amberfocus | Fragile (2/2)

Chapter Two: Fragile Trust

Rose can’t find him. She has searched all his usual haunts and the Doctor is nowhere to be found. He probably doesn’t want to be found, not after her deplorable rejection of him. She feels frustrated tears welling up in her eyes again. She has promised herself she won’t break down again, that nothing is being accomplished by her crying jags. It is obvious he doesn’t want to be found, that he has hidden himself somewhere in the bowels of the ship.

“Doctor?” she calls out more softly than she intended. That won’t do. That won’t do at all. She clears her throat. “Doctor!” she calls. He is not in the console room. He is not in the library or the conservatory. He’s not in the pool and he’s not in the garden. He’s not in their—his—bedroom. Rose is nearly hoarse from calling out his name. She makes the long climb to the wardrobe room and calls for him once more. “Doctor?”

“I thought you were going to sleep,” says a quiet voice from somewhere behind her. She whirls around and searches for him but doesn’t see him.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“One row over,” he says softly and then she notices the very top of his goofy wild hair sticking up over the racks of clothes. She edges around until she can see him. He’s standing there with a hanger in one hand and his leather jacket in the other. He finishes hooking it onto the hanger and places it neatly on the rack. Her heart twists at the sight of the jacket in such a formal location. She’s used to it on him, or draped over the rails in the console room, or on the floor of their bedroom shrugged off and abandoned in their need to make love as quickly as possible. She blushes.

“Did you want something?” he asks.

He hasn’t looked at her since she came up to him and she isn’t sure she wants him to. “I couldn’t find you,” she says because she can’t think of anything else to say.

“You were looking?” he replies his eyes remaining straight ahead, his fingers still against the cool leather, stroking it softly as if he’s saying good-bye to who he used to be. She has noticed that this version of him is even more tactile than the one before. It must be killing him not to be able to touch her on demand.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he answers flatly. She flinches at the emptiness in his tone and at the realization that he’s closed himself off. The man she spent the morning with has fled the premises and left a shattered, disillusioned husk in his stead.

“But I do,” she answers a little too quickly. “I hurt you and I’m sorry and it’s clear to me that you’re not all right.”

He turns and looks at her then and his eyes have never, not once since she met him, been so devoid of emotion. “I’m always all right,” he tells her.

“But you’re not.”

“Don’t tell me what I am, Rose. For that matter, don’t tell me who I am. I’m him.” His voice is stern, a touch of anger coming into it. She is relieved that there is some emotion there now even if it is anger.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!” she cries out in frustration. “I do. And I’m sorry, okay? I never meant…I never, ever meant to compare what Cassandra did to me, how she hurt me, with kissing you. What she did to me was a violation, but kissing you…kissing you has never been anything but good and…and…I’m confused and upset and so scared, Doctor, but kissing you…kissing you was the only part of the day that wasn’t a horror after we went into that hospital.”

She looks down at her feet. “And I don’t want you to keep thinking I hated it, because the kiss itself was good and it was with you, but I’m all mixed up about it, because I wasn’t ready for it and I wasn’t in control of it and you couldn’t even tell it wasn’t me. You couldn’t tell that she was making me do it and I thought the first time I kissed you, the first time I kissed this you, it would come from me or it would come from you. The fact that it came from her kills me! She stole it from us! It should have been--”

He grabs her and pulls her into him. She looks up just in time to see his mouth come crashing down on hers with all of the possession and want and need and frustration that he has been holding back since he regenerated. She stands there unmoving in complete and utter shock, the surprised “o” of her mouth granting him access. He kisses her with desperation, the way he kissed her when they first started kissing, and she recognizes him on a bone deep level. This man is her Doctor.

Her failure to respond has him pulling away from her. He doesn’t look at her as he stands there, his chest heaving, his eyes shuttered. “Now I’m the one who’s sorry,” he says bitterly. “I never should have done that.”

“Doctor, I--.” He’s already on the move and it’s only her hasty grabbing of his trench coat that pulls him to a stop. “Don’t,” she says. “Don’t run away from me. I…I need you.”

“No, you don’t. You might have once, but not anymore!” he cries out finally letting her see his anguish.

Tears spill out of her eyes. “I do need you. I do!” she insists adamantly. She refuses to let go of his coat at his insistent tugging, instead tightens her grip in the tough fabric and forces him back to her, though she knows if he really wanted to get away from her there is no way her strength could hold him. When he is close enough she reaches inside his coat and puts her arms around him, burying her face in the rough wool of his suit. She holds onto him like he is her anchor and to let him go means she will be cast adrift. “I do,” she says again softly. “Please. I do. I need you.”

It is a long time before he softens against her and brings his arms up to hold her. One hand strokes her hair a few moments later. Eventually she loosens her grip on his ribs and takes a step back. She looks up at him and wipes the tears from her face. “I want to try to save us,” she says. “I’m scared and I…I’m not ready to be…intimate. Not yet. I wish that I was, I wish it was that easy, but I feel like I’m getting to know you all over again. You’re so different.” She places her hand over his hearts. “Are you still the same in here?”

He nods. “I still feel the same about you, Rose. I want to make us work.”

She smiles just a little bit. “That’s something.”

“Yep.”

“Guess I should go to bed now,” she says. “I really am tired.”

