amberfocus | You're What?: Chapter Seven (Reply)

Chapter 6: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/74602.html

Future Intended

At first Rose had fought the Doctor tooth and nail when he’d laid out his plans to teach her and Jack all they’d need to know to make it through the pregnancy and the childhood of her son so he could leave them behind on Earth. She’d recognized his cruel words for what they were: a desperate attempt on his part to drive her away. She called him on it with a fury he’d never seen in her before. When that hadn’t worked she’d done everything in her power to make him change his mind, from crying to begging to pleading to trying to seduce him. The last was nearly his downfall.

Even having calm and rational conversations with him had gotten her nowhere. He’d stood firm in his resolve, unwilling to have his mind changed for anything, though he never said anything deliberately hurtful to her again because he couldn’t bear to break her like that again. Four weeks had passed before she finally came to him with quiet acceptance. “Okay,” she told him all warmth gone from her eyes, her expression completely flat. “Teach me what I need to know.”

So with an enormous amount of relief he began the lessons on Gallifreyan pregnancy and childbirth, laying everything out clearly and concisely. Rose was a good student, learning everything he set for her and quoting it all back to him by memory. When he’d smile and tell her what a good job she was doing she’d just look at him blankly, or perhaps through him, and on one occasion asked him, “Why do you think I need your praise? I’m not doing this to please you. I’m doing this to make sure my child is safe. I don’t need your approval.” Her words cut through him like a knife though he refused to let her see it.

Rose had stopped referring to the baby as theirs when she’d stopped fighting with him. She’d stopped doing a lot of things. He was beginning to think she’d stopped thinking for herself. She ate the foods he told her to eat for the baby, did the exercises he told her to do, went to bed when he told her to, and learned her lessons by heart.

When they landed on alien planets she stayed in the ship while he and Jack went exploring, usually separately, because Jack was still angry with him, though he, too, was learning every lesson he was set to with determination so that he’d be able to care for Rose.

The Doctor was aware that Jack had made romantic advances towards Rose and had been firmly rebuffed. He was of two minds about that, wanting Rose to at least have some happiness with Jack, but not wanting to have to witness it on his own ship. They were four weeks into the lessons when Rose started suddenly and with the first emotion he’d seen since their last bitter row, she’d reached for Jack’s hand and put it on her stomach, her slow, beautiful smile that he had missed so much spreading across her face.

“He kicked, Jack. Can you feel it?” With Jack’s hand splayed across Rose’s slightly rounded belly the Doctor felt a wild stab of jealousy rise up within him.

Jack nodded and smiled. “I can. Oh, Rose, it’s wonderful.” Then he’d sobered and looked across the table at the Doctor. Slowly he pulled his hand away from Rose’s abdomen.

Rose glanced up and met the Doctor’s eyes, her face back to its usual blankness. He wanted desperately to ask if he could touch her, for her to offer to let him feel it, too. Instead she simply said, “Sorry, Doctor. I didn’t mean to be domestic. Shall we get on with our lessons?”

“No. That’s enough for today.”

“But we’ve only started--.”

“I said it’s enough!” He slammed both hands down on the table and she jumped, her eyes wide. Then she rose to her feet and stumbled from the room.

“You couldn’t even let her have this one moment to be happy, could you? Why do you insist on hurting her?” Jack demanded stormily as he hurried after Rose.

He was starting to wonder that himself. With a sigh the Doctor headed to the control room. The TARDIS requested they stop in Cardiff to do some serious refueling and with relief at being able to make someone happy, he programmed the flight computer and sent her on her way. 2021 should be far enough in Rose’s future to not risk running into anyone she knew.

As he left the TARDIS he felt eyes on him again. It was the third time the sensation had hit him in the last week and it was really starting to bother him. He whipped his head around and caught sight of her then, the woman standing there staring at him like she’d seen a ghost, looking at him like he was the last person she’d ever expected to see, and her heart was in her eyes before she noticed he’d seen her and she ducked hastily around the corner. There was something about her that struck a cord in him.

The Doctor followed the dark-haired blonde only to see her disappearing at the far end of the alleyway. She must have broken into a run the moment she’d left his line of sight. He raced through the alley after her and arrived just in time to see her enter a shop, what looked like a travel agency. He was only seconds behind her when he arrived, only to find the door barred by a man in a well-cut suit, slightly curly brown hair and a brilliant red tie.

