DW Fic: Of Discovery and Sacrifice (2/5)
Sep. 4th, 2007 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salienneTitle: Of Discovery and Sacrifice (2/5)
Author: salienne
Characters: Doctor/Rose, Jack, various OC’s (I’d tell you which Doctor(s?), but that’d give a bit away :P)
Rating: PG
Beta: Thanks so much to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lunaserenade, who managed to beta this while taking care of a new Doctor kitty and Master kitty. All hail!
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. Other, far more brilliant people do. I do have a shrine on my wall, though, so that must count for something.
Spoilers: Through Doomsday
Summary: Post-Reunion. In an attempt to rediscover herself, Rose decides to leave the Doctor, but like all things, this decision is not without a cost.
A/N: For the longest time, I’ve been musing about the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. There’s obviously love but also naiveté on Rose’s part, and what I’ve even seen described as codependence on both their parts. Plus, Rose is 19 when she meets him and basically makes him and his lifestyle her life when she’s just starting to figure out who she is. Then, there’s what Jackie said about Rose turning into him, and throughout the second season, this does happen.
What I’ve often mused about specifically is this: what’s better, to be happy with the man you love and, to some extent, lose yourself, or to be more independent yet, at the same time, more unhappy and alone. I also thought about how Rose joins the Doctor at such a young age and how she’s always been rebellious. As she says, “Everyone leaves home in the end.” But what if, at some point, the Doctor became just too familiar and too much “home?”
This, ladies and gentleman, is where this fic comes from. :D I hope y’all enjoy, and as always, comments/reviews are appreciated!
A/N 2: When I think about Rose’s life in the alternate universe, I have no doubt that she would make it “fantastic,” but at the same time, she would never forget or really “move on” from the Doctor. My interpretation of what her life there, and the interpretation used in this fic, is that she would have led that life to make the Doctor proud. Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this life. It would be fulfilling, and she would do so very much with it. The only problem would be… well, there’s only so much “Doctor” anyone can take, no matter how much you love the guy. And to Rose, these years would, at first, make her cling tighter to him, and then they’d fade into further “Doctor” years. Hence, in this fic, in her mind, her world has centered around him for over a decade.
Her first year back on Earth, Rose gets a job at a department store because that’s what she used to do. It still bores her half out of her mind and, for the life of her, she can’t figure out why she didn’t quit all those years ago, why she didn’t finish her education or find a cause or join a gymnastics’ team. But she’s here to remember, she’s here to feel like that girl again, so she toughs it out. She gets her A-levels, makes a few friends, and dates a man named Gareth. She misses the Doctor the entire time.
Once, during the eighth month, Jack calls her. She has her own flat now, something she was only able to afford at the beginning with the Doctor’s help, and Jack asks to come see it. The year is 2010 and, for a moment, Rose wonders how her old friend knows she is here. Then she remembers that the Doctor still has Martha Jones’s cell phone, and she remembers that Jack must know the number for the TARDIS phone by heart now, and she doesn’t wonder anymore. For the first time in a long time, Rose feels pain grip her heart in the way only a Time Lord could manage.
She’s fine, Rose tells him, fighting the stinging beneath her eyelids, but she’d really rather not be bothered right now. Then, after some half-hearted flirting, she asks him how the Doctor is.
After a long pause, Jack says, “He’s fine too,” and they both know he’s lying.
~-~-~-~-
Halfway through her second year, Jack gives her his vortex manipulator, all fixed now, and she teleports off Earth. She’s been in one place too long, she thinks, and she’s restless, hungering for more. Whatever she’s lost, she can’t find it sitting here and eating chips, not anymore.
Rose takes small jumps on her way to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and universe. The manipulator isn’t strong enough to handle more than that. She uses the dates and places she remembers from her travels with the Doctor, always careful to arrive just before him and the other her. She’s eternally grateful that the manipulator is more reliable than the TARDIS, but she can’t help but miss the thrill of uncertainty.
A few times, she fouls the coordinates up, and perhaps on some level she fouls them up on purpose, and almost runs into her old self. She almost runs into the Doctor.
The first time, it’s the one she’s used to, with his red trainers and brown suit and tan trench coat and grin and sideburns and piercing brown eyes and his hand in hers—the old hers. They arrive seconds after she does, and she dashes behind an information kiosk amongst a crowd of humans and aliens, the faint memories playing in her head as they play out a few feet from where she cowers. She peers around the kiosk and can just make out the two of them, happy and wandering off to meet their latest tentacled foe, and a wave of longing hits her so hard it’s like getting her heart broken all over again. A few of the three-armed aliens around her grumble and move away, and she can only understand them because the TARDIS is so close. Human tears are poisonous to Mellianites.
The second time she sees him, it’s the old him, the him who first grabbed her hand and told her to run, the him with the blue eyes that could make her shudder, the him she fell in love with. Probably because they’re not holding hands yet and this Doctor wasn’t the one she abandoned, the sight doesn’t hurt quite as much as the first one, not then.
That night, she can’t stop crying.
