DW Fic: Of Discovery and Sacrifice (5/5)
Sep. 23rd, 2007 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salienneTitle: Of Discovery and Sacrifice (5/5)
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: Nope, I still don’t own Doctor Who. The amazing BBC and RTD and the actors and so on and so forth do. And they're amazing.
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: Whew, here we are, the final part: the Reunion. Thanks so much to all of you who've been reading, and I hope this last part lives up to all your expectations. Any and all comments, from old and new readers alike, are welcome. Enjoy!
Fourteen years, ten months, and twenty-three days have passed since Rose last spoke to her Doctor, and the whir of the time rotor almost makes her weak at the knees. Time was, she might’ve clung to Jack’s arm for support, but now she clenches her fists and makes herself stand tall and wait as the familiar blue box materializes right in front of her, here, in the living room, surrounded by chairs and tables and crystal decorations. The sight brings tears to her eyes.
Soon, the door opens, and the squeak is so familiar she feels herself transported back, the Doctor there at her shoulder, chattering and pushing open the door so that she could step out, the press of him at her back.
This Doctor is older, she notices, somewhere between her first Doctor and her second Doctor. He still wears a suit, but now it’s lime green and no longer pinstriped (he did used to wear pinstripes, didn’t he?). His shoes are black and he has sunglasses on, and if times had been different, she would have laughed at him for trying to appear suave with a mop of blond hair and an outfit like that. She almost smiles at her first real thought since laying eyes on him: still not ginger.
“Come in, Rose,” he says, giving her a slight smile, and leaves the door open as he disappears back into the TARDIS.
Frozen, she doesn’t move until Jack urges her. “I’ll be right here if you wanna leave.”
“Never,” she replies, and enters what was once home.
Inside, everything is exactly as she remembers. Coral-like supports encircle the room, the console is a conglomeration of pullies and buttons and switches and levers that never quite fit together, and the grating rattles ever so slightly as she moves. The hum of the TARDIS feels like an embrace, and the metallic yet organic smell brings back memories of dashing up the ramp and into the Doctor’s arms or even just watching him bounce around and pretend to work. The memories are so strong that she has to stop and shut her eyes and clench her fists to push them back down. When she recovers, she thinks, Hello, old girl, and she swears the ship’s hum deepens in response. Then she turns her attention to him.
“I’m not the man you were hoping to see, am I, Rose?”
He says this calmly, without a trace of sadness, and she thinks this voice is deeper than the old one though she can’t be sure. The accent makes her remember prominent ears and a leather jacket.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says.
“’Course it does.” He steps to his left, closer to her, and takes off the glasses. Behind her, the door closes, though whether it’s Jack’s doing or the TARDIS’s, she isn’t sure. Either way, she suddenly feels claustrophobic. But as his brown eyes bore into hers and she recognizes the spark behind them, she feels somewhat comforted, and when he speaks, she almost hears a younger man’s voice. “You were looking for another me.”
He’s across the console from her now, much like he was at their last meeting, but while that wall was built of hostility, this one is made of nothing but uncertainty and fear, maybe all her own. So when he steps forward again, not out of anger but something like sympathy, it is she that recoils, though she hides it well. Why is he even talking to her, she wonders. She wasn’t even there for him when he died, when he changed. How could he possibly forgive her?
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeats, forcing herself to maintain her spot at the end of the entrance ramp, forcing herself to keep meeting those eyes. “You’re still the Doctor, you’re alive, an’ that’s all that matters.”
At the edge of the console closest to her, he stops. He leans back, crossing his arms, and with a somewhat reproachful smile, he says, “That’s not what you said last time.”
“I was an idiot last time.”
“You gave up on me last time.”
“Like I said, idiot.”
“And then you left.”
To this, Rose has no response. She looks down, seeing but not seeing her shoes and the grating and the way the beaten railing stands sergeant along the sides of the entrance ramp. His coat used to hang on that split support to her right, she suddenly remembers, and her clothing too, at times. Sometimes she’d keep entire outfits there, just waiting for him to notice. But now, as she brings her eyes up to examine that spot, she realizes it’s empty, and out of instinct, she looks to her left at the coat rack, expecting to find it in a similar state. Only it’s not, because this new Doctor seems to have kept the trench coat.
Rose’s breath hitches, and she grabs onto the railing. When she looks back at the Doctor, his expression is one of concern or disapproval—she can’t tell which.
A long moment passes between the two of them, the woman whose eyes keep wandering back to that coat and the man who’s so different yet so familiar, underneath that new packaging of his. Rose wonders whether she’ll ever know him well enough to see past that packaging again, and even as the grief claws at her, taunting her with the knowledge that she will never, ever see her Doctor again because he’s dead and gone gone gone, she can’t help but hope that she will.
