Fic: You've Got to Hide Your Love Away (13/17)
The first time it happens, she's having lunch at a local cafe. Oddly enough it's the same exact cafe that, in another universe, she first met Martha Jones. In fact, it's even the same time of day. The parallels aren't lost on Rose, but the impact of the coincidences isn't nearly as meaningful as it should be. Not at first, anyway.
Wrapping her hands around her warm mug of hot chocolate, she watches as the tall, blond waitress (Marie her name tag says) stops to talk with one of her customers. There's something familiar about her, something that reminds Rose of someone she's known before. Maybe someone from her previous life...
Shaking her head in frustration, Rose turns her attention to the newspaper on the table. Those are dangerous thoughts that she doesn't need to be having right now. She's had enough of dwelling on the past and bemoaning the future, thank you very much. It's time to learn to live in the present and ignore all the what-ifs that are constantly nagging at the back of her mind. She's done nothing so far to have that fantastic life the Doctor's always wanted for her
Going back to work obviously didn't help any, so this is her new plan: Get out of the house for reasons other than Torchwood and try to act like she's a normal person. A normal person who doesn't really belong here and used to travel through time and space in a little blue box that's bigger on the inside.
A normal person who just lost the Time Lord that she loves to a group of life-sucking aliens that tried to take over Earth.
Yeah, that's normal, she snickers to herself, then sighs. Well, at least she's putting in the effort.
By the time her plate of food arrives, Rose is feeling just that tiny bit better about things. She can do this, she knows she can. Tyler women do not just lie down and take it when life starts throwing punches. She can get over him. Not forget--because that will never happen--but, at the very least, she can find some semblance of happiness in her life.
Even if she doesn't really feel that she deserves it.
Sprinkling a little salt on her food, Rose tries to imagine just what the future might hold for her. Whatever it is, she'll make the best of it, she thinks to herself as she searches for the bottle of vinegar for her chips. The drone of conversations around her, just loud enough that she can hear but not loud enough to understand, feels comforting, safe. It reminds her of those special treats when her and her mum would go out to eat at a chip shop just like this, just the two of them.
Coming up empty in the vinegar department, she turns her head, meaning to wave down the waitress, when she sees something to her left. It's just a flash, really; a blur of brown and pinstripes, seen out of the corner of her eye but her heart begins to pound at the sight.
It looked like...but it couldn't be.
Rising to her feet, she quickly scans the cafe, searching for a tall, lanky man with gorgeous hair and a smile that can turn her into a puddle of goo. All she finds is the typical crowd for this sort of establishment; families with small children and older couples having their afternoon cuppa. There's no alien with two hearts, not ginger, and just a little bit rude. Of course there isn't. It was just...just a trick of the light, wishful thinking, her mind playing tricks on her.
With shaking hands, she drops her fork to the table and stares at her food, no longer hungry.
~~~
The Doctor hardly even notices his first jump through the Stargate, he is too distracted and worried about things to come. He's barely paying attention to what's happening around him; just enough to make sure he doesn't crash. As a result, he doesn't really see the blue-green wall of liquid that shoots out like a blast before settling calmly within its metal ring of ancient symbols. As he travels through it, he doesn't really see the twisted lines of the time stream, similar and, yet, oh, so dissimilar from the vortex he is used to.
The conversation with Teyla keeps running round and round in his mind. He can't escape it, can't run from the haunting, unwanted words that opened his eyes to the truth of who he is, of what he's done. The sum of his person isn't made up of the worlds destroyed or, the enemies made. No, who he really is, is a man that, because of his own stupid, irrational fears, pushes away those few good things in his life.
Pushes love away.
There's been so much of it, given willingly and without condition. Companions and friends, family and acquaintances; all reaching out for his hand, his hearts, his love. But he refuses them, time and again. Refuses everything they have to offer him. For their own good.
Or is it? Because, when you come right down to the truth of it, are they really in any danger because of him? And isn't it ultimately their choice to make, not his? He likes to think he pushes them away for their protection, but he's beginning to wonder if it's more for his own.
He's not sure, not anymore. What he once thought with such certainty, he is now so confused about that he doesn't know if his whole life has been a lie. Now he's not sure if he actually saved any of them from harm, or if he was the person who hurt them more than anything or anyone else could've.
And, if he's completely honest about it, this situation between him and Rose is just as much his fault as hers. More so, even. Because he blocked her out first, he showed her how to do it, taught her a lesson that she will never forget. He came so close, closer than he's ever been before, to true, unabashed happiness and he threw it all away. The love that he felt so strongly, from the first moment he met Rose, he kept locked up, hidden away, the key lost forever. Instead of embracing it, he let it slip out of his fingers and didn't realize his mistake until it was too late.
