There's blood spilled on the floor [Everyone's staring at you, what for?]
Follows this.
Backdated to May 18.
By the time it's over he's just tired. The TARDIS is tired from holding up the time bubble for so long and he's just tired of the death and the loss. It feels like he could've prevented it all. He should've prevented it all. Instead, there was so much death and nothing was accomplished. Not even the life of one stupid little human that they all went out there to fight for.
He wants to sleep. He doesn't sleep often but right now his body is craving it. His hands move slowly over the console as he sets a new destination. One trip out, one trip back. He promises those he's leaving back on Earth that he'll be right back. Of course he will be. He's just got to pick up Rose. He promised her he'd be there soon. Just like he promised Jackie he'd keep her safe. Just like he promised Sam and Dean he'd help them.
He's such a man of his word that it makes his stomach churn.
All the same, the TARDIS lands just outside of his childhood home. He can't stay very long here, it wasn't nearly as safe a landing as his first time through.
She hadn't gone very far. Hadn't done much of anything at all. Stayed quiet, kept her head down and when she did venture to the city it wasn't much of an adventure at all. He'd left, and when the sound whirred to life outside the house she almost couldn't breathe. The sound still pulls her to her feet. Letting her heels scuff to the floor for a moment as they drop from the edge of the seat she'd been sitting on for hours. Now that it's here though, now that the TARDIS has returned... and so close to the house it stills her heart to the point that she wishes she had two, just to keep her going. To just keep some sound other than panic in her ears. Her heart won't beat, it stills and her breath is stuck and all she wants to do is see him. To see him when the doors open, but all she can think is that the TARDIS came to her... it came to the house.
It came for her.
Her feet finally move a few steps from the chair and soon the momentum pushes her to the door and her hand though it shakes can't be stopped as it grips the knob and turns it. She pulls it open stepping away from it and hearing it nearly crack loudly into the wall from the force. All she wants to see is him... she needs to know that he's returned for her, that even though he never promised he'd come back that he still did.
He expects her to run to the TARDIS, start pounding on the doors and be furious at him. The fury would fade and things would be all right. But after a minute without her, he worries and heads to the front door of the TARDIS. He hadn't thought to change. His brown suit is muddy and his right arm had started bleeding. He is hardly the worst off, but still, she...she shouldn't have to see this.
He takes a steadying breath and pulls open the door. The warm Gallifreyan air hits him in the stomach. From one war zone to another, it appeared. Still, this one had Rose on it, waiting for him. She's there, at the door to his childhood home. He takes a breath and can't manage a smile. He has the ridiculous desire to cry, actually, but this is hardly the time or the place and he's a little better at controlling his base emotions than that.
"Hey." It's a horrible way to start out.
For a moment it's not even real. For a single moment she's imagining it, and this is just what she wants to see overcoming the truth. Then he speaks and her hand grips tighter to the doorframe for a moment. It's only a moment that she needs to hold tight to the door, to reality to whatever is left behind because she's moving toward him. It's choppy in her mind, the actual movements to him because it's really not like in the movies at all. No soft focus surrounding her with a field of flowers for her to run through. It's just that one moment he's too far away and the next she's not really sure how close he is. Her hand reaches out brushing to his jaw because he's really there. He needs to shave, it's the first thought she has and it's quickly followed up by her pulling back and slapping him. Though once she's done it she's really not sure why she did. She's more in shock that she did it, her other hand gripping to her fingers as her chin nearly trembles with fear, "You left me."
Ow.
She slaps just like her mother, which means it hurts. He stops his mind-numbing waves of self-pity long enough to put a hand to his face and pout. But he supposes that he really does deserve it. After all that happened he should've at least tried to tell her.
"I know," he says after a long moment. He's not sorry so he doesn't say he is. She'd probably slap him again for a false apology.
He shifts on his feet a little. He wants to hug her. It's a stupid thing to want in this moment, but maybe he should just go back to the TARDIS because she'll follow and he's tired.
Her eyebrows knit up with moments of self doubt and panic, and not really wanting to know what happened, but knowing that she needs to know all the same. If she could even sort out her own thoughts maybe it'd make more sense. None of it makes sense though, and she's not sure it ever would. She's regretting the slap though, but she's not going to apologize for it. Instead her hand returns to against his jaw, this time she lets the heel of her hand rest against his chin a bit, and all she wants to do is pull close to him and be thankful that he's there. He looks horrible. Her gaze wanders from his eyes, because they seem too tired, to his suit that's covered in dirt and dust and things she's not sure she wants to identify.
There is blood. His. Theirs. She can't meet his eyes again because now this is more real than it had been before. This wasn't simply that he'd left her. This was that he'd gone off to fight in a battle... and someone had to lose. It takes everything in her not to ask, everything in her to just stay silent and her hand leaves his jaw and slides around his waist pulling herself against him finally. All she wants is to be held, to hear his hearts beat and to hear her own breathing because she hadn't noticed how shaky it had gotten until it was being echoed in her own ears.
She holds him and he is grateful for the few breaths he can take before he wraps his arms around her and holds her so very tightly. He thinks about how he could've lost her and it's better, it is. It's better that she was here. Better that he faced that alone.
He doesn't want to tell her that they failed, but they did and it's there on the tip of his mind as a "must tell Rose immediately". Instead he just holds her tight. He promised himself he'd never fight like this again but he did and he hates himself a bit for it now. He should've done more before the war. Should've stopped things before they started but he didn't and there just wasn't enough time.
"Are you all right?" he manages that out against her hair as he holds her. Silly question, considering the slap, but he has to have that confirmation.
She can smell the earthy scent mixed with ash, sult and sulfur. It was the same thing she'd been breathing in for those few days during the preparation. It was always heavy against her fingertips when she'd brush her hair away from her eyes, that dense scent that almost reminded her of Dean. She hadn't told the Doctor what had really happened on her birthday and she was mostly just relieved that he hadn't wandered into it when they were in the red grass a few days earlier. Her hands fisted into the fabric at his back, pulling tighter than she was holding on, clinging to him because she knew that if it had been different... they would've been leaving. If things had gone well... they would've been headed back to see them.
It's not even that he's told her, but somehow she knows and the breath she drags into her lungs feels like it's kicking and screaming as hard as she would've fought if he'd told her he was leaving her behind. The air she floods with her lungs forces itself to crack and break, and it clings to her like a sob that just won't come. Crying would mean it was true, and so far all she has is her own thoughts, her own fears but he hasn't reassured her, he's only asked how she is, and right now at this moment she's not even sure if she has the answer for it.
"It's over now," he says. He didn't know how to tell Rose what happened. Didn't want to tell her everything. Not the death, not the pain...and he didn't want to tell her how it was all for nothing, in the end. He didn't know exactly what Dean meant to her. He knew that they were...intimate at some point (He peeked into a door in her mind he shouldn't have and looked away immediately), but he didn't see any sort of deep emotion for him. Dean was a lot like Jack and he couldn't fault Rose for...well, he could fault Rose for that and he remembered the insane jealousy that bubbled underneath his skin at the thought, but he wouldn't bring it up now. Dean was gone, now. How would he say that?
