New chapter! Unbeta'd - Mistakes all mine. Hope you guys enjoy!
The most puzzling fact was that he could not think of one legitimate reason he’d stayed all day and night in a place where he was clearly not wanted nor needed.
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| Tenth Doctor, Torchwood | |
Never Say Never by Kimori1024 [Reviews - 58]  Chapter or Story Author's Notes: | |
They all arrived at the flat safe and sound, as sound as four very confused and shaken up people could be anyway. Rose had already taken off up the familiar flight of stars at the front of the building when Tori bid goodbye to Ianto and received all contact information for Torchwood. With that boy Rob still by her side, the Doctor took the opportunity to follow the blonde up to the apartment.
He doesn’t call out her name; he doesn’t even try to get her attention. The silent car ride clearly showed just how much she wanted to speak to him. He knew he could have said something as well; maybe she wasn’t the only one not ready to talk. She placed the key in the lock and then roughly shut the door behind her, locking him out.
“Oh... come on...” He regretted letting Jack force him into coming with her as the door slammed inches from his nose. He was curious about what had happened and why she was here, of course. But by the same token, he’d left her on that beach for her own good. She didn’t need him, she was better off with out him and he didn’t need her. Thrusting his hand deep into his coat pocket he fished out his trusty sonic screwdriver. This one was new and he couldn’t wait to test it out properly; he’d had to make a new once since he’d left the other with River. Breaking into a flat he swore never to see again wasn’t what he had had in mind for its first use.
“Oi, mum!” Tori rushed up beside him as the blue light forced a reluctant click from the lock. The brunette pushed past him thanklessly as she ran inside. “Thanks for shutting us out! Good lord... Sometimes you’d think I was her mother.”
The mouthy girl gave him a warning glare before snatching the hand of, well he assumed he was her boyfriend of sorts though he wasn’t too sure about the hair, and disappearing into a room he knew to once have been Jackie Tyler’s. That day, so long ago, when he’d found himself being seduced, badly if he must say, by that woman felt so far away. This was a completely different flat and he was quite literally a very different man.
The flat felt like a ghost town. All of the pictures on the walls, the magazines on the table, all completely untouched. He examined an article on the front page of the Sun. Ghosts Take Over London. A small smile crossed his lips as his mind traveled back to that day; ghosts, Cybermen, Daleks and the void — the beginning of the end.
A door slammed shocking him back to the present. He made his way down the corridor; Tori had apparently been the one to shut the door. The other bedroom door was slightly ajar. He could hear soft sounds coming through the tiny crack; the rustle of some sort of fabric and small muted sobs. The sign on the door still proudly stated ‘Rose’s Room’ in a small child’s handwriting on a little piece of cardboard decorated in glitter and hearts. Pink string and a hook hung it up high for all to see, though it said completely nothing of the woman inside.
The Doctor didn’t dare disturb her as he carefully placed his specs on his nose and peeked into the room. Any person of morality would tell him it was wrong to invade one’s privacy like this; lucky for him, he’d lost all sense of morality long ago. At first, he couldn’t even see the source of the sounds in the room and began to wonder if his old ears were playing tricks on him. But he could smell the fear, the salt from her tears; he could feel the sorrow.
Eventually his eyes settled on the center of the bed, on an unmoving ball of black beaten leather. Her face was buried inside as she lay on the pink duvet she had picked out for her seventeenth birthday. He pictured her face when she’d told him about the pink fluffy set; her face was a similar rosy shade at the time. He remembered thinking that it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen; her cheeks flushed after making love to him as they waited for her mum to return from the shops. They’d giggled like children when Jackie had finally come back. But her mother would never come back here again. He swallowed, pushing the memory down to where he’d hidden it, ignoring the tightness in his chest.
The body on the bed shivered and she wrapped the jacket tighter around her body as the soft crying sounds increased in intensity. He had no idea she’d kept his old jacket here all this time. He’d never even thought of what had happened to it, trying his best to separate himself from the weathered and torn soldier he once was. A harsh northern accent in his head mocked him for his thoughts; for that broken man was more whole than he could ever hope to be.
Something deep inside of him wanted to go to her, wanted to hold that woman who continued to hold his hearts in the palm of her hand. His fingers found their way to the door knob. He could hear her weep and hiccup, the leather rustling around her body as she tossed around on the bed. He braced himself to open the door when he heard her voice.
“It’s not fair.... Just s’not fair... John, s’not fair! Why him....”
He didn’t need to hear anymore. His hand dropped from the knob and the Doctor walked away into the living room.
The day had gone by far faster than he’d expected. The Doctor found himself the next morning on a sofa in the Tyler’s flat, his mouth dry with the taste of old tea. The events of the day before began to play though his mind. The eventful morning and the far less eventful afternoon and evening, of which he’d spent alone on said sofa with tea way past its sell-by and his brain slowly rotting while staring at the telly. The most puzzling fact was that he could not think of one legitimate reason he’d stayed all day and night in a place where he was clearly not wanted nor needed.