Then he arrogantly assumed, if they ever were reunited again (oh, he'd known the possibility was there, he just didn't have the guts to pursue it), that she would feel the same way she always had; that she'd still love him. And their lives would return to the way they were before, with no consequences and no alterations.
He was a fool. He is a fool. Always has been, always will be.
And the thought crosses his mind, not for the first time, that maybe they'd all be better off if they had never met him.
~~~
Rose easily already brushes off the incident in the cafe as nothing more than an overactive imagination and decides to forget all about it.
And she's mostly successful; until Martha and Gwen convince her to join them for a 'ladies night out' anyway.
They corner her after work, insisting that she needs to get out and have some fun. A week ago she would've refused, found some reason to decline, but not now. This is the new and improved Rose Tyler, and if going to some sleazy dance joint with them is what it's going to take to kick-start her life again, then she's all for it.
Sitting uncomfortably in the booth at the club a few hours later, Rose wonders how, exactly, this is supposed to be making things better. Gwen's off dancing with some bloke she just met and a glance Martha's way confirms that she doesn't look like she's having any fun at all. She's just sitting there, staring off into space and looking like she'd rather be anywhere else but here.
“Martha?” Rose has to yell to be heard over the headache-inducing music.
Her inquiry takes Martha off-guard and when she turns, for the briefest of moments, Rose can see the sadness in her eyes, an intense sorrow that she once thought burdened only to her and she realizes; she's spent all this time wallowing in self-pity that she never stopped to think about how the Doctor's absence is affecting anyone else. She's not the only one who loved him or cared for him, yet she certainly has been acting like it.
And she likes Martha, calls her mate. The two of them have become quite close over the last few weeks, So close, Rose finds herself talking to her when she can't talk to anyone else--or does when she actually feels like sharing. But, in all this time, she's completely ignored Martha's feelings.
She reaches out a hand for Martha's arm, intending to offer the woman what comfort she can. But then the expression is gone, buried under a blank stare of neutrality, and Martha is rising from her seat, deftly avoiding Rose's touch.
“Sorry, got a bit distracted there,” she smiles at Rose, but it's fake and forced. “Excuse me for a tic? Loo break.”
Rose nods and watches as Martha hurries to the back hallway. And suddenly, she wants nothing more than to get out of the suffocating atmosphere of this place. Leaving her drink behind, she quickly makes her way through the streaming crowds of dancers. She finds it difficult to make much progress with hot, sweaty bodies grasping and groping one another and limbs snaking back and forth across the crowded space.
She's just feet from the exit when some drunken fool whose feet haven't compensated for the inebriation of their owner, knocks into her, throwing her to the floor with an oomph. Annoyance flashes through her and she scrambles to get her feet underneath her. But there are too many people, too many dancers, and not one of them seems to have noticed that she's taken a tumble.
After a few moments, she manages to get onto her knees, but she doesn't make it any farther than that before another drunken git steps on her left hand and someone else bumps a thigh into her, and she's down again, this time on her side. She tells them off but no one hears her, or maybe it's just that they don't care.
Her eyes settle on a single, Chuck-clad foot, just behind and slightly to the left of the red heels right in front of her. In any other circumstance, this would hardly be anything to raise an eyebrow at. But, after spending two years in this universe, Rose knows, without a doubt, that no such shoe exists here. They were never made, no one's ever even heard of them.
And for a second, for the briefest of moments, she feels a surge of hope.
Then, before she can search for the face that the shoe belongs to, hands are grabbing her, yanking her up off floor. She's twirled around to stare into the face of a concerned Gwen.
“Rose, are you ok?” She grasps Rose by the shoulders, giving her a once over.
Still shaken by the sight of the shoe, Rose can't quite muster the strength to pull away from her friend. “ 'm fine. I jus'...” Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she searches the crowd, which has now dispersed a bit. But nowhere does she see the man she's looking for and she thinks that he was never really there in the first place.
Just like at the cafe.
~~~
Two more gates, just two more of these wonderfully impressive creations of technology, and he'll be home. Well, Pete's equivalent of home. Earth. He'll be on Earth, and alternate universe or not, that's close enough. It's still where the TARDIS is, still where Rose is.
And anywhere that has those two things is home to him.
