Sacrifice (3/6)
Aug. 2nd, 2008 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocus
A/N: Lots of angst, lots of missing scenes, lots of emotions, and lots of need for tissues. One, possibly two more chapters to follow on this one. And then back to the other end of the series, methinks.
Chapter Three
~TARDIS~
She is sad and beautiful and so lonely as she hums in his head, trying to let him know that she disapproves of everything his other self is planning, but she has no way to interfere. He spends an hour with his face pressed against her wall in the workshop and she sings to him and soothes him and lets her gentle comfort bathe him, hoping to instill in him a memory that will stay with him for the rest of his brief half human lifespan.
She will miss him and she tells him so, this man born in her console room, born in the middle of battle and fire, born of storm and rage and Donna Noble. Her music changes as she tries not to think about Donna Noble and the future she knows is coming for this second favorite of her Doctor’s companions. She loves Donna almost as much as Rose for what she has done to heal this man.
The TARDIS has tried to change the mind of the Time Lord and knows that she cannot. Too many years of travelling with him have taught her when she can and when her little nudges will do no good. And nudge as she will the other man is resisting the call of her song. It hurts her that he will not listen, but she knows in the end it will hurt him even more to lose their Rose.
She will miss this new man, already partially bonded to her. She will miss her golden child as well, knowing that she will be left behind with this mortal Doctor. For an intelligent being her first Doctor is stupid. She considers keeping her doors locked and not letting him be stupid. She considers locking him out of herself when he tries to leave the others behind.
“You can’t,” says the new Doctor stroking her wall. “It’s…it’s better for him if I don’t stay.”
She disagrees with him, but realizes he has to believe this to survive when the choice is taken from him. She makes a decision and a panel opens up in a wall to his left and something falls from it and makes a thump upon the floor beside him. A moment later a louder, heavier thump makes itself heard.
This new Doctor looks at the floor in stunned amazement. “But that’s a comb of structural matrix crystals!” he says as he scrambles to grab it. It looks very much like a honeycomb, down to the color of it even. “Like a million human computer chips tucked in pale gold. And that…is that really…?” She assures him that it is and he picks it up and tucks it reverently into his suit’s transdimensional pocket. It fits easily, leaving no discernable lump.
“It’ll take a long time,” he tells her. “Maybe more time than I have left.”
She gives the mental equivalent of a shrug and overwhelms him with emotion, assures him he’s clever and he’ll think of something in the meanwhile and at least he’ll have something to remember her by and this is good.
“Wouldn’t forget you anyway,” he says. “How could I?”
Her heart breaks just that little bit more.
~Blue~
“There are things I will need,” says the Doctor in blue, “when you leave me behind.” Because he knows one way or the other, he will be left behind somewhere.
“Yes.” The brown Doctor pulls the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and hands it to the other man. “I can easily make another, but you might not be able to. Time I made that one with the red settings. And dampers. And meanwhile, I have the spare. You be sure to grab some batteries from the backup supply. They’ll last your lifetime, but only if you have them.”
“Psychic paper?”
The brown Doctor hesitates then and finally reaches into his inner pocket. “I can get more,” he says somewhat begrudgingly. The blue Doctor takes it from his grasp and slips it into his own pocket, next to the structural matrix crystals and the TARDIS’s other gift.
“What about these?” he asks pulling out his glasses.
“You know we don’t really need them,” says the blue Doctor with a shrug. “You just like how they make you look smarter. Who knows? Maybe I will need them when I’m older, but I don’t need them now.” He stops for a moment realizing that each day now he will age like a human and it almost takes his breath away before he continues on. “But for now my new, new, new eyes seem to be functioning just fine. He flips the screwdriver up in the air and catches it with his left hand before tucking it safely into his pocket with the psychic paper.
“If Rose chooses not to go with me, I want you to use the chameleon arch to make me human. I want my memory wiped. I don’t want to live with the memories if I can’t live with her,” he says.
The brown man looks hunted, trapped. “She’ll go with you,” he says.
“Promise me you’ll do this if she doesn’t,” he says. But the brown man cannot or will not promise him this.
~Mickey~
“I know where this is going. I can see what’s happening. What he’s doing, what he’s always done. He’s sending her back, isn’t he?” Mickey asks the blue Doctor. “Back to the parallel world.”
“Yes.”
Mickey studies this new Doctor. “But he’s going to break her heart! I know he loves her.”
“Yes.”
“And do you?”
“We’re the same,” says the Doctor. “She won’t be alone.”
“He’s leaving you with her,” says Mickey as the light dawns.
The Doctor looks down at his bright red trainers. “I want her to choose me,” he says. “He won’t give her that choice. He’ll leave us both in the end.”
“It’s Rose. She’ll find a way to make her own choice,” Mickey says.
