Fic: The Awakening (6/?)
Rose was still cradling the sequined album against her chest when Pete opened the door and reentered the room. Solemnly, she brought her eyes up to meet his. Clicking the door shut behind him, Pete eyed her protectively, hands in his jacket pockets. He slowly approached Rose’s bedside, his eyes locked on hers and a serious expression on his face.
“Did everything go OK?” he asked, softly.
Rose looked up at him, her face completely blank, and nodded, her eyes wide. He looked at her hesitantly, before giving her a small smile and taking her hand in his, stroking her palm comfortingly with his thumb. He opened his mouth, searching for something to say.
“We … well, we should celebrate your recovery, don’t you think? Do you fancy anything special for dinner? Chips, maybe?”
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Rose said, mustering a weak smile that she didn’t quite feel, for his benefit.
“Just like old times, yeah?”
Pete looked at her with a small, hopeful smile, and leaned forward to press a lingering kiss to her forehead as he gave her a quick embrace. As he got up and turned to leave, Rose had a sudden thought.
“Dad!” she called to him, just before he got to the door. “Can I borrow your mobile?”
He turned around, slightly surprised.
“Of course, love.”
Pete handed her the phone with a smile and a quick kiss to the forehead, and left.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Rose sprang into action, placing the photo album in her lap and holding on to the phone with both hands, as if it were a lifeline. She quickly opened the internet browser on the mobile - she’d been through this before, and she knew exactly what she was looking for. Just as she had done right after she’d first met the Doctor, Rose searched for Doctor and blue box. She remembered the first time she had searched on the Internet for those words - it was the day after she had been attacked by living plastic in the basement of Henrik’s. She had come across Clive Finch’s website, and she had gone to meet him and see his collection of information and pictures about the Doctor. It was fresh in her memory, part and parcel of the most life-altering experience in her existence, and she knew she would never forget it.
But this time, when she searched for the same phrase, she found nothing.
She searched for living plastic and mannequins, and got no hits. The explosion at Henrik’s and her “miraculous survival,” as they called it, was the only strange occurrence on March 25 of the previous year. According to Scotland Yard, there had never been a Rose Tyler been listed as a missing person. She searched for Big Ben crash and found nothing at all. 10 Downing Street never had an explosion. Harriet Jones existed, but was a local MP, not Prime Minister. Adam Mitchell was originally from London and had a blog; judging by his posts, was apparently still working in Utah, as of a week ago. Jack Harkness was a Detective Inspector for the London Police, and had investigated the explosion at Henrik’s - most of the articles written about his statements on the Henrik’s case were by Sarah Jane Smith, a reporter for the Times. Margaret Blaine was still mayor of Cardiff, and there were no articles about a Blaidd Drwg nuclear facility ever having been in the works. This past Christmas morning had involved no mass exodus of hypnotized people onto rooftops. And, as far as she could tell, there was no record of Queen Victoria performing any knighthoods in Scotland in 1879.
Again and again, no matter what she tried, no hits. Like none of it had ever even happened, she thought, numbly.
Rose hesitated, then tried a different tactic.
She searched for Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Prentice Tyler, and found an archived link to an obituary from 1987, as well as a cemetery name. A search for Doctor John Smith Neurologist turned up a photo and the entire CV of the pinstriped man who had been treating her. Her doctor … she thought, wryly. The two people she cared for most in the entire universe, and neither one of them apparently existed. I need them. I’d give anything for either of them to be here right now, she thought.
Feeling eerily calm, she shut down the phone, and sank against her pillow. She closed her eyes tightly, taking a slow, deep breath.
There was another knock at the door, and Rose flinched -the last thing she wanted, or needed, was another visitor. But before Rose could say a word, a tall, middle-aged woman entered. She was wearing a white coat and her sandy-blonde curls were pulled back in an elegant bun at the back of her head.
There was something slightly familiar about her, but for a moment Rose couldn’t place her.
“Hello, Miss Tyler, my name is Doctor O’Brien. I’m one of the physicians who has been taking care of you since your accident. We just began our rounds for the day, and I thought I’d pop in to check on you.”
I know that voice!, Rose thought, with a start. Her eyes darted to her name tag. Dr. Cassandra O’Brien, Plastic Surgeon, Royal Hope Hospital, London.