The Doctor grins widely as he punches in the next gate destination. What started off as a means to get from one place to another has turned into quite the wild ride. It's been amazing, wondrous...its been something he will always remember. Traveling in the TARDIS is sort of like traveling by plane. You make it from point 'a' to point 'b' seeing so little of the passing countryside. But this Wraith ship...a Dart, that's what they called it...has given him the opportunity to take in the sites, so to speak.
It's also allowed him the time needed to really think about what he wants. And he knows now for certain what that is: He wants Rose. Whatever the problem is, whatever it is that has kept her from him, he can fix it. He knows he can fix it, he just has to try. He just has to convince her to let him get close enough to try.
And he will. He has no doubt about that.
~~~
Rose's bedroom is pitch black; windows covered with a thick blanket, another rolled up and jammed in the space between the door and the floor. Despite this, despite the lack of any digital screen, blinking the time in a sickly green color, she knows, if she were to lift the covers from her head, she'd be able to see everything. She'd be able to see him.
It's been a week to the day since the first sighting at the cafe. Five days since the one at the club. The third incident occurred the day after that; when she was staring out the window at work and saw a tuft of brown hair, in the exact same shade, styled the same way as her Doctor's.
Later that same day it was a sound that got to her, a sound distinctly like that of the sonic screwdriver. Then, in the middle of the night, she woke to an unmistakable beat of twin hearts. None of the incidents ended up being more than her imagination running away with her.
It was the following day when all hell broke loose and she saw the Doctor, well and truly saw him, for the first time.
Trembling and desperate for air, Rose tears a small hole in her cocoon of safety, thrusting her nose out into the coolness just outside. She can't breathe the warm, humid air within the blankets. She feels like she's in a sauna and cannot fill her lungs enough. Feels as though she is slowly suffocating.
Nostrils flaring rapidly, she tries to push through the lightheadedness, but it's not enough, not nearly enough. She whips the comforter off her head with such ferocity that it flies halfway across the room, landing in a puddle near her dresser. Gulping down large mouthfuls of air, she fills her oxygen-starved lungs, and her head clears just a little bit.
But the shaking doesn't stop.
He's close now, so close she can hear him breathing, even over her own gasping breaths. Or she would be able to, if he were really here. Figment of her imagination, he still frightens her, leaves her body quaking at the sight of him. He poses no physical threat--how could he when he's less solid than mist?--but that's not what she's afraid of.
Bodily harm, holds nothing over the fear of the accusing look he'll level at her.
She's seen him a half a dozen times or more now and it's always the same. He's just across the room, on the other side of a window, sitting in the back of the bus and never any closer than that. But she can see his face clearly, see the accusing look, the sadness in his eyes. It's her fault he's where he is and she knows it
And he blames her.
She knows he's not really there, but that doesn't stop the guilt from washing over her every single time.
She knows, however, that as long as she refuses to open her eyes, he'll stay there; watching, waiting. On the other hand, if she would just look upon his face, acknowledge his presence, he'd leave her in peace again...for now anyway.
With a sigh of resignation, she forces her lids to rise, and looks into the face of the Doctor, this time mere inches from her own.
~~~
He pauses, just outside the last gate, turning off the engines, letting the ship float for a tic, and takes a deep, cleansing breath. This is it. Just this one more jump and Earth will finally be within sight. He's come so far, gone through so much, to see that little ball of blue and white again.
Staring at the circle of metal looming up in front of him he feels content, peaceful even. Maybe this is all he's needed, to be forced to slow down, to be unable to rush from adventure to adventure. He's had no choice but to confront his actions and feelings. And never has the future been more clear to him, more bright.
He's never been so certain of where he wants to go next, what he wants to do. The running and saving and running some more is all fine and dandy, but that's not all there is to life. And, for once, he's not afraid to face all that ever could be.
Oh, he doesn't want to stop fighting the good fight, not anytime soon anyway. But he does want to slow down a bit, stop to smell the roses...he can't help but grin at the thought. Rose. The one thing he wants more than anything else. And this time he will have her, utterly and completely without reserve. Once he talks to her that is...and that, can't exactly happen unless he takes the final step to her side.
Grin still firmly in place, he starts up the engines again, then quickly dials the final gate address. Just as he's about to fly through, thread the needle one last time, he pauses hand twitching on the controls... Yeah, it's so worth it, he thinks to himself as he pushes forward.
And, as he flies through the gate, twisting and turning the ship every which way he can, he swears he hears the universe laughing with him.
