The Metacrisis (mortalstrophe) wrote in reality_crisis, @ 2013-10-11 07:05:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !status: complete, rose tyler, the metacrisis |
Old & New [Rose]
When he closed his eyes, his mind was a tangle of memories, thoughts, feelings -- no, not feelings -- emotions of such a strong nature that they hardly felt real. He tried to compartmentalize those emotions. Life as he thought it was. Life as he remembered it to be. And life in its truthful, painful actuality. You are he. He is you. And you are you. Me is me. But, at the same time, he wasn't any of those things.
He was a paradox of nature. A puzzle within a puzzle within a confine of flesh that was both his and not his; both old and new. But the oddity was deeper than that. Beneath the skin and muscle and bone was the sound of -- lub dub, lub dub -- a single beating heart. And that made him feel more alone than anything. Not even the vastness of time and space, which once so delicately danced upon his fingertips, could compare with the void that was left in his chest. An emptiness where his Time Lord heart used to beat.
But he had her. He had her and he didn't. That should have made up for everything else. And, in his mind's time (so short and fleeting that it was with newfound mortality,) it did. Because what they had (or what he believed they had) seemed to transcend the connection that he had with all others -- excluding, of course, that whirring, whuzzing, whizzing, machine that once beat in time with his second heart. His first love. His only love? Well, the definition of that word was so transcendental. So existential. And when one was comparing the universe to, well, anything else ... Not exactly apples and oranges. But all together fantastic. In a wibbly-wobbly sort of way.
He opened his eyes to find himself staring up at an unfamiliar sky. And where that was once normal for him, he quickly adjusted to just how abnormal it felt right at that very minute. Beneath his fingers was the sensation of cracked, malformed sidewalk. A few bits of mossy weed peeking out between the slivers. The clouds were wrong. The air was heavy. Musty? Not hard to breathe, but not easy. He slowly turned his gaze to the side and peered out among desolation. His mind raced like a computer, but some of the timey-wimey spark was gone. Missing. That little tinge that made him the--
No, not him.
The human biological metacrisis.
A fantastic, if not slightly flubbery, mouthful!
He was okay with that. (But would she?)
He was himself. But who was that? Blue suit, delicate pinstripes. Brown shirt. Red Converse sneakers. He might have looked smashing were it not for the fact that his face was smothered in dust and concrete.
There was a taste of dirt upon his lips. But there was a taste of her also. From their first kiss. He could quickly recall the smell of the sea air surrounding Bad Wolf Bay, the sound of the ocean, tranquil and somewhat still, as it gently rushed upon the shore. It was an enigma, really. All of those hidden messages. All of those perplexing interludes. And this was where it ended. She was born for Bad Wolf. He was born for--
--strawberries. There was definitely an imitation strawberry component to the polybutene and hydrogenated polyisobutene matrix of her lip gloss.
There was a twitch in the palm of his hand, and he realized that she was still with him; fingers entwined in a ceremonial holding of hands. Because she wanted to? Because she was afraid? Or were those emotions drawn from his own self? He couldn't (nor would he) deny that possibility. He was a selfish man, the Doctor -- the Metacrisis. Backward and unforgiving. He lifted his head from the ground to look over at her. Rose Tyler.
"When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me?"
Does it need saying? Oh, that he was a pompous fool. Ten lives, the most extraordinary cat in the universe, and he still couldn't step down from the mighty steps of the TARDIS. He couldn't drop his ego from the vast mountains of Gallifrey. It most certainly needed saying. And he would say it. Say it until his single heart burst, if it meant that she could forgive him. Find her way with him. This half-hearted Doctor.
He opened his lips to belt out something profound, but instead his voice caught in his throat, littered with a thin layer of new world dust, and barely uttered a whisper.
"Rose."