each other in those three hours don’t? Or someone who’s meant to do great things in this world is never born?’ He shook his head. ‘And that doesn’t even touch on the temporal laws we’d be breaking by rewriting the timeline. Trust me when I say you don’t want to see what that looks like. What’s done is done. We can’t change it.’
‘But…that’s not fair!’ Rose objected, even though his reasons made sense. This was the Doctor - he was supposed to be able to do anything!
He watched her guardedly for a moment and then shrugged. That smile of his was back on his face, the fake one she didn’t like.
‘Well, if all that means nothing to you, we can try for it,’ he told her. ‘I’m rather clever, me. Could probably figure out a way to do it with the least amount of damage. Not like there’re any Time Lords left to get stroppy with me.’
The casual mention of his dead people gave her pause and made her consider how serious this must be.
Rose had every faith in the Doctor. He would manage it somehow. She would do anything to save her mother the pain of whatever she had gone through in the past year, but -
The idea that it might cause other people pain made her pause.
Who was she to have the hard bits of her life suddenly get fixed? She was ordinary. It didn’t matter to the world or the universe if she was missing for a year, not in the long run. Her mum and possibly her friends were the only ones who would care. But as the Doctor said, if someone important had been born in the last year and she went back and changed them, she might stop their possible future.
Mum will get over it, once I explain it, she decided. Out loud she said, ‘No. It’s like you said. What’s done is done.’
For a moment she imagined she saw something like pride and triumph in the Doctor’s eyes, before it was once more replaced with overwhelming guilt. ‘Right then.’
He started to pull away again.
‘Where d’you figure you’re going?’ she demanded.
He scowled. ‘Well, seeing as how I’ve ruined your life, seemed a bit of a bad move to stay behind and make it worse. ‘Specially with her screaming at me.’
‘She’s upset - and she’s allowed to be,’ Rose defended. ‘I’m…I’m all she has. My Dad died when I was a baby.’
The Doctor looked surprised - perhaps he, like everyone else who wasn’t aware of the truth, assumed her father ran out on them or something - and then even more guilty. No, now he looked agonised.
‘I should never have taken you with me,’ he said darkly.
‘Don’t even - you can’t - !’ Rose sputtered.
‘You’re all she has…no parent should ever have to lose a child.’
‘She’d’ve lost me the night we met if you hadn’t gotten me out of Henrik’s before those plastic things killed me!’ Rose argued. ‘Or if the one pretending to be Mickey offed me!’
Oh, and there was an idea! What the hell had her boyfriend been doing a whole year without her?
‘That was before,’ the Doctor dismissed. ‘I shouldn’t’ve asked you to come along.’
That hurt, rather like a knife being driven into the back of her throat.
‘You mean that?’ she whispered, her voice quiet as she tried to keep it from trembling. She had thought…?
The Doctor was silent for a while longer, and she could see him struggling with something. Then his shoulders relaxed, and he exhaled.
‘No,’ he sighed. Rose’s heart lifted in response. ‘Selfish man that I am…Meant what I said. I am glad I met you.’
‘Me too,’ Rose avowed. ‘And look - if you never asked me to come with, how d’you know I might not have died in the past year? Could’ve been mugged on my home from work, or hit by a car like my dad, or…or worse.’ She offered him a wan smile. ‘But instead, I was helping you save the world and seeing brilliant things and I wouldn’t’ve missed that.’ He seemed mollified at that. ‘So…so stay.’
The uncomfortable expression returned. ‘Rose -’
‘I thought we were gonna travel together. Wasn’t that the agreement?’
‘What, you still…?’
She paused. ‘I…I dunno, I have to think about it. There’s…stuff I should’ve worried about before I left. Stuff with Mum and…’ She shrugged, uncomfortable and frustrated. ‘The point is, you don’t have to go. Please. Stay a bit.’ She sensed him wavering, even if his stance remained tense. ‘Just a day? Just so’s I can figure out what to tell Mum and how to sort this…little mess.’
He let out a bitter sounding chuckle. ‘You’ve a high opinion of yourself, don’t you? Sorting out a missing year in one day?’
‘Yeah, well, you do the impossible every day, so why shouldn’t I?’ she challenged.
‘Fair point.’ He shuffled from foot to foot, arms crossed and shoulders hunched in defence. She expected her words to be brushed off, for him to give her a curt apology and disappear after all. So she was surprised when he nodded. ‘Alright. A day. But I’m not loitering around your flat. Doubt I’d be welcome.’
‘Yeah, er, probably not. Yet,’ she agreed.