“I hope so. I don’t want to be the default option.”
"You won't be. Rose isn't like that. She'll give it everything she has."
"You really believe that?"
"I know it."
"I hope so."
“I’m not going back,” blurts Mickey. “Not going back to watch her love you. Did enough of that in my life already. Gonna stay here on my original Earth. I’ve spent too many years waiting for Rose to get over you and now I know she never will.”
“Look after him if he needs it, Mickey. If you see him. If he needs someone. I know we took Rose away from you, and I’m sorry, so, so, sorry, but he won’t have her anymore either and if you can…if you can find it in you, look after him.”
“He’ll have Donna,” Mickey says.
“He won’t, though.”
“She staying with you, too?” asks Mickey.
“No.” He shakes his head. “But…she won’t…last much longer in this life,” he explains.
Mickey frowns. “It can be a hard life. Some of us just aren’t cut out for it. I wasn’t.”
“You, Mickey Smith, were brilliant. We never said it, but you were.”
“Think I like you better than him,” says Mickey with a grin. “I hope you get what you want, Doctor. One of us should.”
“And I hope you have a fantastic life, Mickey, my boy, because it’s finally time you get what you deserve,” the Doctor says and for just one moment Mickey sees an echo of a gruff man in a leather jacket, all ears and nose and manic smile and he thinks that yes, if Rose knows what she’s doing, she’ll choose this man, who doesn’t hide from what he feels and will give her exactly what she needs.
“If she asks you,” Mickey says, “tell her. It killed her not to hear the words that day. And I reckon he won’t say it. But if you do, if you say it, Doctor, it’ll tip the scales. And maybe she’ll understand why when you do or maybe she won’t understand it until much later. But if you say it, if you do, Rose Tyler will choose you. And you’ll be the luckiest man in the universe.”
~Rose~
“Don’t do this,” Rose says as she finds him hunched over an open panel in the console.
“What?” he asks. “Recalibrate the gravitational stabilizers? I sort of have to, Rose, after hauling the Earth home. Counteracting Earth’s resistance in the spacial flexural drift was very hard on the old girl. We won’t be able to land her on Earth if I don’t do this.”
She doesn’t answer him and he doesn’t look up. She watches him work, as she so often used to do, and she finds a hard time finding the words, but she knows she has to, she has to say them before it’s too late. Why does it already feel like it’s too late?
“I thought you and me were special,” she says her words echoing a long ago hurt she’d once felt.
He looks up, startled and his eyes fly to meet hers. “We are, Rose. We are special. You are special. To me.”
“Yeah?” she asks finally starting to hope.
“Yeah,” he tells her. He closes the distance between them, reaches up and strokes her hair behind her ear. “You made me better, Rose Tyler. I’ll never forget you for that.”
The hope that had begun to rise plummets into her shoes when he says the word forget then rises again like a rollercoaster when he sweeps her into his arms and holds her like he’ll never let her go.
“It’s going to be all right,” he says in her ear and his voice is gruff. “I promise you, Rose. It’s all going to end up all right.” She finally lifts her arms and puts them around him. She tightens them until she wonders if he can still breathe or if he’s switched to his respiratory bypass system. He drops a kiss onto the top of her head and she wants to pull away and meet that kiss with her own on his lips, but when she tries he refuses to release her.
It is several minutes later when he steps abruptly away from her. “I’ve got to get this done,” he tells her. “As much as I’d love to keep…well, the breach will be closing before too long and I don’t fancy inflicting Jackie back on this universe again, do you?” His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Suppose not,” she says with a half smile. “I’m going to make something to eat. Want me to bring you anything?”
“Nah, I’m fine, Rose.”
She nods, steps to the doorway to the corridor and pauses.
“Doctor?” she says.
“What, Rose?”
“I love you.” Her voice breaks on the words.
He doesn’t look at her, turns back to the console. “Quite right, too,” he tells her. Her heart breaks as she walks away from him. She nearly runs.
~Brown~
He is breathing hard as her footsteps echo down the corridor and he collapses into the jumpseat as if he’s just stabbed a dagger through one of his own hearts. Why had he said that to her? Why? It was cruel. He knows what she wants to hear, needs to hear from him and it isn’t that. She deserves to hear the words from him, just once, before she never sees him again. But if he says them he will break down, never be able to do what is right, what is written in the future and the stars of two universes. If he says, ‘I love you, too,’ he’ll not be able to let her go.
And it isn’t his place to say those words to Rose Tyler. Not anymore. They belong to a man who can live out his life with her, give her a human version of forever. Not…not him. But he didn’t have to twist the knife, did he? He rubs at his face with his hands. He can be a right bastard sometimes. Rose hadn’t deserved that. He turns to go after her.