He kisses her hair and holds her close. She is furious, he'll pay for it later, but right now Rose is a little slice of safety. And he'd missed her.
He pulls back after a moment and chews on the side of his cheek as he tries to figure out what to say. "It..." he swallows. "Come on, into the TARDIS. We'll talk there."
Over is the word he used, and she hates the way it feels in the back of her mind, and hates how it sounds coming from his mouth. Over sounds final when he says it, over is more final than an ending in any respect. He wants her to leave to head into the TARDIS with him, to talk, but she doesn't want to go anywhere. She doesn't want to move. She pulls in another breath, feeling it stagger into her, shaky and clearly unsure of when it'll be enough. She's not even crying yet, hasn't felt the salt of her tears spill onto her cheeks and there's a single moment when she actually believes that if she stays right there instead of moving into the TARDIS that she could continue on without ever knowing what happened.
She's braver than that though, and as she pulls back from him she has to physically put distance between him and herself. Her fists ache from the tightness that's no longer there clinging to the fabric of his jacket. Balling her fists up is the only thing she can think to do just to put that tightness there again. Swallowing hard takes more than just thought, it takes her remembering that she needs to do this, she's stronger than this fear. Setting her jaw she looks up at him, hoping with everything in her that what he wants to say and what he has to say could be the same thing.
"Tell me, tell me now.."
He can do this. He can distance himself from the knowledge like a doctor telling a patient's family member of their death. He's done it before, but it's never felt like so much of a failure. A whole battle over nothing. Nothing succeeded in the end.
He takes another breath. "Dean's gone, Rose," he says. "Those creatures got him, we weren't fast enough. Weren't enough of us, I don't know. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
There should be more. He should say more or do something but he has no idea what to say. 'I'm sorry' isn't nearly enough. He hates the feeling of failure and he hates that he didn't know until long after it was already over.
It's a never ending echo in her head. It repeats because she's fairly sure her mind is denying that the words were ever spoken. Why does he have such a hold on her mind, why does this one person that she's known for less than the time he had left on his contract have such a strong presence in her? She can't even excuse it as love, because she knows who she loves. She can't lay the blame on anything except that he was as great a man as the Doctor, and that very fact had endeared him to her. Dean was a fighter. Dean had fought, and now Dean was... gone. Her bottom lip trembles for a moment, the sting of tears fighting against her will not to cry right now, "What d'you mean.... gone." Her hand sways a bit at her side as if she wanted to reach up, to tug at something other than feeling like she was grasping at nothing. She knows what he means. She knows all too well what he means and so she changes her question as her voice cracks a bit, "What happened?"
The Doctor looks back to the TARDIS then stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I don't know. I wasn't there. I'd set up a Time Bubble and it was broken...the creatures that wanted him got him." He sounds so detached, the tone of his voice even disgusts him. A man is dead, one of his friends is dead and taken by those extraplanar beings that the Doctor doesn't genuinely understand.
Rose's grief ripples off of her and he can feel it. It's one of those moments where he hates being a Time Lord because he wants so badly to comfort her but doesn't know how. He doesn't grieve like she does and he can't relate. He reaches out to touch her arm, offer her something of comfort.
She hates that she pulls away from the reach of his touch, but to be comforting her means that it's true. Knowing that she needs to be comforted hurts more than the actual words he's telling her. Her eyes glance to the ground still trying to fight with her need to cry, to mourn the loss she's not ready to accept. Biting on her bottom lip she finally returns her eyes to his, seeking some other truth, some other reason for it all, "Can't you fix it? Can't you just go back... make it different?" She already knows the answer and she knows how foolish it is of her, how selfish it is to even ask him that. He was there. It's his timeline now too, and he can't just go back and do it over. The risk is too much and Rose knows it... all too well. "Course not... it's a fact of it now." She sounds defeated and she wasn't even there to watch him fall.
The breath she pulls in through her nose shudders in her lungs and her throat as she moves briskly pushing past the Doctor and setting foot back onto the TARDIS. She wants to be angry, to let the hate that she feels for the sort of creature that could simply bargain with someone's soul, that could actually go through with such a horrible thing. But she can't even feel anger at the moment. She can't feel anything. She makes it into the center of the room and over to the railings before her hand tightens to the metal rail. Her knees buckle under the pressure of her trying to stay steady for so long. Her features fall, eyes deepening with the sadness that has been pulling her apart inside for so long now. Both hands now grip to the railing and she feels like the world is trying to swallow her whole, until finally the breath she takes in comes out in a cry that carries no sound at all. Anguish and pain echo in her heart and all she can think of is that she was stuck here... in Gallifrey while the Doctor was there fighting... for nothing. Collapsing to the ground would've been easier if her hands would've released their grip to the rail, but all she can do is cling to the cool metal her arms stretched out so her forehead can press to skin as her tears fall.
The Doctor follows her as she steps inside and when she starts to buckle he's by her side. He very nearly pulls her into his arms, but she pulled away before. That must not be what she needs now. What are the stages of human grief? He can't remember and that frustrates him. Not nearly as much as not understanding. He wants to understand, wants to help, but all he can do is stand there with his hands a few inches from her, unsure what to do next.
What should he say? Should he say anything at all? He can't take her back to Sam and Ruby, can't show her what's left of that battlefield. It all would've been all right if he'd just...he doesn't even know what. But he's the Doctor, he's supposed to be able to do anything, but he can't save their friend who made a stupid deal. Part of him hates Dean for being likeable, for being the sort of bloke that he could build a rapport with. It makes his stupid deal that much stupider because there should've been another way out of it. He could've talked to the Doctor or Rose could've convinced him...he had no idea.
"I'm sorry," he says because he doesn't know what else to say and he's not leaving her. "I'm so sorry Rose."
Her body feels so heavy tugging against her wrists, the metal pulling on her palms trying to make her grip slip, but she feels that if she lets go, if she allows her grip to loosen that she'd never fall far enough. But she's not strong, not in this moment, not in any respect at all. When she finally drops onto the grate she relishes the feeling of the impact, it feels familiar in a way. Something so sudden, so real that she can't deny it at all. "Ow," she mumbles as the back of her hand brushes up to her cheeks wiping her tears away even though more threaten to fall. It still doesn't make sense to her but she knows that the pain she feels is real enough, and the sorrow that spilled her tears across her cheek is something others are feeling too. The world has a hole in it, and it's one that the Doctor's seen and one that she isn't sure should be as big as she's made it in her heart. The laughter that comes from her seems so out of place but she can't even help it now, "I barely knew him y'know. Just figured, he was the same as us yeah? Going out saving people, and god he talked like he was..." Rose wiped her fingertip beneath her eye a bit tugging an eyelash away. "Made me believe he'd just always be there." Rose met the Doctor's eyes, "Kinda like you."