“Will you…?” He stops himself and she wonders what he was going to say.

“What?”

“In the morning, will you let me, will you please let me scan your brain?” he asks gently.

“Is it safe?” she asks.

“Safe?”

“Your brain scan thingy. Is it safe? Does it have radiation or anything like that?” she asks.

“Of course it doesn’t. This isn’t twenty-first century Earth technology, Rose. This is state of the art and the most advanced ever created. There are no side effects whatsoever,” he reassures her.

“All right,” she says. “In the morning, then.”

“Yes.”

She leans over and kisses him on the cheek, letting it linger for a few seconds before pulling away. His eyes are closed and he stands there slack-jawed for just a moment before blinking them open again. “Good-night, Doctor.”

“Good-night, Rose.”

She leaves him then and goes back to her room. She hesitates only for a moment as she shuts her bedroom door and then pulls it back open again, leaving it just an inch ajar. It is an unspoken invitation, one she initiated a long time ago, long before they became lovers, when her Doctor needed refuge from his nightmares. It is a tiny step forward in reestablishing a fragile trust between them. She doesn’t know what he’ll make of it, or if he’ll even be aware of it, but the offer is there. She falls asleep without knowing if he takes it.

The Doctor is scared to feel any kind of hope after Rose leaves him to go to bed, but he does. It’s tiny, just a little spark, but there’s no way he can stomp it down now. It grows in him and frightens him more the larger it gets. He tries to distract himself by doing unnecessary TARDIS repairs until in a fit of pique the TARDIS not only showers him in sparks, she turns the ventilation system on so high that he’s forced to leave the console room and then she seals off the door so he can’t get back in and returns atmospheric controls to normal.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself and wanders down to the kitchen for a snack, but all he can think about is the midnight snacks he and Rose would have between shags. No, he doesn’t like that word anymore. Like fantastic, it doesn’t seem to fit the teeth. “Shag,” he says discarding the word. “Making whoopee? Sex? Intercourse? Doing the dirty? Screwing?” The coarser the words get the less he likes them. “Love making, making love.” He rolls the words around on his tongue. Yes, that’s what feels right to him now. His last self would be rolling his eyes right about now, telling him to buck up and be a man and use manly words.

Weeeeell, not manly words. His last self would never have said the word manly. He’s said manly a lot himself, talking about his manly, hairy hands, and he definitely has a manly, hairy chest, and manly, hairy…well, other things and where had this ability to ramble nonsensically come from? He grimaces. It is bad enough he does it out loud, but if he is doing it in the comfort of his own mind now it is really rather ridiculous, not to mention distracting and what had he been thinking about? Oh, yes, words for sex that appeal to him. Probably as a distraction to the fact that he isn’t going to be having it any time soon.

He sighs. They did make progress tonight. He knows now that Rose wants to try to salvage things with him. She didn’t respond to the kiss he gave her and that hurts, but she held onto him, insisted she needed him and kissed him on the cheek. That is something. Less than he’d hoped for, but maybe in time it would come. He hopes so. He’s not sure how long he can live without the kind of affection Rose has introduced into his life.

He finishes his snack and cleans up the kitchen. He thinks maybe he can settle his mind down if he goes and reads a book, even though what he really wants is to get his hands back under the console. He sends a query to his ship but she sends him a psychic smack and then ignores him firmly and he frowns. The library it is, then. He sets off for what is normally one of his favorite rooms. It takes him down the corridor where their bedrooms are and out of old habit he glances at Rose’s door, then stops, stunned.

She’s left it open the way she used to such a long time ago. He’s almost afraid to push the door open, almost afraid that it was a mistake on her part or a faulty door latch. In the end he has to look inside and so he gives the door a light nudge and the light from the corridor spills into her room and across her body. Rose is sound asleep, her body curled tightly around a pillow.

The Doctor steps into the room and walks to the edge of the bed and looks down at her. He takes off his suit coat and lays it neatly over her chair, then takes off his shoes and socks and walks around to the far side of her bed. He debates for a moment on whether or not he should slide beneath the covers or lay down on top of them. He chooses the former after several minutes of contemplation. He is fully dressed and that should signal his lack of intentions to Rose if she should wake.

He slips beneath the duvet and sheet and lays still for several moments without touching her. It is agony not to reach for her and when he can no longer stand it he turns towards her and curls his body around hers, his arm going around her waist and holding her firmly to him.

She shifts in her sleep and makes a small noise. “Shh,” he whispers in her ear. “It’s just me. Go back to sleep.”

“Doctor?” she says in a sleep heavy voice.

“Yes.” She turns towards him and snuggles closer into his body, holding onto him as she had done earlier, and lets out a small sigh.

“My Doctor,” she murmurs. And his hearts flood with hope as she settles back into sleep.

~Series to be continued in Hope~ http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/166171.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

wiggiemomsi.livejournal.com

Oh, I loved this! At first it seemed that lack of communication & misunderstandings would separate Rose & the Doctor; so glad she didn't give up! I could never understand why HE couldn't understand why totally changing his appearance & personality wouldn't be hard on a companion ... or on Rose. Same entity, maybe, but different everything else!

Looking forward to the next part

*Hugs*

From:

Not Rose-Colored Glasses

Fragile (2/2)

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