It Lies Unwritten (2/5)
Jan. 9th, 2012 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocusTitle: It Lies Unwritten (2/5)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: The Doctor/Rose Tyler
Genre: Romance, Mystery, Angst
Betas:amyo67, thetesh
Rating: Teen
Summary: In a tiny village on the edge of nowhere, a man who can't remember his own name tries to hold on to reality, but reality has other ideas. Only one thing remains constant; the woman in the blue jumper.
A/N: Yeah, it's just weird.
Ch. 1: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/507164.html
Chapter Two
He’s lying on his back. It’s the first thing that seeps into his mind as he tries to refocus reality around him. He can feel it under his shoulder blades, sharpened with sudden sensitivity as they press into a slightly yielding surface. Is he in bed? Can he smell something vaguely floral? He sniffs again and almost bolts away from the strong flaring scent of something acrid.
Jerking back reminds him again that there is something beneath him. It’s too hard to be a mattress. The ground? He can’t feel it. There’s…a sheet? No, too rough. It’s nubbly and woven. A blanket? He’s on the ground on a blanket, but he’s warm. Shouldn’t there be snow? Didn’t he pass out in the snow?
He opens his eyes and the harsh light of the sun beats down on him. The sky is bright and blue, completely free of clouds and totally the wrong color. When he reaches out his hand he feels grass, warm and a little sharp between his fingers. He rips some out, bringing the blades to his face. For a moment he feels like they shouldn’t be green, like they should drip with the color of crimson, a battlefield for too many dead.
He is suddenly aware of the full solidity of his body. It returns to him in a rush that is painful, his nerve endings all firing at once, and he jolts to a sitting position, his hands feeling his arms and legs and chest. He’s real. He exists. He’s here, wherever here is. His eyes roam frantically around until he sees he is in the back garden of his cottage. The laptop sits open beside him and he is astonished to see the cursor blinking next to the words Chapter Nine. He’s been writing. Why can’t he remember a word?
The back screen door of the neighbor’s house slams shut and he sees the blonde girl walking down the steps. She’s wearing a sundress, brilliantly red (like the grass should be). The blue jumper is folded over her arm and in the other hand she carries a large wicker basket. She catches him staring at her and the smile she offers him is wide and familiar. What big teeth she has.
“Ready?” she asks him.
The words for what form on his lips but it’s obvious they’re intended to be having a picnic. He looks down at the ground, the fabric beneath his fingers now smooth. It’s his coat, the brown one, spread beneath him like a picnic blanket. He’s wearing the leather. It feels like armor. Since when is he a warrior?
“Ready,” he agrees, despite his confusion.
She sets down the basket next to his coat. “Couldn’t find a picnic blanket?” she asks.
“The cupboard was bare,” he says with a shrug and wonders why nursery rhymes and fairytales are floating through his head.
“That’s okay. I like the coat.” She smiles shyly and then adds, “Both of them.” Implied is that she likes the wearer as well.
He smiles back and stares into her eyes, getting lost for a moment in the swirls of warm honey gazing back at him. He wants to tell her she is beautiful. He wants things he shouldn’t want from a stranger whose name he doesn’t even know. He should know her name, obviously. Months have passed. There was snow and now it’s spring. They had to have become friends, maybe more, or why else would they be out here like this? Why doesn’t he know what they’ve become?
She shivers then, drops her gaze, and unfolds the blue jumper, slipping into it before she takes her place beside him on the coat. “It’s still a little too cold to be doing this,” she tells him, “but you know I’ve always loved a picnic.” She strokes absent-mindedly at the sleeve and he can see that it’s cable-knit and warm, but still too big for her.
“Whose jumper is that?” he blurts out suddenly.
She glances over at his computer. “Getting some writing done?” she asks him, instead of answering.
“I…yes,” he says, though he can’t remember what he’s been writing. He glances at the laptop again and the cursor now seems to be mocking him.
“What’s the Captain up to this time?” she asks, indicating the computer.
“The Captain’s gone,” he says automatically, before he even has time to think about it. “He disappeared during the seventh chapter.”
She frowns at him and an image superimposes itself over her face; a man with dark hair, blue eyes, dimples and an irrepressible smile. So vivid he could be real, if he wasn’t so obviously larger than life.
“Why?” she asks curiously.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?”
“The ship doesn’t like him,” he bursts out.
“The…ship doesn’t?” She’s the one who sounds confused now.
“It’s sentient. Anyway, it isn’t his love story. It never was.”
“Is it a love story?” she asks.
“Oh, yes. Has been from the start.” He doesn’t know how he can be so sure of it when he still doesn’t know what’s on the written pages.