The Doctor moves to sit next to her. His body aches in places he didn't think it could ache (he's really getting too old for all of this), but he doesn't want to loom over her, he wants to be with her. Especially now. No one should grieve alone. He's done that before. Too often.
Us. She feels like she's invincible sometimes and sometimes he believes she is, too. But Rose is far from invincible, she's only human. Too fragile, they're all too fragile, in the end. She doesn't understand her own mortality. Rose's eyes are red but she's not crying anymore. He doesn't understand her and that hurts.
"Talked like he was Jack. Same sort of blinding loyalty that gets you into trouble. Jack's got forever, Rose. When you live on the edge you think you're invincible," the Doctor says. "And Dean's...well, he was a hero, wasn't he? Saved Sam. You can't find that kind of loyalty just anywhere."
Rose nodded, the sleeve of her jacket pulled over her hand before she wiped it beneath her nose. Smiling a bit she nodded, "Yeah, bit like Jack." Drawing up her knees she held them close to her chest making both of her shoes meet up, lining the toes nearly perfectly. Her fingers press to the white rubber trying to rub a mark off of them that she knows doesn't really matter. It leaves her chin to rest on her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs folded up against herself. Tipping her head aside she glanced at the Doctor through her hair that was threatening to fall from behind her ear. "He'd have done anything... everything for his brother. Didn't matter if he knew he wasn't invincible, I think Sam'd done the same too. Anything for his brother." Rose knew the feeling, she could relate to being willing to do whatever it'd take to stay with the one that was the most important in your life. Maybe it was why Dean and her connected, why they could ditch award shows and get a burger and chips in formal wear. "Did anyone..." her head lifted up a bit letting that strand of hair fall in front of her face a bit, "Anyone else not make it?"
The Doctor shakes his head. He thinks about Jenny, he could've sworn he saw her in the crowds. "I don't know."
The not knowing is the worst part. He thinks he saw everyone after, but he's not sure. He was still so dumbstruck over Dean. What sort of a man does that make him? Selfish? Single-minded? Dean is---Dean was the sort of man that made him love humanity. Stupid at times, foolhardy, impossible to deal with in regards to women, but loyal and brave.
The Doctor winces as he pulls off his jacket. He's going to need to get it retailored. "I think...someone'll need to do a headcount. I just had to get away afterwards. I don't do well with clean-up."
Tucking her hair behind her ear she shifts, settling her legs beside herself before she tucks them under her kneeling beside him. He's a mess really, and the wince of pain is something she recognizes, "Y'know I was so mad at you. Like really just... furious. Made me doubt the whole day, yeah?" She knew it was hard to explain what she was feeling, mostly because she had all the rest of her emotions stuck inside of her getting her nearly ready to cry again. "Wonder if you'd done that whole thing where you're waving your hand over here so I don't notice the TARDIS pullin' away over here."
Rose inched up closer to him taking his jacket from him and folding it up setting in on her lap. "C'mere," Rose said letting her fingers tuck under his chin so she could get a better look at him, "Won't bite, just gotta see if you're hurt beneath some of this..." Her hands shifted against the loose collar of his shirt, finding nothing too bad. "You're hurt you know, be sore in the morning."
"Yeah, something hit me in the arm, I'll bandage it later," he says. It isn't so bad. Others were worse. All the same, he unbuttons his shirt to show her his neck and the cut on his arm just below the symbol he'd tattooed. "I don't think a lot of them saw me as a threat, I was using words, not weapons. More effective, actually."
Her words hurt and he can't tell if she meant that intentionally or not. Probably, it wasn't as if he didn't deserve it. "I wouldn't lie about that sort of thing," he says, very seriously. "Besides, not exactly easy to lie in the mind. Some Time Lords could do it...I never gained that gift."
Her fingers refold his collar despite it really not working as a collar now, open and the sleeves rolled up slightly, his cut not as bad looking as the crude tattoo she found. She kept her eyes on his arms, it was sort of odd to think that she didn't often see them, always beneath a jacket sleeve of some sort. Reaching out to her, but never showing her he had nothing up his sleeve. Course he usually did. Rose tugged her sleeve back up over her fingers wiping the dried tears from her cheeks. Her mourning felt odd at the moment, and she wasn't really sure how much mourning she needed to do. She was sad, she knew that and she could feel the knot in her stomach still sitting there like a rock. "I- I didn't mean the mind, mean not finding out those things, maybe just more..." chewing on her bottom lip a bit she tried to think of her words, "I kissed you. Mean I wasn't gonna really talk about it, but you... kissed me back. There's a difference 'tween the emotions we've got and what we do with them. Mean actin' on them and all."
He is embarrassed having her look at his arm, at his hurts. They'd be healed over in a few hours and the tattoo would wear away in a few decades, unlike the exile symbol permanently attached to his other arm. Physical pain seems stupid. Rose is grieving. In his own way, the Doctor is, too. Her hopping from topic to topic is very reasonable considering her psychological state, but he can't quite keep up.
"Do you wish I hadn't?" he asks. This is clearly not his area of expertise as he stutters when he continues. "Because at the time kissing you back seemed like the right course of action. Emotion-sharing a-a-and the sort of actions that go with them and I-I-I thought that i-it was very nice and should've...was I wrong to do that?"
Rose nearly flushes at the moment but it's closer to a quick heating of her cheeks instead of actual color. Looking away she folds her hands in her lap atop his jacket before meeting his eyes again, "Wasn't wrong at all, just wasn't sure if you... never mind." Her brow furrowed up a bit, more out of worry that she'd ruined it just by making it seem like it was wrong or for other reasons, "I didn't mean anything. I was glad, I mean..." her mouth curved up a bit in the corner into a smirk for a moment, "It wasn't wrong at all." Though she felt even odder now talking about the kiss, moving away from the death of her friend. Someone had died, the Doctor was hurt, she had been left there and now she was smirking at him over a kiss. She exhaled lightly tucking her hair back once more, "I don't wish you hadn't... I just wish the day after hadn't been that day."
Maybe she's looking for comfort. That's...that's something, isn't it? Typical for human grief. The Doctor finds a spot on his own and curls up and thinks about absolutely everything but what hurts and that's how he copes. Rose doesn't. He wants to ask her straight out if that's what she needs, but it seems like a silly thing to ask. No, not silly, stupid. He's human-shaped so he should know at least a little bit.
He leans forward and kisses her. His arm does not like the way he bends to press his mouth to hers, but he doesn't care. If it isn't right...well, then he'll...well, he'll deal with that when it comes up. He doesn't want Rose to think he didn't want to and he wants to comfort her and well, he's done more foolish things in his lifetimes.
