rose tyler (tylerose) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2016-04-27 16:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, rose tyler |
Who: Rose Tyler and The Doctor (12)
What: Rose tracks down the Doctor.
Where: The Hub, basement.
When: Friday, April 22nd
Warnings: None, should be pretty tame!
Status: Complete
The basement of the hub was turned into a makeshift man-cave by the Doctor. A mattress was set in the corner with some blankets and a pillow, and nearby were a few extra sets of clothes, folded neatly upon a chair. He knew he was being foolish, that it wouldn’t be possible to hide from Rose forever, but the Doctor was also too stubborn to admit defeat. And so, for the past few days, he’d kept himself busy. Ianto had left the proto-Torchwood’s computer browser open, and out of curiosity he’d read up on a number of interesting, sometimes amusing, topics, but after many hours, he’d grown bored and begun working on a pet project he’d begun at his flat, which he’d brought with him. A slew of miscellaneous parts, purchased from the Jawas, along with wires and other whatsits littered the floor. He sat, hunched in the midst of them, with a box of tools, also from the Jawa’s shop. Wearing his sonic sunglasses as an aid for what he was doing, he used a mini soldering gun to weld pieces of metal together. His back was to the stairs, so he couldn’t see who had opened the door and was coming down, but he made an educated assumption. “Jack? Hand me that spanner on the table, next to the keyboard?” He’d needed the tool about an hour ago, but didn’t want to get up just yet to retrieve it, so he’d moved on to a different aspect of his project, hoping all the while that Jack or Ianto would eventually show up and get it for him. While Rose was used to being in space, by the time Rose was able to be on Earth, she couldn't be more excited. Rose was eager to meet Ianto in person, give Jack a long overdue hug, and of course, find the Doctor. When she first arrived Jack had told her he'd been in hiding. Some ridiculous fear of what Rose would think of him because he had changed. There was that time where she tried to message him, but he never answered her. She hoped that maybe at this point he would have reached out, but nothing. Now that Rose was on Earth, and on her way to find the Doctor, she was a bit more furious. Thankfully Jack gave her the address, and while she was annoyed with the Doctor, she was excited to be seeing him again. Jack did tell her that she eventually got off Pete's world to help save the world, but that was in Rose's future. Rose still was hanging on that moment on the beach in Norway. Thinking that she would never see the Doctor again, it was a hard feeling to shake off, even though she knew he was here on Earth. Finding the place was easy enough, and she tried going over what she would say to him as she walked down the steps. His voice made her pause. It was certainly different, his accent was different. Much like what the Doctor used when they were in Scotland, but deeper. After a brief moment she kept walking, and found herself staring at the man before her. His hair was whiter, that's for sure, and he was older. To be honest it concerned her more to think about what happened that he would change. She knew it happened when he was dying, and that bothered her. "Doctor." It wasn't a question, more of a satisfaction that she found him. The sound of a familiar voice caused the Doctor to turn his head sharply to look, and when he did, he found himself speechless. Over a thousand years had passed, and there she was, looking as fresh as the last time he’d seen her, his Rose. She always had a strange, alluring effect on him. It couldn’t be helped, and now he hated himself for it. It took years for him to recover from losing her, and he’d thought he’d succeeded, but now he stared at her through his sunglasses like a schoolboy, his mouth slightly agape. When he realized how foolish he was, he snapped his lips shut in a tight line, and wiped all expression from his face. He returned his attention to his work, as if everything was ordinary. “Well, how about it then? Where’s the spanner?” Rose just stared at him for a moment, almost saying, 'Wot?' But realized what he was referring to. She remained silent as she picked up the spanner, and moved closer to the Doctor and held out her hand. It was difficult to find the right words, but once the Doctor took the spanner from Rose's hand, she felt herself move closer to him. Not to hug him, but shove him with her now free hand. It wasn't a hard push, much like the one she gave the Doctor shortly after he changed