Cutting off a friend i speak to every day because i was not benefitting from the friendship and he felt kinda manipulative and just not healthy at times 🥹 proud of me
An awkward silence fell between them, punctuated only by the sounds of the fires cracking and spitting behind the Doctor. He studied Rose’s face openly, searching, like her expression might reveal something her words didn’t.
***
(Aka the obligatory post-GitF fic, for anyone else who ever wondered what might have taken place between a trip to France and an adventure in a parallel universe. Ten/Rose, all ages, full of angst, fluff, a pinch of romantic bickering, a dash of mutual pining, and a dollop of swashbuckling adventure!)
“Well, Doctor?” said Rose, not even bothering to mask the fear in her voice as the dragon opened its mouth, its throat glowing a bright flame-yellow hue. “Don’t suppose you’ve come up with some kind of brilliant plan in the last few minutes?”
The Doctor pursed his lips, fingers tapping nervously against the chain pressed between their palms. Then, his eyes widened, as if in realization.
“No,” he said, and a shot her a manic grin. “But I do have a spectacularly bad one.”
--
.03 seconds’ worth of calculations later, the Doctor slipped the sonic out of his jacket-pocket, cranked it up to setting 183, aimed for the nearest giant speaker hanging overhead, and hoped, desperately, that this sort of thing worked better on dragons than it did on bears.
“Cover your ears!” he shouted, dropping Rose’s hand.
The instant she complied, the Doctor let loose a wave from the sonic, hitting the speaker with a feedback loop that split the air with a hideous shriek. The stadium filled with the cacophony of a hundred screaming banshees, a thousand nails scratching teeth-gritting lines down a blackboard in a screech that struck like a dentist’s whining drill to the teeth. Dimly, the Doctor registered Mickey and the others crying out, but their noises were swallowed by the many-voiced shouts from the audience, tens of thousands of people scrambling to shut out the horrible, godsforsaken racket without any success.
“What did you do?” Rose cried over the din, her eyes watering.
“Music to tame the beast!” the Doctor replied, pointing at the dragon up ahead. Howling in pain, it violently thrashed its head about, as if it might be able to dislodge the shrill-shrieking ghosts from its skull.
“You call this music?” Rose feebly tried to joke.
“That was figurative—but tame the beast was quite literal!”
Rose’s eyes widened. “What?”
The dragon crumpled into itself, backing up toward the mountain, eyes clenched shut against the clamor—this was the best chance they were going to get.
“Come on!” the Doctor shouted, grabbing Rose’s hand and bolting toward the dragon at a breakneck pace. Its wings flapped heavily against the ground, kicking up a great wind that tore at the Doctor’s hair and clothes and buffeted him at every turn, but he didn’t stop, didn’t slow, just pulled Rose along and prayed that she could keep up, that the dragon would be blind to them just a little bit longer.
Then the ruckus all around them cut off like an unplugged radio.
Silence.
Slowly, the dragon’s eyes slid open, glazed and unfocused, but the Doctor set his jaw and kept his legs pumping-pumping-pumping—if they were quick enough, if they could just get a little closer, then maybe, just maybe—
“Doctor!” Rose gasped behind him.
“Now!” he shouted, leaping for the dragon’s neck.
Scrabbling at the ridges lining the creature’s spine, the Doctor hoisted himself up, reaching back for Rose as the dragon lifted its head to let out an angry roar. Wings flexing, the dragon coiled its haunches, catlike, a spring tensed and ready to burst, preparing to launch itself into flight. The Doctor lunged for Rose and clutched her about the waist just as the dragon sprang into the air. Rising higher with every beat of its wings, the dragon lurched, sending both Rose and the Doctor slipping. Feet sliding on the dragon’s slick scales, Rose cried out at the stomach-plummeting sensation of takeoff, at the sight of the landscape shrinking below. Sweat beaded and trickled down the Doctor’s neck as he mustered every last ounce of his strength to haul Rose up the rest of the way, fighting gravity for its sorely-wanted prize. He pulled and she heaved and finally she was safe—relatively speaking, anyway, as she straddled the dragon’s neck—but the Doctor didn’t dare let go of her waist.
“Please tell me you’ve got a good reason for this!” Rose shouted over her shoulder.
“I’ve got a good reason for this,” the Doctor replied automatically. Rose craned her neck to shoot him a disbelieving look and the Doctor offered her his very best charming grin. “Now, whatever you do, don’t let go!”
Soaring over the stadium, the dragon violently shook its head to dismount its riders. When that didn’t work, the creature barked out a great roar, one that made the Doctor’s teeth chatter. Muscles rippled and sinews strained beneath the Doctor, heat blossoming and glowing sickly yellow just beneath the slick purple scales, and the Doctor knew the dragon was preparing to let forth another fiery blast.