She's very nearly staring right at him going a bit cross-eyed the nearer he gets because she's really not sure if he's going to do it and then his mouth is on hers and she wants to kiss him back. Half of her is simply looking for that emotion to replace the hollow, replace the vast unknowing feeling that is sitting in her stomach making her doubt almost everything she's trying not to feel. The other half of her though is begging her to pull away, to take the pain of losing a friend and truly grieve. To cry and mourn and remember him. Her hand brushes to his cheek but instead of straying back into his hair she slips it beneath his chin and pulls away from him. "I... I don't want it to be after that day either though."
She looks into his eyes understanding why, but not really needing that to confuse her even more. Her thumb strays across his jaw lightly her head shaking away the casual thought that she could just forget the pain and sorrow and put it behind her in a moment. She leans forward and presses a kiss to his forehead before easing back and untucking her legs from beneath her. It takes her a bit to stand up, but she makes it to her feet and holds her hand out to him. "Come with me," Rose asked of him, the irony of it all not lost on her in the least. "We should bandage that up." If she focused on something else, maybe she could get herself to ask other things, ask about Sam... because she knew, she knew that he'd been left behind.
He takes her hand and achingly pulls himself to his feet. He's so bad at this. At all of this. He can't even offer up proper comfort to a grieving friend---companion....whatever she had become now. He took a breath and promised himself that he'd research more later, that he'd learn more about her so that if this were to happen he wouldn't so utterly fail at it.
"Infirmary's down the corridor here," he says. "Three from the left." The door looks like all the other doors, except it has a sign that reads "Infirmary" on it that had been scratched out and replaced with a carved-into-the-wall "SICKBAY". That's the trouble with regeneration. You never quite know what can happen.
She follows his directions and soon enough finds the 'Sickbay' of sorts and pushes her way into it. Not that she'd know where anything was in it, but still she wanted to do something to take her mind back to what she needed to think about, not that she needed to think about anything. That wasn't true she needed to think about it, she just didn't want to was all. Her hand let go of his and she shrugged, "So yeah I had the thought to bring you hear? Not really sure where anything is though." Shrugging she leaned against the back counter, "When it was over..." she hated the word, hated it even more coming from her own mouth. "Did you see Sam? Mean... he's the one left behind." Chewing on her bottom lip she turned around pulling open a few cupboards before she found a roll of gauze. "Found somethin' least," she offered as she turned around to face him again.
"Yeah, that should be fine," the Doctor tugs off his shirt---feeling less embarrassed than vulnerable---and heads over to the washbasin where he cleans the cut on his arm. It stings and he winces. He doesn't get injured often on their adventures, usually just watches as things hurt others.
"He went off with Ruby," he says. "In Dean's car. Took him with them. He..." He wants to lie, tell Rose that Sam is going to be all right but he really isn't certain. The symbiotic relationship between Dean and Sam is so...intense that their severing is probably going to do more damage to the younger sibling than he would admit to himself. "He was a mess. But you know Ruby. Probably taking care of him. Them."
Rose nodded, knowing what loss felt like, and how unsure it made everything else feel. That loss made it all spin out of control on its axis and never spinning quite the right way toward something better either. "She feels responsible I'm sure, probably won't say it though." Her hand went into her hair pulling it away from her face and tucking it behind her ear. Heading over toward him she takes the roll of gauze in her hand and reaches for his arm, taking it lightly to start winding the thin sterile wrapping around the wound. "Doesn't look as bad as it probably feels."
"It's all right," he replies, but promptly winces. He's ever the male hero: Takes it tough during the battle then winces when a woman tries to clean his wounds. "Not exactly a physical fighter this time around, but I can throw a punch." His knuckles are a little bruised, but they're not too bad. He remembers how Dean looked when they pulled him away and he shivers a bit. It was gruesome, he doesn't know what ripped him apart like that. He's not going to tell Rose about it of course.
Rose pinned the gauze down, holding her hand around the wrapping for a moment as she met his eyes, "Still I'm glad you could be there. To help... even if it didn't go the way anyone wanted, just... I know you did what you could. Mean, least what you were allowed to." Rose knew that the Doctor wanted to do more, but Dean wouldn't allow it, and really Rose was kind of grateful for the stubborn streak. Her hands stayed there on his arm a bit, her eyes dropping to glance at her hands before she finally let go of him. She wasn't sure what else to do, or say really, "Anything else get hurt?"
"Scrapes and bruises, nothing that won't heal." He was rather torn. Part of him wanted to hug her and be grateful for the time they had and...part of him wanted to push away, to be alone. It was why he hated fighting. The person who hurts others is bad. It's a very childlike way of seeing the world, but that's how the Doctor sees things. And when he hurts others, he becomes that person he hated as a child.
He wonders what Rose would think of him now if she had been at the battle.
Rose nods at his remark. She knows he'll heal, though it's not as easy as it was when he first regenerated. No surplus of something or another to help him just grow a new limb. Which the thing sitting in the TARDIS now sort of creeped her a bit. She knew Jack had used it to track the Doctor, but why he kept it... right there... by the console wasn't really discussed. Wasn't like it needed a window seat or something.
Shoving her hands into her pockets now that she wasn't holding onto his arm she shrugged up her shoulders a bit. There was still a lot going on in her head, and she was pretty sure that the Doctor wasn't exactly up for answering too many questions. He'd been there... seen it happen, seen whatever it was that happened that wounded him... that gave him such a lost look in his eyes. It almost scared her a bit to think that there were so few times she'd seen him this upset, because that meant it was bad. She wasn't ready to do much sleeping, but she also knew that staying with the Doctor meant she'd be reminded that she still didn't have the answers, still didn't really want to know them either. "Think maybe... I should just get some rest. Long day... didn't exactly sleep much while you were gone neither. Mean, should just feel bit better knowing you're okay." She tried to look relieved, tried to find some sort of way to express that she wasn't trying to move on... not yet, that all she wanted was to just be able to move. To feel something other than the doubt and giant hole she had burrowing in her heart. For a moment she wished she had two beating beneath her chest, so that one could hurt... while the other continued on.
"I'll... I'll see you in the morning, yeah?"
He didn't want her to go. Or to be alone, really. But it was something he very nearly condemned her to when he left. If he died. He didn't intend to die, but...
"Yeah, the morning," he says. He nods stiffly and stands. He puts a hand to his bandage and smiles tightly at her. "Thank you."
It doesn't seem like enough.
Her brow furrows up a bit in concern glancing to him, letting her eyes cast down to his bandage, "Yeah, Nurse Tyler that's me." Her words have a slight bit of tease in them, some forced manner of trying to let him know she'll be fine. It'll just take a bit of time is all. Turning around her legs cross over themselves, nearly twisting herself into a smaller stance before her hand reaches for the frame of the doorway once more. Over her shoulder she glances to him once more smiling as much as she can... for him... for herself, before she turns back and heads down the halls. It feels wrong to leave him, but in a way she knows that had he... she'd have been alone anyway.
Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 6,440
Written with the amazing banished_dame, who resparks my Ten/Rose love when it dwindles and dies under the evil gaze of Rosefen.
