Everyday Fantastic: A Time Lord's Guide to the Slow Path (2/15)
Title: Everyday Fantastic: A Time Lord's Guide to the Slow Path (2/15)
Author: Roxyk630
WARNING: There are S4 spoilers beyond this point.
Character/Pairing: Ten II (10.5, Handy!Ten, Human!Ten)/Rose, Appearances by: Jackie, Jake, Pete, Tony and others
Rating: PG-13 (with some brushing R bits later)
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who nor any of the characters contained within. All rights belong to the BBC. I do inflict humiliation upon my dalek action figures and make them wear silly hats and aprons. So... even more concern than the BBC coming after me... is the Cult of Skaro, an encounter I definitely would not survive.
Beta: Wow. This has been almost a year long effort by this point. So, Thank you to those who've been kind enough to encourage me on swankkat, my own personal cheering squad throughout this entire thing. I can guarantee you that without swankkat's squee? This entire thing would probably not exist.
mtemplar_fic for threatening to withold Duckies (XD;) and pointing out some things I missed during the first few roughs,
measi for being MORE than patent with me and being a prompt dual beta,
otahyoni for going through the roughest parts and saying "FIX THIS" AND for massive title help,
the_miscellany for the chapters she checked and to the many others who've helped me build up the insanity to post this ;) This one's for you. <3
Summary: The Doctor learning to live day by day on the slow path with Rose.
Author's Notes: Wow, well this fic has almost been a year in the making at this rate. I started a few days after JE aired and finished writing sometime in December, anticipating a New Year posting. New Years came and went, and now, I hope to present you with something better than it began, with all the efforts of the above. Written because I just wanted something different. So, here it is.
Things you should know before reading: I started this BEFORE the uncut clip of the Doctor giving TenII the coral was released. I wrote this based on a wee page for Doctor Who Adventures (This one: http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g93/roxyks630/dataroseten.png - Thank you to Doctor Who Scans). Thus, it was written on the idea that Ten II has a coral... but we don't know how he got it, nor does Rose know he has it, NOR do we know anything about what Donna said in the deleted scene.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1
CHAPTER 2
Pete unloads their travel gear from the family Jeep he's flown in, explaining to the two slightly disappointed individuals in front of him that Tony is with a sitter, Jake to be exact.
Jackie gawps at him. “Jake? I figured Michelle could do it!”
“Michelle had plans and wasn’t completely sure she could take him for two days. Jake has him tonight until Bev comes in the morning.”
“Bev, thank God. That’s okay then.” Jackie breaks her conversation with Pete to look at the Doctor. “Bev’s our housemaid. I didn’t really want one when we came here, but the house is huge, and with a two-year-old, I can’t quite keep up with it.”
“--which means she usually sits with Bev, drinks tea, and gossips about Eastenders until Tony goes to bed.” Pete adds with a grin.
“Oh, Eastenders!” The Doctor smiles indulgently. “Oh bollocks, do I like Eastenders now?” His eyes widen as he looks at Rose. “Donna loves Eastenders.”
“Guess we’ll have to find out, then?” Rose grins at his grimace, her tongue finally making its first appearance since he’s seen her again. His eyes cloud over and Rose clears her throat, looking back at her Mum and Dad. “So, you two leave tomorrow?” She grins.
“Jacks, I figured we could have Torchwood come grab us in the morning. I could send them with the jeep,” Pete said.
“They don’t want to take the jeep. We’ve been flitting back and forth for two days now. Don’t you want a rest?” Jackie looks back and forth between the two of them.
“It’s all right. We can wait till morning, if you like.” The Doctor looks at Rose. She smiles as she hands him the keys. He grins manically. “Does this mean I get to drive?”
“The clutch sticks, and you’ll have to wiggle the gear shift. It’s a bit dodgy when shifting into third. And you still have to get a proper license. This will be practice!” Rose adds with a grin.
“Fantastic!”
“Welcome back.” Pete smiles, offering him a handshake, while Jackie hugs Rose.
“Thanks.”
He grins as Jackie switches places with Pete and gives him a crushing hug. “Welcome home, love. Drive safe! I want my daughter home in one piece.”
He hugs her back, but still wipes his lips when she smothers him with a sloppy kiss. He’s still not on for Jackie’s kisses, but he reasons, there’s no place he’d rather be than right here right now, starting the adventure he never thought he’d have.
