Post Pomp (16/22)
Apr. 22nd, 2008 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocus
A/N: The Doctor and Cassi talk about their relationship and Jack tells the Doctor about what happened to Rose.
Chapter Sixteen: Two Hundred Fifty-Eight Days
“But why?” the Doctor asked, a whine coming into his tone. Cassi raised her eyes to the ceiling of her TARDIS and didn’t answer him. He knew he was being petulant but he hated not knowing what was going on.
“What are you doing?” he wanted to know. He could very clearly see her lips moving.
“I’m counting to thirty-seven to get my temper under control, just the way Mum taught me,” Cassi said calmly.
“Thirty-seven?” the Doctor asked, rubbing at his jaw. It still ached where Jack had decked him and Cassi’s TARDIS had refused to use her medical bay to take away the pain. Maybe Cassi’s TARDIS or maybe Cassi. He wasn’t really sure. She’d calmed down a lot after their initial meeting, but he could tell he was still irritating her.
“Because counting to ten is never enough with you,” she explained. “And by the time I get all the way up to thirty-seven I usually no longer want to smack you.” She scowled darkly. “Usually.”
“Are you going to answer my question or not?”
Cassi sighed. “The simple answer is because Philia doesn’t like you.” His mind ran through all the translations of the Greek word, realized Cassi had meant the definition of ‘one who travels with me that I am fond of’ and then realized that must be what she called her TARDIS.
“I’m well aware of that,” the Doctor replied. “She shoots sparks at me whenever I touch her console. But what’s her not liking me have to do with her refusal to move? Doesn’t she realize that if we don’t get back to your mum you won’t be born?”
Philia let out a hum that had an edge to it. “She realizes it as well as you do, thank you” Cassi snapped. “And she’s not refusing to move. She’s finishing a recharging cycle. I know you’re impatient, Dad, but these things take time. And the reason they take so much time is because of what you did to her nineteen years ago when you sabotaged her to try to keep me from running off with Daniel and getting married. So whining about it now isn’t going to be productive. You made this mess and you have to live with the results of it.”
“I still can’t believe I’d damage a TARDIS just because I disapproved of your choice of mate,” the Doctor said deflating and plopping onto a nearby chair.
“I still can’t believe you did, either.” Her voice held pain. “Daniel’s a good man. He's been a good husband and a good father. In some ways, Dad, you’re more unyielding than Gran at her worst.”
“Cassi, I’m sorry. For whatever I did to you, to Daniel, to Philia. I’m sorry.” He looked at her, wondering if that would be enough to breach the gap between them.
Cassi’s expression softened a tiny, bit but her words were still slightly sharp. “If you can tell me that in the future, after you find out what you did and why, then it’ll mean something.” She sighed. “Believe it or not, I don’t enjoy being perpetually on guard against you,” she told him. “But I haven’t been Daddy’s little girl in a long, long time.”
There was something in her tone that gave him a glimmer of hope. He gestured at the console. “Will she let me make amends? I can try to fix any damage I’ll cause.”
Cassi rested her hand against the console and was quiet for a moment. The lights flickered and then she shook her head. “She doesn’t trust you. She thinks you’ll only make her hurt.”
The Doctor looked down at his feet. “That’s all I seem to be good for some days,” he said dejectedly.
He was surprised when he felt his daughter place her hand on his arm and offer what almost felt like a reassuring squeeze. “And yet you’re capable of so much more. Please, Dad, if you can just learn to control your impulses even a little bit, you’d have such a better life. Especially with Mum.”
“I still can’t believe Rose is your mother,” he said, changing the subject as his emotions started to get the better of him. A foolish grin crept over his face. “How did that ever happen?”
“When a man loves a woman,” Cassi began and broke off laughing at the expression on her father’s face. “Sorry, Dad,” she said. “But that’s how you started the speech to me when I was a little girl and asked where I’d come from.”
“Well, I suppose it’s something that you feel comfortable enough with me to tease me,” he said, feeling a little hope that maybe he could salvage a relationship with the mercurial woman in front of him.
“Yeah,” she said with a thoughtful look on her face. “I suppose it is. As for the how of it, well, I can’t really tell you your future like that, other than to say it involved Barry White, nanogenes, and your TARDIS redecorating your bedroom like a bordello. And I've already told you far more than I should have. But I can tell you that it happens. More than once. In fact, the way you two go at it all the time I’m surprised I don’t have more siblings than I do.”