in front of her. "You..." Rose started to say, still undecided if she was happy or annoyed with him. "I was up on that space station for days. And what do I get from you? Nothing. Not a hello, not a single bloody word, and you've been hiding here all this time?" Her voice wasn't furious, but calm. "I never thought I'd see you again, and the past few days you've been ignoring me." Her hands raised slightly in the air as she looked at him hard. "And all you can say to me is 'Where's the spanner?' What do you have to say for yourself?" Her push rocked the Doctor where he sat, tilting him to one side, but it was her words that wounded him more. Sheepishly, and hurriedly, he explained, “I was busy! See?” He motioned to the bits and pieces all around him. “Busy! Building this anti-gravity modulator. Very important. The parts came in and I needed to get it done, and I…” He let his sentence dangle, precariously, knowing his excuses would only make things worse. He set down the spanner and the piece he was working on, letting his shoulders sag with defeat, as he told the truth. “I wasn’t sure if I could handle it.” He glanced up at Rose for a brief moment, but then quickly averted his eyes, ashamed. “For you, it’s only been… what? A few months? For me, it’s been over a thousand years. I’m not the same Doctor you knew.” Rose just stared him, only half listening to what he was actually saying. Between seeing the man she never thought she'd see again and with that man having a new face, it was a lot for her to take in. Her head tilted slightly, clearly worried when he said that it had been over a thousand years for him. She knew that was a possibility, he was a Time Lord after all, and with this Tesseract, anyone could be brought to New York from any point in time. He was right, it had only just been a few hours since their goodbye in Norway. Rose just sighed, and didn't know what to say to him. Instead she did the next best thing and wrapped her arms around him. It was a reflex, the way they had always greeted one another after spending some time apart. It usually meant something bad happened where they weren't quite sure if they'd see one another again. In this case, Rose was still trying to recover from that fear. "It may have only been a few hours, but I still missed you. I never thought I'd see you again." She tried to smile, but he was right. This Doctor was someone she didn't know. He already spoke differently, what else was going to be different about him. "It's still you. Even if I have to get to know this face. You're still the Doctor." She scoffed as she took a step back. "I'm not just going to ignore you because you changed your face. I'm more upset that I wasn't around when you were hurting. I at least hope you didn't have to go through these changes alone?" The Doctor knew it was coming, the inevitable hug. She wrapped her arms around his torso and held him close, and all the while he felt helpless. Conflicting instincts fought in his mind, and the instinct that obstinately prevented him from returning the hug, won. His arms hovered clumsily behind her, while his face wore a pained expression. - he didn’t deserve her, but he was overwhelmingly grateful, nonetheless. “Thank you,” he muttered in a low voice that might’ve been lost, if Rose hadn’t been paying attention. When she released him, he explained with a shrug what was meant to be nonchalant, “I’m not a hugger anymore.” He slipped his sunglasses off his face, and before Rose could question him about why he didn’t hug, he tried to distract her by saying, “I also don’t carry a screwdriver. Sonic Sunglasses, wearable tech. Less conspicuous. Here, take a look.” He handed Rose the sunglasses. “You activate them by pressing the bridge, right there.” If that didn’t work to distract her, he changed the topic again to reply to her comment about being alone by telling her, “No, I uh… had other companions along the way.” He didn’t want to tell Rose that he’d been alone when he regenerated for the twelfth time. “This is my second face since the one you knew, I’m not sure if anybody told you, yet.” He forced himself to look at her again, “You should also know that you weren’t left alone, either.” Rose watched him carefully, trying to look like she was okay, but she was starting to see and feel the difference between the two Doctors. The Doctor wasn’t a hugger anymore? She knew personalities could change whenever the Doctor change, but not a hugger? It was difficult for her not to be disappointed, but she didn’t want to make the Doctor feel worse. She meant what she said, she wanted to get to know this new Doctor. That meant