Five minutes into the trip, the jeep stalls and the Doctor floods the engine trying to restart it. After seven and a half minutes of tinkering, the Doctor has it in better working condition than before, but manages to cover himself in random finger wipes of grease. They pass the drive talking about their travels and reminiscing about times when they were both happy and naïve.
After they manage to cover a bit of distance, things fall silent between them. Rose sighs as she stares out the window, wondering if he’s up there in the other universe, thinking of her. It makes her feel slightly guilty and indulgent knowing he’s out there. Decision or no, she still loves him-all of him, both of him. She shifts, placing her feet on the dash and turning her head towards the Doctor. He’s staring at the sunset before them with what she thinks might be longing as he pulls off the road onto the shoulder.
“I’ve been human before.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I mean after you. Before now.” He pauses awkwardly. “It was complicated.”
Rose unbuckles her seatbelt and scoots to sit in the middle, next to him, wrapping her arm around his.
“We, Martha and I, were running from the Family, and I had to hide, so I became human. I spent three months that way.”
She sits in silence, holding his arm, watching his face, and waiting for him to continue.
“I dreamt of my life as the Doctor and of you. I thought my life was just a dream. I kept this journal of ‘impossible things’ and I shared it with Joan, Joan Redfern, the school nurse. I-well, John Smith fell quite in love with her. Couldn’t get it right then, either. I remember being in love with her and how it felt… but after my memories returned, I wasn’t in love with her anymore. Rose, when that life was ending…I wanted it. I saw every possible future as John Smith and-”
“You gave it up to be the Doctor, to save the Universe.” Rose clutches his arm tighter, moving herself closer to his body until his arm shifts around her.
“Yes.” He chokes on the word. She feels his arm around her tighten as his breath begins to labor slightly. “Rose, I need you to understand-“
“I do.” She replies, making eye contact before tucking her head onto his chest, his arm tightening. “I do understand. S’just hard, knowing.”
They sit in silence for a few moments, watching the sun fall further. With a kiss to her crown, he pulls the car back onto the road. An hour or so later, when Rose falls asleep on him, leaving a bit of drool on his lapel, he realizes this domestic thing with Rose might be delightful, especially after he gets her to clean the drool stain off his suit. He wakes her shortly after they arrive in Bergen and she finds him grinning like a loony at her yawning face.
“Enjoying the view?” She contorts, testing her sleeping breath and cringing at the smell.
“Best one I’ve seen in awhile.” He shocks her with a kiss despite her breath. “Rise and shine,” he mumbles softly on her lips. He slips out of the car with an excited flourish and then turns around, popping his head back in before Rose manages to exit.
“And,” he adds, drawing the word out, “we need money for the ferry.”
Rose laughs.
Rose wanders off on the ferry to secure the jeep on the lower deck. When she returns to their seats, he’s gone. In a mild moment of panic, she runs to the upper deck and finds him leaned over the railing, staring at the stars.
“Thought rule number one was no wandering off?” Rose stops the joke at his serious expression.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything. The Racnoss, the Family, the Master, every last Dalek ” He says the words with disgust, his body tense. “I used to have so much mercy.” His lips settle into a thin line and she can see him, see the regression. Her hand grips his tightly in the cool night air. “It would have happened again, if I hadn’t touched that button. No matter what I do, they always come back. “
She watches him, concerned. He carries so many burdens, and he’s only told her briefly what happened while she was away, fluffing over the bits that might cause her pain or cause her to shy away from this newfound relationship. He hasn’t fully explained the Family or the Master, just flashes of moments. She figures he’s smudging out the bits-in-between but she hopes, just as well, that he’ll tell her in good time.
She was surprised how he handled it, the Doctor she knows so well. She’d seen him stand with a gun against a lone Dalek and give an entire race of Cybermen a computer virus without batting an eyelid, but he retained the guilt from each action. From what he’s implying, the pain and the death didn’t stop there.
Maybe it was just the action of seeing himself do it, watching as he pushed that button and destroyed an entire species. It was so human to harm the very thing that threatened him and those he loved. The Doctor, a universe away now, had been afraid of himself.