“Don’t.” The Doctor jumps. “I know what you’re doing, Doctor, and I know why,” Jackie Tyler says as she enters the console room.
“I hardly think so, Jackie,” says the man in brown.
“You want to give her everything you couldn’t before. Everything you still can’t, not really. And you think the only way to do it is to give her to this other man. She’s not a prize you know, not a trophy to just be handed over.”
“I don’t think that she is!”
“Don’t you though?” Jackie asks softly. “A wreath of roses to the better man. Or one Rose anyway. You never thought you were good enough for her. And truth be told, I never thought so either, not until the end. But you proved to me how much you loved her when you sent her back to me into the parallel world. When you did everything in your power to keep her safe.”
“Jackie, I--.”
“No. You’re gonna listen, because I have something to say. You sent her away, my Rose. And she still came back to you. You. Not this other man. You. And maybe she could be happy with him, if he’s really you and not just some shadow of an image of you, but that won’t stop her from wanting you, loving you, missing you.”
“Jackie--.”
“Shut it, you. I’m not done. If you’re giving her up because you think you have to, then don’t. If you need someone to look after him, then I’ll do it. Pete and me. We have the resources. We can keep track of him, take care of him, create an identity. Don’t saddle Rose with him just because you think you have to,” Jackie says.
“You’d do that?”
“Rose loves you. Don’t you get that you great, thick alien? She loves you. And she’s been miserable without you. She wants you. Just you. That’s all she’s ever wanted since the day old big ears first took her away in this crazy, beautiful, magical ship.”
“Jackie--.” She gives him another look and he stops again and she takes another deep breath and continues on.
“You’ve always kept her safe and I can trust you to do that again. She can survive without me, but if she loses you again…don’t do that to her, Doctor. Not if you love her.”
She stops then, finally out of words. “Can I speak?” he finally asks petulantly. She nods. “He is me. In every sense of the word, the other Doctor is me. Except he’s half human and he’ll live out a human lifespan and he’ll die and he won’t come back in another body or the same one. He’ll live it out and be done and he can do that, live out his life next to your daughter. They can grow old together. Jackie, I can’t grow old with Rose. I’d have to watch her die.”
“And you’re afraid to, aren’t you? You’ve never struck me as a coward, Doctor,” Jackie says flatly.
“He can give her things I can’t,” he says ignoring her comment. “He can have children with her, while I’m sterile.”
“So what? Rose isn’t a baby machine. I’m not even sure she wants kids.”
“She wants kids,” the Doctor says. “We talked about it a long time ago, before…when I was, as you say, old big ears.”
“She’s never said so.”
“Because it wasn’t possible. And she knew that. Knew that with me it never would be, so she pushed it aside and forgot about it and accepted it as part of living this life. But she always wanted it. And the truth of it is she wanted them with me.”
“I thought you two weren’t like that,” Jackie said. “Not then. I mean I know she loves you like that, but I always thought you and she never… That you loved her differently.”
His eyes almost burn through her, but he admits to nothing either way. It is no business even of Rose’s mother what he and Rose were or were not like. What they would or would not become like if he allows her to stay. Which he won’t, but if he could they would be like that. He sighs.
“Rose is not a prize and neither is the other me, consolation or otherwise. But together they can have a life that is impossible for Rose and me. It’s the best thing, Jackie, that they be together.”
“But--.”
“No, now you listen to me, Jackie Tyler. It is right that they be together. And they will be happy. One day. Because he is me. And Rose Tyler loves me.” There is so much conviction in his words. “It’s better this way.”
Jackie slumps in on herself, finally giving in to the inevitable. “Then I’ll help,” she tells him. “I’ll smooth the way for them as much as I can. I’ll accept him the way I couldn’t you for far too long. I’ll encourage Rose to love him fully, to believe he’s you as much as you are. I’ll do my best to make sure they are happy.”
“You’d do that?”
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted, for Rose to be happy,” Jackie tells him.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted, too.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
Ch. 4: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/112956.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-08-02 11:01 pm (UTC)(Great chapter, by the way! I completely love the talks with the TARDIS, Mickey & Jackie!)
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Date: 2008-08-03 02:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-08-02 11:05 pm (UTC)Jackie realising he is trying to do what's best for Rose, and trying to help.*sniffs again*
Blue and Mickey, finally getting along.
And the Tardis. A broken-hearted Tardis trying to soothe Blue and leave him with a lifetimes-worth of memories just makes me wibble *sobs*
Oh! You have broken me. This fic is amazing. Thank you.
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Date: 2008-08-03 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 11:12 pm (UTC)*has left another comment full of actions 'cause real words are failing me* ;)
Hurty but so well written, as always! ♥!