When the Doctor does speak, it takes Rose a moment to comprehend what he’s saying. “You don’t have to stay, Rose. I’d like for you to, but if this is too much for you, or if you’ve found something or someone better out there, I won’t blame you.”
For a moment, all Rose can do is gape. “You-you want me to stay?”
The Doctor’s face remains nonchalant, and he nods, moving his hands to brace himself against the console. “If you’d like to.”
Rose gapes again. “Are… is this new regeneration of yours completely mad?”
The Doctor raises both eyebrows, and all of a sudden, he looks terribly amused. “Probably not this one. Why?”
“I left you,” she reminds.
“So you did.”
She waits, but nothing more comes. Feeling like a mechanical parrot stuck on repeat, she takes a step closer to him and says, “I left you, alone, to die, an’ now that you’ve changed, on your own, you want me back?”
And although the Doctor does manage to frown, just barely, his amusement only seems to grow. “Well I was under the impression that you left me to go find yourself, but if that’s the real reason, I guess that changes things.”
Rose scowls. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Before she can continue, the Doctor takes the remaining two steps toward her and puts his hands on her shoulders. At the contact, Rose’s eyes widen before squeezing shut, and she can think of only one thing—for the first time in fifteen years, she’s feeling what it’s like to be touched by the Doctor, her Doctor, again.
“Rose Tyler,” he says in a low voice, and with her eyes closed she can almost imagine the face is different, “I want you to come back to me.” Then the pressure is off her left shoulder and there’s a finger underneath her chin and all of a sudden she’s looking up at him, seeing the reddish stubble along his chin and the concern and sincerity in his eyes. “I understand why you left, Rose, and I don’t want guilt keeping you away.”
Taking a deep breath, Rose just looks at him, really looks at him, not only examining the strange features but searching underneath for the man—the men—she loves. It’s there when he talks, the warmth and the intellect and the pride, all there so plainly that he’s hardly a stranger when her eyes are shut, all there so plainly it hurts. But when her eyes are open, even after all this time among aliens with all sorts of faces, she just can’t bring herself to pretend or accept. She brings up her hand and, holding the fingers inches from his face, softly asks, “Can I?”
He swallows and nods, and Rose is reminded of those moments when her Doctor gazed at her with such trust, those moments when he put his hand to her temple and let her see so much of him, and her throat aches. Her face determined, she reaches out and brushes her fingertips along his skin, tracing the contours of the cheek, the jawbone, the forehead. He doesn’t shave as closely anymore, she notices, and the pads of her fingers tingle. His eyebrows are thinner and his face is narrower. He no longer has sideburns and his nose is slightly more prominent. Even his eyes are a different shape, wider, the lids shut and trembling beneath her touch.
But his lips, she thinks, her fingers just millimeters away, his lips are the same.
Rose draws her hand away and just stares at him, a look of wonder on her face. “Doctor?” she whispers.
He opens his eyes and smiles. “Hello.”
And then she’s pulling him close and they’re hugging and he smells different, his old sweetness replaced by something spicy, but she doesn’t care. Because with her face buried in his shoulder, she can smell that deeper scent, something cold or electric, something Time Lord. It is a scent she has known and loved for nearly three decades, and it is all she needs.
With a sob, Rose pulls him closer, grabbing at the rough jacket, her arms wrapped around his torso and his around hers, his chest pressed to her chest and his legs pressed to her legs. And they’re standing here, together, and Rose is so happy, because this is exactly what she’s been yearning for, this is exactly what she’s missed.
“I wanna come back now, Doctor,” she murmurs, “I’m ready to come back.”
His hold tightens, and she hears him take a deep, shaky breath. “I’d like that,” he whispers.
And for the first time in so very long, Rose Tyler feels like she’s come home.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
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: Nope, I still don’t own Doctor Who. The amazing BBC and RTD and the actors and so on and so forth do. And they're amazing.
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: Whew, here we are, the final part: the Reunion. Thanks so much to all of you who've been reading, and I hope this last part lives up to all your expectations. Any and all comments, from old and new readers alike, are welcome. Enjoy!
Fourteen years, ten months, and twenty-three days have passed since Rose last spoke to her Doctor, and the whir of the time rotor almost makes her weak at the knees. Time was, she might’ve clung to Jack’s arm for support, but now she clenches her fists and makes herself stand tall and wait as the familiar blue box materializes right in front of her, here, in the living room, surrounded by chairs and tables and crystal decorations. The sight brings tears to her eyes.
Soon, the door opens, and the squeak is so familiar she feels herself transported back, the Doctor there at her shoulder, chattering and pushing open the door so that she could step out, the press of him at her back.