He tells her now-tells her about the Racnoss and how Donna stopped him, and she holds back her tears. Rose silently wishes she could thank Donna for saving him. She wouldn’t have believed any of this had been an after effect of her being pulled away so suddenly, but after meeting Donna in the parallel world without the Doctor, she hurts a little more for knowing that truth.
“Doctor?”
She was broken after Bad Wolf Bay, but driven and borne with a newfound determination: make the impossible possible, to find him. Maybe that’s more human-no universal laws or constants to tie her down or hold her back. She also lacks his nine hundred plus years of experience in loss. She’s only had two large losses in her twenty-three years, but they were more than enough experience.
He’s staring at through her wordlessly, as she brings a hand to his face, his eyes focusing on hers at the action. She speaks softly, “I forgive you.”
Right now, she thinks, he needs, more than anything else, forgiveness and understanding for his past. He grips her tightly, hands clutching her jacket and digging into her shoulder blades as her arms wrap around him. His embrace reminds her of the way he hugged her after encountering the Dalek in Utah.
As she presses a kiss to his cheek, she can feel him shaking. She holds him tighter.
He nudges her as he pockets the banana she gave him after another trip to the jeep. Bless Pete for bringing along a cooler. “That right there is Cygnus.”
“What, there?” She points curiously at the sky.
“Not quite.” He moves to stand behind her, wrapping his body around hers, breath steady in her ear. “There.” He grins as he moves her hand in the proper direction, holding it steady.
“What about that one?”
“Best not tell you about that one.”
Rose quirks a brow at his remark.
“There’s Vulpecula, and Delphinus below…”
“Are they very different here? The stars?”
“Nah same place, parallel world. Just…”
“What?”
“Cygnus is usually most visible, like that-” he points, “-in the late summer months where you are from. It’s late fall here if I’m not mistaken? We should be well into Pegasus, possibly Orion by now. Are the season’s off here?”
“No, the seasons come in the proper months,” Rose reasons, “but seasons aren’t determined by the stars, are they Doctor?” She grins knowingly. “This Earth revolves a bit differently around the sun and tilts on a different axis than the other. The stars just seem to be a season behind.” She couldn’t explain how or why if he asked, but she knows the basics.
“Very clever.” He grins.
They spend the rest of the ferry trip stargazing.
(Chapter 3)
Author: Roxyk630
WARNING: There are S4 spoilers beyond this point.
Character/Pairing: Ten II (10.5, Handy!Ten, Human!Ten)/Rose, Appearances by: Jackie, Jake, Pete, Tony and others
Rating: PG-13 (with some brushing R bits later)
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who nor any of the characters contained within. All rights belong to the BBC. I do inflict humiliation upon my dalek action figures and make them wear silly hats and aprons. So... even more concern than the BBC coming after me... is the Cult of Skaro, an encounter I definitely would not survive.
Beta: Wow. This has been almost a year long effort by this point. So, Thank you to those who've been kind enough to encourage me on swankkat, my own personal cheering squad throughout this entire thing. I can guarantee you that without swankkat's squee? This entire thing would probably not exist.
mtemplar_fic for threatening to withold Duckies (XD;) and pointing out some things I missed during the first few roughs,
measi for being MORE than patent with me and being a prompt dual beta,
otahyoni for going through the roughest parts and saying "FIX THIS" AND for massive title help,
the_miscellany for the chapters she checked and to the many others who've helped me build up the insanity to post this ;) This one's for you. <3
Summary: The Doctor learning to live day by day on the slow path with Rose.
Author's Notes: Wow, well this fic has almost been a year in the making at this rate. I started a few days after JE aired and finished writing sometime in December, anticipating a New Year posting. New Years came and went, and now, I hope to present you with something better than it began, with all the efforts of the above. Written because I just wanted something different. So, here it is.
Things you should know before reading: I started this BEFORE the uncut clip of the Doctor giving TenII the coral was released. I wrote this based on a wee page for Doctor Who Adventures (This one: http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g93/roxyks630/dataroseten.png - Thank you to Doctor Who Scans). Thus, it was written on the idea that Ten II has a coral... but we don't know how he got it, nor does Rose know he has it, NOR do we know anything about what Donna said in the deleted scene.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1
CHAPTER 2
Pete unloads their travel gear from the family Jeep he's flown in, explaining to the two slightly disappointed individuals in front of him that Tony is with a sitter, Jake to be exact.
