You Cannot Live As I Have Lived (And Not Turn Out Like This) (3/?)

[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). Mention of Pete Tyler.
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose
Spoilers: Mentions of events in Doomsday
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: There's nothing worth having that doesn't hurt in the losing

One

Two

Despite all that he’d had going for him, here he was, not all that far into his tenth incarnation, and already he was showing the worrying signs of doing precisely what he'd sworn he'd never do — turning into the Valeyard.

He'd forcibly reined himself in when Rose had been around; she’d served as a constant reminder that the universe still deserved his best, and often had to remind him of this — sometimes in the most literal of ways. He'd loved her enough to make the conscious decision not to burden her with the knowledge of just how dark he could be. And those years he'd been with her were some of the happiest in all his lives, and (for someone to whom the mere idea of human domesticity was anathema) he'd gone as close to "being domestic" for her as he ever would. He'd even told her he loved her, something he'd never told anyone before; the reward he'd received had been beyond his wildest dreams, and then she’d promised him "for ever". He'd come so very close to believing it.

Oh, who was he trying to fool?

He'd been so deeply in love with her by that point that he would have believed, did believe, anything she told him; up to and including “for ever”, even though he had known that their life-spans were different enough to make that impossible. He'd known that losing her would hurt in ways he’d never imagined: if he didn't hold something of himself back, then the pain would be beyond reckoning. He'd known all this. Known what the consequences would be. Yet he still couldn't stop himself from making her ever more necessary to him.

And then he'd lost her — watched her tumble towards the howling Void, completely unable to do anything to stop it. The universe had been benevolent enough to repay her kindnesses with survival — never mind what he had deserved — but still she was gone, where he could never reach her.

Losing her had finally destroyed him, had done what even the Time War had failed to do.

He'd been in a daze for weeks, months, after that — his body and mind screaming for her — unable to fully acknowledge what had happened. He had known he wouldn't have for ever with her, had known and acknowledged the fact whilst encouraging her to say it, but although he'd known it would hurt (and nothing worth having would not hurt in the losing) he'd never in his worst nightmares ever really let himself comprehend that it would hurt this much to lose her.

He was glad (really only just) that Rose hadn't fallen into the Void, that her not-father had made it through in time to protect her; to do the job he was supposed to have done himself, to save her. And the only reason he was barely glad of it was because he was well aware by then that he would never have let her stay trapped in that Void. He would have risked the hounds of hell — the Reapers, or whatever worse nightmares awaited him there — rather than let her stay in there to die. Or worse still, to live.

That conversation he’d had with her on a beach in Norway while he’d been leeching from the embers of a dying sun just to see her, to speak with her that one last time, hadn't been enough. Had been nowhere near enough… if he was willing to even consider risking, through grief and anger, the destruction of two Universes simply to reach out to the woman he loved, the woman who completed him in ways he couldn't begin to express to her or anyone else, was there really so much difference in substance between him and the Valeyard?

Never mind the matter of the baby. Or the not-baby. That conversation at Dårlig ulv Stranden had left him with the disturbing conviction that Rose was almost certainly pregnant by him, yet lying to protect him. Despite everything he had done to her, all the pain he'd caused her, she loved him enough to protect him. She'd meant only good by it, but in many ways the lie had done nothing except make the pain still worse.

He’d not been lying when he told Rose that for him to come through would destroy both universes. He knew this because he’d carefully worked out the means for that trip, down to the last calculation, which told him it would always end in destruction. Despite that, he’d somehow never managed to erase that dangerous knowledge from the the TARDIS’ databanks. Every day without her was a waking nightmare, and he found himself unable to stop desperately examining that certainty, found himself becoming less sure of the enormity of that risk. He was becoming ever-more willing to embrace some infinitesimal chance to be with her again — with or without the worlds coming crashing down around their heads.

And it made him wonder just what he was capable of, now that it seemed the brakes were off.

Comments

[kitty-cate.livejournal.com]

beautiful. i love it. seems just like how Ten would feel.

i hope this has a happy ending. i love happy endings. i cry when i watch even PART of 'Army of Ghosts' or 'Doomsday,' when it's not even the sad part. when it's all happy fun time, like with the 3D glasses. i get sad when i even hear the song that plays as the two are at the wall. *overemotional*

[bananasandroses.livejournal.com]

i hope this has a happy ending

I think that’s highly unlikely, in this ’verse at least.

[wiggiemomsi.livejournal.com]

Such heartbreaking introspection...I, too, hope this is going to have a happy ending. He deserves it -- and Rose.

[bananasandroses.livejournal.com]

Such heartbreaking introspection...I, too, hope this is going to have a happy ending. He deserves it -- and Rose.

Since the Valeyard shows up in this fic at some stage (if I ever manage to finish it, that is, which right now seems increasingly unlikely), happy endings are gonna be at a premium in this ’verse.

[maniacalshen.livejournal.com]

Well-articulated and beautiful. :)

[bananasandroses.livejournal.com]

Well-articulated and beautiful. :)

Ta!

[requialexa.livejournal.com]

You know better than most how much darkness I see in the Doctor, especially Ten. I love what you've done here. I love that you had him holding his darkness in check for Rose's sake. The whole thing, even the maybe!baby--I really like it, and it sits well with the series.

[bananasandroses.livejournal.com]

I love that you had him holding his darkness in check for Rose's sake.

He’d do anything for her, that dear man; even that.