understanding that there might be things that made him uncomfortable now, and she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. The sonic glasses were, she admitted to herself, was a bit weird. They looked cool, and she smiled when she put them on and activated them. “Huh.” Rose said. “This is pretty cool.” She took the glasses off and handed them back to him. “Right, well of course. That makes sense, good.” She wasn’t entirely thrilled, but Rose understood. She knew very well that she could get jealous, but underneath that jealousy was happiness. She was glad the Doctor was able to make friends and not travel alone. Rose nodded, “Yeah, Jack told me that you changed twice since we last saw each other.” She tilted her head at his comment. “He said I came back but didn’t go into detail. What do you mean I wasn’t left alone?” She took a moment and realized that maybe it wasn’t the best time to get into future talk. “I mean if you’d rather save this for later that’s fine. I know I sort of just barged in, I don’t want to push anything or make you uneasy.” The Doctor slipped his sunglasses into his pocket and told her, “No, no, it’s alright. I’m alright.” Which wasn’t 100% true, but he reckoned he’d felt worse. “”It’s good that you know these things now. In fact, this ought to make you glad. And since we forget everything that happens here once we return to our original universes, I’m not concerned about spoiling the surprises coming up for you. Where do I begin?” He grimaced as he thought for a moment. “There was this Dalek army, and doesn’t that always seem to be some sort of theme? You and I and the Daleks? To make a long story a little less long, the barriers between universes were breaking down, the Earth had been stolen, blah blah blah, you showed showed up, a Dalek shot me, Jack killed the Dalek, I was about to die, but I was able to channel the excess regenerative energy that would have changed my appearance into my hand… oh, you remember when I had my hand severed in a sword duel, not long after you saw me regenerate? Well, it turns out that Jack held on to my hand, no pun intended.” He paused in his rambling narrative to smirk at his own joke. “Where was I? Oh yes,” he continued, speaking in a tone that glossed over the ordeal they’d been through. “The regenerative energy was gathered in my severed hand, and when my companion-at-the-time, Donna, touched it, she was genetically turned into a half-Time Lady. Simultaneously, a separate but complete duplicate of me sprung from the DNA in my severed hand. But a me that was half-human. One heart. No ability to regenerate. He would grow old and die just like an ordinary human. Uh… I’m skipping over a great amount of detail, but the gist of it is, you agreed to return to your universe with the Other Me, where I like to believe you had a wonderful life together.” He managed a sad, but tender smile for Rose - it was the best situation out of a bad bargain, but it had helped bring him some sort of closure. He truly felt that it was the good thing for her, never mind how he felt. Rose listened to his story, but it was honestly difficult for her to follow. She’s had a few days to come to the terms with being in New York, but it was still hard to adjust to the idea that she was no longer stuck on the parallel world. The fact that both Jack and the Doctor explained that she returned was also hard for Rose to swallow. She wished she knew how it was done, or at what point in her life on Pete’s World was she able to manage that leap. Every now and then she nodded, though it was likely he’d even notice as he continued his story. Then came the part that was most confusing to her. Another Doctor? One that was part human? Clearly he wasn’t exaggerating when he said he was skipping over a lot of the details. “Wot?” She asked trying to catch up with him. “You’re telling me that I go gallivanting off with another version of you?” She frowned. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Her mind was racing as she was trying to sort out her own thoughts, barely hearing anything else. He’d be able to grow old with Rose. She had to admit that the sound of it was appealing. Then it had clicked with her, what the Doctor was giving them, what he couldn’t have for himself. Her eyes looked sad when she finally looked up at him. “Right. Okay.” Rose finally answered. “Guess there’s a lot things that’ll happen in my future. I-” She paused for a moment. “I’m still really glad to see you.” “You’re not freaking out,” the Doctor observed the obvious. “That’s good, right?” Honestly, he wasn’t sure how Rose would react, but he thought she was taking