Smoke flying from its nostrils, the dragon circled back round, surging straight back for the mountain—right to Mickey and the others. The dragon opened its mouth to fire.
The Doctor ran a series of figures in his head at lightning-speed and threw the end of Rose’s wrist-chain out into the wind, his other hand clasping her by the ribs hard enough to bruise. Casting out into the windstream, the chain whipped right back round, looping through the dragon’s open mouth and hurtling right back toward Rose, who caught it with a gasp. Thanking his biology for the gift of long arms, the Doctor shot his hands around Rose to grab the chain by both ends.
“Help me pull it tight!” the Doctor commanded.
Rose obeyed, winding her manacled hand around the chain just before both of them yanked back as hard as they could. The dragon’s head snapped backward, spewing a stream of fire singing the air up above. Screeching, the dragon pulled up, soaring away from Mickey and the others.
“Yes!” Rose shouted, craning her neck to double-check that Mickey was safe. He and Dyana and Vareem were only just visible from this vantage point, tiny colorful specks fleeing up the mountain, but they were moving, they were all right, they were alive.
“Oh my god, I thought we were all done for,” Rose said, her voice shaking.
“Oh, come on, have a little faith,” the Doctor laughed. “It would take more than a dragon to bring us down!”
“Right! So what’s step two, here?”
“No clue,” the Doctor said cheerfully, and he could just hear Rose rolling her eyes.
The dragon lurched forward and without even thinking, the Doctor grabbed Rose round the waist again, steadying them both. A brilliant pink flush crept up the back of her neck and the Doctor wondered at that—her dress was awfully flimsy and thin, surely she couldn’t be overheated, somehow?—but no, he realized, it only happened after his hands slid down her belly, anchoring her close, her back pressed firmly against his chest, sandwiched so tightly together he could feel her heart hammering beneath his fingertips, against his ribs…
He suspected, suddenly, that her reactions had less to do with the imminent danger, and more to do with something else entirely.
The Doctor relaxed his grip. “Maybe we could give any lingering Champions a little scare, clear the way for Mickey and the others, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rose replied, clearing her throat. “Let’s give it a go.”
The Doctor shifted, ready to show Rose how best to steer the dragon, but she was already pulling on one end of her chain, guiding the dragon back around.
“You’re not the only one with surprise talents!” she shot over her shoulder with a cheeky grin.
The Doctor smiled, settling his hands and arms more comfortably around her. “Oh, you always surprise me, Rose Tyler,” he said quietly into her ear.
Rose blushed again.
***
Alien planets, Mickey had decided, were highly overrated.
First, there were the local customs. Certainly, Mickey knew Earth had its fair share of local customs that outsiders might consider silly, or harmful, or downright bad. But as far as he was aware, there were no officially-sanctioned Earth customs that involved drugging or kidnapping, certainly none that encouraged the use of Bronze Age weapons amidst Stone Age gender politics.
Then, you had the sports. Normally Mickey quite liked sports. He was, in fact, something of a sports aficionado; there were very few sports back on Earth that were incapable of holding his interest. But there also weren’t any sports back on Earth that involved running over a theme-park-movie-set, up a mountain, away from a real-live dragon.
Ah, yes. The dragon. That was another thing.
“Holy hell,” Mickey whispered. He shielded his eyes against the floodlights, the better to watch the dragon’s shadowy form as it retreated to the other end of the stadium, swooping low and scattering a cluster of lagging Champions. “Did you see that? Rose and the Doctor—!”
“Yeah, yeah, they’re buying us time,” said Dyana absentmindedly, scanning the mountainside for stray Champions. “We’d better take it!”
Mickey’s feet were loathe to move, strangely reluctant to turn away from the blip in the distance that was the dragon and its riders, but upon feeling a tug, Mickey glanced over to see Vareem pulling on his shirtsleeve, her eyes wide with fear and anxiety.
“Come on,” she urged. “Let’s go. Please!”
After another glance backward—there the dragon went again, diving low over the Champions until they ran back the way they’d come—Mickey nodded, and followed.
The three of them ran up the mountain, alternately sprinting and climbing and pulling themselves up over dirt and rocks and great moss-covered stones. Vareem galloped up ahead, cantering up the ever-steepening hillside as easily as a mountain goat, and Dyana followed closely behind, but Mickey lagged. He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the dragon for very long. Something kept urging him to turn round, crawling uncomfortably down his spine; he wasn’t certain if it was sweat, or something else.
Instinctively, the company ducked as the dragon soared overhead, the ground trembling with every stroke of its great wings. With a great roar, the dragon dove low, sending cowardly Champions running in all directions, abandoning their would-be prizes without a second thought.
