kalleah | Voyages of Discovery (Chapter Twelve)

A longer chapter for you today. Please note (and don't whine, it won't work!) that I will not be posting a chapter tomorrow. It's opening night for our minor league baseball team and the allure of baseball, chili dogs, and boiled peanuts wins out. I'll post again on Friday. :)

The Doctor references "Existentialism is a Humanism" by Jean-Paul Sartre in this chapter. If you want to read it, it's available here in its entirety.

Thanks to

ivydoor for the very literal plot bunny in this chapter, and the corresponding icon.

Previous Chapters

"To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be."
Anna Louise Strong

Hand in hand, the Doctor and Rose walked back from the TARDIS. Rose trailed slightly behind him, letting him navigate in the darkness.

"Do you think Mum and the baby are all right?" she asked tentatively, wanting some comfort.

"Your mum? Oh, she'll be fine. She's a tough one, she is."

"Yeah," agreed Rose, sadly. "She is."

She went silent and the Doctor stopped, turning to face her. He studied her with a taut, worried expression on his face. "Rose," he began.

"Don't," she said. "It's fine, really it is. I chose you." She kissed him firmly and he wound an arm around her waist. "Got it?"

"Got it," he said, surprising her with his easy agreement. They resumed walking. After a while, he spoke again. "If you want, your stuff is all in the TARDIS."

"Yeah, we were just there, remember?" she said, confused.

"No, I mean, the stuff from your mum's flat. Personal effects, photos, whatnot. That kind of stuff."

He had said, hadn't he, that he went back after Canary Wharf? Rose hadn't imagined he meant more than checking in on her friends. "You cleaned out the flat?" she asked carefully.

He nodded, not looking at her. "I didn't think there was anyone else, and I didn't want it to just be — tossed or whatever. So, I waved a little psychic paper at the police and got inside."

"What, a debt collector or something?" She gave him a quizzical look and couldn't decipher the expression on his face. At long last, she realized. "Are you blushing?"

"No," he said, his face red. "I don't blush."

"You do, too." She drew up short and stopped. He continued walking several paces ahead and looked back at her.

"Going to stand there in the dark?" he queried.

"Yeah, until you tell me what made you blush."

"Nothing made me blush. I am not blushing. Don't be daft. Come on." He held out a hand for her and beckoned. Rose shook her head and grinned at him.

"You're blushing," she teased. "What exactly did that psychic paper say, Doctor?"

"It said that I was authorized to enter the flat and collect your things," he answered, dodging the question.

"Because?" she urged.

"Because I was your next of kin." He studied his trainers intently.

"Mmm." She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head playfully to one side. "And that would make you …"

"All right," he burst out, gesturing desperately, "it said I was your husband. I didn't think the police or your neighbors would argue with a grieving widower or ask too many questions, and I was right. No one bothered me and no one asked questions. One man even helped me move boxes down the stairs. I hurt like hell and I didn't want anyone else to touch your things, not one finger. All right?" He clamped his mouth shut and stared at her challengingly.

She ached for him. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I'm glad it was you. You're right, there was no one else to do it." She took his hand, hanging limply at his side, and kissed it.

The rest of the walk to the cottage was silent, and Rose tried to think of ways to restart the conversation, but everything that came to her seemed to step squarely onto a land mine. The Doctor held the door open for her and she ducked under his arm to enter. The room was dark now, quiet, without even enough light for shadows. He passed by her and lit the lamp on the bedside table, his dark shape suddenly silhouetted before her.

Rose put her rucksack down next to the door and waited for him. He turned and regarded her, his face deep in shadow and hidden from her. At long last, she spoke into the air between them.

"You've hurt so much because of me."

She saw his eyes lower, long lashes dipping. His lips drew together. With the weak light from the lamp, the hollows under his eyes were exaggerated and his cheekbones stood starkly prominent. "Yes," he agreed.

For the first time, Rose truly questioned her decision to step through the doorway in the hospital. Was I selfish? Was I thinking about only what I wanted, and not what he wanted, or Mum, or anyone else?

He looked up, making her wonder not for the first time if he could read her thoughts. "So, tell me," he said evenly.

She didn't play games. "I did what I wanted when I stepped through the doorway. I wasn't thinking about Mum and the baby, causing a rift, what you might want, or anything. I only thought about the risks for me. So, am I selfish? Did I make the wrong choice?"

He closed his eyes and held his breath for an impossibly long count, then opened them and reached out one hand, palm up. "Give me your hand," he ordered.

Rose complied. He regarded her right hand carefully, turning it over several times. She looked at it as well and saw nothing remarkable. Four long fingers attached to a palm, a curving thumb. The Doctor traced her lifeline with one finger and spoke in a carrying voice.

"Imagine, if you will," he said, "that this is a river. It's wide and running full force after the spring thaw in the mountains higher up. It's icy cold and has dangerous currents as it forces its way through the rocks." Rose looked steadily at her own hand, watching his finger slide up and down the line. "On this side," he indicated the wide span opposite the lifeline from her thumb with a gentle poke, "there is a small, defenseless creature. A young rabbit. On this side with him, there are so many predators. Wolves. Foxes. A badger. On the other side," the finger indicated the fleshy rise at her thumb, "is safety. Green grass. Lots of cover from any birds of prey. Places to make a burrow. And even a lady rabbit to woo." He waggled his eyebrows lecherously at her. "So, how does he make it from one side to the other?"

"He could hop from rock to rock?" she guessed.