Still, she didn’t want him going back to the TARDIS, just in case he was tempted to leave.
Another moment’s deliberation, and she had the solution.
‘C’mon,’ she ordered, grabbing his hand and heading for the stairs with him. Instead of going down toward the blacktop, however, she led him up towards the roof. ‘You can wait up here. It’s where I always go when I need a bit of a think. Or after a row with my mum.’
‘You figure it’s wise to bring me to the roof?’ he inquired with forced levity. ‘You mother finds me up here, she’s likely to push me over. And I don’t generally like being thrown off buildings.’
‘Reckon you’re alright - I bet she’s on the phone to everyone in the neighbourhood right now. Way too distracted to throw anyone off a building,’ Rose tried to joke as they reached the top of the complex.
The Doctor didn’t smile, though, and her lightheartedness deflated. He was still feeling bad about the mix-up.
‘Look,’ she said sternly, pointing out across Peckham’s familiar pattern of estates and commons. ‘That right there? That’s the only sky I ever thought I’d get to see - the only bit of scenery I was ever supposed to have. And you showed me different. So in my book that’s worth missing a year. And as soon as I explain all that the Mum, she’ll understand. I know she will. So stop moping about. I’ll go deal with this little rough patch and I’ll be right back. Alright?’
The Doctor made a face. ‘I’m not moping.’
‘You so are,’ she told him, nudging him with her shoulder, before heading back down to the flat.
‘Rose?’ She paused and glanced back, and he finally met her gaze again. ‘For what’s it’s worth, I am sorry.’
‘I know you are.’
And she did.
Jackie was a furious, weeping wreck when she returned. Rose spent the next two hours alternatively comforting her mother and crying in frustration as she struggled to figure out how to explain everything to her. While the obvious solution was to have the Doctor show her the TARDIS, any mention of him at the moment started off a fresh round of anguish. After ending up with a cold cup of tea spilled over her, Rose decided it was best not to mention him for now.
Still, she eventually caught a break when the telephone rang - neighbours who had seen Rose outside and were calling Jackie to find out the story. Rose understood that as shocked and angry as she was, her mother’s best way of coping would be to call all her friends and unload her troubles onto them. She left her mother to her gossip and drama, seeing that being the centre of attention would go at least a little way to improving Jackie’s mood.
After changing out of the sodden shirt, she promised her mother she’d be back soon, and that if she went anywhere, she’d call or check in first.
Then she hurried back up to the roof.
She was relieved to find the Doctor still there, scowling off into the distance at something she wasn’t able to see.
She hopped up on the low wall beside him, trying to figure out the right way to start this conversation.
When none presented itself, she decided to just dive right in.
‘I can’t tell her,’ she said, knowing he would understand what she was talking about. ‘I can’t even begin. She’s never going to forgive me.’ She paused, then glanced at the Doctor. ‘And I missed a year. Was it good?’
‘Middling,’ he answered with a slight wrinkling of his nose.
‘You’re so useless,’ she sighed, looking away.
‘Well if it’s this much trouble, are you going to stay ‘ere now?’
‘I dunno. I can’t do that to her again, though.’
‘Well, she’s not coming with us,’ the Doctor declared matter-of-factly.
‘No chance,’ Rose giggled.
He chortled along with her before sobering up and stating, ‘I don’t do families.’
‘She slapped you!’
‘Nine hundred years of time and space, and I’ve never been slapped by someone’s mother!’
‘Your face!’
‘It hurt!’
‘You’re so gay,’ Rose sniggered, and then paused. ‘When you say nine hundred years…?’
‘That’s my age.’
‘You’re nine hundred years old.’
‘Yeah,’ he nodded.
‘My mum was right - that is one hell of an age gap.’ She jumped down off the wall and shuffled away. ‘Every conversation with you just goes mental. An’ there’s no one else I can talk to - I’ve seen all that stuff up there, the size of it - and I can’t say a word! Aliens and spaceships and things, and I’m the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist -’
A blaring sound shattered the relative quiet of the neighbourhood, and she and the Doctor whirled around to see where it was coming from.
A huge, shell shaped object hurtled through the sky above the Estate, trailing black smoke as it passed overhead. It was speeding straight towards the city. Rose watched in shock as it careened past Tower Bridge, curved around St Paul’s Cathedral and then dove for the Thames, spluttering and backfiring. The sound echoed throughout the city.
To her horror, it smashed right through the Clock Tower right before it crashed into the river, spirals of black smoke rising into the air behind it.
‘Oh, that’s just not fair,’ Rose said blankly, while the Doctor laughed in delight beside her.