She smiles and begins unpacking the basket. “You see, I was never sure,” she tells him. “Sometimes I thought it was and other times…” She shrugs and hands him a plate. He picks out fruit and cheese and a few of the sandwiches, cut into perfect little triangles. She stares off into the distance with that lost, searching look that he remembers so well. The one that tells him she’s still waiting, that she isn’t completely here in the moment.
He wants to say her name so he can draw her attention back to him. He wants to say it, remembers he never learned it, but suddenly it bursts into his mind and he realizes it’s the only name it ever could have been. He says it carefully, his mouth mindful of thorns. “Rose?”
“Yes?” She turns her gaze back on him and takes a small bite of her sandwich.
“Why are you with me?” he asks.
“Where else would I be?” she asks back.
“Anywhere. Everywhere. Why are you here?” he persists.
She ignores his question and asks one of her own. “Can I see the new pages?”
“I suppose,” he says. His tone is grumpy and he feels moodier than he has in a long time. He hands over the laptop, a few snippets of memory, of him writing madly, materialize in his mind. “He’s from Manchester now,” he tells her. “And his eyes are blue.”
“Why did you change?” she asks.
“I thought you’d like him better. The hero.” His voice is almost bitter.
“Why should it matter what I think?” Rose asks.
“It’s always mattered what you think.” His tone is sharp even to his own ears.
She bites her lip. “I’ll like him no matter what package you put him in,” she says softly. “He’s still the same man inside.”
“I don’t know who he is. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like…I used to know, but now I can’t find it. It’s all scrambled up in my head.”
“It’ll come back to you,” she says. “I believe in you.”
“Why? You barely know me.”
“I know you better than you think.” She reaches out and pats the back of his hand.
He strikes like a snake, grabbing her hand in his as she starts to pull away. She doesn’t resist and he turns her hand over, looking at the palm. “Your heart line is strong,” he remarks. “You are faithful in your love.”
“You know about reading palms?” she asks with surprise.
“I know about a lot of things.”
She reverses the grip and turns over his hand. She traces his heart line and he shivers at the gentle touch. “And what does yours say about you?”
He stares down at his palm. His heart line is fragmented. He closes his hand around hers. “It doesn’t say enough,” he says.
She laces her fingers through his. “You never were good with words,” she tells him.
“I’m a writer.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” she says. She gives him a look that makes him think she’s known him his whole life.
“How do I know you?” he blurts out. She looks at him oddly.
“It will come back to you,” she says.
“No.” He shakes his head.
“Yes,” she tells him.
“What am I forgetting?” he demands. He’s almost angry, yet at the same time he finds himself on the verge of tears.
“It’s the love story,” she says. “It’s the most important thing.”
“More important than who I am?”
“You don’t know who you are,” she states.
“How do you know that?”
“I’m part of you,” she says. “I’m in your dreams. I’m in your heart.” She puts her free hand flat against his chest. “Your heart beats and mine beats with it.” She pulls their joined hands to her, and he can feel her heart beating against the back of his hand.
“Who are you waiting for?” he asks.
“You,” she says.
He opens his mouth to say more, but a loud buzzing sound infringes on all his senses. Rose drops his hand and scrambles to her feet.
“I have to go,” she says, desperate panic in her voice.
“No, wait,” he cries out as she runs from him.
“I can’t.” She sounds terrified. She moves so quickly he hears the door slamming on her cottage before he even has time to think. He tries to stand up but a violent pain shoots down his spine. The sky turns black, as dark as night. His field of vision gets smaller and smaller until it is gone and he lies blinded and alone on the grass, hope fading from him as all the stars go out.
Ch. 3: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/512064.html
Author:
amberfocusCharacters/Pairings: The Doctor/Rose Tyler
Genre: Romance, Mystery, Angst
Betas:
amyo67, theteshRating: Teen
Summary: In a tiny village on the edge of nowhere, a man who can't remember his own name tries to hold on to reality, but reality has other ideas. Only one thing remains constant; the woman in the blue jumper.
A/N: Yeah, it's just weird.
Ch. 1: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/507164.html
He’s lying on his back. It’s the first thing that seeps into his mind as he tries to refocus reality around him. He can feel it under his shoulder blades, sharpened with sudden sensitivity as they press into a slightly yielding surface. Is he in bed? Can he smell something vaguely floral? He sniffs again and almost bolts away from the strong flaring scent of something acrid.