Backdated to May 18.
By the time it's over he's just tired. The TARDIS is tired from holding up the time bubble for so long and he's just tired of the death and the loss. It feels like he could've prevented it all. He should've prevented it all. Instead, there was so much death and nothing was accomplished. Not even the life of one stupid little human that they all went out there to fight for.
He wants to sleep. He doesn't sleep often but right now his body is craving it. His hands move slowly over the console as he sets a new destination. One trip out, one trip back. He promises those he's leaving back on Earth that he'll be right back. Of course he will be. He's just got to pick up Rose. He promised her he'd be there soon. Just like he promised Jackie he'd keep her safe. Just like he promised Sam and Dean he'd help them.
He's such a man of his word that it makes his stomach churn.
All the same, the TARDIS lands just outside of his childhood home. He can't stay very long here, it wasn't nearly as safe a landing as his first time through.
She hadn't gone very far. Hadn't done much of anything at all. Stayed quiet, kept her head down and when she did venture to the city it wasn't much of an adventure at all. He'd left, and when the sound whirred to life outside the house she almost couldn't breathe. The sound still pulls her to her feet. Letting her heels scuff to the floor for a moment as they drop from the edge of the seat she'd been sitting on for hours. Now that it's here though, now that the TARDIS has returned... and so close to the house it stills her heart to the point that she wishes she had two, just to keep her going. To just keep some sound other than panic in her ears. Her heart won't beat, it stills and her breath is stuck and all she wants to do is see him. To see him when the doors open, but all she can think is that the TARDIS came to her... it came to the house.
It came for her.
Her feet finally move a few steps from the chair and soon the momentum pushes her to the door and her hand though it shakes can't be stopped as it grips the knob and turns it. She pulls it open stepping away from it and hearing it nearly crack loudly into the wall from the force. All she wants to see is him... she needs to know that he's returned for her, that even though he never promised he'd come back that he still did.
He expects her to run to the TARDIS, start pounding on the doors and be furious at him. The fury would fade and things would be all right. But after a minute without her, he worries and heads to the front door of the TARDIS. He hadn't thought to change. His brown suit is muddy and his right arm had started bleeding. He is hardly the worst off, but still, she...she shouldn't have to see this.
He takes a steadying breath and pulls open the door. The warm Gallifreyan air hits him in the stomach. From one war zone to another, it appeared. Still, this one had Rose on it, waiting for him. She's there, at the door to his childhood home. He takes a breath and can't manage a smile. He has the ridiculous desire to cry, actually, but this is hardly the time or the place and he's a little better at controlling his base emotions than that.
"Hey." It's a horrible way to start out.
For a moment it's not even real. For a single moment she's imagining it, and this is just what she wants to see overcoming the truth. Then he speaks and her hand grips tighter to the doorframe for a moment. It's only a moment that she needs to hold tight to the door, to reality to whatever is left behind because she's moving toward him. It's choppy in her mind, the actual movements to him because it's really not like in the movies at all. No soft focus surrounding her with a field of flowers for her to run through. It's just that one moment he's too far away and the next she's not really sure how close he is. Her hand reaches out brushing to his jaw because he's really there. He needs to shave, it's the first thought she has and it's quickly followed up by her pulling back and slapping him. Though once she's done it she's really not sure why she did. She's more in shock that she did it, her other hand gripping to her fingers as her chin nearly trembles with fear, "You left me."
Ow.
She slaps just like her mother, which means it hurts. He stops his mind-numbing waves of self-pity long enough to put a hand to his face and pout. But he supposes that he really does deserve it. After all that happened he should've at least tried to tell her.
"I know," he says after a long moment. He's not sorry so he doesn't say he is. She'd probably slap him again for a false apology.
He shifts on his feet a little. He wants to hug her. It's a stupid thing to want in this moment, but maybe he should just go back to the TARDIS because she'll follow and he's tired.
Her eyebrows knit up with moments of self doubt and panic, and not really wanting to know what happened, but knowing that she needs to know all the same. If she could even sort out her own thoughts maybe it'd make more sense. None of it makes sense though, and she's not sure it ever would. She's regretting the slap though, but she's not going to apologize for it. Instead her hand returns to against his jaw, this time she lets the heel of her hand rest against his chin a bit, and all she wants to do is pull close to him and be thankful that he's there. He looks horrible. Her gaze wanders from his eyes, because they seem too tired, to his suit that's covered in dirt and dust and things she's not sure she wants to identify.
There is blood. His. Theirs. She can't meet his eyes again because now this is more real than it had been before. This wasn't simply that he'd left her. This was that he'd gone off to fight in a battle... and someone had to lose. It takes everything in her not to ask, everything in her to just stay silent and her hand leaves his jaw and slides around his waist pulling herself against him finally. All she wants is to be held, to hear his hearts beat and to hear her own breathing because she hadn't noticed how shaky it had gotten until it was being echoed in her own ears.
She holds him and he is grateful for the few breaths he can take before he wraps his arms around her and holds her so very tightly. He thinks about how he could've lost her and it's better, it is. It's better that she was here. Better that he faced that alone.
He doesn't want to tell her that they failed, but they did and it's there on the tip of his mind as a "must tell Rose immediately". Instead he just holds her tight. He promised himself he'd never fight like this again but he did and he hates himself a bit for it now. He should've done more before the war. Should've stopped things before they started but he didn't and there just wasn't enough time.
"Are you all right?" he manages that out against her hair as he holds her. Silly question, considering the slap, but he has to have that confirmation.
She can smell the earthy scent mixed with ash, sult and sulfur. It was the same thing she'd been breathing in for those few days during the preparation. It was always heavy against her fingertips when she'd brush her hair away from her eyes, that dense scent that almost reminded her of Dean. She hadn't told the Doctor what had really happened on her birthday and she was mostly just relieved that he hadn't wandered into it when they were in the red grass a few days earlier. Her hands fisted into the fabric at his back, pulling tighter than she was holding on, clinging to him because she knew that if it had been different... they would've been leaving. If things had gone well... they would've been headed back to see them.
It's not even that he's told her, but somehow she knows and the breath she drags into her lungs feels like it's kicking and screaming as hard as she would've fought if he'd told her he was leaving her behind. The air she floods with her lungs forces itself to crack and break, and it clings to her like a sob that just won't come. Crying would mean it was true, and so far all she has is her own thoughts, her own fears but he hasn't reassured her, he's only asked how she is, and right now at this moment she's not even sure if she has the answer for it.
"It's over now," he says. He didn't know how to tell Rose what happened. Didn't want to tell her everything. Not the death, not the pain...and he didn't want to tell her how it was all for nothing, in the end. He didn't know exactly what Dean meant to her. He knew that they were...intimate at some point (He peeked into a door in her mind he shouldn't have and looked away immediately), but he didn't see any sort of deep emotion for him. Dean was a lot like Jack and he couldn't fault Rose for...well, he could fault Rose for that and he remembered the insane jealousy that bubbled underneath his skin at the thought, but he wouldn't bring it up now. Dean was gone, now. How would he say that?