~-~-~-~-
During the fifth year, the vortex manipulator burns out, just a few months after she last spotted the Doctor. The loss has yet to stop hurting and she thinks that, maybe, she has had enough of this life on her own. She knows what sort of person she is now, doesn’t she? She knows she can handle life alone and prefers the strangeness of aliens to the familiarity of home. After all this time, Earth is still home.
That and the TARDIS, but she can’t think about that.
~-~-~-~-
Throughout the next few years, Rose hitchhikes or stows away on ship after ship after ship. The first is easier and the second more dangerous, and she isn’t sure which she prefers. She has a translator now, and her accent in the Universal Tongue is almost gone, so when she is discovered aboard the Nero, they don’t chuck her out an airlock. They put her to work doing laundry and scrubbing floors instead. Soon enough, the crew warm up to her with only two significant exceptions: Trisha the engineer and Caleb the physician. Adison, Caleb’s assistant, assures Rose it’s only because the two are having a baby and are paranoid about his safety, but she can’t help but remember how her relatives and extended family had always trusted her above all others with their children, how even Bev, who scorned anyone under thirty, adored Rose and would always call her first to watch Kevin. Even while traveling aboard the TARDIS, she never had trouble inciting trust, but, Rose supposes, maybe that was a result of the Doctor’s presence, not her own.
On the planet World’s Wheel, located on the right edge of the galaxy M-72, Rose jumps ship. She has a brief affair with a man named Leon and, after their breakup and his departure, finds she is immune to the Venusean plague. For the next five months, she volunteers at emergency clinics, sleeping only every other day, every three days when she can manage it. She bathes foreheads and administers shots and washes bedpans, but she stops short of allowing the doctors to test her blood for the antibodies or genetic quirks the humans of this century lack. She’s too worried about injuring the timeline, and although every death she witnesses hurts, she can never turn away from the bigger picture.
No cure is discovered, but as always happens with pandemics, millions die, millions live, millions flee, and the universe moves on. Rose is one of the last to depart, and she can’t help but wonder how many deaths could have been prevented if she’d just gone with her instincts and let them take that sample. She can’t help but resent the Doctor a little, and she wonders how many people his presence might have saved.
~-~-~-~-
It’s the end of the eighth year, and while Rose has yet to see the Doctor again, she’s run into Jack every few months for the past three years. He never did age past those few gray hairs, and she figures he always had them, just never noticed. He claims she wanted him more grown-up and dignified when she brought him back, so she let him age just enough for optimal sexiness. She’s quick to tell him he’s full of it and to point out that she hasn’t aged a day since Satellite 5, but he tells her that’s because she’s perfect just the way he is. She rolls her eyes.
That night, the two go out dancing. Almost every time they meet, they go out dancing.
The memories are almost sweet.
Chapter 1
Author: salienne
Characters: Doctor/Rose, Jack, various OC’s (I’d tell you which Doctor(s?), but that’d give a bit away :P)
Rating: PG
Beta: Thanks so much to
lunaserenade, who managed to beta this while taking care of a new Doctor kitty and Master kitty. All hail!Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. Other, far more brilliant people do. I do have a shrine on my wall, though, so that must count for something.
Spoilers: Through Doomsday
Summary: Post-Reunion. In an attempt to rediscover herself, Rose decides to leave the Doctor, but like all things, this decision is not without a cost.
A/N: For the longest time, I’ve been musing about the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. There’s obviously love but also naiveté on Rose’s part, and what I’ve even seen described as codependence on both their parts. Plus, Rose is 19 when she meets him and basically makes him and his lifestyle her life when she’s just starting to figure out who she is. Then, there’s what Jackie said about Rose turning into him, and throughout the second season, this does happen.
What I’ve often mused about specifically is this: what’s better, to be happy with the man you love and, to some extent, lose yourself, or to be more independent yet, at the same time, more unhappy and alone. I also thought about how Rose joins the Doctor at such a young age and how she’s always been rebellious. As she says, “Everyone leaves home in the end.” But what if, at some point, the Doctor became just too familiar and too much “home?”
This, ladies and gentleman, is where this fic comes from. :D I hope y’all enjoy, and as always, comments/reviews are appreciated!
A/N 2: When I think about Rose’s life in the alternate universe, I have no doubt that she would make it “fantastic,” but at the same time, she would never forget or really “move on” from the Doctor. My interpretation of what her life there, and the interpretation used in this fic, is that she would have led that life to make the Doctor proud. Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this life. It would be fulfilling, and she would do so very much with it. The only problem would be… well, there’s only so much “Doctor” anyone can take, no matter how much you love the guy. And to Rose, these years would, at first, make her cling tighter to him, and then they’d fade into further “Doctor” years. Hence, in this fic, in her mind, her world has centered around him for over a decade.
Her first year back on Earth, Rose gets a job at a department store because that’s what she used to do. It still bores her half out of her mind and, for the life of her, she can’t figure out why she didn’t quit all those years ago, why she didn’t finish her education or find a cause or join a gymnastics’ team. But she’s here to remember, she’s here to feel like that girl again, so she toughs it out. She gets her A-levels, makes a few friends, and dates a man named Gareth. She misses the Doctor the entire time.