Jerking back reminds him again that there is something beneath him. It’s too hard to be a mattress. The ground? He can’t feel it. There’s…a sheet? No, too rough. It’s nubbly and woven. A blanket? He’s on the ground on a blanket, but he’s warm. Shouldn’t there be snow? Didn’t he pass out in the snow?
He opens his eyes and the harsh light of the sun beats down on him. The sky is bright and blue, completely free of clouds and totally the wrong color. When he reaches out his hand he feels grass, warm and a little sharp between his fingers. He rips some out, bringing the blades to his face. For a moment he feels like they shouldn’t be green, like they should drip with the color of crimson, a battlefield for too many dead.
He is suddenly aware of the full solidity of his body. It returns to him in a rush that is painful, his nerve endings all firing at once, and he jolts to a sitting position, his hands feeling his arms and legs and chest. He’s real. He exists. He’s here, wherever here is. His eyes roam frantically around until he sees he is in the back garden of his cottage. The laptop sits open beside him and he is astonished to see the cursor blinking next to the words Chapter Nine. He’s been writing. Why can’t he remember a word?
The back screen door of the neighbor’s house slams shut and he sees the blonde girl walking down the steps. She’s wearing a sundress, brilliantly red (like the grass should be). The blue jumper is folded over her arm and in the other hand she carries a large wicker basket. She catches him staring at her and the smile she offers him is wide and familiar. What big teeth she has.
“Ready?” she asks him.
The words for what form on his lips but it’s obvious they’re intended to be having a picnic. He looks down at the ground, the fabric beneath his fingers now smooth. It’s his coat, the brown one, spread beneath him like a picnic blanket. He’s wearing the leather. It feels like armor. Since when is he a warrior?
“Ready,” he agrees, despite his confusion.
She sets down the basket next to his coat. “Couldn’t find a picnic blanket?” she asks.
“The cupboard was bare,” he says with a shrug and wonders why nursery rhymes and fairytales are floating through his head.
“That’s okay. I like the coat.” She smiles shyly and then adds, “Both of them.” Implied is that she likes the wearer as well.
He smiles back and stares into her eyes, getting lost for a moment in the swirls of warm honey gazing back at him. He wants to tell her she is beautiful. He wants things he shouldn’t want from a stranger whose name he doesn’t even know. He should know her name, obviously. Months have passed. There was snow and now it’s spring. They had to have become friends, maybe more, or why else would they be out here like this? Why doesn’t he know what they’ve become?
She shivers then, drops her gaze, and unfolds the blue jumper, slipping into it before she takes her place beside him on the coat. “It’s still a little too cold to be doing this,” she tells him, “but you know I’ve always loved a picnic.” She strokes absent-mindedly at the sleeve and he can see that it’s cable-knit and warm, but still too big for her.
“Whose jumper is that?” he blurts out suddenly.
She glances over at his computer. “Getting some writing done?” she asks him, instead of answering.
“I…yes,” he says, though he can’t remember what he’s been writing. He glances at the laptop again and the cursor now seems to be mocking him.
“What’s the Captain up to this time?” she asks, indicating the computer.
“The Captain’s gone,” he says automatically, before he even has time to think about it. “He disappeared during the seventh chapter.”
She frowns at him and an image superimposes itself over her face; a man with dark hair, blue eyes, dimples and an irrepressible smile. So vivid he could be real, if he wasn’t so obviously larger than life.
“Why?” she asks curiously.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?”
“The ship doesn’t like him,” he bursts out.
“The…ship doesn’t?” She’s the one who sounds confused now.
“It’s sentient. Anyway, it isn’t his love story. It never was.”
“Is it a love story?” she asks.
“Oh, yes. Has been from the start.” He doesn’t know how he can be so sure of it when he still doesn’t know what’s on the written pages.
She smiles and begins unpacking the basket. “You see, I was never sure,” she tells him. “Sometimes I thought it was and other times…” She shrugs and hands him a plate. He picks out fruit and cheese and a few of the sandwiches, cut into perfect little triangles. She stares off into the distance with that lost, searching look that he remembers so well. The one that tells him she’s still waiting, that she isn’t completely here in the moment.
He wants to say her name so he can draw her attention back to him. He wants to say it, remembers he never learned it, but suddenly it bursts into his mind and he realizes it’s the only name it ever could have been. He says it carefully, his mouth mindful of thorns. “Rose?”
“Yes?” She turns her gaze back on him and takes a small bite of her sandwich.
“Why are you with me?” he asks.
“Where else would I be?” she asks back.
“Anywhere. Everywhere. Why are you here?” he persists.
She ignores his question and asks one of her own. “Can I see the new pages?”
