preserved_ginger

Title: You Cannot Live As I Have Lived (And Not Turn Out Like This)
Rating: PG-13
Beta(s):

principia_coh
Setting: post-Voyage of the Damned
Character(s): Ten. Rose (off-camera). Mentions of Brother Lassa, Sarah Jane and Reinette.
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose
Spoilers: Mentions of events from mid- to late Season Two
A/N: A series of ficlets that looks at how a member of a people "peaceful to the point of indolence" could turn into the Valeyard. The title comes from the book of the same name by Terence Blacker.
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose
Summary: The moment he gave himself permission to fall.

How lonely you must be, Doctor, Brother Lassa had taunted him.

But that was just it, he hadn’t been lonely. Not then. Not when he still had her, the love of all his lives.

And how he'd fought bitterly against that knowledge, for the longest time, refusing to accept that she meant so much more to him that she ought to have done. He'd tried his best to push her away, with Sarah Jane, and Reinette, and Chaos knew how many others, but she – the steadfast, honest, loving woman she was, so much more than he'd ever deserved – faced all that and more, and still she loved him.

When he'd finally copped to the fact that she would love him whatever he did, it was in that very same moment he gave himself permission to let himself fall.

Never one to do things by halves, he fell for her very hard indeed – and enjoyed every second of it. Until he hit – metaphorically, of course – the cold, hard ground of that Norwegian beach.

Alone.