“You had a mild burn injury and a few lacerations when you were admitted. I performed a skin graft. Nothing to be alarmed over, I assure you,” Doctor O’Brien said, with a smile, before making a note in Rose’s medical chart and turning to leave the room.
Rose’s eyes widened slightly, as memories of an observation deck and the Earth burning and bitchy trampolines and hospitals and psycho-grafts flooded her mind. Skin graft … Did Henrik’s burn, not the Earth? And then, I really did come to the hospital and met Cassandra there … and I was the one who had a skin graft, not a psycho-graft … because she is actually my plastic surgeon?
Rose paled, realizing that all the pieces seemed to fit, so perfectly. But it was real …
The next knock on the door was Dr. Constantine, Internist. He was a balding, older man with a slight paunch to his gut and an angry scar on the back of his right hand.
“I worked on your case mainly when you were first brought in. Your neurologists have always been your main doctors, though.”
“Wait! You said ‘neurologists’ - plural?” Rose asked. No, there is no way …
“Yes, you had two of them. Doctor Smith, whom you’ve met, and another bloke, before him. He left a few months back - not sure where he went off to, he didn’t leave a forwarding address. Haven’t seen him since,” Doctor Constantine said, shrugging.
Rose felt her stomach turn.
“Let me guess … he had big ears and a big nose?” she asked, softly.
Doctor Constantine looked surprised.
“Why, yes - how did you know?”
Rose didn’t answer, instead staring numbly at her hands.
Next was Dr. Reinette Poisson, Gynecologist. Nice enough woman, but good God, Rose thought, you can smell her expensive French perfume from halfway down the hall. No wonder he -
Rose immediately silenced that line of thought. After all, maybe it didn’t even happen.
The thought horrified her.
~~
He was the last one to enter, of course.
She knew it would be him. She could feel him, somehow, even as he stood silently on the other side of the door, before quickly rapping his knuckles to announce his presence. She didn’t even bring her eyes up to meet his, her gaze focused instead on his dusty white trainers as they crossed the floor to her bedside.
Him … and yet not him, she thought. She could feel him standing there and she knew, just knew deep down in the core of her being, that his hands were buried in his pockets, and that his brows were furrowed just so as he stood there, looking down at her. She could feel his gaze - well, not-him’s gaze, anyway. She knew it wasn’t the same man - couldn’t be the same man. But still, she thought, I have to try.
She looked up at him then, catching the sympathetic glance she knew would be on his face.
“Mind if I borrow your stethoscope?” she said, weakly. God, he must think I’m a nutter for this …
Wordlessly, almost somberly, he removed it from around his neck and handed it to her.
She’d seen this done on the telly hundreds of times before, and she herself had used a stethoscope on her Doctor right after his regeneration, the time she’d only found one heartbeat. It’s not that hard to do, I’ll just do it the same way I did it before, she thought, as she put it on and brought the metal disk to rest against his chest.
His brows furrowed slightly as he looked down at how she had the stethoscope firmly pressed against his torso. Her thumb was pressing down on the bell at the back of the metal disk she held to his chest. He briefly thought of correcting her, to let her know that her technique was poor and that, although having one’s thumb over the bell was a common mistake among amateurs, it meant that she was far more likely to hear her own heartbeat echoing from the deep palmar arch artery near her thumb than to hear anything going on in his chest.
But he thought the better of it, letting her continue.
Rose sighed. One heartbeat, she thought. She slowly lowered the stethoscope from his chest and removed it from her ears, handing it back to him without looking him in the eyes. She could sense him staring at her, she knew he was looking at her.
Say something! she thought.
“I just … I just wanted to say -”
Something caught in the back of Rose’s throat, choking back the end of the sentence. She looked down at the blanket covering her, unable to meet Doctor Smith’s sympathetic gaze. Sorry. How can I say sorry? I’ve been with you for two years! I spent every waking minute with you. We saved each others’ lives countless times. I lo-
“Rose,” he whispered as he sat down on the edge of her bed, taking her hand in his.
I loved every minute of it.
“When can I go home?” she said, eyes flicking up to meet his.
“Home?” he said softly, holding her hand tighter. His eyes were fixed on her own, and he looked at her intently - almost sadly, she thought.
