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preserved_gingerCharacter(s): Ten. Mentions throughout of Rose and Donna
Pairing: Ten I/Rose
Rating: 12 / PG
Disclaimer: Not mine
A/N: The Ten muse has been talkative lately. This is another post-Journey’s End introspective from his POV. Canon-compliant. The title is from the poem And nothing is ever as you want to be by Brian Patten.
Spoilers: Plot/dialogue for 4X13, including missing scene; dialogue and themes from 2X04, 2X09, 2X11, 2X12, 3X03 and 3X09.
Summary: You live and learn.
“How long are you going to stay with me?”
He was his own worst enemy, sometimes. Didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.
“Time I moved on.”
He’d told her that he’d be all right – even if that wasn’t really true. But it had been the only way he could steel himself to let her go – keeping her safe, what could possibly be more important than that? – and what was a tiny little lie against keeping Rose safe, for ever?
“I’d hoped ... but my hopes aren’t important.”
Was it really the only reason? Probably not. He’d lied to Rose, said that he would have Donna with him, because he liked it – because just for a little while, he could pretend. Just for a bit. He could allow himself the luxury of a day-dream, letting himself imagine that maybe everything was going to be all right. After all, he was always ‘all right’, wasn’t he? It didn’t last, of course; it went pear-shaped in the end, like things tended to do around him.
“Now I am alone. I hate it. It’s not fair. And I hate it!”
He feels guilty about having to take Donna’s memories from her – even if it had been the only way to save her life; he’d not have her death on his conscience. Not her physical death, at any rate – although the fact that the Donna he’d travelled with, the Donna who had helped him deal with losing Rose, was ‘dead’ and by his hand would stay with him for a long, long time.
“The man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame.”
The time he spent with Donna's mother and grandfather explaining to them why Donna could remember nothing of what she'd seen and done with him shredded him inside, but it was the last thing he could do for Donna after she had done so much for everyone else. Himself included.
“I just want you to know, there are worlds out there, safe in the sky because of her. That there are people living in the light, and singing songs of Donna Noble. A thousand million light years away. They will never forget her, while she can never remember.”
And now he was alone. He couldn’t quite shake the idea that he deserved it in a way, for lying to Rose when all he needed to do was to tell her the truth and she’d have stayed with him. Part of him had been screaming against the idea in his head since he’d first thought of it; all of him had hated executing it. It had felt oddly like a betrayal, at the time.
“I’ve spent all that time trying to find you; I’m not going back now.”
He turned towards the console, half-heartedly punching in co-ordinates to take him away from here. Donna’s face and what he had done to her were part of him in a way that he knew meant he’d carry the guilt for ever, but it wasn’t Donna who he couldn’t get out of his mind. It was Rose.
“I said ‘Rose Tyler’.”
“Yeah?...and how was that sentence gonna end?”
“Does it need saying?”
He’d practically forced her to choose the other one of him. It had made sense, at the time, in a round-about sort of way. He needed her to remain safe, and he knew the best way to do that was to seal her away from his enemies for ever. But he couldn’t help but think that perhaps there might have been a better way. Still, too late now. He’d have to live with the guilt of it like everything else. Maybe he’d let it choke him, this time.
“But he’s not you.”
He’d thought that the abiding image he’d have of Rose would be of her kissing that other him – something that had hurt enough that he’d be able to get over her this time, like he’d tried and failed miserably to do after Canary Wharf. But that wasn’t how it turned out – then again, when did things ever turn out the way he wanted them to?
“Oh my God … he finally found you!”
No. The image he has of Rose is one of a girl on the cusp of womanhood, but who had not yet lost the whole of her childhood’s innocence. The Rose he fell in love with all that time ago.
“If you get back in touch... if you talk to Rose... just tell her... tell her I…”
And as he travelled, alone again, he had time in abundance and he found himself day-dreaming during the day and, when he slept, dreaming dreams he couldn’t forget if he tried. And those recurring dreams weren’t so much of Gallifrey, not any more. No, they were of a planet with pink and yellow skies and rocky landscape, with inhabitants that looked like fish but soared in the sky like eagles. And of the blonde-haired girl in a black jacket he’d been with there who’d promised him her heart. When he wakes from these dreams, it’s all he can do not to weep – for Donna Noble’s not the only one in this universe whose life was changed irrevocably for ever. He’ll never see Rose again, and to know that this time it was all his own doing makes the pain even harder to tolerate. It was a mistake; he knew that, now. And he’d have given anything to be able to go back and change it – but he knew he couldn’t. So the words of her promise would ring in his ears for ever, some kind of purgatory he’d never get out of:
“How long are you going to stay with me?”
“For ever.”