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Date: 2008-08-03 12:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-08-03 02:41 am (UTC)I watched Journey's End for the first time last night. This piece is definitely helping in working through the Doctor's reasoning for doing what he did.
I'll be looking forward to reading the next chapter soon.
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:27 pm (UTC)I'm glad it is helping you work through the heartache that was the end of that episode. It took me awhile to be able to face this particular part of things, couldn't do it right after I first saw it. Just couldn't. But I'm getting better through writing it. It's very cathartic.
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Date: 2008-08-03 02:53 am (UTC)I'm surprised I haven't cried yet. I'm usually the first to break down...hm...
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 04:02 am (UTC)He doesn’t look at her, turns back to the console. “Quite right, too,” he tells her.
::cries:: This fic makes me miserable, and yet I still read it!
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 04:04 am (UTC)He doesn’t look at her, turns back to the console. “Quite right, too,” he tells her. Her heart breaks as she walks away from him. She nearly runs
That exchange was so heart breaking! But some really lovely moments in this part all the same. ;) I especially liked the Blue Doctor and the TARDIS consoling each other. And Jackie reasoning with Brown.
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:34 pm (UTC)I wanted to bring the TARDIS into this because I haven't seen it in another fic and of course there would be something going on between them, too. And Jackie's just made of awesome here, isn't she? I'm so proud of her.
Dang
Date: 2008-08-03 04:29 am (UTC)Re: Dang
Date: 2008-08-03 05:03 am (UTC)Man, I don't know anyone else who puts her loyal fans through the wringer emotionally like AmberFocus does! Rip my heart out!! (Just a figure of speech, mind you.)
Re: Dang
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Date: 2008-08-03 05:14 am (UTC)As always, your character interactions are so spot on and the plots so believable (canon, I tell you, canon!) that the holes left by Journey's End are all neatly plugged. Fantastic -- as usual!
By the way, are you considering turning the Doctor towards such uncaring numbness after he chucks Rose out, that he becomes ... The Valeyard??? I've read a couple of theories regarding that, but am hopeful of some happy-happy ending instead. Pleeeeeeaze?
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:41 pm (UTC)I don't think I'd touch the Valeyard with a ten foot pole, honestly. I hated him in Trial of a Time Lord and I don't want to see my Ten turn into that. Ever. Though I can easily see SM doing it to him if he doesn't knock off the angst-fest started by RTD. So, whether or not I can make canon Ten happy or not again, I don't know. But I still have Time Eternal Ten and OTVB Ten and they'll be happy.
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Date: 2008-08-03 06:04 am (UTC)Oh, God, I'm gonna cry... *sobs*
Love the different POVs
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 06:52 am (UTC)*loves*
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 09:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 10:14 am (UTC)Like a lot of people here I have tears. You should have a standard tissue warning for your fics.
Loves all the interaction but the chat with the TARDIS was made of WIN especially!
into memories this goes....
A place in Lines
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Date: 2008-08-03 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 05:36 pm (UTC)The different POV's really help to fill in the GAPING holes left in RTD's version. I know that writer's don't want to have spell everything out for the viewer but with just a couple of changes JE could have made much more sense.
Being able to read great writers like amberfocus, who are taking what was 'incomplete' and making it whole, is what makes fandom such a great place. Well, and I'm sure that the tissue companies are getting a little kick-back from all the angsty (sp?) story writers out there! :)
As always, great job amberfocus!
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:49 pm (UTC)Thank you.
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Date: 2008-08-03 07:06 pm (UTC)I'm new around here, so apologies for poor etiquette.
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 07:56 pm (UTC)The one thing that Journeys End made me want to do (besides hunt down RTD) was hit the Doctor, I mean really smack him and I'm glad that in this that Jackie was able to do it for me. Thank you!
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Date: 2008-08-03 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 03:00 am (UTC)You are doing a great job in filling in the little moments!
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Date: 2008-08-06 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-06 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 08:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-06 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 02:18 pm (UTC)And Mickey, too. Almost forgot about him with all my emotion over Jackie and Brown. How can anybody not love the man Mickey has become?
*reaches for tissues* You did warn me.
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Date: 2008-08-06 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 07:04 pm (UTC)you made me cry like a baby. *sobs* I watched journey's end for the first time on friday. God, I was sooo depressed from watching that, not to mention i cried like crazy. Im so gonna die if i see the doctor with another woman (I hate the idea of river and the doctor together) other than rose, and it sucks that we did not get the closer we wanted on journey's end. I wish the doctor had told rose "i love you" instead of does it need saying. That was yet another cop-out that rose did not deserve. Anyways, I am loving this fic no matter how angsty it is. And hey, while im still madly in love with the ninth doctor, ten has a special placein my heart now. DT is too hot not to love him.
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Date: 2008-08-06 10:53 am (UTC)