Jackie gawps at him. “Jake? I figured Michelle could do it!”
“Michelle had plans and wasn’t completely sure she could take him for two days. Jake has him tonight until Bev comes in the morning.”
“Bev, thank God. That’s okay then.” Jackie breaks her conversation with Pete to look at the Doctor. “Bev’s our housemaid. I didn’t really want one when we came here, but the house is huge, and with a two-year-old, I can’t quite keep up with it.”
“--which means she usually sits with Bev, drinks tea, and gossips about Eastenders until Tony goes to bed.” Pete adds with a grin.
“Oh, Eastenders!” The Doctor smiles indulgently. “Oh bollocks, do I like Eastenders now?” His eyes widen as he looks at Rose. “Donna loves Eastenders.”
“Guess we’ll have to find out, then?” Rose grins at his grimace, her tongue finally making its first appearance since he’s seen her again. His eyes cloud over and Rose clears her throat, looking back at her Mum and Dad. “So, you two leave tomorrow?” She grins.
“Jacks, I figured we could have Torchwood come grab us in the morning. I could send them with the jeep,” Pete said.
“They don’t want to take the jeep. We’ve been flitting back and forth for two days now. Don’t you want a rest?” Jackie looks back and forth between the two of them.
“It’s all right. We can wait till morning, if you like.” The Doctor looks at Rose. She smiles as she hands him the keys. He grins manically. “Does this mean I get to drive?”
“The clutch sticks, and you’ll have to wiggle the gear shift. It’s a bit dodgy when shifting into third. And you still have to get a proper license. This will be practice!” Rose adds with a grin.
“Fantastic!”
“Welcome back.” Pete smiles, offering him a handshake, while Jackie hugs Rose.
“Thanks.”
He grins as Jackie switches places with Pete and gives him a crushing hug. “Welcome home, love. Drive safe! I want my daughter home in one piece.”
He hugs her back, but still wipes his lips when she smothers him with a sloppy kiss. He’s still not on for Jackie’s kisses, but he reasons, there’s no place he’d rather be than right here right now, starting the adventure he never thought he’d have.
Five minutes into the trip, the jeep stalls and the Doctor floods the engine trying to restart it. After seven and a half minutes of tinkering, the Doctor has it in better working condition than before, but manages to cover himself in random finger wipes of grease. They pass the drive talking about their travels and reminiscing about times when they were both happy and naïve.
After they manage to cover a bit of distance, things fall silent between them. Rose sighs as she stares out the window, wondering if he’s up there in the other universe, thinking of her. It makes her feel slightly guilty and indulgent knowing he’s out there. Decision or no, she still loves him-all of him, both of him. She shifts, placing her feet on the dash and turning her head towards the Doctor. He’s staring at the sunset before them with what she thinks might be longing as he pulls off the road onto the shoulder.
“I’ve been human before.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I mean after you. Before now.” He pauses awkwardly. “It was complicated.”
Rose unbuckles her seatbelt and scoots to sit in the middle, next to him, wrapping her arm around his.
“We, Martha and I, were running from the Family, and I had to hide, so I became human. I spent three months that way.”
She sits in silence, holding his arm, watching his face, and waiting for him to continue.
“I dreamt of my life as the Doctor and of you. I thought my life was just a dream. I kept this journal of ‘impossible things’ and I shared it with Joan, Joan Redfern, the school nurse. I-well, John Smith fell quite in love with her. Couldn’t get it right then, either. I remember being in love with her and how it felt… but after my memories returned, I wasn’t in love with her anymore. Rose, when that life was ending…I wanted it. I saw every possible future as John Smith and-”
“You gave it up to be the Doctor, to save the Universe.” Rose clutches his arm tighter, moving herself closer to his body until his arm shifts around her.
“Yes.” He chokes on the word. She feels his arm around her tighten as his breath begins to labor slightly. “Rose, I need you to understand-“
“I do.” She replies, making eye contact before tucking her head onto his chest, his arm tightening. “I do understand. S’just hard, knowing.”
They sit in silence for a few moments, watching the sun fall further. With a kiss to her crown, he pulls the car back onto the road. An hour or so later, when Rose falls asleep on him, leaving a bit of drool on his lapel, he realizes this domestic thing with Rose might be delightful, especially after he gets her to clean the drool stain off his suit. He wakes her shortly after they arrive in Bergen and she finds him grinning like a loony at her yawning face.