"Oh, sadly, they're too far apart. He'd never hop far enough."

She thought, biting her lower lip. "Could he swim?"

"The torrent would sweep him under if the shock of the cold water didn't do him in," said the Doctor sadly. "Just a few moments in the river and glub, glub, glub, no more bunny. He's so small, and utterly defenseless."

Rose stared at him, her mind trying to work around the puzzle and also trying to figure out what the bunny and the raging river had to do with their current situation. "Anything else I should know?"

"He's a wee thing, furry with a wet, twitchy nose. Brown with some mottling on his rump. One white sock on his right hind foot."

"I mean, something that might help. Like a bridge, or a narrow part of the river, or something like that."

"Nope," said the Doctor, unhelpfully. He cradled her hand in his palm and rocked it from side to side, his thumb lightly caressing her little finger.

"I have no idea." Rose stomped one foot in frustration. "What the hell does this have to do with anything?"

"It doesn't," he answered, his voice full of veiled laughter. "I just wanted to hold your hand."

What? Her mouth hung open and she realized, with complete astonishment, what he was doing. "Did you just use a line on me?"

"Not a line," he corrected. "A whole story. About a small, furry, defenseless bunny." His fingers closed around her hand. "Rose, don't get so caught up in the drama that you forget what matters. You're here. We went through a lot to get to this point and I for one don't want to go back to where we were. Do you?"

"No," she breathed, amazed at his uncharacteristic bluntness. "You think I did the right thing then?"

"Oh, I have no idea." He let out a brief laugh. "I really have no idea. What is the right thing? Staying with your mum and your sibling — boy or a girl, did you say?"

"Mum didn't want to find out, wanted a surprise."

"Ah. Yes. So, staying with the sibling, your mum, Pete, Mickey, Torchwood, your new life and friends. Making your own way in the world. Or, stepping through a doorway and coming back to me." His voice dropped perceptibly at the last words, faintly tremulous. "A miracle, as Jacob would say, although that's a laugh. You had a choice, Rose, and neither one is right. It's simply the one you made."

"You are no help at all," she dismissed.

"You have to make this decision on your own, Rose. The responsibility for a choice, for any action, is squarely on you. I have to deal with that responsibility for my own choices when they happen, but this wasn't my choice." She threw him a wounded look and he corrected himself, with careful tenderness. "Oh Rose. I don't mean it's a choice I am sorry you made. I'm just saying it wasn't my choice to make. I didn't see a doorway and have to choose whether to step through it or not. You did."

She nodded, understanding. "What would you have done?"

"We're talking about you, not me. Let me tell you another story, one that doesn't involve a rabbit. Sartre used this example, and it's a good one. Once, there was a young Frenchman whose brother had been killed in a war, in this case, by the Nazis, with whom his father was accused of collaborating. His mother took both setbacks very badly, and her health was very poor. She relied on him completely. He was faced with the decision to either stay and care for his ailing mother, or join the Resistance and fight the noble fight. He asked Sartre, his mentor, for guidance in making a decision. What do you think Sartre said?"

Rose considered, thinking hard about what she knew about Sartre and his philosophy. "He said the man had to choose for himself."

"Right-o, Rose. Sartre believed, and I think quite rightly, that religion could not help him decide, nor Marxism, nor any other school of thought. What matters more, the good fight, the theory, or the responsibility for the individual? The only person who could say so definitively is the man faced with that decision. It is his choice. And this was your choice, Rose. You have to live with it."

One lone tear slid down her cheek. He squeezed her hand and drew her close to him, enfolding her in his arms and resting his chin on top of her head. "Doctor," she whispered. "I chose you."

"Can you live with that?" he asked somberly.

"Yes."

The tension in her body ebbed and disappeared, washing her clean in its retreat. He exhaled long and slow into her hair and rubbed his chin back and forth across the top of her head. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to hold you and get some sleep." In a smaller, softer tone, he said "I sleep better when you're here."

She tilted her head back and smiled up at him despite the blur of her tears. "Yeah." They separated briefly and Rose fumbled in her rucksack for some nightclothes. Behind her, she heard the rustle of fabric. She grabbed a plain cotton shirt, long enough to come almost to her knees, and changed into it quickly. She retreated briefly into the bathroom to wash her face and clean her teeth.

When she returned, the Doctor had stripped bare and was folding the sheet on the bed back. He looked over his shoulder at her and gave her a tentative smile. He slipped underneath the covers and patted the edge of the bed invitingly. Rose extinguished the lamp, then settled underneath the covers on her side, her back to him.

At once, he spooned against her, sliding one arm around to rest his hand on her belly and the other underneath their shared pillow. Rose let her eyes drift closed and let her breath fall into the same rhythm as his. The repetitive whisper of his exhalations stirred her hair.

"I made the right choice," she said finally into the dark room.

Behind her, the Doctor's even, gentle breathing did not alter.

Current Mood: naughty
Current Music: The Feeling, "Rose"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

misssara11.livejournal.com

I really don't know how many times I said, "Aww" when reading this chapter. If I list every thing I loved I'd just copy the whole thing. While I adore the smut-type stuff, it's chapters like this that keep me reading.

And I don't mind that you are not posting tomorrow, I have work tomorrow night and won't be anxiously waiting to get to a computer to check if you've updated. In fact, I'm busy Friday and Saturday nights too, but I that would be pushing it, wouldn't it? ;)

From:

writings and ramblings from the fictional kallerine leah

Voyages of Discovery (Chapter Twelve)

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags