In Love and War, 6/16
Chapter 6
In the morning, the Doctor woke up on the couch alone. He shook his head, realizing he must have fallen asleep in one of his rare sleep cycles. His fingers drummed on the cushion next to him as he thought over what the next few days might mean. If he went through with the confession of his feelings for Rose, he would be risking everything…not only his immediate happiness and inseparable friendship with his favorite companion, but the eventual consequence of having a romantic relationship with a human being. One day, she would pass on, leaving him behind to mourn her. The Doctor cursed his fear and his cowardice. How long had both dictated his lifestyle, and what exactly had they done for him? The truth was that nothing ventured was literally nothing gained. Was the possibility of Rose finding another really worth the price of inaction?
He got up and absentmindedly unbuttoned his oxford shirt while thinking it over. It was time to start taking some risks.
He was just loosening his tie when Rose walked in, blowing at a steaming cup of tea.
“Morning,” the Doctor said lazily. His hair was a perfect mess; the kind of bed-head men secretly spend hours on in the hopes of looking effortless. He smiled at Rose as he seated himself on the back of the sofa, bare feet on the carpet.
Rose’s eyes raked down his exposed torso and she jolted her teacup slightly, catching a drop with her tongue and running it around the rim.
“Mmm-morning!” Rose said in a silly, embarrassed voice.
The Doctor straightened up as he noticed her roving gaze. He affected an exaggerated stretch and Rose drank in the sight of so much skin. She hadn’t been expecting that wiry build on such a slight figure, but he had gorgeous muscle definition in all the right places, and deceptively broad shoulders. She traced the smattering of brown hair over his chest and trailing down toward his pelvis, and imagined her palm following that route. She couldn’t suppress a shiver that went straight to her toes.
The Doctor reached in his trouser pocket and pulled out his brainy specs.
Rose’s eyes widened as he slipped on his glasses and leaned forward. She made a strange choking sound and he looked at her quizzingly.
“We’re going to need a plan of action before we move out today,” he said commandingly as he stripped off his open shirt and let it fall to the ground.
Rose nodded in stupefaction. Was she still asleep or something? She tried in vain to move her eyes off of him, but they wouldn’t budge. The Doctor, in only trousers, with the brainy specs. It was like sexy CLUE.
The Doctor was playing with his tie, wrapping the fabric around his wrist and pulling it off as he talked, but Rose didn’t hear a word he was saying. She hoped she was nodding at all the right times. The image of him with his hands tied together behind his back…with the tie…came into her mind and absorbed all of her attention. She set the teacup down, not trusting herself with it any longer. In order to keep her hands busy she started playing with the zip on her sweatshirt. Up and down, up and down.
“I don’t know,” the Doctor was saying. “What do you think?”
Rose stopped mid-motion and went pink in the cheeks. “I think you’re right…” she said. Was that a good answer?
The Doctor watched her suspiciously for a moment before coming to stand not four inches away from her.
“Really?” He asked, deadly serious.
Bullocks! This looked important. Which mattered more, her pride or knowing what the topic of conversation was. God! Why was he standing so close? She wanted to run her tongue over his collarbone and grab his arse through those trousers and push him back into the couch and...
“Uh,” Rose said.
The Doctor nodded. “We’ll talk about it later,” he interrupted. “It’s probably too early to be plotting logistics. I’m going to grab a shower. And oh, do you mind I if borrow your shower pouf? I was going to get one on our last stop but I forgot.”
Rose knew her face looked demented but she couldn’t help it. The very idea of him in the shower, running her pouf all over his body. Wet, soapy pouf over wet, naked Doctor.
“Please,” she half-whispered.
“Ta!” the Doctor replied with a wink as he waltzed off to the bathroom. He hoped he hadn’t overdone the flirting; it certainly wasn’t his area of expertise.
Rose nearly collapsed into a nearby chair. Where had that come from? And after all her and Ema had been through, and done…romantically. She felt like she was betraying him by fantasizing about the Doctor. But then again, she had no real commitment to Ema, and she’d been in love with the Doctor from the first moment she’d met him. It was only natural to be attracted to him in that state of undress. Strange that an event like this had only happened now that she’d finally met someone else. It almost seemed like the Doctor was teasing her!