Then the reason decided to make an appearance. She was no longer wearing his old jacket, just the sweatpants and t-shirt from yesterday minus the pink hoodie she’d had on before. He sat up on the couch and their eyes met as Rose made her way into the tiny kitchen area. He felt his hands of their own accord rush up to his hair, ruffling it to make it presentable. His glasses hung halfway off his face, only clinging on by one ear and he could consciously feel saliva encrusted on his chin. Perfect.
Her lips moved and she seemed just about to speak when the brunette walked into the room and proceeded to do all of the talking needed. “You’re still here? Haven’t you caused enough trouble?!” The blonde took the opportunity to dart back out of the room and back into the one she had come from down the hall.
The Doctor glared at her but she glared back with an equal intensity that actually, to his surprise, made him turn away and focus back on the TV screen. He flipped it on casually, though he wasn’t paying any attention. He only pretended to be completely absorbed in some breaking news story about wolves in a London zoo returning to normal behavior.
“It is your fault she’s actin’ like this... I mean, I don’t know how the hell we got here, wherever here is, but it has gotta have something to do with you. I don’t know where the hell you get off looking like him,” the girl spoke, her voice icy at his back.
“Like who?” He decided to play dumb and flip through the TV stations. A documentary about a struggling bee farmer graced the screen.
“I think you know...” She waited but he didn’t answer, allowing her to continue. “My dad, when he was young. It’s like looking at a picture of him from when I was a baby. From hair all the way down to style, you’re his spitting image. Like a clone or something.”
“When he was young?” This caught his attention as he spun his head around to stare at the girl. And as if he was seeing her for the first time, he could see his jaw, his cheekbones and his hair tousled around the girl’s shoulders; even his eyes, sort of. “What do you mean, ‘used to look’? How old is he now? Where is he?” He’d kill that man if he left them, and suddenly he felt protective towards this girl who looked so much like he did. Even though, she wasn’t his to care for.
“He’s dead... ” The blue of her eyes became steely and vacant.
He was silent and she continued again. “It’s been a bit over a year now, but we’re fine.” Emotion sparked in her tone, though it didn’t feel like sadness. “We can cope without him. Me and mum can survive without anyone, which includes you... Doctor, was it?”
“But that doesn’t make any sense... You’re mum looks just as I left her and you... well, you are far too old for this to work. And if he’s gone then....” Then what he’d thought earlier had been true. She’s been going through hell all this time and he’d left her that way. Never aging, never changing; watching everything she cared about decay and die.
“Everything changes and everything dies, Doctor...” Her blue eyes were far away and he could see the pain. A sleepy grunt came from one of the bedrooms and he saw her swallow at the sound of the boy from earlier.
The Doctor decided to change the subject and took the Captain’s advice. “Sooo..... Anything you want me to know about you?”
“Why?” Tori looked at him indignantly, but the far off sadness was completely gone. She tugged on her tanktop and flannel bottoms that used to be her mum’s that she’d slept in. He recognized the sleep wear and suddenly the girl that had just been so strong arguing with him looked like such a small child. Maybe she wouldn’t be so bad; maybe she wouldn’t be just like him.
“I don’t know... Maybe I’d just like to know about you?” He tried his best to grin at her friendly, but she just continued to stare at him. It was a difficult challenge making him feel awkward; one of which she’d taken up and won hands down.
“Weeeelll....” her tongue rolled over the word, her head slinging back in exaggerated thought. That was his ‘well’ and he knew it. Then her head popped back up without warning and startled him, his glasses allowing the opportunity to fall completely off his nose and to the floor. “I used to pee the bed when I was a kid.”
“Ah...” Not what he’d expected. His expression must have shown that vividly as she suddenly mirrored his earlier grin. Seeing his smile paired with Rose’s lips on this frankly frightening child was more than a bit unnerving and she was making the most of his discomfort.
“What too descriptive... daddy,” she added sarcastically. The comment cut him much deeper than he though it would. He swallowed, but found the lump forming in his throat had other plans. He could hear his hearts pound in his ears, every drop of blood vividly flow in and out of the clenching muscles.
“No, I said I wanted to know anything... and well, everything.”
“You know, he used to change my sheets every night when I was a little girl. He never complained either. I love my dad, he...” She swallowed, as if forcing the words out. “He was the perfect man.” She stared at him coldly. He recognized that stare from his Ninth self — cold, hard and unrelenting. Damn, she was good. “But you ain’t him. ‘N you never will be.”
“No... I suppose not.” He could have said so many other things, so many things with so much more meaning. They ran though his head — I never said I wanted to be... I’m not trying to...But I want you to be mine... Why aren’t you mine?! But instead, he said what he always did. The single cheapest line in the English, or any of the other five billion languages he could have rattled it off in. “I’m sorry.”
“Right, so if you don’t mind. And well, honestly, even if you do, kindly shove off. Thanks.” Her back turned and she entered the kitchen before he could take another breath. His pulse raced and it dawned on him just how quickly he was breathing as he slumped back onto the sofa, his eyes unable to focus on the TV screen.
And then she called back to him from the other room. Just as he thought he couldn’t handle anymore, she destroyed him. “You know, Doctor... Mum knows you’re not him too.” With that, the door slammed shattering the silence and his hearts.
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