“Excuse me, have you seen a woman in a green dress come by here?” he asked.

“What do you want with her?” the man asked him with rolling, broad Welsh vowels. His words were perfectly polite, but his expression was extremely guarded and he looked like he wouldn’t be opposed to throwing down if the need arose, would be quite capable in fact, but would find it distasteful to do so.

The Doctor decided to go with the truth. “I think she’s been following me,” he said. “And I want to know why.”

“It’s all right, Ianto,” the woman said with resignation and though the accent was posh and polished now, the voice was extremely familiar. As the Welshman stepped out of the way the woman came into view, her brown eyes sad and distant, her expression strained, her face still beautiful, but worn out and far older looking than it should have been for 2021.

“Rose?” he asked in shock. She had to be only about fifteen years older, and she hadn’t aged well, but it was definitely her.

“Hello, Doctor,” she said and she managed a smile for him that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“It’s you? You’ve been watching me?” he asked.

She sighed. “I saw you land here a week ago. You and…young Rose and young Jack. She’s pregnant now, isn’t she?”

He nodded. “Is older Jack around? It’s not safe if they run into each other so I need to know,” he said.

“No, Doctor,” she said and there was a deep sadness in her eyes. “Jack…Jack died.” She bit her lip, trying to hold back tears. “He…” She looked away and took in a deep breath before returning her gaze to the Doctor’s. “There was an accident,” she said. “An explosion. He and Charlie…they didn’t make it.”

“Charlie?”

“My son,” Rose said flatly. “Named him after Charles Dickens. I’d thought…I’d hoped he’d regenerate, you’d told me he’d be able to, but…there wasn’t enough of him left. And he didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his gut twisting inside him as his world spiraled out of control. His son. His son was dead. His child with Rose. No. He’d meant to protect them. How could this have happened?

“It’s been about ten years ago now,” Rose said. “I’m over it. I’m over you, too, if you were wondering.” Rose had never been very good at lying to him and her expression betrayed her. If he’d thought her pain of recent weeks was horrible, he’d been mistaken. This woman truly was broken though she made every attempt to hide it from him. The Doctor took a step towards her and again the Welshman, Ianto, interposed his body between them.

“I’m not going to hurt her.”

“That’s not the way I hear it told,” the man said mildly, but his eyes were as hard as steel.

“Ianto, it’s okay,” Rose said. She brushed her hand through her hair and the Doctor noticed the wedding band and engagement ring on her finger. “There’s nothing he can do to me that he hasn’t already done.” The bitterness in her voice caused something inside the Doctor to break.

Ianto had finally deemed him safe enough to leave Rose alone with, had left her with a hug and a brief brush of his lips across hers that had raised the jealous streak in him to the surface. He’d had to clench his fists to keep the urge under control. Rose, this Rose, wasn’t his. He’d given her up.

“Why are you here?” she asked him. She’d led him to a back room and sat across the table from him, her eyes confused. “I don’t remember us coming to Cardiff in 2021.”

“Emergency refueling,” he said with a frown. “But you ought to remember.”

“Well, my memory is not as good as it used to be,” she said with a sigh. “They put me on a medication for depression after Jack and Charlie died and there were problems. I had some kind of allergic reaction. The best Ianto and I could figure, the pregnancy permanently altered my body, made it so I’d react to certain medications the same way Charlie or you would have.”

“Makes sense. It’d keep you from ingesting anything that could poison Gallifreyan babies while you were breastfeeding. And since your body had no way of knowing there’d be no more children like that, it kept the adaptations,” he mused.

“It reacted badly with my brain chemistry and I lost some of my long term memory for a while, though I seem to remember everything that hurt. Never got it all back. Wish you’d told me something like that was possible in your lessons.” She nearly spat the last word out. “So much you didn’t cover about my son’s physiology. Or what happened to my body. I nearly bled to death when Charlie was born,” she told him.

“Do you—did you and Jack—ever have another child?” he asked.

Rose laughed bitterly. “We couldn’t,” she said. “I didn’t know why. It was only when Ianto and I started trying that we found out I was changed too much by Charlie’s pregnancy. I can’t support a human fetus. The only type of child I can carry is Gallifreyan. And that’ll never happen again. So no more children for me. Just one of the many things you took from me, Doctor.”