“So, erm,” Mickey huffed as the bride-prizes cheered and the dragon flew off once more. “What’s at the top of the mountain again?”
“The Citadel, where you’ll claim us as your wives,” replied Vareem.
Mickey’s feet chose that precise moment to wrap around each other. “Oh yeah?” he said, trying to sound casual as he pulled out of the stumble (and failing spectacularly).
“Don’t get too excited,” Dyana said drily. “All you do is hit the button and say the words. You’re setting us free right afterward.”
“Or we could talk about it,” protested Vareem. “I don’t mind sharing!”
Both women laughed at the flush that darkened Mickey’s cheeks and ears at that. Maybe alien planets weren’t so bad after all, he decided.
The earth shuddered beneath him once more, in time to the great slow slap-slap of leathery dragon’s wings—and there it was again, that feeling of something pricking and trickling down the back of his neck. Mickey turned to watch the dragon as he climbed, but his hands and feet slowed to a crawl; squinting against the floodlights, he couldn’t quite make it out, but the dragon’s flight seemed shakier than before, its body sagging and dipping, and was Mickey imagining it, or was it glowing all over?
“Oh for goodness’ sake, come on!” pleaded Vareem. “We haven’t got time—”
“Wait,” said Mickey, watching as the dragon approached. Its flight grew slow and lazy, its body shaking violently. “Something’s wrong.”
The dragon flew overhead and disappeared round the mountainside.
Seconds later—
BOOM.
The impact threw Mickey and the others through the air, each of them slamming into the earth amidst a deluge of rocks and earth. Panting for breath, Mickey cast himself in front of Vareem, shielding her with his body as much as he could as a second wave of debris flew their way. The crack-snap-BOOM of the explosion echoed throughout the stadium and bounced off the walls, ringing in Mickey’s ears. He screwed his eyes shut against the noise and the dirt.
When the quaking and the noise stopped, Mickey looked up to see that the air was filled with smoke and ash, an ominous dark cloud forming on the other side of the mountain.
His heart skipped a few beats and he thought he might choke.
An explosion—and Rose had been on the dragon when it—and there was no way she could have—
“Rose,” Mickey panted, pushing himself off the ground, heedless of the scrapes and cuts that lined his body. He stumbled toward the darkening smoke-plume, gagging on the fire and ash that burned the back of his throat. “Rose! Rose!”
“I don’t care!” Mickey croaked. Heart racing and lungs pumping until he was lightheaded from it, Mickey stumbled over churned earth and upturned rocks, inching ever-closer to the blast site.
“Rose!—”
“Hey!” Dyana said sharply, darting in front of him. “Hey, look at me!” She grabbed Mickey by the collar, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “Look at me.”
Mickey forced his eyes to focus on Dyana’s face, forced his ears to hear something over the ringing and the rush of his blood and the screaming panic.
“Rose told me about that bloke she’s with, that Doctor fellow,” Dyana said slowly. “He’s some sort of miracle worker or something, right?”
Mickey shook his head, uncomprehending. “But, the explosion—”
“Rose said he’s done incredible things, got out of way worse scrapes than this, saved loads of people. And you’ve been there, you’ve seen it. You know what he can do. You trust him, don’t you?”
Shaking violently, Mickey struggled to think. A fleeting vision of Rose flashed in his mind, first strapped to a table while an android prepared to dissect her for scrap bits, then later, her eyelashes fluttering and lower lip quivering as she tried not to cry, stranded on a space station a thousand years away from home. He remembered the fear at being strapped to a table of his own, the sick feeling that settled in his stomach, a twin to the sensation that weighed heavy in his gut now.
He wanted to say yes—but was that true anymore?
Before he had a chance to answer, the sounds of scuffling and murmuring at the base of the mountain let him know that they weren’t alone; both turned to see a fresh new batch of Champions running and climbing their way. And this time, none of them offered Dyana a salute.
“You two, get up the mountain,” Mickey said, taking off once more toward the smoke. “We’ll meet you up there!”
“Mickey—”
“I’m not leaving her!” Mickey shouted over his shoulder.
Dyana did not reply, but Mickey heard her swear under her breath. He glanced back to see her grabbing Vareem by the hand as they set up the mountain once more, the Champions quickly closing the gap between them. In any other situation, Mickey might have felt guilty for abandoning the women, but they were far handier with a weapon than he’d ever been. And there was no way in hell he was going up this damn mountain without Rose.
He prayed that she was all right.
***
“D’you really think Rose is okay?” Vareem asked as they climbed.
Dyana did not reply.
***
A groan tore from Rose’s lungs as she rolled onto her side. She felt like she’d been hit by a truck. Or, more accurately, like she’d been hurled into a mountainside.
