(no subject)
a strange edge of air, Ten/Rose, Ten/Hannah. All ages. 904 words. Directly after Doomsday.
Seventy eight point nine percent nitrogen, twenty point nine five percent oxygen. One percent water vapor.
How much of this air is Rose?
This is Earth without Rose, and it is quiet.
There is movement through the verdant leaves, a shaking of the air that rustles just enough. He closes his eyes and imagines slipping into the space between oxygen and nitrogen atoms to take an empty rest, dry and forgotten as an old husk. He could crumble into the sky.
He thinks it would feel like freedom. And then, there is an impossibility.
The deciduous trees shake their arms at his folly as he stares at the woman ahead of him in Hyde Park. Gray sweats and a vest, dirty blonde curls bouncing in a pony tail, high arse meeting the eyes of everyone she passes and she is running, running, running.
Away.
Repeat after me, Doctor. She is not Rose. Not. Rose. Can't. Rose.
Rose.
After her!
He has to touch her, the warm spring air knows. The trees disagree, and the TARDIS sits blocks away, offering no opinion at all.
His hands itch. His long legs begin a sprint to catch up to her, and he scratches the soft skin on the backs of his hands until they ache. His skin still crawls, singing red to the London air. He is not satisfied.
"Rose!" The word is ripped from his throat, a guttural sound that is deep and long, whale song that no machine could ever understand.
She does not pause. She has two ear buds between his voice and her ear drums, the temporal lobes of her brain never registering a desperate and trembling man behind her.
He has never before considered an MP3 player to be a nemesis. Or that she could be so bloody fast.
When he arrives, his hand touches her shoulder and it is electrifying, spinning her around in the middle of her jog in the park. He imagines he can see the sparks dancing on her skin, a fire so bright it rips into the ozone and into space; she is a beacon he could see from galaxies away, from MK37 or Plutarch or Apple Orange 4800Q.
(But standing directly parallel, she is invisible.)
In front of him, her chocolate eyes are wide. And completely irritated. He does not understand.
"Oy, mate! What's your problem?!"
He blinks. Rather stupidly, the trees think to each other.
"Rose." The word falls at his feet, splat. It seems an inadequate offering.
"Dunno who your Rose is, mate, but she's not me. Now can I keep runnin', or are you going to tackle me if I try?"
He can hear tinny sound from the one ear bud she has removed.
If you wanna leave, I won't beg you to stay. If you wanna go, darlin', maybe its better that way...
Her lips glisten, and her cheeks kiss him with their flush. His head is swimming and he can't focus, gravity is a deluge of weight on his body. If she weren't right here he would allow himself to collapse, to try to breathe or to never breathe again.
In. Out.
"What's... er, what's y-your name?" he stammers.
She chews on her gloss slicked lip, eyes darting from tree to tree along the paved path. Her hands rest on the swell of her hips, and for reasons she cannot explain, she answers him.
"Hannah." The wind sweeps the word from her mouth, whisking it to him and he greedily sucks it in. He does not smell a lie.
"So, Hannah!" he begins, suddenly jovial. Stamping down confusion, fear, trembling neurons firing erratically in muscle spindles that result in him shaking like a nervous boy staring down the Vortex (like a daft old man opening his mouth to it, sweeping in with his tongue and finding its fire delicious even as he dies.)
"D'you like chips?"
She blinks. "Wait, what?"
"Chips! Little golden brown bits of potato heaven! D'you like them? Piping hot with enough vinegar to make a bloke wrinkle his nose, maybe?"
"Look, mate--"
He takes her hand, and both pretend the weight of it isn't there. He feels a spark and skin cells sliding alone his own in whorls and loops he recognizes (Rose Rose Rose), and she feels gravity so deeply around him the air shakes with chill.
She gives him an appraising look. This is Hannah, the warmth of spring air a great rush from her lungs to his, invigorating him into life after he died on a beach and his body broke into billions of grains of sand.
Belle wants to know how deep his wallet is. She wants to taste his freckles.
"They're not really chips without vinegar, are they?" she says, finally.
"Course not!" he says, swinging their joined hands between them.
She looks at the trees as if for approval, the long expanses of grass, the air, the horses off in the distance of Hyde Park. She does not look at his eyes, and studies his knuckles: brushes of soft, fine hair. Deep red scratches, like he tried to crawl out of himself. She makes a note to talk to Ben about why she's attracted to nutters in the park, and where her sense goes when she can feel bone deep how he needs her (his marrow does indeed quake when she touches him.)
Seventy eight point nine percent nitrogen, twenty point nine five percent oxygen. One percent water vapor.
How much of this air is Rose?