~~~
Almost two months after first arriving here Jack still isn't any closer to finding a way home. The closest thing he managed to find in the vaults of Torchwood, was what looked like a cross between a toaster and curling iron. Unfortunately, it turned out to be nothing more than an advanced mail-delivery system, that couldn’t send things through the void and was unable to handle matter any bigger then the size of an envelope.
Sitting in the living room at the Tyler mansion, where he and his team have been staying as houseguests, and nursing a cup of Jackie’s perfect tea, Jack thinks to himself that maybe it’s time. Not that he wants to give up completely, but they’ve been trying for so long, gone down so many dead-end streets. The constant failure, day after day, has done none of them any good and he just can’t see the point in continuing the charade any longer.
They’re stuck. At least for the foreseeable future, so they may as well make the best of it.
Frankly, even if they did find a way home, he's not so sure he would take it. Rose wouldn't be going, had never planned on returning to the other universe in the first place. And, with her current state of mind, there's no way Jackie or Pete would let her go now if she wanted to. As much as he misses his other life, as much as he cares about his team, he just doesn't think he could leave her here. Not now.
At one point he had thought she was beginning to heal. She was getting out of the house, going out in public with friends, acting like a normal twenty some year old. But then something changed and suddenly she started withdrawing again, spending all of her time locked up in her room. It was Jackie's confession about her discovery that really opened his eyes to just how bad things had gotten---
The ringing of the phone interrupts his thoughts. A glance at the clock on the mantel confirms that it’s late. Everyone’s in bed and he’s been burning the midnight oil alone again. Papers are spread across the coffee table, which serves as his makeshift desk for the late night research he’s been doing...though with far less frequency of late.
With a sigh, he begins pushing files out of the way, trying to find the phone that he’s effectively buried. Just as he touches it though, the ringing stops. Figuring it must’ve been a wrong number he goes back to wallowing in self-pity.
Not even a minute later Pete comes rushing down the stairs, taking them two-at-a-time. “Jack, Torchwood. Now.”
~~~
The Doctor lands in the Torchwood parking lot safely and without incident. It probably helped that he was able to get a message through before entering UK airspace but there's still a large group of Torchwood security surrounding the ship the second he steps out the doors. Luckily, Jack and Pete are both there too and, within minutes, the guards have dispersed and it's just the three of them.
Tears begin to well up in Jack's eyes, as he opens his arms wide. “I don't know how you did it, Doc, but I'm glad you did!” The hug is crushing, weeks of pent-up emotions rolling off both of them in waves.
“It's a long story,” the Doctor manages to get out, finding the relief at seeing his friend overwhelming and, yet, diminished a bit by the thought of seeing someone else, someone who's presence is painfully missing. Extracting himself from Jack's arms, he turns and gives Pete's hand a firm shake, looking around superstitiously for Rose. Is she on her way? Does she even know he's back? “A story I'd rather not get into right now.”
Jack watches him, and the Doctor finds that, for once, he doesn't really mind the knowing look on his friend's face. It's no secret how he feels about Rose, and if he has his way, it'll be even more obvious once they get things straightened out between them.
Pete begins updating the Doctor on the status of Earth after the Wraith left. It hasn't escaped the Doctor's notice that they're now the only ones here and no vehicles are headed their way carrying the one person he hoped would be here to greet him. He wants nothing more than to finish this conversation so he can go find her, since she obviously isn't coming to see him.
They need to talk.
But there's so much Pete and Jack want to tell him and he finds he's having a hard time getting a word in edgewise.
Jack's just about to tell him something he finds particularly amusing when his mobile starts to ring and he excuses himself, walking halfway across the lot to take the call.
“So, where'd you pick this one up?” Pete asks, motioning to the Dart.
“Pegasus galaxy,” the Doctor responds distractedly. Whoever Jack is talking to, it doesn't appear the news is good and he feels a surge of unease.
“Can we keep it?” Pete asks hopefully.
The half joking manner in which the question is asked draws his attention from Jack's animated conversation and he turns to Pete with a snicker. “Well...there's a team from America--Colorado I think it was--that'll be by pick it up in the morning. So, no,” he responds, grinning widely at Pete's look of disappointment which turns to surprise.
“So, they are--Rose said, but I...well, I didn't believe her...”
His heart skips a beat at the mention of the woman he's so eager to see. “Speaking of Rose...” he trails off, rubbing the back of his neck. “Where is she?”
Instead of answering him, Pete turns his head away, something has caught his attention. Following the man's gaze, the Doctor see that Jack is now running across the parking lot, a grim look on his face.
"It's Rose," Jack gasps. "She's missing."
Chapter Fourteen...