Slowly, gingerly, she sat up, wincing at the dull aches and sharp pains that stabbed her seemingly everywhere. Her lungs stung with the stench of smoke and Rose coughed, wincing at the hurt that blossomed in her ribs after.
Where was she…? And where was the Doctor?
Trembling, Rose tried to stand but her legs shook and ached in protest, pain shooting through her body. Fingers running a path down her arms and torso and legs, she searched herself for damage, and while she certainly discovered a large number of tender cuts and feverish burns and bruises (her lonely bruise from before now had plenty of friends, she thought with a grimace), she was relieved to find nothing too serious, though whatever had gone down, it had taken most of her wrist-chain with it, leaving only a small length dangling limply behind. She suspected she’d got off pretty well considering what had happened, whatever that might be.
Seriously, though—what had happened?
Frowning, Rose struggled through the heavy fog in her mind, pulling together the puzzle-pieces of her memory so she could assemble them into a shape that made sense. They were riding the dragon, she remembered. They managed to steer the dragon and scare away some Champions, but then it started to shake and glow beneath them. And Rose had smelled smoke, and the scales beneath her had grown hot, and she’d heard the Doctor shouting, but after that...well, everything went grey after that. It was easy enough to figure out that she’d been thrown from the dragon, but Rose couldn’t recall anything that would explain why she got thrown from the dragon, or where the Doctor went, or why the dragon had vanished without a trace, or why everything all around her was on fire.
All good questions, Rose thought dimly; good questions for the Doctor, if she could find him. For all his talk of wandering off, she thought with a grump.
First things first, though, she needed to do something about this whole breathing situation. Rifling through her skirt for the cleanest patch of fabric she could find, Rose tore the flimsy material easily, holding it over her mouth as a makeshift handkerchief. Her lungs still stung and throat still burned, but at least it no longer felt like she was swallowing fire every time she inhaled.
She huffed grumpily into the handkerchief. Probably the fires were just another challenge set up by the City Council, as if this whole stupid thing wasn’t already dangerous enough. Honestly, did they want any of their participants to survive?
Rising on wobbly legs, Rose squinted through the smoke and ash, searching for any hint of familiar brown pinstripes.
“Doctor?” she coughed. God, what she wouldn’t do for a cup of water right now; her throat was parched, thick, like a dried-up well. She called out again, stumbling across the uneven earth. She strained to catch a glimpse of him through the grey-hazed air.
Rose hoped he wasn’t hurt, or worse.
(No. She shook her head sharply, winced at the dizziness that flared up after. She didn’t have time to think like that.)
“Over here!” called the Doctor, and Rose sighed in relief. Stumbling, she followed the sound of his voice until his outline appeared in the smoke, followed by the rest of him.
Rose stifled a laugh. Here she was, covered in bruises and soot, and the Doctor had barely a speck of dirt on him. He could have floated through the air as easily as Mary Poppins with her umbrella, for as unrumpled and composed as he was. But of course, Rose thought—how else would it be?
“Now what do you think of this?” asked the Doctor, his tone perfectly conversational, as if they weren’t standing in a smoke-ridden battlefield. He held a small silver rectangle in one hand, regarding it with no small measure of curiosity as he turned it over and over, examining it from all angles. It gleamed a dull silver through the ash and mud, and amidst the bits of grass and debris, Rose could make out a series of numbers stamped into its face.
“Doctor?” Rose coughed. “What happened?”
“Found it half-stuck in the ground, nearly tripped on it,” the Doctor continued, and Rose struggled not to roll her eyes, because why on earth would he think she was asking about that? “Any thoughts on what it could be?”
Rose shrugged, coughing into her handkerchief. The Doctor might have been able to breathe in this nasty air well enough, but she certainly couldn’t, and something about him just standing there so casually, in the smoke, while she was struggling to breathe without gagging, irritated her a little bit. Or maybe that was just the ash drifting lazily into her eyes, or her bruises making themselves loudly known.
(Or really, couldn’t he wait for two seconds before he went tracking down the next stupid shiny thing? Her thoughts had shifted to him almost immediately after she regained consciousness—couldn’t he arse himself to think about her, or worry about her, even just a little bit? Weren’t friends supposed to do things like that?)
“Dunno,” Rose said, bouncing impatiently on her heels. He could stand here looking at weird little pieces of metal all he liked, but she wasn’t interested in waiting around to get caught by more Champions, or the dragon again, or whatever other nasty beasty things might come their way. “Looks like a dog tag or one of those pet chips or something?”
The Doctor’s eyebrow piqued in question. “Pet chip?”
