Echoes of Summer - Chapter Four: Alone In This Bed
Title: Echoes of Summer
Author: Cassandra
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: R
Summary: The Doctor retrieves Rose Tyler from Bad Wolf Bay but not without consequences. The walls between worlds begin to fall, two different realities merging. And on the horizon a threat rises that threatens to destroy everything the Doctor holds dear.
Disclaimer: Neither Doctor Who nor any characters, items or materials of any kind pertaining to Doctor Who or the Whoniverse belong to me. I’m just looking for a good time. Hee. Trying them out for a bit, see how they fit.
Spoilers: Oh yes. Tons of spoilers. All over the place. Probably without even meaning to but that’s what happens when you watch all the episodes like you’re possessed. So…erm…sorry.
Timeline: AU after the end of Series 2. Spoilers up to, including and going past Series 4 though. I’ve seen all of Series 1 through 4, including the series 4 specials but am not very familiar with the Classic Who much. As such, if I happen to include anything that really touches upon Classic Who, other than it being unintentional, I’ll be surprised out of my head. Really. You’ll probably see a lot of familiar things in the fic that play into the series of DW. Bear with me, it all ties in together.
Author’s Notes: I am not from the UK. I’m American. So trying to write someone with a British accent and vocabulary is hard as hell, LOL. And I do not know, at all, the layout of London nor the surrounding areas. So bear with me if you do live in/around London and if my description doesn’t sound like home at all. Also, I basically state right off the bat how I view timelines and alternate realities. If you don’t agree with it or want to flame me that it doesn’t match the Whoniverse, be my guest. But it’s not going to change my fic mostly because my fic is basically complete at this point. Thanks for playing though!
Chapter Four - Alone In This Bed
Rounding a corner blindly, she slowed and finally merely stopped, her breath leaving her in painful gasps. She felt foolish for having run. But at the same time she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. Either something was wrong with the world or something was wrong with her. She felt disoriented, lost in a place she had once been able to call home but that, for a small frightening moment, felt even more alien than all the worlds she had visited. She couldn’t understand, couldn’t place this strange surreal quality to the moment. Staggering a bit, she found herself slowly pitching to her left as she took a few nauseous steps and she rested her shoulder against a wall, her head falling forward as she took several shallow breaths.
Strange. The whole world felt strange.
Stopping once more, she turned and pressed her spine to the wall, letting her head fall back and heaving for a single simple breath that didn’t carry an overwhelming sense of change. Of unfamiliarity. It came after several torturous seconds, her one full breath that broke through the ball in her chest. And with it came a feeling of absurdity, of feeling silly at thinking she had seen something that wasn’t there. She blinked up at the coming evening, looking around to make sure she wasn’t making another scene merely resting there. But she was alone in the street and the coming night was almost solemn in the streaks of purple and blue. Looking at the ribbons in the sky she suddenly realized where she was, why she had stopped here reflexively.
She was home.
Stepping away from the wall, one hand held out to it to make sure it would still be there if she felt the sudden inexplicable need to run back to it, she peered up and saw the second level overhead. The flats of the Powell Estate, all laid out, one beside the other. Such a humble upbringing for a girl who would later travel the sky and the stars. Gazing up at the floors, she focused on the window of her mother’s flat and made up her mind in that small quiet second.
When she made it to her floor and approached the door of the flat, she hesitated. She didn’t have a key anymore and she didn’t know if someone else lived there now. It felt like such a long time since she had been home and even now, merely staring at the door and the window of the flat, she almost couldn’t make herself go closer. But she wanted to know. She needed to know.
Coming close to the door, wondering if she was making a huge mistake, she paused, composing herself. And then she reached out and knocked softly. Quietly. It was just about evening now. Someone should have been home. And if not then maybe the person had gone out for the night. If they had there would be no way for her to know except for the unanswered knock.
No one came to the door.
Sticking her tongue out as she rethought the decision, she ran it over her teeth and then knocked once more, louder. She heard the sound echo inside the flat. It sounded empty. Ominous. Arching a bit, she chanced a look in through the side of the curtain of the window and suddenly realized she recognized the curtain. Her mother had owned those curtains. She had grown up with those curtains. Frowning a bit, she peered into the window, barely making out the hallway inside. But sure enough, hanging along those walls, she recognized the pictures of herself with her mother, her deceased father. Mickey. Even a picture of the Doctor on a small stand deeper inside. Her mother had originally objected to the picture, such a long time ago. But Rose had been firm. She had loved the Doctor even then when he’d still been a bitter man with a dark jumper and a heavy leather coat. The Doctor had been a part of her life and in being so had become a part of her mother’s life, whether she had liked it or not.
Almost like bringing home a boyfriend to meet the parents.
The thought brought a small, mischievous smile to her face before she came back to the matter at hand. And the confusion. How long had she been gone that the flat was still under her mother’s name? Not so long if all her belongings were still in there. No one was going to pay the rent for her and her family. Which meant…had she been gone less than a month in this world? Was the rent late? Was everything still under Jackie’s name? She pressed closer to the door, her hand circling the knob absentmindedly and it turned in her hand, the door popping open.