· ΘΣ ·
Despite their attempts to get down town and investigate, the Doctor and Rose found their efforts hampered by the authorities. With the Doctor unwilling to risk the TARDIS or himself to discovery, there wasn’t much they could do but watch it all unfold on television.
Like anyone else on the planet might do, Rose thought dejectedly.
They returned to the flat, to find it wasn’t as empty as they had left it. Her mother’s best friend Bev was there - with smack upside the head for Rose and a few choice words for the Doctor. So were the neighbours, Sandra and Jason, who offered Rose a polite welcome back.
When Jackie first opened the door to let them in, her expression turned dark at seeing the Doctor. Instead of throwing a fit like Rose expected, though, she grudgingly allowed him inside.
Rose smiled at her in thanks and a bit of pride. Her mother was doing rather well for someone whose daughter had gone missing for a year and not told her.
But when Jackie glowered and stalked away, Rose realised things were far from settled.
She sighed.
As soon as they were alone, with no policemen or neighbours or the Doctor, and she was less emotional, Jackie was going to say her piece. And Rose needed to have a damn good explanation for what had happened.
The Doctor ignored the requisite small-talk, throwing himself onto the couch and turning up the telly that someone had switched to the news. Rose tried to sit down beside him and tune in, but her attention kept being drawn to her mother and Bev’s conversation in the background.
‘…Look at himself, making like he owns the place,’ she heard Jackie grumble darkly, her ear still pressed to the phone. She wasn’t happy about him being there, but she didn’t ask him to leave, which was something at least.
‘He’s got a pair, don’t he?’ Bev agreed.
‘Least it’s not some jumped up musician this time - Rose says he’s a doctor of some sort.’
‘Oh, well that’s not so bad, is it? Could do worse than a doctor…’
’Could do better than this one, though - look on the ears on ‘im! Least wif the musician he was a looker - and I knew he wasn’t about to run off to Timbuktu with her! Not a cent to his name, the prat. This one, though -’
Rose rolled her eyes and turned to glare at them. ‘Really? That’s what you’re talking about right now? There’s aliens in London, and you’re dredging that up?’
‘Just cos you decided to drag him into our lives doesn’t mean I have to like him,’ Jackie retorted fiercely. ‘Don’t know anything about him, do I? You never even told me his proper name!’
‘It’s the Doctor.’
‘Doctor who?’
‘Just the Doctor,’ Rise insisted.
‘Oh, well, that isn’t pretentious at all,’ Bev remarked.
‘Unless he isn’t a doctor at all,’ Jackie suggested. ‘Could be one of them DJs that play music at clubs. Haughty tossers, too jumped up on themselves to go by their real names -’
‘Mum, would you knock it off?’
‘None of your lip, Rose,’ Bev ordered, with the authority of someone who had changed her diapers and so assumed it to be her right to stick her nose in. ‘Your mother’s gone through hell over you, so you’ll sit there and take your medicine.’
Luckily no more seemed forthcoming. Rose didn’t know whether it was because of Jackie’s inability to come up with new insults or because of all the amount of neighbours still filling the flat. All she knew was that all of a sudden, the flat felt far too confining. She found herself longing for the cavernous walls of the TARDIS where it would be easy to lose herself. It wouldn’t do to ask the Doctor for the key to let her wait down there - he was busy watching history unfold and besides, Bev was right.
She deserved it.
Or at least, she deserved a decent amount of it.
After the second hour of evading questions about where she had been, and ducking dirty looks from her mother’s friends, Rose headed for her room and locked herself in.
She leaned her head against the closed doorway, the dulled conversations going on outside still loud enough for her to understand…and wince at whenever she heard her name.
Abruptly, she was furious, and about several things at once.
Rose had wanted to ease her mother into this life. Maybe not tell her about it at all, so she wouldn’t worry, and make up a story about a job overseas. But with the Doctor’s mistake, that possibility was gone now.
And then, before she could even figure out how to explain about aliens, a space ship had crashed into Big Ben. Now everyone was hyper-alert over it all. If Rose said anything about aliens now, her mother would run to the nearest newspaper for an exclusive and the Doctor might end up dissected in some medical facility somewhere.
If he didn’t decide to leave before that.
Rose groaned, scrubbing her hands over her face and throwing herself down on her bed. It was neatly made - a stark contrast from how she had left it - and obviously hadn’t been slept in for a year.
Poor Mum, she thought sadly. Then she groaned.
‘Bloody Time Lord my arse - being two minutes late should be impossible, let alone twelve months!’
· ΔΩ ·
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