“Yeah, like one of those things people put in their pets in case they run away or get lost. They’ve got numbers on them, like a barcode or something, and you scan ‘em to find out where the pets belong.”
“Curious,” the Doctor murmured thoughtfully, giving the piece another look-over before shoving it into one of his pockets. “Think it would work on humans, get them to stop wandering away or running off in the middle of would-be rescue attempts? Maybe I should get one for you, mmm?”
“Oi, I’m not a dog,” Rose grumped, her nose scrunched in disgust beneath the handkerchief.
“No, no, of course not. A dog knows how to stay,” the Doctor teased.
Any other day, Rose would have glared daggers at him, then laughed at the look of abashed sheepishness that crossed his face afterward. Now, she just sighed, heavily, gathering her singed skirts so she could plow on ahead. Onward, upward, anything was better than looking back. Right?
“Not a dog,” she repeated as she climbed, “nor a cat, nor a bird, nor a pet of any kind. Just another silly human trying to survive. Besides, I only ran off in the first place cos you took your sweet time rescuing me. I wasn’t gonna sit and wait around for another five and a half hours.”
For a moment, all she could hear behind her was the sound of fires crackling. Then, the Doctor’s plimsolls scuffed against the earth as he climbed after her. “Five and a half hours,” he said. “Oddly specific amount of time.”
Rose forged on ahead with a heavy sigh. She hadn’t really meant for those words to spill out; she wasn’t too keen on nagging or fighting, especially right now. But there was just something about being compared to an animal that rubbed her the wrong way.
Because that’s what he really thinks of you, she thought irritably. His sweet little pet, nips at his heels and knows a few tricks and is awfully cute when she tries. Sit, Rose. Speak, Rose! Play dead! Good girl!
Not to mention the number of owners that have no trouble leaving their pets behind when it’s time to move away.
Lost in thought, Rose didn’t notice the crumbling earth until it was too late and she was already slipping. But the Doctor grabbed her hand before she could slide too far, setting her back upright.
“I’ve got it, thanks,” Rose grumbled, pulling her hand away.
“You sure? You seem a little—”
“I said I’ve got it.”
The Doctor frowned. “You didn’t happen to sustain a concussion in the fall, did you?”
“Would it make a difference if I had?” she snapped.
With a great huff, the Doctor stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “All right,” he said impatiently. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or have I got to guess?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Let’s just keep moving.”
“Nope, not until you tell me what’s eating you.”
“Why, are you going to pretend to care now?”
The Doctor blinked in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I care!”
Humming impatiently, Rose rubbed at her temple, pushing against the ache threatening to blossom there. God, but she was thirsty. She was going to get a migraine soon from the dehydration, she could just tell.
“It’s nothing, forget it,” Rose sighed. “Let’s just go, yeah?”
“Why won’t you tell me what’s going on, though? One minute you’re fine, next minute, it’s the end of the world—you said I hurt you, chattered a whole bunch of veiled nonsense about abandonment and expiration dates and betrayal, and now you won’t say anything at all. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“Guess you don’t know everything about everything, then,” Rose shot back, stepping around the Doctor so she could continue her climb.
The Doctor groaned in frustration as he followed after her. “Oh, excellent, more opaque, snippy little barbs. Love those. So wonderfully helpful! Honestly, you’ve been a right pain ever since—”
“France?”
“Yes,” the Doctor said, impatience evident in the tension of his voice. “Since France, whatever that’s got to do with anything.”
Rose laughed nastily. “Right, yeah, whatever could France have to do with anything?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Rose,” the Doctor sighed, and Rose heard his feet scuff to a stop behind her. “Just spit it out already!”
Rose slowed to a halt, worrying her lip. “Do you really want to talk about this right now? Or ever?”
She turned back to look at the Doctor, found him standing with crossed arms and furrowed brow and pinched mouth, as if to say, Get on with it, then.
Well. If he was going to give her an honest-to-goodness opening, then Rose should take it, right? No matter what the sick little feeling in her stomach said. She could do this. She wasn’t the one afraid to have a proper conversation.
(But if she really wasn’t afraid, then why hadn’t she said anything yet?)
She pulled down the handkerchief and twisted it in her hands, grateful for something to distract them with. “You left Mickey and me behind,” Rose said quietly. “On the space station, when you jumped through that mirror.”
“Yes, and?”
Taken aback, Rose laughed uncertainly. “And it was sort of a stupid thing to do? And it hurt our feelings? And it made us scared? And we were worried about you? And we didn’t know if or when you’d get back, or we’d get home again? That enough and’s for you?”
“But it all turned out for the best, didn’t it? Everything’s fine, everyone’s fine, it all worked out in the end. So what’s the problem?”