The Doctor reached out to comfort Rose, his hand resting on the back of hers. She yanked her hand away from him. “Don’t you touch me!” she snapped. “Don’t you dare touch me! You lost that right a long time ago when you dumped me on this planet with Jack and walked away. I needed you. Charlie needed you. I was just a kid, Doctor. I was so scared and you just…you left us. You thought you knew what we needed and you left us. How could you? How could you not know that the only thing I ever needed, the only thing Charlie ever needed, was you?”

“Rose, I’m--.”

“You better not be about to tell me you’re sorry,” she told him viciously. “It might have meant something when I still loved you. You ruined my life, Doctor. You took my phone and you promised me that if I ever really needed you all I had to do was call and you’d come back and do what you could for me and Charlie. You wouldn’t stay, but you’d help. And when I needed you the most, you didn’t keep your word. You never came back. You threw me away. And I hate you for it.” Tears streamed down her face and her voice broke under the weight of her words and he knew she didn’t mean them because no one cried like that without love behind it.

Rose managed to pull herself together and wiped the tears from her face with a tissue. “If you care, I fell in love with Jack, eventually. I was finally happy. He was a good man and a good father and we married a year after Charlie was born, started trying for another baby when he was three. It never happened and I didn’t think about it again until Ianto and I married five years ago. I thought I’d finally have my chance at some form of happiness with him. Instead I’ve given him nothing but me. It’s not enough, I’m sure, but he stays with me. Both men since you have at least stayed. I’m sure Ianto’s another until death do us part, though I hope it doesn’t come to that like it did with Jack.”

He moved around the table and pulled her up and against him and she responded by pounding against his chest with her fists and trying to break free until he held her so tightly she couldn’t. She buried her face in his chest then and she sobbed like her heart was breaking. And all he could do was rub her back and whisper over and over again that he was sorry.

He knew something horrible must have happened to him in the future to ever keep him from coming back if Rose had called. He must have died and not regenerated or worse, burned through the rest of his lives before she ever called him. And without her, he just might have been reckless enough to have done so.

Jack had been right to tell him that Rose kept him stable and sane. But in this moment he realized just how much of a calming influence she must have on him. Knowing what he now knew, could he still leave his Rose behind on Earth with Jack? All of his plans to have her raise his child and have a happy, normal life with Jack and the baby had gone wrong. They’d died and he’d abandoned Rose with his own death, or worse, callous disregard, and left her like this. Crying her heart out and shattered in pieces. But to tamper with the time lines might make things even worse.

Eventually she calmed and then she pulled away from him. “Damn it, but I do still love you,” she said. “And I wish I’d never met you.”

“Rose, please. Is…is there anything I can do for you?” he asked her.

“Don’t do it. You haven’t sent her away yet. Just…don’t.”

“Rose, I can’t--.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Rose.”

“My son, our son, Doctor, is dead. And you could save him if you wanted to.” Rose reached for her purse and pulled out her wallet. Carefully she removed a worn photograph from one of the little sleeves and handed it to him. “This is Charlie, Doctor. This is who you threw away with me.”

He took the picture from her hand and stared at the little boy in it. His eyes were steel blue and he definitely had his father’s ears and the firm, thin line of his mouth. But that mouth was stretched in a smile that was all Rose’s and he had her same chipmunk cheeks and fortunately, her nose. His hair was a thick, dark blond color and he couldn’t tell if the high forehead belonged to Rose or himself.

“He was five there. It was taken a month before he died.”

“He was beautiful,” the Doctor said. “Oh, Rose.”

Rose shrugged. “You can keep it. I have so many.”

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

“Say it when it still means something,” she said. “Tell her. You don’t have to love her. You can even push her on Jack if you think you must. Just don’t…send her away.” She turned and walked away from him. Ianto reappeared from nowhere and blocked his attempt to follow her.

Search the city as he might for the remainder of their time in Cardiff, he never saw her again. The little travel agency was closed up tight. But she had given him much to think about and in the end he knew what he had to do. There had been far more complications than he’d been able to prepare her for. No matter what the consequences to the time lines might be, he couldn’t send her away to such unhappiness and let his son die. Decision made, he went in search of Rose and Jack.

Chapter 8: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/75631.html