She shrugged, dropping her eyes back to the blanket as she shuddered out an exhalation.
“Back to my Dad’s flat, I suppose,” she whispered, laying back down on her pillow and turning to face the wall.
Chapter 7
“Did everything go OK?” he asked, softly.
Rose looked up at him, her face completely blank, and nodded, her eyes wide. He looked at her hesitantly, before giving her a small smile and taking her hand in his, stroking her palm comfortingly with his thumb. He opened his mouth, searching for something to say.
“We … well, we should celebrate your recovery, don’t you think? Do you fancy anything special for dinner? Chips, maybe?”
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Rose said, mustering a weak smile that she didn’t quite feel, for his benefit.
“Just like old times, yeah?”
Pete looked at her with a small, hopeful smile, and leaned forward to press a lingering kiss to her forehead as he gave her a quick embrace. As he got up and turned to leave, Rose had a sudden thought.
“Dad!” she called to him, just before he got to the door. “Can I borrow your mobile?”
He turned around, slightly surprised.
“Of course, love.”
Pete handed her the phone with a smile and a quick kiss to the forehead, and left.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Rose sprang into action, placing the photo album in her lap and holding on to the phone with both hands, as if it were a lifeline. She quickly opened the internet browser on the mobile - she’d been through this before, and she knew exactly what she was looking for. Just as she had done right after she’d first met the Doctor, Rose searched for Doctor and blue box. She remembered the first time she had searched on the Internet for those words - it was the day after she had been attacked by living plastic in the basement of Henrik’s. She had come across Clive Finch’s website, and she had gone to meet him and see his collection of information and pictures about the Doctor. It was fresh in her memory, part and parcel of the most life-altering experience in her existence, and she knew she would never forget it.
But this time, when she searched for the same phrase, she found nothing.
She searched for living plastic and mannequins, and got no hits. The explosion at Henrik’s and her “miraculous survival,” as they called it, was the only strange occurrence on March 25 of the previous year. According to Scotland Yard, there had never been a Rose Tyler been listed as a missing person. She searched for Big Ben crash and found nothing at all. 10 Downing Street never had an explosion. Harriet Jones existed, but was a local MP, not Prime Minister. Adam Mitchell was originally from London and had a blog; judging by his posts, was apparently still working in Utah, as of a week ago. Jack Harkness was a Detective Inspector for the London Police, and had investigated the explosion at Henrik’s - most of the articles written about his statements on the Henrik’s case were by Sarah Jane Smith, a reporter for the Times. Margaret Blaine was still mayor of Cardiff, and there were no articles about a Blaidd Drwg nuclear facility ever having been in the works. This past Christmas morning had involved no mass exodus of hypnotized people onto rooftops. And, as far as she could tell, there was no record of Queen Victoria performing any knighthoods in Scotland in 1879.
Again and again, no matter what she tried, no hits. Like none of it had ever even happened, she thought, numbly.
Rose hesitated, then tried a different tactic.
She searched for Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Prentice Tyler, and found an archived link to an obituary from 1987, as well as a cemetery name. A search for Doctor John Smith Neurologist turned up a photo and the entire CV of the pinstriped man who had been treating her. Her doctor … she thought, wryly. The two people she cared for most in the entire universe, and neither one of them apparently existed. I need them. I’d give anything for either of them to be here right now, she thought.
Feeling eerily calm, she shut down the phone, and sank against her pillow. She closed her eyes tightly, taking a slow, deep breath.
There was another knock at the door, and Rose flinched -the last thing she wanted, or needed, was another visitor. But before Rose could say a word, a tall, middle-aged woman entered. She was wearing a white coat and her sandy-blonde curls were pulled back in an elegant bun at the back of her head.
There was something slightly familiar about her, but for a moment Rose couldn’t place her.
“Hello, Miss Tyler, my name is Doctor O’Brien. I’m one of the physicians who has been taking care of you since your accident. We just began our rounds for the day, and I thought I’d pop in to check on you.”
I know that voice!, Rose thought, with a start. Her eyes darted to her name tag. Dr. Cassandra O’Brien, Plastic Surgeon, Royal Hope Hospital, London.
“You had a mild burn injury and a few lacerations when you were admitted. I performed a skin graft. Nothing to be alarmed over, I assure you,” Doctor O’Brien said, with a smile, before making a note in Rose’s medical chart and turning to leave the room.