She pulled away as if she had been struck.
The door was open. And her belongings were still in there. Her old clothes, her old life. Old milk in the fridge, she thought to herself blankly. She pushed the door open further almost reluctantly, still waiting for someone to come running around that hallway, armed. Ready to fend off an intruder. She would have to tell him that she was not armed, nor dangerous. She was the old inhabitant of the flat. She had left her things behind. The door had been open.
Please don’t shoot.
But no such person came down that hallway. All was silent as she poked her head in cautiously. “Hello?” she called out gingerly. “Anyone home?”
No one responded.
Coming in further, slowly, she looked around the hallway, her eyes drawn to all those old pictures. Would she bother trying to hold on to this flat for her mother? For herself? She had no money, no job anymore. Her only home was the TARDIS now. Her only home was him. Stepping in further, she nodded to herself. She would take all her old belongings, bring them to the TARDIS. They were all hers. All from her old life. They would begin her new life with him. She had no need of this old flat anymore. Anything, anyone, she had ever cared for that was tied to this flat was no longer in this world.
Coming in fully, she closed the door behind herself, hearing it close but not engaging the lock. She had found it open. She would leave it open.
The flat was empty. Silent. So cold. Taking a few steps in, Rose looked about in wonder. Such old memories. Almost as if her mother lived there still, her deceased father but a recollection. If she looked closely around the flat she could clearly remember the day the Doctor had come to her home, with the plastic hand attacking him and latching onto his throat, her face. It was almost humorous now. It brought a smile to her face. He had introduced her to that strange and beautiful world.
And she had loved every moment of it.
Floating down the silent hall, stopping to look at every framed image hanging on the walls, she felt smiles cross her face, tears rising as she recalled that moment or this emotion. How she missed them all suddenly.
Can I do this without you?
But then she pushed the questions away. She was with the Doctor. Now, she could do anything. Be anything. Anywhere. All at once. At his side. She had sacrificed her mother, her father. Her friend. All for the one man, the one alien, who could show her the world. Never stopping, forever curious. This man who would take her anywhere, give her anything.
Except the one thing she needed from him.
She ducked her head at the thought, her eyes leaving the framed pictures in the hallway as she floated along, as she passed the kitchen to peek in, refusing to look into the fridge. She would ask the Doctor, when she returned to the TARDIS, how much time has passed in this world. If she would find spoiled milk in that refrigerator. She didn’t dare to look.
Sweeping along, she paused outside the door to her room and she hesitated. Would she find her room the way she had left it? That year that she had gone missing, her mother had not moved anything, had not disturbed a thing. Had anything been disturbed in the time she had been absent? She was almost afraid to look. But she had to. She had to know.
Pushing open her door she wandered into a dimly lit room. Her room had a window that faced the sunset. Now, with the sky darkening outside, she was washed in hues of grey-blue and palpable sorrow. adHad
She paused by the door, staring at the bedroom she had slept in for so many years, and she almost didn’t recognize it. All those silly little pictures she had cut out and glued into a collage. Old school friends. Mickey. Her old musician boyfriend, Jimmy Stone. When she had returned to her mother, after having been dumped by that ex-boyfriend of hers, she had despised the mere mention of his name. She had wanted nothing to do with him and had buried away all the old pictures she had owned of him, of the two of them together. But years later, she had found them once more and had cut into them, forming collages and pasting them up in her room. Staring at them now she wondered what she had ever seen in such a simple boy.
I’m in love with an alien now. Is that really so much better?
Coming into her room further, she reached out for her bed, wanting nothing more than to curl up into a ball on its surface and forget the last few months had happened. She wanted to wake up to her mother making tea and chatting away on the phone to one of her friends. To her alarm telling her she was about to be late to work at Henrik’s. To anything except this solitude that suddenly came to weigh on her.
As she stared at her bed, she suddenly realized someone was there, appearing slowly like a ghost. She frowned a bit before closing her eyes for a long moment. Just needed to breathe for a second. Needed to focus inward. It seemed moving between alternate worlds had a bit of an effect on her. It would pass. She just needed a second.
Opening her eyes once more, she stared in confusion at the huddled form on her bed. It hadn’t been there a moment before, she was almost positive. And yet, staring now, it was more real than the very flat she stood in. Real enough to touch. A tall lanky figure with wild dark hair and a pale button up shirt, sleeves rolled up.
“It’s different now,” he murmured. He had taken off his brown suit jacket once more, set it aside with his long coat on her chair in the corner of the room. “That sunset. It’s different.” He sounded tired once more, with a hint of sleeplessness, his head at the foot of her bed, his dark eyes staring out blindly. “Like it knows you’re not here anymore.”