Rose narrowed her eyes. Surely not. He would never do something so cruel, after telling her in no uncertain terms that their friendship was the most important thing to him. And he’d certainly had plenty of chances if he’d desired otherwise. She heard the shower start and nearly slipped off her chair. The image of the pouf came immediately to mind and she sighed deeply, trying to convince herself that Ema was the only man she cared about.
After a hearty breakfast, Rose and Doctor were getting ready to leave the TARDIS, but the Doctor was more than a little concerned about escorting Rose across a live battlefield.
“Maybe we should just wait until dark?” he pleaded.
“Not a chance!” Rose responded. “We’ve got a real opportunity to do some good on this planet, and besides, I wanna see Ema as soon as possible. I need to make sure he’s not a vegetable after a certain Time Lord scrambled his brain.”
“Right,” the Doctor said moodily. “That WOULD be a tragedy. Let’s not waste any more time, then.”
“Oh, wait!” Rose cried. “I almost forgot. Be right back.”
The Doctor took a moment to fluff his hair in the reflection of the TARDIS console, not realizing that Rose had returned rather quickly. Her hand was over her mouth when he looked up.
“What?” he squawked.
“S’nothing,” Rose giggled. But then she couldn’t help herself. “You got a date or somethin’?”
The Doctor sniffed delicately before evading her question with one of his own. “What’s that behind your back?”
Rose had been fiddling around behind her back as she smiled up at the Doctor, but now she froze like a child caught in the act.
“It’s uh…this,” she said lowly, as she pulled out the gun Tate had given her from the back of her waistband.
The Doctor’s blood ran cold, barely recognizing Rose’s face as he stared at the weapon. “You brought that thing on board my ship?” he asked.
Rose stiffened. “Well I couldn’t leave it outside, could I?”
The Doctor took a step toward her.
“Yeah, you bloody well could have!” he shot back.
“I’m sorry!” Rose shouted, not particularly remorseful. “But if it meant the difference between me dead or alive I doubt you would have objected!”
The Doctor wasn’t listening to her, focused instead upon his own outrage.
“Did that war-mongering Prince of yours enlist you in his barbaric campaign or did you sign up willingly after a right grope?” he snapped. Rose dropped her jaw in shock.
“Did you wait ten minutes for me before devolving into a terrorist? Is that what you are now?” the Doctor continued, his jealousy taking over all rational thought.
Rose’s lips went pale as she listened to him, barely able to breathe. When he was finished, she shoved past him and ran for the door. She gave him one bewildered, haunted look before slamming the door behind her.
The Doctor sat down on the TARDIS’ grating, breathing heavily and willing himself to calm down. What had he just done? He placed his palms down on the floor, trying to channel the negative feelings out of his body. He couldn’t believe he just said all those things to Rose! She didn’t deserve that! He’d just been so angry and shocked about the gun. Rassilon, she knew how he felt about those things!
The Doctor seethed as he thought about Ema giving it to her, and her accepting it. Ema was a bad influence on her, the Doctor reasoned. Otherwise, she never would have considered carrying a gun onto the TARDIS. His nostrils flared as he ran a hand through his hair anxiously. But what was he doing here wasting time? He needed to catch Rose fast, before things got even more out of control. Without another thought, the Doctor threw himself outside to find her.
There were explosions blasting all around as the Doctor ran and dodged troop formations on both sides. Soldiers were barking orders through all the chaos, becoming distracted as the Doctor moved around them, through them, or even over them to find his companion. He cursed as a shell came within twenty feet of him and he was knocked to the ground.
'How could any species willingly engage in this kind of behavior?' he thought as he dusted himself off before resuming his run.
He was absolutely appalled by fighting when there were so many more productive ways to settle disputes. Talking it out, for one. How was he supposed to counsel the E’Loda to accept peace if they wouldn't talk to one another? And more to the point, what right did he have to seek reconciliation for them when he couldn’t even maintain civility with the woman he loved?
The Doctor halted, shocked by his own revelation. Is that why he’d berated her over the gun and behaved like a plonker instead of just talking it out? Is that why he was so terrified to make something real happen between them?
“I love her,” he told himself aloud, only just beginning to understand the import of the words.
He stared in a daze before the clouded battlefield, barely registering the sound of an incoming projectile. His feet started to move him instinctively, willing his to run, but it was too late. The last thing he saw was a shell of ammunition hitting the ground before him, violently exchanging the earth and the sky and turning the world into an eruption.