He doesn't know. He breathes anyway.
In.
Out.
Seventy eight point nine percent nitrogen, twenty point nine five percent oxygen. One percent water vapor.
How much of this air is Rose?
This is Earth without Rose, and it is quiet.
There is movement through the verdant leaves, a shaking of the air that rustles just enough. He closes his eyes and imagines slipping into the space between oxygen and nitrogen atoms to take an empty rest, dry and forgotten as an old husk. He could crumble into the sky.
He thinks it would feel like freedom. And then, there is an impossibility.
The deciduous trees shake their arms at his folly as he stares at the woman ahead of him in Hyde Park. Gray sweats and a vest, dirty blonde curls bouncing in a pony tail, high arse meeting the eyes of everyone she passes and she is running, running, running.
Away.
Repeat after me, Doctor. She is not Rose. Not. Rose. Can't. Rose.
Rose.
After her!
He has to touch her, the warm spring air knows. The trees disagree, and the TARDIS sits blocks away, offering no opinion at all.
His hands itch. His long legs begin a sprint to catch up to her, and he scratches the soft skin on the backs of his hands until they ache. His skin still crawls, singing red to the London air. He is not satisfied.
"Rose!" The word is ripped from his throat, a guttural sound that is deep and long, whale song that no machine could ever understand.
She does not pause. She has two ear buds between his voice and her ear drums, the temporal lobes of her brain never registering a desperate and trembling man behind her.
He has never before considered an MP3 player to be a nemesis. Or that she could be so bloody fast.
When he arrives, his hand touches her shoulder and it is electrifying, spinning her around in the middle of her jog in the park. He imagines he can see the sparks dancing on her skin, a fire so bright it rips into the ozone and into space; she is a beacon he could see from galaxies away, from MK37 or Plutarch or Apple Orange 4800Q.
(But standing directly parallel, she is invisible.)
In front of him, her chocolate eyes are wide. And completely irritated. He does not understand.
"Oy, mate! What's your problem?!"
He blinks. Rather stupidly, the trees think to each other.
"Rose." The word falls at his feet, splat. It seems an inadequate offering.
"Dunno who your Rose is, mate, but she's not me. Now can I keep runnin', or are you going to tackle me if I try?"
He can hear tinny sound from the one ear bud she has removed.
If you wanna leave, I won't beg you to stay. If you wanna go, darlin', maybe its better that way...
Her lips glisten, and her cheeks kiss him with their flush. His head is swimming and he can't focus, gravity is a deluge of weight on his body. If she weren't right here he would allow himself to collapse, to try to breathe or to never breathe again.
In. Out.
"What's... er, what's y-your name?" he stammers.
She chews on her gloss slicked lip, eyes darting from tree to tree along the paved path. Her hands rest on the swell of her hips, and for reasons she cannot explain, she answers him.
"Hannah." The wind sweeps the word from her mouth, whisking it to him and he greedily sucks it in. He does not smell a lie.
"So, Hannah!" he begins, suddenly jovial. Stamping down confusion, fear, trembling neurons firing erratically in muscle spindles that result in him shaking like a nervous boy staring down the Vortex (like a daft old man opening his mouth to it, sweeping in with his tongue and finding its fire delicious even as he dies.)
"D'you like chips?"
She blinks. "Wait, what?"
"Chips! Little golden brown bits of potato heaven! D'you like them? Piping hot with enough vinegar to make a bloke wrinkle his nose, maybe?"
"Look, mate--"
He takes her hand, and both pretend the weight of it isn't there. He feels a spark and skin cells sliding alone his own in whorls and loops he recognizes (Rose Rose Rose), and she feels gravity so deeply around him the air shakes with chill.
She gives him an appraising look. This is Hannah, the warmth of spring air a great rush from her lungs to his, invigorating him into life after he died on a beach and his body broke into billions of grains of sand.
Belle wants to know how deep his wallet is. She wants to taste his freckles.
"They're not really chips without vinegar, are they?" she says, finally.
"Course not!" he says, swinging their joined hands between them.
She looks at the trees as if for approval, the long expanses of grass, the air, the horses off in the distance of Hyde Park. She does not look at his eyes, and studies his knuckles: brushes of soft, fine hair. Deep red scratches, like he tried to crawl out of himself. She makes a note to talk to Ben about why she's attracted to nutters in the park, and where her sense goes when she can feel bone deep how he needs her (his marrow does indeed quake when she touches him.)
Seventy eight point nine percent nitrogen, twenty point nine five percent oxygen. One percent water vapor.
How much of this air is Rose?
He doesn't know. He breathes anyway.
In.
Out.