When You Can (4/6)

[jiji_bean]

Title: When You Can (4/6)
Pairing: Ten/Rose, special guest
Rating: PG
Timeline: Series 2; after The Age of Steel
Summary: Things are a bit off between the Doctor and Rose after Mickey stays behind - still, everything's fine...right? Well, Rose meets an intriguing stranger and the Doctor isn't so sure anymore.
A/N: Short chapters but will be

Comments

[salimali]

I'm loving this :D

Although I do just want to go up and slap the Doctor silly for taking so long to realise his actions were hurting Rose.
Now hopefully he can make amends without cocking things up even further!!

[jiji_bean]

Awww I'm so glad that you do!

Who hasn't wanted to just smack the sense back into that Time Lord? But you have it right - he's gotta do something about this :)

[bratflorida]

Noooooo!!!! I'm not ready to stop reading!!! I love how introspective this is, and how we're seeing the Doctor battle with himself.

Now he needs to go get her!!! *wafts off in a romancey swoon*

[jiji_bean]

Are you going to threaten to throw something at me again? Or was that Dev and Alex? heh

I love writing the Doctor waging this internal war with himself. It's always there and Rose just really magnifies it.

Oh, you better believe he's gotta make this right. I hope the future chapters make you swoon some more!

[jiji_bean]

The Doctor and his double standards - you know how it is. I honestly do think that the Doctor is unwilling to really identify some things in himself and so I don't think he means to hurt Rose...but regardless another part of him knows he's doing it. He's a contradiction.

I'm so glad you're enjoying the story :D The next chapter should be up tomorrow and I do tend to enjoy the Doctor's POV more as well. They are more introspective and Rose's narrative is of a woman who doesn't know that the man she loves actually does adore her. She hasn't had the chance to catch up...yet.

As for the line, I meant to say that the routine was stilling his nerves which are normally calm meaning that even though he's a ball of energy most of the time, he still stays at a calm state and that this was actually unnerving him. I could have described it better lol.

Thank you for enjoying it!

[kilodalton]

Ooh I liked all of this!!

what he saw in her eyes just then was the most telling of all…it told him that she wasn’t surprised.

Not surprised that he’d left her.

Total tangent here, but even in JE, to me that's one of the most heartbreaking parts of the BWB scene - she's really not surprised he's leaving here there, at all. Upset? Yes. Surprised, no. =(

[jiji_bean]

So glad you did!

I think I've mentioned this before, but that disappointment from JE just stuck with me. I mean, she just didn't look surprised when he left her. Upset as heck, yeah - but like you said, not at all surprised.

That's what I had in mind when I wrote that section. In my opinion, after GitF, Rose just...her character just lost the expectation of being placed in a priority spot. In the episodes after that one, she leaves more often without the Doctor or doesn't looked offended/upset/etc. when he leaves her. It also links to Tooth and Claw when she asks where the Doctor was when she was locked in the cellar/whatever it was.

Seems I went on a ramble lol but you get what I'm saying :)

[kilodalton]

((wave)) looks like we're on at the same time!

Yeah I totally get what you're saying. It's annoying for me bc Rose is my favorite character, so s2 really makes me dislike Ten because even though I know he loves her, he doesn't treat her all that well, at least not until The Idiot's Lantern -- which is pretty dang late in the season! My husband even made an interesting observation - he thinks that Ten kind of treats her the way a guy treats a girl when he knows he has her, kwim?

I tend to like s3 Ten much more, because he seems to have a newfound appreciation for Rose after he lost her.

It's like in The Satan Pit, where he says "she knows" -- um, DOES she? Because from where I'm sitting, all she has reason to "know" is that he runs off and basically takes her for granted =P

[jiji_bean]

*waves* I'm usually late for everything so it's cool to finally catch someone! heh

Rose is my favorite character and I completely agree with you that as much as I love Ten, I really hated the way he treated her. He pushed her away - that is exactly what he did. He kept pushing and Rose just accepted it because he's who he is and because she loves him. I enjoyed the look on his face when that happened to Rose because my exact thought was, "well, what the hell did you expect?" That's also why I enjoyed that moment in Fear Her when they're in the Tardis and he says "Sometimes you just need a hand to hold" or something like that and Rose's hand is reaching out for something and he thinks she's offering it to him. I liked that it meant more to him than it did for her at that moment.

We see more of an appreciation for Rose after her term rather than when she was in it...with Ten, that is because I think Nine appreciated her.

I ramble. lol.

[develish1]

okay, after this chapter I want to slap him a little less than I did, but damn it man, go sort things out, NOW!

[jiji_bean]

oh dev, don't resist - just slap the man. He makes us angry one time or another lol