***
Rose had found Ema pouring over battle plans in the caves as he barked orders to his men. She waited on the outside of his circle until most of the troops had been deployed to their assignments. When the Prince saw her face, he ran toward her gratefully.
“I was so afraid you’d left!” he cried as he hugged her.
Rose stepped back a pace and put a hand on his chest. “Nah,” she said tiredly. “I wouldn’t leave you to finish this by yourself.”
Ema observed her tear-streaked face and puffy eyes. “Did something happen?” he asked as he took her hand.
Rose shrugged, but Ema pulled her in and wouldn’t let her pretend.
“Tell me,” he implored.
He pulled her with him to a pair of crates along the wall. Rose sat down stiffly and tried to stay calm as she explained herself.
“It was the Doctor,” she said faintly. “He’s a sort of…extreme pacifist, and when he saw this,” she said, indicating the gun, “well...he wasn’t himself.”
“Did he hurt your feelings?” Ema asked, and Rose couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.
“That’s a way to put it, yeah,” she said.
Ema rubbed her shoulder as he sat with her silently for a moment. “I guess I should have known,” he started, but didn’t complete the thought.
Rose quirked an eyebrow at him. “Known what?” she prompted.
“When he took my hand yesterday,” Ema explained, “I didn’t just see stars and galaxies and time moving all around me, although I did see those things en masse. It was enough to boggle the mind, especially when you’re only expecting an empathic connection, and you get a mental one too. On top of that, I glimpsed his emotional state.”
Rose watched Ema’s face expectantly. “Yeah, and?” she asked.
Ema let out a slow breath as he contemplated how to phrase it. “Rose, it’s not my place to intercede, and you know that I care for you, even after knowing you for just a few days, but… In the Doctor’s mind, behind every galaxy and vortex, there was one constant that seemed to ground everything he believed in and everything he fought for. It was you, Rose. Your name like a cipher written across all of that vast history of everything that had been or would come to be.”
Rose shook her head, disbelieving the words. “We’re just friends,” she said robotically.
“No,” Ema countered. “There was devotion there,” he said carefully. “On a scale that I’ve never experienced for myself.”
Ema rubbed his neck as if reliving the memory. “It made me want to feel the same way…someday.”
Rose stood up heavily, pacing the cavern in her confusion. She couldn’t qualify the things Ema had said with the events of the last hour…could she? She thought harder, made herself dig deeper into the Doctor’s motivations, his possible fears and expectations.
Ema sat in one place as he watched Rose wander the room. He wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t think of what it would be. He didn’t feel like he could compete with the Doctor’s feelings for her, and in a strange way, he didn’t really have the desire to. Their relationship felt like destiny, in a sacred sense of the word.
Rose turned to regard him with sorrow in her eyes, but Ema beat her to the punch.
“Look, Rose,” he said. “I think you’re wonderful and everything, I truly do. But, I don’t think either of us can deny the significance of your feelings for the Doctor. Please, don’t try to deny it. I’ve seen inside your heart and I know the stake he has on it. I’m not jealous Rose, at least not in the way you would think.”
Ema approached her and clasped her hands within his own. “I wish you both happiness,” he said.
Rose stared at him in awe. Was this guy serious? She couldn’t detect any form of manipulation in his face. She started as she felt his empathic connection move through her, and at once felt his sincerity within her own body.
“You’re amazing,” she stated.
“A little,” Ema agreed jokingly. “It just comes with being in touch with yourself emotionally, I suppose.”
Rose was going to agree with him when Saor and a small team of medics came crashing into the cave in an uproar. Saor was shouting to a pair of soldiers holding up a prone man on a stretcher, one of his arms hanging down loosely from the side.
“I said double the dose!” Saor commanded as he furiously cut around the wounded man’s clothing to expose his injuries. “I want my bag stat!” he added.
Rose and Ema ran over to assist the team in any way they could, but when Rose saw who the patient was, she knew she wasn’t going to be of any use to anybody. The Doctor was lying on the stretcher like a faint echo of the man she’d seen earlier that morning. His eyes were closed and he was drenched in blood and grit.
“Oh no, please!” Rose cried as she fell to her knees beside him.
