Refuge

[preserved_ginger]

Title: Refuge
Rating: U
Character(s): Ten
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Spoilers: None; set at the wall scene in Doomsday.
Notes: This was inspired by this picture, and Psalm 31. The italicised quotes are from the Psalm, using the Jerusalem Bible translation.
Summary: Steadfast and stubborn, possessive of her in that way people are when they’ve one precious person whom they cannot bear to lose. The Doctor reflects.

Be my rampart, my fortification

Funny, isn’t it? For all she is the one person he believes in, he never thought to consider what the corollary might be if he let himself invest emotionally in her as he’d ached to do from the moment he regenerated for love of her. The fragile human who one day he’d lose, whatever he did. He didn’t let himself think about what might happen when he lost her, too, did he? By then, of course, he was in love, deeply in love with her and letting his feelings for her deepen even further until he couldn’t imagine what it would be like without her, and it didn’t matter what he thought. It was way too late to change anything.

For you are my strength and my refuge

And he’d clung to her, hadn’t he? Steadfast and stubborn, possessive of her in that way people are when they’ve one precious person whom they cannot bear to lose. She’d told him years before that she’d never leave him, and he needed her so much by that stage that he made himself believe her, whilst all the time knowing that one day something would prove her a liar. But his need was so great that he was willing to endure the pain in store for him, no matter how much it would hurt. How could he have done differently?

You will lead me out of the trap that they laid for me

He believed in her, more than anyone. Without words, he proved day after day what she was to him. Sharing a bed. The slide of a tongue against another. Such simple things. And did she save him from himself?

Of course she did.

He just never expected to have to lose her in the process.

Comments

[glory_jean]

*sob*

Absolutely lovely.

[maniacalshen.livejournal.com]

:(

Very nice choice of Psalm and a good fic.

[humansrsuperior.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was just beautiful. I especially love the last few lines, about her saving him but losing her in the process. *sighhhhhhhhhh!* Oh my heart aches. ♥

[helygen.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, and heartbreaking

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

You made me tear up.

[caterwolime.livejournal.com]

*wibble*

Lovely fic :)