“You didn’t know any of that when you jumped through, though,” Rose insisted. “For all you knew, you could have been stuck for hundreds or even thousands of years!”
“Nah,” said the Doctor, waving a hand dismissively. “I would have just hitched a ride with an earlier me. I’m bound to show up in France every other decade or so.”
“A decade?” Rose asked, her voice shaking. “Maybe that’s just a blink for you, but that would’ve been a long time for Mickey and me, stranded on that station.”
“Nope! The Emergency Programme would have kicked in long before that, taken you right back home, quick as you like,” the Doctor countered, stepping up the mountainside until they stood almost face-to-face. “Then hey presto, my younger self stops for a visit at merry old Versailles after a few years in my timeline, brings me back straightaway in your timeline. You wouldn’t have even had time to miss me.”
“Want to bet?” Rose muttered sadly.
An awkward silence fell between them, punctuated only by the sounds of the fires cracking and spitting behind the Doctor. He studied Rose’s face openly, searching, like her expression might reveal something her words didn’t.
She looked away. “It’s just...why’d you have to do it that way? You didn’t have to leave me and Mickey behind. We could’ve taken the TARDIS to a nearby town or something, or hopped back to Versailles a few minutes before the time windows opened up, right?”
“Er, technically, yes, I suppose either of those options would have worked,” the Doctor conceded, tugging uncomfortably on one ear. “Still, what’s done is done. The timelines are protected, that’s what matters.”
“And...is that all that matters?” Rose asked. She knew she was treading on thin ice; instead of retreating, she inched out a tentative foot, exploring just a little further. “Is that the only reason you did it, I mean?”
“Well, yes. What else would there be?”
Drawing in a deep breath, Rose steeled herself. She would have to give a little to get a little, she knew; she couldn’t expect to make any progress unless she ventured out onto the ice properly, ignoring the spiderweb-cracks that fanned out beneath her feet. She wrapped her arms around herself as a defense against the chill.
“I wasn’t really thinking of a what,” she said slowly, “so much as a who.”
The Doctor arched an eyebrow in suspicion and Rose braced herself, oh god, here it came, the judgment and disgust, the awkwardness, the rejection; Rose could feel it washing over her like a plunge into Arctic waters.
“Ah,” said the Doctor, quietly. “Ah.”
Rose gulped.
“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, his voice soft, contemplative. Then, Rose watched as his face split into a slow and wicked grin. “Rose Tyler,” he said again, and now his words were warm with mischief. “You are jealous!”
“Wait—what?” spluttered Rose, her cheeks flushing hotly beneath his gaze. “No! No, that’s not at all what I—”
“So Mickey was right. Fascinating,” the Doctor marveled, chuckling. “Travel with humans for a millennia, you’d think you’d be used to it all by now, but you lot still surprise me sometimes. But that’s what’s been bothering you this whole time? The jealousy?”
“No,” Rose said stubbornly, rubbing her hands over her gooseflesh-prickled arms. How could she blush so hotly and still feel so damn cold all at the same time?
“And to think, I almost fell for your little charade earlier,” the Doctor laughed. “Rose Tyler, jealous!”
“Was not,” Rose muttered, wrapping her arms around herself more snugly.
The Doctor smiled a knowing smile and shrugged out of his overcoat, stepping forward to drape it around Rose’s shoulders. “Were so,” he teased.
“Was not.”
Stepping nearer, the Doctor drew the coat tightly around Rose, pulling the lapels together across her chest. His hands never touched her, never so much as brushed over the fabric, but they hovered so close Rose could practically feel their heat through the coat. She was suddenly blisteringly aware of his proximity and just how much flesh her thin silk dress exposed. She begged her body not to flush any further, not to give her away.
“Were so,” said the Doctor again, beaming in self-satisfaction, and god, he was so stupid and pretty and smug, Rose couldn’t decide if she should smack him or kiss him. It didn’t help that his coat was lovely and warm and smelled of him, that curious clean smell somewhere between the smoke of a wood stove and freshly fallen snow, and his hands were stalling on the coat-lapels, like he was reluctant to move away, and he was standing close enough that they were certainly breathing the air from each other’s lungs, and—
And god, what was wrong with her?
Years of repressing these ridiculous notions—it had only gotten worse after he came out looking like this, all fantastic hair and flirtatious grin and boyish charm, but those feelings had always been there, always, even if Rose had done her damnedest to stomp them down—and all it took to undo that hard work was two bare minutes’-worth of conversation and meaningful looks? Just how many other silly human girls had thought all the same things, fallen into all of the same traps as her? How many of them had trailed after him just like this, inches away and universes apart, fantasizing about grabbing him by the hair and snogging that stupid grin off his face? How many of them felt these feelings and dreamed these dreams only to be overcome later with disgust and self-loathing, when they remembered that he would never feel anything for them in return, that he was so much older and wiser and grander and so much more alien than any of them could ever be?