“Enjoying the view?” She contorts, testing her sleeping breath and cringing at the smell.
“Best one I’ve seen in awhile.” He shocks her with a kiss despite her breath. “Rise and shine,” he mumbles softly on her lips. He slips out of the car with an excited flourish and then turns around, popping his head back in before Rose manages to exit.
“And,” he adds, drawing the word out, “we need money for the ferry.”
Rose laughs.
Rose wanders off on the ferry to secure the jeep on the lower deck. When she returns to their seats, he’s gone. In a mild moment of panic, she runs to the upper deck and finds him leaned over the railing, staring at the stars.
“Thought rule number one was no wandering off?” Rose stops the joke at his serious expression.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything. The Racnoss, the Family, the Master, every last Dalek ” He says the words with disgust, his body tense. “I used to have so much mercy.” His lips settle into a thin line and she can see him, see the regression. Her hand grips his tightly in the cool night air. “It would have happened again, if I hadn’t touched that button. No matter what I do, they always come back. “
She watches him, concerned. He carries so many burdens, and he’s only told her briefly what happened while she was away, fluffing over the bits that might cause her pain or cause her to shy away from this newfound relationship. He hasn’t fully explained the Family or the Master, just flashes of moments. She figures he’s smudging out the bits-in-between but she hopes, just as well, that he’ll tell her in good time.
She was surprised how he handled it, the Doctor she knows so well. She’d seen him stand with a gun against a lone Dalek and give an entire race of Cybermen a computer virus without batting an eyelid, but he retained the guilt from each action. From what he’s implying, the pain and the death didn’t stop there.
Maybe it was just the action of seeing himself do it, watching as he pushed that button and destroyed an entire species. It was so human to harm the very thing that threatened him and those he loved. The Doctor, a universe away now, had been afraid of himself.
He tells her now-tells her about the Racnoss and how Donna stopped him, and she holds back her tears. Rose silently wishes she could thank Donna for saving him. She wouldn’t have believed any of this had been an after effect of her being pulled away so suddenly, but after meeting Donna in the parallel world without the Doctor, she hurts a little more for knowing that truth.
“Doctor?”
She was broken after Bad Wolf Bay, but driven and borne with a newfound determination: make the impossible possible, to find him. Maybe that’s more human-no universal laws or constants to tie her down or hold her back. She also lacks his nine hundred plus years of experience in loss. She’s only had two large losses in her twenty-three years, but they were more than enough experience.
He’s staring at through her wordlessly, as she brings a hand to his face, his eyes focusing on hers at the action. She speaks softly, “I forgive you.”
Right now, she thinks, he needs, more than anything else, forgiveness and understanding for his past. He grips her tightly, hands clutching her jacket and digging into her shoulder blades as her arms wrap around him. His embrace reminds her of the way he hugged her after encountering the Dalek in Utah.
As she presses a kiss to his cheek, she can feel him shaking. She holds him tighter.
He nudges her as he pockets the banana she gave him after another trip to the jeep. Bless Pete for bringing along a cooler. “That right there is Cygnus.”
“What, there?” She points curiously at the sky.
“Not quite.” He moves to stand behind her, wrapping his body around hers, breath steady in her ear. “There.” He grins as he moves her hand in the proper direction, holding it steady.
“What about that one?”
“Best not tell you about that one.”
Rose quirks a brow at his remark.
“There’s Vulpecula, and Delphinus below…”
“Are they very different here? The stars?”
“Nah same place, parallel world. Just…”
“What?”
“Cygnus is usually most visible, like that-” he points, “-in the late summer months where you are from. It’s late fall here if I’m not mistaken? We should be well into Pegasus, possibly Orion by now. Are the season’s off here?”
“No, the seasons come in the proper months,” Rose reasons, “but seasons aren’t determined by the stars, are they Doctor?” She grins knowingly. “This Earth revolves a bit differently around the sun and tilts on a different axis than the other. The stars just seem to be a season behind.” She couldn’t explain how or why if he asked, but she knows the basics.
“Very clever.” He grins.
They spend the rest of the ferry trip stargazing.
(Chapter 3)