(Next Chapter)
In the morning, the Doctor woke up on the couch alone. He shook his head, realizing he must have fallen asleep in one of his rare sleep cycles. His fingers drummed on the cushion next to him as he thought over what the next few days might mean. If he went through with the confession of his feelings for Rose, he would be risking everything…not only his immediate happiness and inseparable friendship with his favorite companion, but the eventual consequence of having a romantic relationship with a human being. One day, she would pass on, leaving him behind to mourn her. The Doctor cursed his fear and his cowardice. How long had both dictated his lifestyle, and what exactly had they done for him? The truth was that nothing ventured was literally nothing gained. Was the possibility of Rose finding another really worth the price of inaction?
He got up and absentmindedly unbuttoned his oxford shirt while thinking it over. It was time to start taking some risks.
He was just loosening his tie when Rose walked in, blowing at a steaming cup of tea.
“Morning,” the Doctor said lazily. His hair was a perfect mess; the kind of bed-head men secretly spend hours on in the hopes of looking effortless. He smiled at Rose as he seated himself on the back of the sofa, bare feet on the carpet.
Rose’s eyes raked down his exposed torso and she jolted her teacup slightly, catching a drop with her tongue and running it around the rim.
“Mmm-morning!” Rose said in a silly, embarrassed voice.
The Doctor straightened up as he noticed her roving gaze. He affected an exaggerated stretch and Rose drank in the sight of so much skin. She hadn’t been expecting that wiry build on such a slight figure, but he had gorgeous muscle definition in all the right places, and deceptively broad shoulders. She traced the smattering of brown hair over his chest and trailing down toward his pelvis, and imagined her palm following that route. She couldn’t suppress a shiver that went straight to her toes.
The Doctor reached in his trouser pocket and pulled out his brainy specs.
Rose’s eyes widened as he slipped on his glasses and leaned forward. She made a strange choking sound and he looked at her quizzingly.
“We’re going to need a plan of action before we move out today,” he said commandingly as he stripped off his open shirt and let it fall to the ground.
Rose nodded in stupefaction. Was she still asleep or something? She tried in vain to move her eyes off of him, but they wouldn’t budge. The Doctor, in only trousers, with the brainy specs. It was like sexy CLUE.
The Doctor was playing with his tie, wrapping the fabric around his wrist and pulling it off as he talked, but Rose didn’t hear a word he was saying. She hoped she was nodding at all the right times. The image of him with his hands tied together behind his back…with the tie…came into her mind and absorbed all of her attention. She set the teacup down, not trusting herself with it any longer. In order to keep her hands busy she started playing with the zip on her sweatshirt. Up and down, up and down.
“I don’t know,” the Doctor was saying. “What do you think?”
Rose stopped mid-motion and went pink in the cheeks. “I think you’re right…” she said. Was that a good answer?
The Doctor watched her suspiciously for a moment before coming to stand not four inches away from her.
“Really?” He asked, deadly serious.
Bullocks! This looked important. Which mattered more, her pride or knowing what the topic of conversation was. God! Why was he standing so close? She wanted to run her tongue over his collarbone and grab his arse through those trousers and push him back into the couch and...
“Uh,” Rose said.
The Doctor nodded. “We’ll talk about it later,” he interrupted. “It’s probably too early to be plotting logistics. I’m going to grab a shower. And oh, do you mind I if borrow your shower pouf? I was going to get one on our last stop but I forgot.”
Rose knew her face looked demented but she couldn’t help it. The very idea of him in the shower, running her pouf all over his body. Wet, soapy pouf over wet, naked Doctor.
“Please,” she half-whispered.
“Ta!” the Doctor replied with a wink as he waltzed off to the bathroom. He hoped he hadn’t overdone the flirting; it certainly wasn’t his area of expertise.
Rose nearly collapsed into a nearby chair. Where had that come from? And after all her and Ema had been through, and done…romantically. She felt like she was betraying him by fantasizing about the Doctor. But then again, she had no real commitment to Ema, and she’d been in love with the Doctor from the first moment she’d met him. It was only natural to be attracted to him in that state of undress. Strange that an event like this had only happened now that she’d finally met someone else. It almost seemed like the Doctor was teasing her!
