Post Pomp (2/22)

[amberfocus]

A/N:  Rose tries to rekindle her spirit but fails pretty miserably.

Chapter Two:  Seventy Days

Cara Mia. That’s the name that I’ve chosen to call you, diary. Someone to keep me sane. Don’t know how good a job you’ll do, though, because I still technically know you aren’t real. Although maybe that is sanity. If I start thinking you’re real, maybe that’s when I’m in trouble. But I have to have something, someone. Otherwise I’ll have to face up to the fact that I’m really alone now.

I don’t know how Mickey lasted as long as he did. I think the TARDIS tried to help, maybe used something to suspend his life as long as she could. But in the end it didn’t matter. She was as helpless as I am. This morning she moved him before I woke up. She put him in a hermetically sealed chamber. And she wouldn’t let me in.

I can see his body through a window in the door. It’s just so hard to wrap my head around, Cara. He’s dead. My best friend is dead. My Mickey. My…I don’t even know what he was to me anymore. Certainly not a lover. But he was…well, he was…company.

That sounds harsh. I can’t help it, though. He was company. Even lying there unresponsive and comatose, he was company. I care more than that, but right now, I just am thinking about me and that I didn’t even get to say good-bye. That’s a pattern with the men in my life isn’t it? No good-bye to Mickey, no good-bye to my first Doctor, no good-bye to my second. Can’t think that way, though. Can’t think about him. He didn’t want to say good-bye to me. Mickey would have. Mickey…

Sorry about the water spots. Leaking like a sieve here. I’ve spent the whole day crying, you’d think there’d be nothing left. Nothing left. Funny. That’s kind of how I feel, like inside my mind there’s nothing left. I’ve gotten so small. Just this tiny little piece of me that let’s me know I’m still me.

I have to shake this off, Cara. I have to stop feeling so helpless and alone. I have to figure out a way, some way to save myself. But…I’m a twenty year old shop girl when it comes down to it. What can I do? I don’t help save the universe anymore. How can I possibly save myself?

That’s defeatist thinking, that is. But it’s not like I’m special. He made that very clear when he went off to save little Miss Pomp and Circumstance. I hate her. I’ve never, ever been a hateful person in my life and I hate her. I wish…I wish…doesn’t matter, does it? Nothing does.

I’m such a fool. Doesn’t matter what I tell myself. Mickey’s dead and I miss the Doctor. I should hate him for that, for the type of woman he’s made me become. But I don’t. Instead, I just hate myself.



Rose closed the diary and shut her eyes. If she thought hard enough, she could bring up the image of Cara in front of her. Blue eyes, sympathetic and warm, soft smile with so much tenderness and compassion. “And now I’ve made up an imaginary friend. What is wrong with me?” She scrubbed her hands through her hair viciously enough to pull a tangle out of her head. She gave a startled yelp and looked at the clump, then felt the back of her head. No blood, at least.

She got up and strode out of the TARDIS and onto the Madame Pomp. In the first couple of weeks she and Mickey had spent a lot of time exploring the old ship. But they hadn’t even covered a tenth of it. What she really needed to do was locate some kind of food storage. The TARDIS supply wouldn’t last forever and she really needed to find more before she ran out and needed it.

Always paid to be prepared. One thing the Doctor had taught her. “Stop it,” she said. “You will not think about the man who deserted you! You can bet he’s not thinking about you. Not at all. Oh, no he’s off dancing with Miss Pompous, you can be sure of that. Both definitions of dancing, too!” she spat out as she stomped down the corridor, her footsteps echoing loudly against the metal bulwark.  Anger was good.  It helped marshall her resolve.  It would keep her alive longer.

“The Doctor doesn’t dance. Oh, no. He doesn’t dance. Liar! He just doesn’t dance with me!” She turned and slammed her fist into the wall without thinking and let out a little cry of pain.

“Oh, brilliant, Rose Tyler,” she said shoving her knuckles into her mouth where she’d skinned them. She licked off the little beads of blood and waited to see if they’d reform. When they didn’t she shook them out. Well, the pain was comforting in its own way. At least she knew she was still alive, wasn’t numb to what was going on around her.

She wasn’t sure if that was good or not. Maybe being numb would be better. Numb would mean she wouldn’t have to think about things at all. Then again, if she didn’t think she wouldn’t have any chance of getting herself out of this. “You don’t have any chance anyway,” she said. “This is it, Rose. You’re on your own. Forever. Ha, not what you thought when you made the choice to give him forever. Good thing you never told him that. He’d have laughed. He’s probably laughing at you now. If he even thinks of you at all.”

She found herself standing in front of a door with a wide wheel in the middle. It looked very much like a metal, car steering wheel. To the left of the door was a little plaque that read: Storage Unit Twelve. It was as good a place to start as any. She reached out to turn the wheel and she was surprised at how easily it spun. She’d expected to have to put some elbow grease into it.

The door shoved inward with a sound of hydraulics hissing, then slid over to the left side. She was so surprised by what she saw inside that she fell over backwards onto her bum in her haste to get away. The writhing movement had startled her. It was only when she realized what it was that she was looking at, that she screamed out her terror into the cold, empty silence of the corridor. 

3.  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/37864.html