This Doctor is older, she notices, somewhere between her first Doctor and her second Doctor. He still wears a suit, but now it’s lime green and no longer pinstriped (he did used to wear pinstripes, didn’t he?). His shoes are black and he has sunglasses on, and if times had been different, she would have laughed at him for trying to appear suave with a mop of blond hair and an outfit like that. She almost smiles at her first real thought since laying eyes on him: still not ginger.
“Come in, Rose,” he says, giving her a slight smile, and leaves the door open as he disappears back into the TARDIS.
Frozen, she doesn’t move until Jack urges her. “I’ll be right here if you wanna leave.”
“Never,” she replies, and enters what was once home.
Inside, everything is exactly as she remembers. Coral-like supports encircle the room, the console is a conglomeration of pullies and buttons and switches and levers that never quite fit together, and the grating rattles ever so slightly as she moves. The hum of the TARDIS feels like an embrace, and the metallic yet organic smell brings back memories of dashing up the ramp and into the Doctor’s arms or even just watching him bounce around and pretend to work. The memories are so strong that she has to stop and shut her eyes and clench her fists to push them back down. When she recovers, she thinks, Hello, old girl, and she swears the ship’s hum deepens in response. Then she turns her attention to him.
“I’m not the man you were hoping to see, am I, Rose?”
He says this calmly, without a trace of sadness, and she thinks this voice is deeper than the old one though she can’t be sure. The accent makes her remember prominent ears and a leather jacket.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says.
“’Course it does.” He steps to his left, closer to her, and takes off the glasses. Behind her, the door closes, though whether it’s Jack’s doing or the TARDIS’s, she isn’t sure. Either way, she suddenly feels claustrophobic. But as his brown eyes bore into hers and she recognizes the spark behind them, she feels somewhat comforted, and when he speaks, she almost hears a younger man’s voice. “You were looking for another me.”
He’s across the console from her now, much like he was at their last meeting, but while that wall was built of hostility, this one is made of nothing but uncertainty and fear, maybe all her own. So when he steps forward again, not out of anger but something like sympathy, it is she that recoils, though she hides it well. Why is he even talking to her, she wonders. She wasn’t even there for him when he died, when he changed. How could he possibly forgive her?
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeats, forcing herself to maintain her spot at the end of the entrance ramp, forcing herself to keep meeting those eyes. “You’re still the Doctor, you’re alive, an’ that’s all that matters.”
At the edge of the console closest to her, he stops. He leans back, crossing his arms, and with a somewhat reproachful smile, he says, “That’s not what you said last time.”
“I was an idiot last time.”
“You gave up on me last time.”
“Like I said, idiot.”
“And then you left.”
To this, Rose has no response. She looks down, seeing but not seeing her shoes and the grating and the way the beaten railing stands sergeant along the sides of the entrance ramp. His coat used to hang on that split support to her right, she suddenly remembers, and her clothing too, at times. Sometimes she’d keep entire outfits there, just waiting for him to notice. But now, as she brings her eyes up to examine that spot, she realizes it’s empty, and out of instinct, she looks to her left at the coat rack, expecting to find it in a similar state. Only it’s not, because this new Doctor seems to have kept the trench coat.
Rose’s breath hitches, and she grabs onto the railing. When she looks back at the Doctor, his expression is one of concern or disapproval—she can’t tell which.
A long moment passes between the two of them, the woman whose eyes keep wandering back to that coat and the man who’s so different yet so familiar, underneath that new packaging of his. Rose wonders whether she’ll ever know him well enough to see past that packaging again, and even as the grief claws at her, taunting her with the knowledge that she will never, ever see her Doctor again because he’s dead and gone gone gone, she can’t help but hope that she will.
When the Doctor does speak, it takes Rose a moment to comprehend what he’s saying. “You don’t have to stay, Rose. I’d like for you to, but if this is too much for you, or if you’ve found something or someone better out there, I won’t blame you.”
For a moment, all Rose can do is gape. “You-you want me to stay?”
The Doctor’s face remains nonchalant, and he nods, moving his hands to brace himself against the console. “If you’d like to.”
Rose gapes again. “Are… is this new regeneration of yours completely mad?”
The Doctor raises both eyebrows, and all of a sudden, he looks terribly amused. “Probably not this one. Why?”
“I left you,” she reminds.
“So you did.”
She waits, but nothing more comes. Feeling like a mechanical parrot stuck on repeat, she takes a step closer to him and says, “I left you, alone, to die, an’ now that you’ve changed, on your own, you want me back?”
And although the Doctor does manage to frown, just barely, his amusement only seems to grow. “Well I was under the impression that you left me to go find yourself, but if that’s the real reason, I guess that changes things.”
Rose scowls. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Before she can continue, the Doctor takes the remaining two steps toward her and puts his hands on her shoulders. At the contact, Rose’s eyes widen before squeezing shut, and she can think of only one thing—for the first time in fifteen years, she’s feeling what it’s like to be touched by the Doctor, her Doctor, again.