“All the…” The Doctor trailed off and gulped and started again. “All the time?”
“Really, the two of you have almost no self-control, even now after all these years,” she said smiling slightly at his discomfiture. “It gets embarrassing. But at least we know you love each other. Daniel didn’t even have that with his mum and dad.”
Cassi turned away from him and walked to the other side of the console and began fiddling with some switches. She hadn’t meant to share that much with him. He recognized it as a classic way of putting distance between them. He’d done it often enough himself with former companions, and even with Rose. Not exactly a trait he was pleased to have passed on to his child.
“You’ll lose her, Dad,” Cassi said not looking up at him. “Even if this all works out and history gets back on track, you’ll lose her for a long time. It won’t be your fault. It’ll just happen. And you’ll think it’s impossible to get her back. But you will. So, hold onto your love for her like it’s the most precious thing in the universe. Because it is.”
“Doctor?” The voice of Jack Harkness came from the corridor. It was troubled. “There’s something you need to see.”
Cassi shrugged at him and gestured for him to follow Jack. The Doctor followed the young man to a suite of rooms. He looked around him in amazement at the accommodations Jack had received. Cassi seemed none too fond of Jack, but obviously Philia didn’t have any trouble with him. She’d only given the Doctor a narrow room with a camp cot and a thin cotton blanket. Still, he wouldn’t complain. The ship had good reason to dislike him.
He plopped down on Jack’s sofa. “I’ve got the holoreader working now,” he said. “And there are some things you need to know. Some things you need to see.”
The projection of an emaciated woman with dirty, matted hair, and a smudged, blood-streaked face stared back at him. “This is how we found her.”
“Found who?” He asked, looking back and forth between the projection of the unfamiliar woman and Jack.
“Look at her eyes, Doctor.” He did, standing up and moving closer to the image. As he recognized her eyes and comprehension dawned, he fell to his knees.
“Rose.” He closed his eyes for a moment before forcing himself to look up at the image again. “What have I done?” Image after image flashed in the air before him. Along with the pictures came the words, falling from Jack’s mouth as he related the contents of Rose’s diary. Jack had an eidetic memory and he committed it to this recitation word for word.
Something inside him broke as he realized just how dire the situation had been. He wept. He hadn’t wept since Gallifrey burned, had shed only one or two tears on occasions when he’d been reminded of that loss, but here he wept. This was his Rose, the woman he’d been so afraid of losing that he’d run from her love and the result had nearly been her death.
“You’re no good for her, Doctor,” Jack said softly. “You have to let her go.”
“I can’t.”
“She won’t forgive you this. You left her to die. She thought Mickey had died for months. And he would have if your TARDIS hadn’t stepped in. You left her without a second thought,” Jack pressed.
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Do you? Do you really know that? Because Rose does. She knows it. Knows it intimately. You did this,” and he waved at the image, “to her.”
“Shut up. I can make this right.”
“How?” Jack demanded. “How do you make something like this right?”
“I’ll find a way. I have to,” the Doctor insisted.
“Let her go, Doctor. She can have a better life without you.”
“You want her,” the Doctor said his voice going cold and his eyes narrowing dangerously.
“I love her. And yes, I want her. And I think she wants me. We spent a lot of time together, Doctor. What kind of life can you offer her when you can’t even keep her safe from your own worst enemy? Yourself?” Jack’s anger was rising.
“She isn’t for you, Jack Harkness. Rose Tyler is mine.”
“I think that’s up to Rose to decide. And honestly, Doctor, I don’t think she’s going to choose you. And if she does, then heaven help her. Because I don’t think she’ll survive it.”
13. http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/42809.html
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Date: 2008-04-23 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 09:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 01:41 am (UTC)I really love the Doctor/Jack exchange. They both love Rose and regard the other as the competition. I can't wait to see what happens when they get back to her!
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Date: 2008-04-24 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-25 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-25 05:09 am (UTC)I was REALLY shocked to read that future!Doctor would've damaged a TARDIS! He must've had one heck of a reason but still! O_O ;) ♥!
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Date: 2008-04-25 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 06:28 am (UTC)As for damaging Philia, it was a booby-trap that went horribly wrong, he never actually intended for it to harm the ship, it was supposed to shut down her dematerialization circuit and set off an alarm so she couldn't leave without him knowing about it. But it didn't work that way and things went boom. That's just backstory, it's not written anywhere yet.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 06:30 am (UTC)