Rose narrowed her eyes. Surely not. He would never do something so cruel, after telling her in no uncertain terms that their friendship was the most important thing to him. And he’d certainly had plenty of chances if he’d desired otherwise. She heard the shower start and nearly slipped off her chair. The image of the pouf came immediately to mind and she sighed deeply, trying to convince herself that Ema was the only man she cared about.
After a hearty breakfast, Rose and Doctor were getting ready to leave the TARDIS, but the Doctor was more than a little concerned about escorting Rose across a live battlefield.
“Maybe we should just wait until dark?” he pleaded.
“Not a chance!” Rose responded. “We’ve got a real opportunity to do some good on this planet, and besides, I wanna see Ema as soon as possible. I need to make sure he’s not a vegetable after a certain Time Lord scrambled his brain.”
“Right,” the Doctor said moodily. “That WOULD be a tragedy. Let’s not waste any more time, then.”
“Oh, wait!” Rose cried. “I almost forgot. Be right back.”
The Doctor took a moment to fluff his hair in the reflection of the TARDIS console, not realizing that Rose had returned rather quickly. Her hand was over her mouth when he looked up.
“What?” he squawked.
“S’nothing,” Rose giggled. But then she couldn’t help herself. “You got a date or somethin’?”
The Doctor sniffed delicately before evading her question with one of his own. “What’s that behind your back?”
Rose had been fiddling around behind her back as she smiled up at the Doctor, but now she froze like a child caught in the act.
“It’s uh…this,” she said lowly, as she pulled out the gun Tate had given her from the back of her waistband.
The Doctor’s blood ran cold, barely recognizing Rose’s face as he stared at the weapon. “You brought that thing on board my ship?” he asked.
Rose stiffened. “Well I couldn’t leave it outside, could I?”
The Doctor took a step toward her.
“Yeah, you bloody well could have!” he shot back.
“I’m sorry!” Rose shouted, not particularly remorseful. “But if it meant the difference between me dead or alive I doubt you would have objected!”
The Doctor wasn’t listening to her, focused instead upon his own outrage.
“Did that war-mongering Prince of yours enlist you in his barbaric campaign or did you sign up willingly after a right grope?” he snapped. Rose dropped her jaw in shock.
“Did you wait ten minutes for me before devolving into a terrorist? Is that what you are now?” the Doctor continued, his jealousy taking over all rational thought.
Rose’s lips went pale as she listened to him, barely able to breathe. When he was finished, she shoved past him and ran for the door. She gave him one bewildered, haunted look before slamming the door behind her.
The Doctor sat down on the TARDIS’ grating, breathing heavily and willing himself to calm down. What had he just done? He placed his palms down on the floor, trying to channel the negative feelings out of his body. He couldn’t believe he just said all those things to Rose! She didn’t deserve that! He’d just been so angry and shocked about the gun. Rassilon, she knew how he felt about those things!
The Doctor seethed as he thought about Ema giving it to her, and her accepting it. Ema was a bad influence on her, the Doctor reasoned. Otherwise, she never would have considered carrying a gun onto the TARDIS. His nostrils flared as he ran a hand through his hair anxiously. But what was he doing here wasting time? He needed to catch Rose fast, before things got even more out of control. Without another thought, the Doctor threw himself outside to find her.
There were explosions blasting all around as the Doctor ran and dodged troop formations on both sides. Soldiers were barking orders through all the chaos, becoming distracted as the Doctor moved around them, through them, or even over them to find his companion. He cursed as a shell came within twenty feet of him and he was knocked to the ground.
'How could any species willingly engage in this kind of behavior?' he thought as he dusted himself off before resuming his run.
He was absolutely appalled by fighting when there were so many more productive ways to settle disputes. Talking it out, for one. How was he supposed to counsel the E’Loda to accept peace if they wouldn't talk to one another? And more to the point, what right did he have to seek reconciliation for them when he couldn’t even maintain civility with the woman he loved?
The Doctor halted, shocked by his own revelation. Is that why he’d berated her over the gun and behaved like a plonker instead of just talking it out? Is that why he was so terrified to make something real happen between them?
“I love her,” he told himself aloud, only just beginning to understand the import of the words.
He stared in a daze before the clouded battlefield, barely registering the sound of an incoming projectile. His feet started to move him instinctively, willing his to run, but it was too late. The last thing he saw was a shell of ammunition hitting the ground before him, violently exchanging the earth and the sky and turning the world into an eruption.