Rose’s eyes widened slightly, as memories of an observation deck and the Earth burning and bitchy trampolines and hospitals and psycho-grafts flooded her mind. Skin graft … Did Henrik’s burn, not the Earth? And then, I really did come to the hospital and met Cassandra there … and I was the one who had a skin graft, not a psycho-graft … because she is actually my plastic surgeon?
Rose paled, realizing that all the pieces seemed to fit, so perfectly. But it was real …
The next knock on the door was Dr. Constantine, Internist. He was a balding, older man with a slight paunch to his gut and an angry scar on the back of his right hand.
“I worked on your case mainly when you were first brought in. Your neurologists have always been your main doctors, though.”
“Wait! You said ‘neurologists’ - plural?” Rose asked. No, there is no way …
“Yes, you had two of them. Doctor Smith, whom you’ve met, and another bloke, before him. He left a few months back - not sure where he went off to, he didn’t leave a forwarding address. Haven’t seen him since,” Doctor Constantine said, shrugging.
Rose felt her stomach turn.
“Let me guess … he had big ears and a big nose?” she asked, softly.
Doctor Constantine looked surprised.
“Why, yes - how did you know?”
Rose didn’t answer, instead staring numbly at her hands.
Next was Dr. Reinette Poisson, Gynecologist. Nice enough woman, but good God, Rose thought, you can smell her expensive French perfume from halfway down the hall. No wonder he -
Rose immediately silenced that line of thought. After all, maybe it didn’t even happen.
The thought horrified her.
~~
He was the last one to enter, of course.
She knew it would be him. She could feel him, somehow, even as he stood silently on the other side of the door, before quickly rapping his knuckles to announce his presence. She didn’t even bring her eyes up to meet his, her gaze focused instead on his dusty white trainers as they crossed the floor to her bedside.
Him … and yet not him, she thought. She could feel him standing there and she knew, just knew deep down in the core of her being, that his hands were buried in his pockets, and that his brows were furrowed just so as he stood there, looking down at her. She could feel his gaze - well, not-him’s gaze, anyway. She knew it wasn’t the same man - couldn’t be the same man. But still, she thought, I have to try.
She looked up at him then, catching the sympathetic glance she knew would be on his face.
“Mind if I borrow your stethoscope?” she said, weakly. God, he must think I’m a nutter for this …
Wordlessly, almost somberly, he removed it from around his neck and handed it to her.
She’d seen this done on the telly hundreds of times before, and she herself had used a stethoscope on her Doctor right after his regeneration, the time she’d only found one heartbeat. It’s not that hard to do, I’ll just do it the same way I did it before, she thought, as she put it on and brought the metal disk to rest against his chest.
His brows furrowed slightly as he looked down at how she had the stethoscope firmly pressed against his torso. Her thumb was pressing down on the bell at the back of the metal disk she held to his chest. He briefly thought of correcting her, to let her know that her technique was poor and that, although having one’s thumb over the bell was a common mistake among amateurs, it meant that she was far more likely to hear her own heartbeat echoing from the deep palmar arch artery near her thumb than to hear anything going on in his chest.
But he thought the better of it, letting her continue.
Rose sighed. One heartbeat, she thought. She slowly lowered the stethoscope from his chest and removed it from her ears, handing it back to him without looking him in the eyes. She could sense him staring at her, she knew he was looking at her.
Say something! she thought.
“I just … I just wanted to say -”
Something caught in the back of Rose’s throat, choking back the end of the sentence. She looked down at the blanket covering her, unable to meet Doctor Smith’s sympathetic gaze. Sorry. How can I say sorry? I’ve been with you for two years! I spent every waking minute with you. We saved each others’ lives countless times. I lo-
“Rose,” he whispered as he sat down on the edge of her bed, taking her hand in his.
I loved every minute of it.
“When can I go home?” she said, eyes flicking up to meet his.
“Home?” he said softly, holding her hand tighter. His eyes were fixed on her own, and he looked at her intently - almost sadly, she thought.
She shrugged, dropping her eyes back to the blanket as she shuddered out an exhalation.
“Back to my Dad’s flat, I suppose,” she whispered, laying back down on her pillow and turning to face the wall.
Chapter 7