He kisses her hair and holds her close. She is furious, he'll pay for it later, but right now Rose is a little slice of safety. And he'd missed her.
He pulls back after a moment and chews on the side of his cheek as he tries to figure out what to say. "It..." he swallows. "Come on, into the TARDIS. We'll talk there."
Over is the word he used, and she hates the way it feels in the back of her mind, and hates how it sounds coming from his mouth. Over sounds final when he says it, over is more final than an ending in any respect. He wants her to leave to head into the TARDIS with him, to talk, but she doesn't want to go anywhere. She doesn't want to move. She pulls in another breath, feeling it stagger into her, shaky and clearly unsure of when it'll be enough. She's not even crying yet, hasn't felt the salt of her tears spill onto her cheeks and there's a single moment when she actually believes that if she stays right there instead of moving into the TARDIS that she could continue on without ever knowing what happened.
She's braver than that though, and as she pulls back from him she has to physically put distance between him and herself. Her fists ache from the tightness that's no longer there clinging to the fabric of his jacket. Balling her fists up is the only thing she can think to do just to put that tightness there again. Swallowing hard takes more than just thought, it takes her remembering that she needs to do this, she's stronger than this fear. Setting her jaw she looks up at him, hoping with everything in her that what he wants to say and what he has to say could be the same thing.
"Tell me, tell me now.."
He can do this. He can distance himself from the knowledge like a doctor telling a patient's family member of their death. He's done it before, but it's never felt like so much of a failure. A whole battle over nothing. Nothing succeeded in the end.
He takes another breath. "Dean's gone, Rose," he says. "Those creatures got him, we weren't fast enough. Weren't enough of us, I don't know. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
There should be more. He should say more or do something but he has no idea what to say. 'I'm sorry' isn't nearly enough. He hates the feeling of failure and he hates that he didn't know until long after it was already over.
It's a never ending echo in her head. It repeats because she's fairly sure her mind is denying that the words were ever spoken. Why does he have such a hold on her mind, why does this one person that she's known for less than the time he had left on his contract have such a strong presence in her? She can't even excuse it as love, because she knows who she loves. She can't lay the blame on anything except that he was as great a man as the Doctor, and that very fact had endeared him to her. Dean was a fighter. Dean had fought, and now Dean was... gone. Her bottom lip trembles for a moment, the sting of tears fighting against her will not to cry right now, "What d'you mean.... gone." Her hand sways a bit at her side as if she wanted to reach up, to tug at something other than feeling like she was grasping at nothing. She knows what he means. She knows all too well what he means and so she changes her question as her voice cracks a bit, "What happened?"
The Doctor looks back to the TARDIS then stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I don't know. I wasn't there. I'd set up a Time Bubble and it was broken...the creatures that wanted him got him." He sounds so detached, the tone of his voice even disgusts him. A man is dead, one of his friends is dead and taken by those extraplanar beings that the Doctor doesn't genuinely understand.
Rose's grief ripples off of her and he can feel it. It's one of those moments where he hates being a Time Lord because he wants so badly to comfort her but doesn't know how. He doesn't grieve like she does and he can't relate. He reaches out to touch her arm, offer her something of comfort.
She hates that she pulls away from the reach of his touch, but to be comforting her means that it's true. Knowing that she needs to be comforted hurts more than the actual words he's telling her. Her eyes glance to the ground still trying to fight with her need to cry, to mourn the loss she's not ready to accept. Biting on her bottom lip she finally returns her eyes to his, seeking some other truth, some other reason for it all, "Can't you fix it? Can't you just go back... make it different?" She already knows the answer and she knows how foolish it is of her, how selfish it is to even ask him that. He was there. It's his timeline now too, and he can't just go back and do it over. The risk is too much and Rose knows it... all too well. "Course not... it's a fact of it now." She sounds defeated and she wasn't even there to watch him fall.
The breath she pulls in through her nose shudders in her lungs and her throat as she moves briskly pushing past the Doctor and setting foot back onto the TARDIS. She wants to be angry, to let the hate that she feels for the sort of creature that could simply bargain with someone's soul, that could actually go through with such a horrible thing. But she can't even feel anger at the moment. She can't feel anything. She makes it into the center of the room and over to the railings before her hand tightens to the metal rail. Her knees buckle under the pressure of her trying to stay steady for so long. Her features fall, eyes deepening with the sadness that has been pulling her apart inside for so long now. Both hands now grip to the railing and she feels like the world is trying to swallow her whole, until finally the breath she takes in comes out in a cry that carries no sound at all. Anguish and pain echo in her heart and all she can think of is that she was stuck here... in Gallifrey while the Doctor was there fighting... for nothing. Collapsing to the ground would've been easier if her hands would've released their grip to the rail, but all she can do is cling to the cool metal her arms stretched out so her forehead can press to skin as her tears fall.
The Doctor follows her as she steps inside and when she starts to buckle he's by her side. He very nearly pulls her into his arms, but she pulled away before. That must not be what she needs now. What are the stages of human grief? He can't remember and that frustrates him. Not nearly as much as not understanding. He wants to understand, wants to help, but all he can do is stand there with his hands a few inches from her, unsure what to do next.
What should he say? Should he say anything at all? He can't take her back to Sam and Ruby, can't show her what's left of that battlefield. It all would've been all right if he'd just...he doesn't even know what. But he's the Doctor, he's supposed to be able to do anything, but he can't save their friend who made a stupid deal. Part of him hates Dean for being likeable, for being the sort of bloke that he could build a rapport with. It makes his stupid deal that much stupider because there should've been another way out of it. He could've talked to the Doctor or Rose could've convinced him...he had no idea.
"I'm sorry," he says because he doesn't know what else to say and he's not leaving her. "I'm so sorry Rose."
Her body feels so heavy tugging against her wrists, the metal pulling on her palms trying to make her grip slip, but she feels that if she lets go, if she allows her grip to loosen that she'd never fall far enough. But she's not strong, not in this moment, not in any respect at all. When she finally drops onto the grate she relishes the feeling of the impact, it feels familiar in a way. Something so sudden, so real that she can't deny it at all. "Ow," she mumbles as the back of her hand brushes up to her cheeks wiping her tears away even though more threaten to fall. It still doesn't make sense to her but she knows that the pain she feels is real enough, and the sorrow that spilled her tears across her cheek is something others are feeling too. The world has a hole in it, and it's one that the Doctor's seen and one that she isn't sure should be as big as she's made it in her heart. The laughter that comes from her seems so out of place but she can't even help it now, "I barely knew him y'know. Just figured, he was the same as us yeah? Going out saving people, and god he talked like he was..." Rose wiped her fingertip beneath her eye a bit tugging an eyelash away. "Made me believe he'd just always be there." Rose met the Doctor's eyes, "Kinda like you."