But the way he looked at her, with a smile twinkling in the corners of his eyes—but the way he said her name—but the way he always grabbed her hand—
With a shake of her head, Rose squeezed her eyes shut. If she couldn’t see him, then she couldn’t get distracted by his stupid hands and stupid hair and stupid kissable mouth.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re trying to deflect. Answering my questions with more questions, and turning everything around on me, and trying to get my attention elsewhere, and—and—and other distract-y things.”
“Mmm, well-put. Is it working?”
Rose opened her eyes to find him watching her still, his gaze hooded and dark, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. And with the way he kept glancing down at her lips—well, if she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was planning to kiss her.
“Yes,” she admitted breathlessly, and prepared to drown.
And almost as if she had looked into the heart of the TARDIS all over again, she could sense how this would all play out, could track each and every fateful string weaving in and out in this little tapestry of theirs; she could catalogue the incline of his head, the subtle dilation of his pupils, the flutter of his lashes as he calculated optimum angles and pressure and friction. She could feel how his grip would tighten around the coat lapels, nervous but sure, closing what little space remained between them. His breath would kiss her lips first, his mouth after, pressing gently. Rose’s ribs would seize in a gasp, and her hands would land on his chest, striving for balance as shock shot through her; already she could feel the scratchy wool of his suit beneath her fingers, fibers clinging to the ridges of her fingerprints like they’d never let go. His double pulse would hammer beneath her fingertips, speeding up at her touch, and her own pulse would crash thunderously in her ears. Rose imagined how the Doctor’s hands would drop to her waist as he deepened the kiss, opening his mouth against hers, and she thought of the buzz that would fill her head at the sensation, a feeling like fizzing and falling and flying worse than anything she’d experienced in the air just moments before. He would pull her snug against him and she would bury her fingers in that glorious hair of his, because yes, she had been looking, of course she had, who was she kidding, anyway? And when she would pull back for a lungful of air, because not everyone is blessed with a respiratory bypass, she would only have half a moment before the Doctor chased after her, and the kiss would transform into an urgent thing, the Doctor coaxing her tongue into his mouth because even if he’d never admit, it drove him just a little bit mad every time she trapped her tongue between her teeth in that cheeky little grin of hers, and it was his turn this time. He would kiss her and taste her and cling to her as if she might vanish at any moment, and that would be it. She’d be gone. She’d be lost. There would be no coming back, not for her, not ever.
(And then, because this really was just a distraction—because even if he was looking at her like that, it wasn’t Rose he was thinking of—then it would all be over, and even though it would burn and ache in Rose’s chest every time she thought about it, the Doctor would pretend it had never happened. They would never talk about it again.)
The Doctor leaned in and, cursing herself with every hurtful invective she could summon, Rose turned her head.
She stepped back.
A moment passed in horrible silence. Finally, eyes wide with surprise, the Doctor backed off. His lips parted as if he might speak, probably to ask any number of questions, but whatever words might have come out, he must have swallowed them. Pocketing her makeshift handkerchief, Rose unwound the Doctor’s fingers from the coat lapels hanging about her neck, pulling his hands away from her body.
She couldn’t meet his gaze anymore.
“Just, erm,” Rose started to say, and stopped. She was trembling again, though she certainly wasn’t cold any longer. She closed her eyes; maybe that would make things easier.
“Look,” she sighed. “Doctor, I—”
“Oh my god, Rose!” a familiar voice rang out, and Rose turned to see Mickey sprinting toward her round the mountainside, coughing and fanning smoke out of his eyes. “Rose, you’re alive!”
Rose risked a glance at the Doctor, only to find him staring at her in confusion.
Oh, god. Why did Mickey have to find them right now?
“God, I thought you were dead,” Mickey laughed, pulling Rose into a hard hug. “What the hell happened? And where’d the dragon go? And how the heck did you manage to survive that explosion?”
“Explosion?” Rose asked, startled. “Wait—is that why everything’s on fire?”
“Well, yeah—don’t you remember—?”
“Ah, yes, the dragon might’ve exploded a bit,” interrupted the Doctor, “but we were thrown off long before that happened. Now that’s what I call luck!”
“The dragon exploded?” Rose asked in alarm, but the Doctor just brushed past her, overlapping her words with, “So the others have gone ahead, then? Brilliant! Shall we play a bit of catch-up?”
“That’s the plan,” Mickey replied, but his eyes kept darting to Rose’s face, as if he was trying to puzzle something out. (That made two of them, didn’t it?)