Once, during the eighth month, Jack calls her. She has her own flat now, something she was only able to afford at the beginning with the Doctor’s help, and Jack asks to come see it. The year is 2010 and, for a moment, Rose wonders how her old friend knows she is here. Then she remembers that the Doctor still has Martha Jones’s cell phone, and she remembers that Jack must know the number for the TARDIS phone by heart now, and she doesn’t wonder anymore. For the first time in a long time, Rose feels pain grip her heart in the way only a Time Lord could manage.
She’s fine, Rose tells him, fighting the stinging beneath her eyelids, but she’d really rather not be bothered right now. Then, after some half-hearted flirting, she asks him how the Doctor is.
After a long pause, Jack says, “He’s fine too,” and they both know he’s lying.
Halfway through her second year, Jack gives her his vortex manipulator, all fixed now, and she teleports off Earth. She’s been in one place too long, she thinks, and she’s restless, hungering for more. Whatever she’s lost, she can’t find it sitting here and eating chips, not anymore.
Rose takes small jumps on her way to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and universe. The manipulator isn’t strong enough to handle more than that. She uses the dates and places she remembers from her travels with the Doctor, always careful to arrive just before him and the other her. She’s eternally grateful that the manipulator is more reliable than the TARDIS, but she can’t help but miss the thrill of uncertainty.
A few times, she fouls the coordinates up, and perhaps on some level she fouls them up on purpose, and almost runs into her old self. She almost runs into the Doctor.
The first time, it’s the one she’s used to, with his red trainers and brown suit and tan trench coat and grin and sideburns and piercing brown eyes and his hand in hers—the old hers. They arrive seconds after she does, and she dashes behind an information kiosk amongst a crowd of humans and aliens, the faint memories playing in her head as they play out a few feet from where she cowers. She peers around the kiosk and can just make out the two of them, happy and wandering off to meet their latest tentacled foe, and a wave of longing hits her so hard it’s like getting her heart broken all over again. A few of the three-armed aliens around her grumble and move away, and she can only understand them because the TARDIS is so close. Human tears are poisonous to Mellianites.
The second time she sees him, it’s the old him, the him who first grabbed her hand and told her to run, the him with the blue eyes that could make her shudder, the him she fell in love with. Probably because they’re not holding hands yet and this Doctor wasn’t the one she abandoned, the sight doesn’t hurt quite as much as the first one, not then.
That night, she can’t stop crying.
During the fifth year, the vortex manipulator burns out, just a few months after she last spotted the Doctor. The loss has yet to stop hurting and she thinks that, maybe, she has had enough of this life on her own. She knows what sort of person she is now, doesn’t she? She knows she can handle life alone and prefers the strangeness of aliens to the familiarity of home. After all this time, Earth is still home.
That and the TARDIS, but she can’t think about that.
Throughout the next few years, Rose hitchhikes or stows away on ship after ship after ship. The first is easier and the second more dangerous, and she isn’t sure which she prefers. She has a translator now, and her accent in the Universal Tongue is almost gone, so when she is discovered aboard the Nero, they don’t chuck her out an airlock. They put her to work doing laundry and scrubbing floors instead. Soon enough, the crew warm up to her with only two significant exceptions: Trisha the engineer and Caleb the physician. Adison, Caleb’s assistant, assures Rose it’s only because the two are having a baby and are paranoid about his safety, but she can’t help but remember how her relatives and extended family had always trusted her above all others with their children, how even Bev, who scorned anyone under thirty, adored Rose and would always call her first to watch Kevin. Even while traveling aboard the TARDIS, she never had trouble inciting trust, but, Rose supposes, maybe that was a result of the Doctor’s presence, not her own.
On the planet World’s Wheel, located on the right edge of the galaxy M-72, Rose jumps ship. She has a brief affair with a man named Leon and, after their breakup and his departure, finds she is immune to the Venusean plague. For the next five months, she volunteers at emergency clinics, sleeping only every other day, every three days when she can manage it. She bathes foreheads and administers shots and washes bedpans, but she stops short of allowing the doctors to test her blood for the antibodies or genetic quirks the humans of this century lack. She’s too worried about injuring the timeline, and although every death she witnesses hurts, she can never turn away from the bigger picture.
No cure is discovered, but as always happens with pandemics, millions die, millions live, millions flee, and the universe moves on. Rose is one of the last to depart, and she can’t help but wonder how many deaths could have been prevented if she’d just gone with her instincts and let them take that sample. She can’t help but resent the Doctor a little, and she wonders how many people his presence might have saved.
It’s the end of the eighth year, and while Rose has yet to see the Doctor again, she’s run into Jack every few months for the past three years. He never did age past those few gray hairs, and she figures he always had them, just never noticed. He claims she wanted him more grown-up and dignified when she brought him back, so she let him age just enough for optimal sexiness. She’s quick to tell him he’s full of it and to point out that she hasn’t aged a day since Satellite 5, but he tells her that’s because she’s perfect just the way he is. She rolls her eyes.
That night, the two go out dancing. Almost every time they meet, they go out dancing.
The memories are almost sweet.
Chapter 1
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Date: 2007-09-05 12:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-05 10:39 pm (UTC)