The Doctor moves to sit next to her. His body aches in places he didn't think it could ache (he's really getting too old for all of this), but he doesn't want to loom over her, he wants to be with her. Especially now. No one should grieve alone. He's done that before. Too often.
Us. She feels like she's invincible sometimes and sometimes he believes she is, too. But Rose is far from invincible, she's only human. Too fragile, they're all too fragile, in the end. She doesn't understand her own mortality. Rose's eyes are red but she's not crying anymore. He doesn't understand her and that hurts.
"Talked like he was Jack. Same sort of blinding loyalty that gets you into trouble. Jack's got forever, Rose. When you live on the edge you think you're invincible," the Doctor says. "And Dean's...well, he was a hero, wasn't he? Saved Sam. You can't find that kind of loyalty just anywhere."
Rose nodded, the sleeve of her jacket pulled over her hand before she wiped it beneath her nose. Smiling a bit she nodded, "Yeah, bit like Jack." Drawing up her knees she held them close to her chest making both of her shoes meet up, lining the toes nearly perfectly. Her fingers press to the white rubber trying to rub a mark off of them that she knows doesn't really matter. It leaves her chin to rest on her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs folded up against herself. Tipping her head aside she glanced at the Doctor through her hair that was threatening to fall from behind her ear. "He'd have done anything... everything for his brother. Didn't matter if he knew he wasn't invincible, I think Sam'd done the same too. Anything for his brother." Rose knew the feeling, she could relate to being willing to do whatever it'd take to stay with the one that was the most important in your life. Maybe it was why Dean and her connected, why they could ditch award shows and get a burger and chips in formal wear. "Did anyone..." her head lifted up a bit letting that strand of hair fall in front of her face a bit, "Anyone else not make it?"
The Doctor shakes his head. He thinks about Jenny, he could've sworn he saw her in the crowds. "I don't know."
The not knowing is the worst part. He thinks he saw everyone after, but he's not sure. He was still so dumbstruck over Dean. What sort of a man does that make him? Selfish? Single-minded? Dean is---Dean was the sort of man that made him love humanity. Stupid at times, foolhardy, impossible to deal with in regards to women, but loyal and brave.
The Doctor winces as he pulls off his jacket. He's going to need to get it retailored. "I think...someone'll need to do a headcount. I just had to get away afterwards. I don't do well with clean-up."
Tucking her hair behind her ear she shifts, settling her legs beside herself before she tucks them under her kneeling beside him. He's a mess really, and the wince of pain is something she recognizes, "Y'know I was so mad at you. Like really just... furious. Made me doubt the whole day, yeah?" She knew it was hard to explain what she was feeling, mostly because she had all the rest of her emotions stuck inside of her getting her nearly ready to cry again. "Wonder if you'd done that whole thing where you're waving your hand over here so I don't notice the TARDIS pullin' away over here."
Rose inched up closer to him taking his jacket from him and folding it up setting in on her lap. "C'mere," Rose said letting her fingers tuck under his chin so she could get a better look at him, "Won't bite, just gotta see if you're hurt beneath some of this..." Her hands shifted against the loose collar of his shirt, finding nothing too bad. "You're hurt you know, be sore in the morning."
"Yeah, something hit me in the arm, I'll bandage it later," he says. It isn't so bad. Others were worse. All the same, he unbuttons his shirt to show her his neck and the cut on his arm just below the symbol he'd tattooed. "I don't think a lot of them saw me as a threat, I was using words, not weapons. More effective, actually."
Her words hurt and he can't tell if she meant that intentionally or not. Probably, it wasn't as if he didn't deserve it. "I wouldn't lie about that sort of thing," he says, very seriously. "Besides, not exactly easy to lie in the mind. Some Time Lords could do it...I never gained that gift."
Her fingers refold his collar despite it really not working as a collar now, open and the sleeves rolled up slightly, his cut not as bad looking as the crude tattoo she found. She kept her eyes on his arms, it was sort of odd to think that she didn't often see them, always beneath a jacket sleeve of some sort. Reaching out to her, but never showing her he had nothing up his sleeve. Course he usually did. Rose tugged her sleeve back up over her fingers wiping the dried tears from her cheeks. Her mourning felt odd at the moment, and she wasn't really sure how much mourning she needed to do. She was sad, she knew that and she could feel the knot in her stomach still sitting there like a rock. "I- I didn't mean the mind, mean not finding out those things, maybe just more..." chewing on her bottom lip a bit she tried to think of her words, "I kissed you. Mean I wasn't gonna really talk about it, but you... kissed me back. There's a difference 'tween the emotions we've got and what we do with them. Mean actin' on them and all."
He is embarrassed having her look at his arm, at his hurts. They'd be healed over in a few hours and the tattoo would wear away in a few decades, unlike the exile symbol permanently attached to his other arm. Physical pain seems stupid. Rose is grieving. In his own way, the Doctor is, too. Her hopping from topic to topic is very reasonable considering her psychological state, but he can't quite keep up.
"Do you wish I hadn't?" he asks. This is clearly not his area of expertise as he stutters when he continues. "Because at the time kissing you back seemed like the right course of action. Emotion-sharing a-a-and the sort of actions that go with them and I-I-I thought that i-it was very nice and should've...was I wrong to do that?"
Rose nearly flushes at the moment but it's closer to a quick heating of her cheeks instead of actual color. Looking away she folds her hands in her lap atop his jacket before meeting his eyes again, "Wasn't wrong at all, just wasn't sure if you... never mind." Her brow furrowed up a bit, more out of worry that she'd ruined it just by making it seem like it was wrong or for other reasons, "I didn't mean anything. I was glad, I mean..." her mouth curved up a bit in the corner into a smirk for a moment, "It wasn't wrong at all." Though she felt even odder now talking about the kiss, moving away from the death of her friend. Someone had died, the Doctor was hurt, she had been left there and now she was smirking at him over a kiss. She exhaled lightly tucking her hair back once more, "I don't wish you hadn't... I just wish the day after hadn't been that day."
Maybe she's looking for comfort. That's...that's something, isn't it? Typical for human grief. The Doctor finds a spot on his own and curls up and thinks about absolutely everything but what hurts and that's how he copes. Rose doesn't. He wants to ask her straight out if that's what she needs, but it seems like a silly thing to ask. No, not silly, stupid. He's human-shaped so he should know at least a little bit.
He leans forward and kisses her. His arm does not like the way he bends to press his mouth to hers, but he doesn't care. If it isn't right...well, then he'll...well, he'll deal with that when it comes up. He doesn't want Rose to think he didn't want to and he wants to comfort her and well, he's done more foolish things in his lifetimes.