“Excellent, good plan, very astute.” The Doctor grabbed Rose by the hand and took off at a sprint, pulling her along. “Let’s go claim some wives, shall we!”
“Don’t forget, we’ve got more Champions to look out for as well!”
“That’s what makes it fun!” the Doctor shouted back at Mickey. “Now come along, Mr. Smith—we’ve got a Championship to win!”
***
“Where are they?” Vareem asked, chewing nervously on her lip as her hooves tapped an impatient tattoo on the citadel floor. Not that Dyana could hear it; the speakers had switched back on sometime in the last few minutes and now the chatter and cheers of the audience could be heard again, their voices bouncing around the walls of the citadel and the stadium and Dyana’s skull. Between that and the stream of Champions cycling through, screaming their victory through the speakers each time one of them slammed the great red button and claimed their prize, Dyana was about to claw her eardrums out.
“Shouldn’t Mickey be here by now?” Vareem continued. “Should we be worried?”
“Yeah, we should,” Dyana replied, peering down the mountainside. Several specks moved up the mountain, running their way, but they were still too far off for her to make out whether they were friend or foe.
Vareem dragged her hands through her hair. “What about one of your people, can they claim us?”
“If they haven’t all already come and gone, yeah, sure. But I think they all probably got out in the first wave.”
Rolling her eyes, Vareem groaned. “This was a really rubbish plan, you know that?”
“Yeah, well, next time someone tries to enslave us, you can come up with the plan. Okay?”
Vareem mumbled something under her breath, but beneath the overwhelming susurrus of the murmuring crowd, Dyana didn’t catch it; besides, she was too busy watching the approaching specks, now close enough that they were starting to take form. Those closest to her, she could identify as Rose and her friends—so Rose and her Doctor had survived after all, what a pleasant surprise for once—but the others closing in—
“Rose, behind you!” Dyana shouted, snatching the boomerang out of Vareem’s hands before she ran down the mountainside. She drew her arm back, ready to throw her weapon at the nearest Champion, but they had closed the gap and now this one was too close to the Doctor, that one was too close to Mickey, and more were coming, all of them focused on the two men.
“Take her!” said the Doctor, shoving Rose into Dyana’s arms before several Champions seized him by the arms and legs. The audience cheered all around them, clapping and howling as the Champions pinned the Doctor’s arms behind his back. “Get up to the citadel!” he shouted.
“What about you two?” Rose shot back.
“We’ll be fine—just go!”
Dyana yanked Rose away just before the Champions wrestled the Doctor to the ground, forcing Mickey down as well. One Champion withdrew a sword from its sheath and the audience roared.
“They’re gonna kill them!” Rose cried, pulling back, but Dyana just gritted her teeth and dragged her along.
“Oh, no you don’t!” she shouted, heaving Rose up the mountain with every ounce of her considerable strength. “I will be damned before I let this Championship claim another friend!”
“We’ve got company,” said Vareem the moment they hit the citadel; darting over to the other side of the floor, Dyana looked down the mountain to see yet more Champions rushing up toward them. Soon, they would be surrounded—
Soon they would all be claimed.
Next to her, Rose balled her hands into fists, watching frantically as Champions approached from all sides. “Do we fight?” she asked. “What do we do?”
She looked to Dyana for guidance, but Dyana’s thoughts were empty, her brain totally at a loss amidst the never-ending noise from the audience and their doom slowly encroaching upon them.
“I—I don’t know,” she said numbly, her voice barely audible over the audience. She’d half-expected to die in this Championship; she certainly had not planned to get this far, only to be captured now. “There’s no one else to claim us now, I don’t know, I don’t—”
“Wait, wait,” Vareem breathed, her face lighting up. “Oh, ladies. We’re all idiots.”
Before anyone could ask her what she meant, just as the audience began screaming for blood and glory while the first of the Champions crossed the citadel threshold with their weapons drawn, Vareem flew to the center of the room and hit the red button with a great big smack.
“We claim ourselves!” she shouted, and the speakers boomed her voice echoed throughout the arena, bouncing it over and over between the stadium walls. “We are our own Champions! We claim ourselves!”
The Champions stilled and the audience fell quiet around them. Silence descended with a thickness you could feel, a heaviness you could taste.
Dyana’s throat seized up, her breath trapped inside.
Did Vareem just—did she really—
“Oh my god,” Rose muttered, eyes wide in shock. “Did that actually work?”
Anyway I’m depressed as hell but shout out to me for doing small things to keep myself from falling into the void. Things like making my bed,taking care of Challa, eating on time and exercising.
I have lost 14lbs guys!! Very happy with myself (: I had a great weekend with friends from high school and during that I lost 2 pounds. I'm so glad I'm hardly ever sad these days. Proof that is does get better after high school. 💕😇