With a pained expression crossing her face she knelt on her bed behind him and then merely shifted her body down to press into the soft mattress, her head facing the sun as it set outside her window. She wanted to be bathed in that warm light, wanting to fall asleep in it as if embraced by a lover. She wanted nothing more than that. “I’m here now,” she said quietly with a sigh. Curling one arm against her chest and neck, she wrapped the other around his lean frame, stretching her legs out toward the head of her bed and pressing up against his back. She had done this many times before, always in thought, but never quite as intimately as now and not with him here like this. Always by herself, always needing the feel of the sun or the moon on her as she looked out and pondered other worlds, other existences. She had been so curious, even as a child. Had always wanted more, reached out for more and been determined about getting it. As if she had somehow known he was out there somewhere, known he was looking for something, for her, even though he himself hadn’t known it at the time and she herself had never even met him.
Two people reaching out into the unknown, toward each other. And then luck connecting them in a department store.
A small smile twitched the corner of her lips as she pondered her existence, his existence. The strange workings of a world that was mirrored not too far off, just a hand’s reach off but an entire expanse of nothingness in between. How strange the world was. How strange life was. She couldn’t even begin to understand how it all worked. But it had all worked out in the end. She was here, back in her own world, back with him. And even though she knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t, stay with her in the end, she would relish every moment she had with him until she no longer could.
“I don’t age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone that you…You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can’t spend the rest of mine with you.”
Her eyes closed slowly, hearing his voice as it seemed to echo around her, wrapping around her like a warm blanket. As if he was stretched out behind her instead of in front of her, his breath playing across her cheek as he embraced her tightly. She caught his scent in the air, that earthen scent and another, a familiar scent. But as she struggled to place it she realized it was a mixture of many different scents that evoked many different memories. She didn’t know how to explain it, only that it was dear to her. It sent her world spinning, made her imagine things that were not present. For a moment she thought the moonlight was sneaking into the room but no, not yet. And for that tiny eternity she imagined music suddenly playing far off, distant to her ears but so close she could almost enclose it within her heart and hold it to herself forever.
“Why are you sleeping like that?” came his soft voice faintly.
Only now it did not come from the form in her arms. As she lifted her head her arm floated down a bit, no longer embracing anything except her pillow. Like the ghost of a wind, he was no longer there. Her eyes came open slowly, widening as she found herself alone on her bed. Lips parting, she whispered against her comforter, “I-” And confusion crept into her tone as she searched her bed futilely for his frame.
There was the rustle of movement and then she felt him close to her head, his long coat brushing the edge of her bed. She tilted her head to look in that direction and she was in the dying light of the setting sun, purple and pink playing across her features in gentle shadows.
The expression on his face was soft, comforting, as he slowly lowered himself to the bed beside her head quietly. And his hand reached out, cupping her chin as he leaned over her. A bemused smile crossed her lips as she gazed up at him, upside down. He returned the smile wordlessly, his fingers brushing across the underside of her chin, his thumb curling along the corner of her mouth.
“You were gone for a bit. I was worried,” he confided to her in the darkness of the setting sun.
She made a small face, examining him. Same long coat, blue suit underneath. His moonlight in the dark. “Weren’t you just here? A second ago?” she asked him quietly, soft confusion furrowing her brow.
A corner of his mouth quirked a bit at her question, his fingers making lazy circles along her jaw. “Nope,” he replied, popping the p. “I just got here. Parked the TARDIS, decided to take a walk around. I figured you would come here in the end. Home.”
She stared at him, wordless for a long moment. This wasn’t home anymore, not by itself. And after everything maybe she just needed sleep. Sleep and a cup of tea in the morning. “Well,” she replied finally, “You don’t have to worry about me, Doctor.”
Except that I think I’m going mad.
“I’ll always find my way back to you.” And she allowed the sentence to hang, the implication to settle between them both as she gazed at him tenderly.
Would she always find her way back to him? She had thought, back when they had tried to seal away the Daleks in that Void, that nothing would ever separate them. And then the alternate world had come in the way. He had found the way back to her. As of yet there was only one kind of separation that would permanently part them. What about the next time? Next time they were separated for any reason, would they be able to find their way back to each other?
“I know you will,” he said finally, his head tilted toward her, gazing at her blindly as his fingers teased her jaw, almost tickling her. And he settled into another long wordless spell, seeming content to merely stare at her in silence.
She allowed him, turning onto her back slowly to return the gaze, a small smile curling the edges of her lips.
They held there for what felt like a long moment. Eternity even. The sun had disappeared, the room a dark blue until it turned bright once more with moonlight. And still he simply sat with her in silence, his fingers gentle. She felt her eyes close not long after to the trailing of his fingers, to the soft sound of his breathing.
It was only when she woke from a small nightmare that she felt him stretched out beside her, one arm wrapped around her waist, fingers curled in toward her ribs. She turned her face slowly, barely wishing to move, and he was next to her, his chin beside her temple, his breath floating around her. He slept also, never needing more than a few hours because of his alien biology and he was once more clad only in his button shirt, his coat and suit jacket set aside in the background. Settling again, she gazed at him from mere inches, her eyes trailing across his weary features. Not as tired anymore as when she had first seen him again on the beach. Several lines had somehow disappeared and she envied that about him, a tender smile crossing her lips. With a soft breath she lifted a hand and clasped him gently by the wrist, feeling his skin to be cold. It was normally cold to the touch. But he was present still.
And that was all she wanted at the moment.