She's very nearly staring right at him going a bit cross-eyed the nearer he gets because she's really not sure if he's going to do it and then his mouth is on hers and she wants to kiss him back. Half of her is simply looking for that emotion to replace the hollow, replace the vast unknowing feeling that is sitting in her stomach making her doubt almost everything she's trying not to feel. The other half of her though is begging her to pull away, to take the pain of losing a friend and truly grieve. To cry and mourn and remember him. Her hand brushes to his cheek but instead of straying back into his hair she slips it beneath his chin and pulls away from him. "I... I don't want it to be after that day either though."
She looks into his eyes understanding why, but not really needing that to confuse her even more. Her thumb strays across his jaw lightly her head shaking away the casual thought that she could just forget the pain and sorrow and put it behind her in a moment. She leans forward and presses a kiss to his forehead before easing back and untucking her legs from beneath her. It takes her a bit to stand up, but she makes it to her feet and holds her hand out to him. "Come with me," Rose asked of him, the irony of it all not lost on her in the least. "We should bandage that up." If she focused on something else, maybe she could get herself to ask other things, ask about Sam... because she knew, she knew that he'd been left behind.
He takes her hand and achingly pulls himself to his feet. He's so bad at this. At all of this. He can't even offer up proper comfort to a grieving friend---companion....whatever she had become now. He took a breath and promised himself that he'd research more later, that he'd learn more about her so that if this were to happen he wouldn't so utterly fail at it.
"Infirmary's down the corridor here," he says. "Three from the left." The door looks like all the other doors, except it has a sign that reads "Infirmary" on it that had been scratched out and replaced with a carved-into-the-wall "SICKBAY". That's the trouble with regeneration. You never quite know what can happen.
She follows his directions and soon enough finds the 'Sickbay' of sorts and pushes her way into it. Not that she'd know where anything was in it, but still she wanted to do something to take her mind back to what she needed to think about, not that she needed to think about anything. That wasn't true she needed to think about it, she just didn't want to was all. Her hand let go of his and she shrugged, "So yeah I had the thought to bring you hear? Not really sure where anything is though." Shrugging she leaned against the back counter, "When it was over..." she hated the word, hated it even more coming from her own mouth. "Did you see Sam? Mean... he's the one left behind." Chewing on her bottom lip she turned around pulling open a few cupboards before she found a roll of gauze. "Found somethin' least," she offered as she turned around to face him again.
"Yeah, that should be fine," the Doctor tugs off his shirt---feeling less embarrassed than vulnerable---and heads over to the washbasin where he cleans the cut on his arm. It stings and he winces. He doesn't get injured often on their adventures, usually just watches as things hurt others.
"He went off with Ruby," he says. "In Dean's car. Took him with them. He..." He wants to lie, tell Rose that Sam is going to be all right but he really isn't certain. The symbiotic relationship between Dean and Sam is so...intense that their severing is probably going to do more damage to the younger sibling than he would admit to himself. "He was a mess. But you know Ruby. Probably taking care of him. Them."
Rose nodded, knowing what loss felt like, and how unsure it made everything else feel. That loss made it all spin out of control on its axis and never spinning quite the right way toward something better either. "She feels responsible I'm sure, probably won't say it though." Her hand went into her hair pulling it away from her face and tucking it behind her ear. Heading over toward him she takes the roll of gauze in her hand and reaches for his arm, taking it lightly to start winding the thin sterile wrapping around the wound. "Doesn't look as bad as it probably feels."
"It's all right," he replies, but promptly winces. He's ever the male hero: Takes it tough during the battle then winces when a woman tries to clean his wounds. "Not exactly a physical fighter this time around, but I can throw a punch." His knuckles are a little bruised, but they're not too bad. He remembers how Dean looked when they pulled him away and he shivers a bit. It was gruesome, he doesn't know what ripped him apart like that. He's not going to tell Rose about it of course.
Rose pinned the gauze down, holding her hand around the wrapping for a moment as she met his eyes, "Still I'm glad you could be there. To help... even if it didn't go the way anyone wanted, just... I know you did what you could. Mean, least what you were allowed to." Rose knew that the Doctor wanted to do more, but Dean wouldn't allow it, and really Rose was kind of grateful for the stubborn streak. Her hands stayed there on his arm a bit, her eyes dropping to glance at her hands before she finally let go of him. She wasn't sure what else to do, or say really, "Anything else get hurt?"
"Scrapes and bruises, nothing that won't heal." He was rather torn. Part of him wanted to hug her and be grateful for the time they had and...part of him wanted to push away, to be alone. It was why he hated fighting. The person who hurts others is bad. It's a very childlike way of seeing the world, but that's how the Doctor sees things. And when he hurts others, he becomes that person he hated as a child.
He wonders what Rose would think of him now if she had been at the battle.
Rose nods at his remark. She knows he'll heal, though it's not as easy as it was when he first regenerated. No surplus of something or another to help him just grow a new limb. Which the thing sitting in the TARDIS now sort of creeped her a bit. She knew Jack had used it to track the Doctor, but why he kept it... right there... by the console wasn't really discussed. Wasn't like it needed a window seat or something.
Shoving her hands into her pockets now that she wasn't holding onto his arm she shrugged up her shoulders a bit. There was still a lot going on in her head, and she was pretty sure that the Doctor wasn't exactly up for answering too many questions. He'd been there... seen it happen, seen whatever it was that happened that wounded him... that gave him such a lost look in his eyes. It almost scared her a bit to think that there were so few times she'd seen him this upset, because that meant it was bad. She wasn't ready to do much sleeping, but she also knew that staying with the Doctor meant she'd be reminded that she still didn't have the answers, still didn't really want to know them either. "Think maybe... I should just get some rest. Long day... didn't exactly sleep much while you were gone neither. Mean, should just feel bit better knowing you're okay." She tried to look relieved, tried to find some sort of way to express that she wasn't trying to move on... not yet, that all she wanted was to just be able to move. To feel something other than the doubt and giant hole she had burrowing in her heart. For a moment she wished she had two beating beneath her chest, so that one could hurt... while the other continued on.
"I'll... I'll see you in the morning, yeah?"
He didn't want her to go. Or to be alone, really. But it was something he very nearly condemned her to when he left. If he died. He didn't intend to die, but...
"Yeah, the morning," he says. He nods stiffly and stands. He puts a hand to his bandage and smiles tightly at her. "Thank you."
It doesn't seem like enough.
Her brow furrows up a bit in concern glancing to him, letting her eyes cast down to his bandage, "Yeah, Nurse Tyler that's me." Her words have a slight bit of tease in them, some forced manner of trying to let him know she'll be fine. It'll just take a bit of time is all. Turning around her legs cross over themselves, nearly twisting herself into a smaller stance before her hand reaches for the frame of the doorway once more. Over her shoulder she glances to him once more smiling as much as she can... for him... for herself, before she turns back and heads down the halls. It feels wrong to leave him, but in a way she knows that had he... she'd have been alone anyway.
Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 6,440
Written with the amazing banished_dame, who resparks my Ten/Rose love when it dwindles and dies under the evil gaze of Rosefen.