5Elucidate
She knew she held on too tightly, almost like he might disappear. It was then he realised how dreadful things must have been for her, regenerations were never easy, but she seemed so overwhelmed by his presence, as much as he was with hers? It made him wonder.
Rose felt vaguely calmer, and then seemed to be hit by several things.
She was in the Doctor's arms.
She was holding on to him like her life depended on it and she was simultaneously elated and mortified to be making such an exhibition of herself. This wasn't her Doctor after all, but then, he was. Ugh, her head was starting to hurt.
The other thing came to her more slowly as various things he had mentioned came together and didn't fit right.
She pulled slowly away, looking embarrassed.
"Sorry," She said, not really meaning it just needing to say something.
"You okay?" He asked for the umpteenth time. She shook her head,
"Not really," Answering truthfully, she looked at him, he looked sympathetic, was it possible he was feeling something of the same, but then it hit her with some force.
"Hang on," She started, his puzzled expression staring back at her. She suddenly knew why things weren't quite right here. "If you know me, where am I?"
"What do you mean?" He asked feigning ignorance, clearly stalling for an explanation.
"You know what I mean, you said you knew me, so, you've met me, where am I right now?" He struggled to meet her eyes again now, which only confirmed to Rose that something was slightly weird.
"Err you're…"
"Yes?" She asked now giving him the look that said gotcha, tell me the truth.
"You're back on Earth; I've only met you once for a couple of hours. You helped me fight off the Autons…" He explained, looking quite pleased with himself. She stared at him incredulously.
"And what, you expect me to believe you were about to go back and ask me to come with you for a second time, when all this happened?!" She spoke harshly, spitting out the words which left him with no doubt as to what she thought of his excuse.
He tried to nod but the look on her face halted him halfway.
"You're lying, why are you lying?" She further accused him, suddenly feeling a bit hurt that he could so easily lie to her like this. Something definitely wasn't right here.
"Rose, I…" He started but she quickly interrupted,
"No! Don't say anymore, I don't want to hear it! I can't deal with lies from you too, from indifference, you're my Doctor, and you can't do this to me!" She sounded commanding and desperate with it, she couldn't stop the new tears forming and falling.
At this point the Doctor shook himself and realised how wrong this was. He took her reluctant form into his arms again, but now he seemed to be the one clinging on to her. How had he managed to live so long without her?
"I'm so sorry," He sounded as if he was upset now, and that got her attention more than anything. What was going on? Everything was mental; everyone was acting strangely and trying to lie to her. She needed explanations, what she needed was the truth.
She found she couldn't say anything, he was clearly unhappy, uncomfortable, so she simply had to wait to be put out of her misery or impatience as it were.
They sat on the cold industrial floor a while later, neither had been able to say anything more, and had sat in companionable silence for a while, though Rose thought she could feel some tension rising again. His breathing had changed,
He started talking quite suddenly though, taking her by surprise,
"Rose, the reason, you aren't here, with me, is…" He sounded tired and resigned, and so very sad. She leaned forward, but he held up his hand, halting her, "No, Rose, don't, I…can't…"
She moved back again, feeling hurt, he didn't want her…? Ah but surely, he had his own Rose?
He looked her straight in the eyes, and something powerful and frightening seemed to grab her for a second, it was dark and for that moment she wasn't anywhere familiar anymore.
"Rose you aren't here because you are dead."
And with that she was abruptly pulled back to the present, the real. And she wasted no time in starting to freak out.
"What?!" She shrieked, after finally getting the use of her voice back, her stunned silence well over now, as a rapidly overwhelming something attempted to drown her.
"What? How? You just…don't understand? How could...?" He rubbed her shoulders in a way that may have been meant to soothe her; well it wasn't going to work. She shrugged his hands off, no distractions.
"How the bloody hell can I be dead?! I'm right here, aren't I? Don't I feel real to you? Look real! Feel real!" She pinched herself hard on the arm and immediately regretted it.
The Doctor struggled to summon the right words, and had equal difficulty taking advantage of a pause in Rose's ranting, since there were precious few.
"R…"
"What the bloody hell is going on? I need the truth here, just try to explain what the hell you meant by saying I am dead!" She stopped, and took a quick breath, obviously out of breath from her frantic freaking out session.
He put his hand on her shoulder, the other one resting on her cheek,
"Rose, I will, just, calm down, please." The look he gave her was just too endearing to ignore so she took a few more breaths and felt a little better.
"Don't give me that look, you can't dump that on me and leave me hanging." Her eyes desperately searching his face for some comfort, for his explanation. He sighed,
"Of course I'm not going to leave you hanging, how about a brew first? Am sure that'll help." Rose knew it was all delay tactics, but she bore it this time, tea was probably a good idea. Sitting down 5 minutes later she looked up to find him watching her with that strange expression again.
"Yes?" She responded expectantly.
"Nothing, nothing, no problems here." Ha! He wasn't fooling her.
"Doctor."
"Rose."
Both voices a similar tone of warning. He sighed, defeated.
"The first thing you need to know is that both our TARDIS' or at least 1 of them, have somehow slipped through a small tear in the fabric that separates dimensions." Here he paused, letting his words sink in and her understanding blossomed, her eyes wide.
"So," She started slowly, "This is an alternate dimension." He made a non-committal noise and moved his hand in a vaguely maybe kind of gesture.
"Possibly, it might be yours, might be mine, it might not belong to any of us. Certainly, we do not all belong here at the time same."
"Some of us don't belong anywhere anymore," She shook her head as if to shake the grip of gloom that was threatening. And quickly moved on, with false brightness, "We got stuck on an alternate Earth once, was well weird."