it pretty well. Her expression showed what he interpreted as confusion. “It’s a lot of information, I know. Stuff like this is old hat for me, so I’m pretty much used to it. If it makes it easier, you and Jack or maybe Violet can sit down and watch episodes of our show.” It wasn’t that he didn’t catch Rose’s pause and her statement that followed. The Doctor was just too nervous about acknowledging it., and so he tried to cover up his true emotions with a shift in manic energy. “I’m glad you’re here too,” he said, speaking as if she were just a buddy, and not his Rose. “There’s so much to show you!” He stood up and took Rose’s hand in his own: he always had a difficult time telling her how much she meant to him, but he always could prove how he felt by including her in his life. “The TARDIS isn't here, and there’s really no substitute for her, but at least this city is never static for long. It all has to do with the Tesseract. You’ve been told about the Tesseract?” “It’s good,” she replied. Was it really though? Rose didn’t know how to take the news. She suspected it was natural for someone who just heard about their future. Had her future been more dire, had she come back only to die, there would most certainly be a different reaction. To find out that she’ll have a happy life, with a human version of the Doctor? Well, there were worst futures for sure, and it did make her feel thankful. At the same time it made her feel sad, like maybe she was betraying the other Doctor too. When he mentioned the show, she nodded. “I was thinking about it.” She didn’t bother questioning who Violet was. The girl introduced herself when Rose first got to Earth. She smiled at his excitement then frowned when he mentioned the TARDIS. “She’s not here?” Her tone was disappointed, naturally, of course because it wasn’t just the Doctor that she missed. Rose missed the TARDIS as well, the sounds, all the little knobs and buttons, flashing lights. It was only near the time when she got stuck that she finally started to understand how some of the buttons in the TARDIS worked. If she felt disappointed, she could only imagine how the Doctor must be feeling. “That small blue box that brought me here?” Rose questioned. “Yeah, I mean they didn’t tell me much. Just that it’s responsible for bringing people here, and making them return home. And it was most likely responsible for all the dinosaurs.” “It’s a bit rubbish, the show. I’m not going to sit around and watch something that I lived through. Although,” the Doctor then confessed. “I did watch it a bit. To see what it was like. It’s so realistic it’s almost like somebody was hiding and following me around with a camera.” It was interesting, but at the same time, there were bits where he became very self conscious and embarrassed, revealing personal moments that he wouldn’t have wanted the world to see. Then there were other parts that were so agonizing that it broke his hearts to remember and relive them on the screen: these factored into his reasons for not watching his show. “No,” the Doctor confirmed, regarding the TARDIS. “But I have hope. I’ve been told that sometimes this Tesseract thing spews out gifts. Before I arrived, there were other versions of me here, and once the TARDIS showed up. If I wait around long enough, maybe she will, again.” It was true, he missed the TARDIS, terribly - he didn’t feel whole without her, but he wasn’t going to let on. “The bright side is, I rarely have to go far to find an adventure. The adventure comes to me, thanks to the Tesseract.” “You know what the best thing about this place is, though? Free coffee and tea at the Hub? Do you want some?” The whole while, he hadn’t let go of Rose’s hand - a part of him was afraid that if he let go, she would disappear. “Do you want to go upstairs for a cuppa? We can sit and I can tell you more about this Tesseract thing.” Rose nodded, “That’s what I’ve heard. I was told I was here before too, but I don’t remember any of it.” All she could do is shrug. “They said that’s how it goes. People can come, go, and sometimes return but won’t remember anything.” It worried her how their memories could be messed with in that way, but at this point there wasn’t much she could do about it. “I’m sure she’ll show up.” Rose said with a reassuring smile. “She’s just taking the long way, is all.” This was all strange and new, and she continued to smile. “Yeah, I could go for some coffee,” she said. “Yeah, it’d be good to catch me up on everything that I’ve missed. Sounds like this place has a lot of stories to offer.” Like the Doctor, she kept ahold of his hand and said, “Lead the way!” |