***
Rose had found Ema pouring over battle plans in the caves as he barked orders to his men. She waited on the outside of his circle until most of the troops had been deployed to their assignments. When the Prince saw her face, he ran toward her gratefully.
“I was so afraid you’d left!” he cried as he hugged her.
Rose stepped back a pace and put a hand on his chest. “Nah,” she said tiredly. “I wouldn’t leave you to finish this by yourself.”
Ema observed her tear-streaked face and puffy eyes. “Did something happen?” he asked as he took her hand.
Rose shrugged, but Ema pulled her in and wouldn’t let her pretend.
“Tell me,” he implored.
He pulled her with him to a pair of crates along the wall. Rose sat down stiffly and tried to stay calm as she explained herself.
“It was the Doctor,” she said faintly. “He’s a sort of…extreme pacifist, and when he saw this,” she said, indicating the gun, “well...he wasn’t himself.”
“Did he hurt your feelings?” Ema asked, and Rose couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.
“That’s a way to put it, yeah,” she said.
Ema rubbed her shoulder as he sat with her silently for a moment. “I guess I should have known,” he started, but didn’t complete the thought.
Rose quirked an eyebrow at him. “Known what?” she prompted.
“When he took my hand yesterday,” Ema explained, “I didn’t just see stars and galaxies and time moving all around me, although I did see those things en masse. It was enough to boggle the mind, especially when you’re only expecting an empathic connection, and you get a mental one too. On top of that, I glimpsed his emotional state.”
Rose watched Ema’s face expectantly. “Yeah, and?” she asked.
Ema let out a slow breath as he contemplated how to phrase it. “Rose, it’s not my place to intercede, and you know that I care for you, even after knowing you for just a few days, but… In the Doctor’s mind, behind every galaxy and vortex, there was one constant that seemed to ground everything he believed in and everything he fought for. It was you, Rose. Your name like a cipher written across all of that vast history of everything that had been or would come to be.”
Rose shook her head, disbelieving the words. “We’re just friends,” she said robotically.
“No,” Ema countered. “There was devotion there,” he said carefully. “On a scale that I’ve never experienced for myself.”
Ema rubbed his neck as if reliving the memory. “It made me want to feel the same way…someday.”
Rose stood up heavily, pacing the cavern in her confusion. She couldn’t qualify the things Ema had said with the events of the last hour…could she? She thought harder, made herself dig deeper into the Doctor’s motivations, his possible fears and expectations.
Ema sat in one place as he watched Rose wander the room. He wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t think of what it would be. He didn’t feel like he could compete with the Doctor’s feelings for her, and in a strange way, he didn’t really have the desire to. Their relationship felt like destiny, in a sacred sense of the word.
Rose turned to regard him with sorrow in her eyes, but Ema beat her to the punch.
“Look, Rose,” he said. “I think you’re wonderful and everything, I truly do. But, I don’t think either of us can deny the significance of your feelings for the Doctor. Please, don’t try to deny it. I’ve seen inside your heart and I know the stake he has on it. I’m not jealous Rose, at least not in the way you would think.”
Ema approached her and clasped her hands within his own. “I wish you both happiness,” he said.
Rose stared at him in awe. Was this guy serious? She couldn’t detect any form of manipulation in his face. She started as she felt his empathic connection move through her, and at once felt his sincerity within her own body.
“You’re amazing,” she stated.
“A little,” Ema agreed jokingly. “It just comes with being in touch with yourself emotionally, I suppose.”
Rose was going to agree with him when Saor and a small team of medics came crashing into the cave in an uproar. Saor was shouting to a pair of soldiers holding up a prone man on a stretcher, one of his arms hanging down loosely from the side.
“I said double the dose!” Saor commanded as he furiously cut around the wounded man’s clothing to expose his injuries. “I want my bag stat!” he added.
Rose and Ema ran over to assist the team in any way they could, but when Rose saw who the patient was, she knew she wasn’t going to be of any use to anybody. The Doctor was lying on the stretcher like a faint echo of the man she’d seen earlier that morning. His eyes were closed and he was drenched in blood and grit.
“Oh no, please!” Rose cried as she fell to her knees beside him.
(Next Chapter)