"He mentioned that yeah, similar thing but at least you knew it wasn't your Earth pretty much straightaway. It's trickier finding reference points on a barren hole in the middle of nowhere, universe middle of nowhere too." She nodded.
"But we will find a way, always do!" His over enthusiastic cheeriness just making him sound insincere.
"So, hang on, different dimensions, similar but not the same. You aren't my Doctor, and I'm not your Rose?" This wasn't quite what she had expected somehow, but the ache remained nonetheless, the pain ever-present no matter the fine detail. It still felt like him.
"More or less," He shrugged carelessly in an effort to disguise the obvious discomfort this was causing him. He had always been good at maintaining those emotional barriers.
"Oh, right, I suppose that explains why…" She didn't dare say the words out loud again.
"Yes." Was all his clipped tone came back with, he was definitely shutting down again, she could see all the familiar signs. And hated that it was mostly her own doing.
"I'm sorry," She looked down into her mug, hoping to find some answer from within its limited depths.
"Not your fault is it." She made a face at that,
"If I hadn't been such a nosey cow and just had to come here and see for myself then you wouldn't be feeling this bloody miserable what with me reminding you of her and the pain it causes when people go…away." She finished this speech uncertainly, it was an interesting parallel, the Doctor hadn't died had he, but in changing almost everything about him it almost was like he had passed. Part of him was no more. Her part.
The silence that enveloped them was neither suffocating or awkward. It just was. Both comfortable to be there with the other, perhaps more than they had any right to feel. It numbed the pain a little, Rose knew it was not to last. But she dared not ask any more probing questions, no matter how curious she was. Morbid curiosity would most certainly not do her any good here.
"It's not been easy has it?" He asked suddenly, almost out of nowhere.
"What? Oh, well no, pretty much everything has been a big pile of…that's life I suppose."
"That was never the life I wanted for you when I asked you to come along…" She shrugged this time.
"I know that, the universe, time, space, it's all just as messed up as everybody in it." He gave her a weak grin.
"I don't know which was worst, that first time you, he changed, I had no warning. Nothing to prepare me. A bit like this, only this time I should have used my imagination, it was bound to be something messed up again, ha." She smiled, "At least here, I get to see you again," She finished, her voice quieter now, afraid that the moment was almost gone. He grinned then,
"Best thing ever then." If only he knew.
"Yeah," She agreed somewhat more demurely than usual, "It is. You might not be my Doctor, but not caring about silly minute details, ways you aren't him, you still feel like mine…" She let her thought trail off, feeling conscious of his intense scrutiny.
"Indeed."
"More yours than his." Rose whispered this, hardly daring to think it let alone say it. She'd always had a talent for putting her foot right in it.
"Hmhmmm," The intrusive throat clearing of a certain stuck up timelord startled them just precisely how he had intended it to. "Well, well, well, I do hope I'm not interrupting anything." The sarcasm practically dripped off the eleventh Doctor's words as he slammed the door behind him.
"Oi, I'd thank you to remember this is MY TARDIS and she doesn't appreciate your heavy-handed tantrums."
"Oh, oh MY tantrums?!"
"Yes I believe so, what is going on?"
Rose looked from one to the other, feeling rather helpless, not to mention torn. Nine was giving him looks of barely disguised loathing and he was attempting to give a front of frank indifference. His actions however, were speaking just as loud as his words, he wasn't fooling her, he was clearly bothered about something. This wasn't quite the reaction she had predicted.
It was Rose who tried to break the razor-sharp tension in that room.
"We were talking, I don't know what kind of catastrophe you were expecting but I don't think chatting qualifies for triggering the emergency protocol." She hadn't meant it to sound quite so twisted but found she couldn't help herself.
His eyes on her now, slightly kinder now,
"You know this is not really Nine? Not our Nine. He's not me." At this she gave him a piercing almost brutal look,
"Right! I know that now but thanks for the input! The thing is, you're not Nine either are you? So, what's your point?"
He rolled his eyes and she was not impressed.
"Just look at the two of you, emotional fools that's what you are, this is why, this wasn't a good idea, I told you didn't I?"
At this Rose couldn't help but see red, again.
"You told me it was dangerous! You lied to me, what the hell gives you the right…"
"It was dangerous! To your already fragile mental health." This was not said with great conviction, likely his great big brain had already clued him in to the fact that it wasn't a clever thing to say out loud.
"What?!" "What!" Was exclaimed by both Rose and Nine.
"Now wait a minute!" Rose held up her hand to put a pause on the retribution Nine was probably already planning.
"I think not! You lied because it was easier for you! No fuss no muss, can't bother Rose with anything too real, she's already a great thorn in my side…"
"Ridiculous!" He scoffed but there was an undercurrent at work here. Rose wasn't sure what exactly yet.
"Hey, that's enough! You're like a pair of children! Grow up! Perhaps your most recent face holds more significance in that area…" He let the question hang in the already charged atmosphere, while Eleven scowled.
"Definitely enough!" Rose glared now at Nine as well. Feeling like the disciplining school teacher.
Eleven cleared his throat again, with slightly less aggression this time.
"If you're quite finished we can dispense with the soap opera theatrics and perhaps get back to the matter at hand?"
Both Rose and Nine gawked at him, unimpressed with his assessment and the associated implications. Honestly, all this for a little chat. And it's not as if he was completely blameless the silly wotsit.
Nevertheless, it galled them both that there was a smidgeon of truth in his words; they all needed to focus.
Somehow.
Please R and R?