“I suppose,” he says. His tone is grumpy and he feels moodier than he has in a long time. He hands over the laptop, a few snippets of memory, of him writing madly, materialize in his mind. “He’s from Manchester now,” he tells her. “And his eyes are blue.”
“Why did you change?” she asks.
“I thought you’d like him better. The hero.” His voice is almost bitter.
“Why should it matter what I think?” Rose asks.
“It’s always mattered what you think.” His tone is sharp even to his own ears.
She bites her lip. “I’ll like him no matter what package you put him in,” she says softly. “He’s still the same man inside.”
“I don’t know who he is. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like…I used to know, but now I can’t find it. It’s all scrambled up in my head.”
“It’ll come back to you,” she says. “I believe in you.”
“Why? You barely know me.”
“I know you better than you think.” She reaches out and pats the back of his hand.
He strikes like a snake, grabbing her hand in his as she starts to pull away. She doesn’t resist and he turns her hand over, looking at the palm. “Your heart line is strong,” he remarks. “You are faithful in your love.”
“You know about reading palms?” she asks with surprise.
“I know about a lot of things.”
She reverses the grip and turns over his hand. She traces his heart line and he shivers at the gentle touch. “And what does yours say about you?”
He stares down at his palm. His heart line is fragmented. He closes his hand around hers. “It doesn’t say enough,” he says.
She laces her fingers through his. “You never were good with words,” she tells him.
“I’m a writer.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” she says. She gives him a look that makes him think she’s known him his whole life.
“How do I know you?” he blurts out. She looks at him oddly.
“It will come back to you,” she says.
“No.” He shakes his head.
“Yes,” she tells him.
“What am I forgetting?” he demands. He’s almost angry, yet at the same time he finds himself on the verge of tears.
“It’s the love story,” she says. “It’s the most important thing.”
“More important than who I am?”
“You don’t know who you are,” she states.
“How do you know that?”
“I’m part of you,” she says. “I’m in your dreams. I’m in your heart.” She puts her free hand flat against his chest. “Your heart beats and mine beats with it.” She pulls their joined hands to her, and he can feel her heart beating against the back of his hand.
“Who are you waiting for?” he asks.
“You,” she says.
He opens his mouth to say more, but a loud buzzing sound infringes on all his senses. Rose drops his hand and scrambles to her feet.
“I have to go,” she says, desperate panic in her voice.
“No, wait,” he cries out as she runs from him.
“I can’t.” She sounds terrified. She moves so quickly he hears the door slamming on her cottage before he even has time to think. He tries to stand up but a violent pain shoots down his spine. The sky turns black, as dark as night. His field of vision gets smaller and smaller until it is gone and he lies blinded and alone on the grass, hope fading from him as all the stars go out.
Ch. 3: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/512064.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 09:01 pm (UTC)Sorry for the typos; Im on my phone at the moment.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 10:06 pm (UTC)This was wonderful. It conveys a sense of waiting and whether it was a love story from the start:
“Is it a love story?” she asks.
“Oh, yes. Has been from the start.” He doesn’t know how he can be so sure of it when he still doesn’t know what’s on the written pages.
She smiles and begins unpacking the basket. “You see, I was never sure,” she tells him. “Sometimes I thought it was and other times…” She shrugs and hands him a plate. He picks out fruit and cheese and a few of the sandwiches, cut into perfect little triangles. She stares off into the distance with that lost, searching look that he remembers so well. The one that tells him she’s still waiting, that she isn’t completely here in the moment.
Thank you for posting!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 11:15 pm (UTC)I specially liked when he is waking up and the sky is the wrong colour, and the grass is the wrong colour, he is dreaming of gallifrey and he doesn't even remember ! A love story, oh yes, I always thought that when Ten used the chameleon arch, he should have been a writer, not so much as a professor, so many stories laying around in his head. But this is way more intriguing.
Thanks for sharing with us :) can't wait for more ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 12:48 am (UTC)More? Soon??
no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 04:22 am (UTC)I think Rose being unsure about the love story, while still being sure she knows him is perfect. His confusion over being sure he should know her but having no clue why is so perfectly written.
Can't wait for more :)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 09:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 12:35 pm (UTC)He wants to say it, remembers he never learned it, but suddenly it bursts into his mind and he realizes it’s the only name it ever could have been. He says it carefully, his mouth mindful of thorns. “Rose?”
"Mouth mindful of thorns" is amazing, too. I read it like, five times. I think it is such a beautiful image. Fantastic. I can't wait for more!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-10 04:21 pm (UTC)Wonderful, I'm criously awaiting the next chapter.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-11 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-24 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 05:32 pm (UTC)