“Rose Tyler,” he says in a low voice, and with her eyes closed she can almost imagine the face is different, “I want you to come back to me.” Then the pressure is off her left shoulder and there’s a finger underneath her chin and all of a sudden she’s looking up at him, seeing the reddish stubble along his chin and the concern and sincerity in his eyes. “I understand why you left, Rose, and I don’t want guilt keeping you away.”
Taking a deep breath, Rose just looks at him, really looks at him, not only examining the strange features but searching underneath for the man—the men—she loves. It’s there when he talks, the warmth and the intellect and the pride, all there so plainly that he’s hardly a stranger when her eyes are shut, all there so plainly it hurts. But when her eyes are open, even after all this time among aliens with all sorts of faces, she just can’t bring herself to pretend or accept. She brings up her hand and, holding the fingers inches from his face, softly asks, “Can I?”
He swallows and nods, and Rose is reminded of those moments when her Doctor gazed at her with such trust, those moments when he put his hand to her temple and let her see so much of him, and her throat aches. Her face determined, she reaches out and brushes her fingertips along his skin, tracing the contours of the cheek, the jawbone, the forehead. He doesn’t shave as closely anymore, she notices, and the pads of her fingers tingle. His eyebrows are thinner and his face is narrower. He no longer has sideburns and his nose is slightly more prominent. Even his eyes are a different shape, wider, the lids shut and trembling beneath her touch.
But his lips, she thinks, her fingers just millimeters away, his lips are the same.
Rose draws her hand away and just stares at him, a look of wonder on her face. “Doctor?” she whispers.
He opens his eyes and smiles. “Hello.”
And then she’s pulling him close and they’re hugging and he smells different, his old sweetness replaced by something spicy, but she doesn’t care. Because with her face buried in his shoulder, she can smell that deeper scent, something cold or electric, something Time Lord. It is a scent she has known and loved for nearly three decades, and it is all she needs.
With a sob, Rose pulls him closer, grabbing at the rough jacket, her arms wrapped around his torso and his around hers, his chest pressed to her chest and his legs pressed to her legs. And they’re standing here, together, and Rose is so happy, because this is exactly what she’s been yearning for, this is exactly what she’s missed.
“I wanna come back now, Doctor,” she murmurs, “I’m ready to come back.”
His hold tightens, and she hears him take a deep, shaky breath. “I’d like that,” he whispers.
And for the first time in so very long, Rose Tyler feels like she’s come home.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-23 10:19 pm (UTC)Cookies for you my friend.
Great, wonderful, excited shipping cookies of joy.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 01:53 am (UTC)*Munches cookies* Yum. ^.^
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-23 10:47 pm (UTC)Out of curiosity, did you have a certain actor in mind for Eleven, or was the description completely from your head?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 02:03 am (UTC)And nope, I had no particular actor in mind for the Eleventh Doctor, although the blond hair was inspired by the fifth Doctor. Beyond that, though, I just thought up his appearance.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 12:18 am (UTC)And then - HUGGLES! Sorry for the shouting, but that was *such* the perfect way to end this, because we all know that for these two, hugs solve everything. Amazing work on the whole series. Don't suppose we'll see anything more from you on Rose and Eleven?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 01:52 am (UTC)As for Rose/Eleven adventures... well, I'm not ruling anything out, but probably not. I mean, I've thought about it, and I know it'd be fun to write (my view of Eleven is as someone calmer and less trusting than the Tenth Doctor and a bit more like the Seventh in that he's rather manipulative, and hoo-boy would that make for some interesting Doctor/Rose interaction) but I'm short on time, there's not much interest out there for Rose/OC-Eleven, and it just wouldn't be the same as this fic. The writing style would be very different and more standard and adveture-y, and overall the tone would be completely different too.
So, to make a long rant short, I probably won't write fics with Rose and Eleven, but there is a slim possibility that I might.
And, again, thank you for the review. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 04:10 am (UTC)You do realize this makes the story more interesting than less, right? Because a manipulative Doctor and Rose... that's going to be complex and interesting we saw Nine play it brilliantly on Rose in WWIII but this new, mature Rose might take it differently.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 02:40 pm (UTC)*Clears throat* Yes, interesting dynamic, methinks. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 04:07 am (UTC)I like how quiet he seems now, a cross between Nine and Ten, more sure of himself and the tentative way they both seem to come together was brilliant. I love that they both grew up in their own way and that Jack was still around and that their reunion felt well deserved.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 02:35 pm (UTC)As for the 11th Doctor, although he probably won't be anything like what
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 04:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-24 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-26 10:15 am (UTC)it was brilliant. very very well written, and entirely entertaining, but at the same time, kinda .... bittersweet.
lovely.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-26 05:46 pm (UTC)