Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Nine The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Eight ( Chapter 8 )

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As we know, Rose's meeting with her dad didn't go well, and the Doctor tries to console her, doing a bit of bonding as they go. He then has an idea to cheer her up. (Once again, In 'Boom Town', Rose mentions Woman Wept as a place they visited.)

Non Anime: Doctor Who Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.13.2016 | Pages: 21 | Words: 7.8K | Visits: 329 | Status: Completed

As Rose slept, she dreamt of suns expanding and planets crumbling, snow covered streets from Christmas's long gone. She saw her Mum unzip her forehead, and a Slitheen stepped out of her skin. She turned to run and bumped into an oversized pepper pot hell bent on killing everyone, full of rage and hate. She grappled with it and pulled its top off. She peeked inside, expecting to see the tentacled mutant inside, but instead, she saw the Doctor sitting there, crying like a baby.

[`I'm not a Dalek, I'm not. I'm nothing like a Dalek,'] he said.

“Am I having a nightmare?” she thought to herself, and then felt the warm gentle hum of the TARDIS inside her and her breathing slowed. The fear and sadness of the dream left her, and she looked up from the Dalek. She was with Gwyneth in the pantry, talking with her.

[`Your dad's up here waiting for you, Miss.']

[`Who told you he was dead?']

[`Don't be silly Miss, if he was dead, how would I be able to see him?']

[`My father died years back.']

[`But you've been thinking about him lately more than ever.']

The pantry was no longer the pantry; it was the hallway of her flat back home, only it looked bigger. “Ah, that's because I'm little”, she reasoned. She pushed open the door to her mother's bedroom and saw her sitting crossed legged on the bed, looking at a photograph album with a sad, wistful expression. Jackie saw her and smiled. [`Come here, Rose. Come here.']

Rose climbed up on the bed and sat next to her Mother, looking up at her smiling face. Her lips were smiling, but there was a haunting sadness to her eyes still.

[`Who's that?'] She asked, pointing to the picture of a man grinning at the camera. She was about to tell her who it was, when Jackie started speaking again. [`It's your daddy. You weren't old enough to remember when he died. 1987, 7th of November. Do you remember what I told you? The day that Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clarke got married. He was always having adventures. Oh, he would have loved to have seen you now.']

Rose couldn't speak, she just sat there, mesmerised by the photograph of her father.

[`I wasn't there . . . nobody was. It was a hit and run driver. Never found out who . . . He was dead when the ambulance got there. I only wish there'd been someone there for him.']

While Rose was transfixed by the photograph, Jackie's voice took on a sing-song quality, as though she were speaking with a Welsh accent. [`The driver was just a kid, he stopped . . . he waited for the police. It wasn't his fault. For some reason, Pete just ran out. People say there was this girl, and she sat with Pete while he was dying. She held his hand. Then she was gone. Never found out who she was.']

`Hmmmm.' Rose stretched and yawned, looking at the red, box like numbers on her clock. The TARDIS had even gotten the same bedside clock for her; that was so sweet. 07:47 it said, as she peeped at it through one half open eye.

She had no memory of her nightmare, which had been soothed away by the TARDIS, but there was one memory, the memory of sitting with her mother and looking at photographs of her father.

She longed to meet her father, to see that smile for real, just to hug him and be hugged. She wondered why the Doctor didn't do that with his people, surely he could just hop back in the TARDIS and say hello.

Maybe it was too painful, knowing what was going to happen to them and having to smile instead of cry. That was something she would have to ask him when the time and the mood were right.

She got out of bed and headed to the en suite for a pee and a shower. The shower was a walk in room with water jets squirting in all directions, it was refreshing, and exhilarating as she rubbed the shower gel into her hair and over her body.

After drying off in the air jets, she went through to the bedroom and started to dress, choosing blue denim jeans with white trainers, white vest top, pink hoodie, and a denim jacket. She then sat at the dressing table and started to brush her hair and put it up on her head with a butterfly shaped clip. After a little makeup and lippy, she felt ready to face the universe.

As she made her way down the corridor from her room, she could smell toast coming from the kitchen. "Ooh, that smells lovely," she said to the Doctor as she walked in.

He was sitting at the table, grinning at her. "Good morning, there's toast in the toast rack, with butter or marmalade. Cereals in the cupboard, with milk in the fridge. There's tea in the pot and orange juice in the jug, help yourself."

"Mornin', someone was up early,” she said, sitting at the table and helping herself to a slice of toast and reaching for the butter. She poured some orange juice out of the jug into a glass.

“Or late,” he replied. “Time Lords don't need much sleep.”

“Really? I never realised. That must have been a bit boring for you while I was asleep.”

“Nah, there's plenty to tinker with in the TARDIS, for instance, I've set the lights to brighten and dim on a daily cycle to help you keep track of what time of day it is.”

“Oh, that's great, thank you.”

“And did you sleep well?”

“Oh yeah, best nights sleep for ages. That mattress is SO comfortable, and the room was at just the right temperature, it was brilliant.”

“That's the TARDIS, I told you she likes you,” he said as he finished a slice of toast.

“An' I had a dream, y'know, one of those really vivid dreams. Well, actually, it was more like relivin' a memory.”

“Really, a good one or a bad one?” he asked her.

“A bit of both to be honest.” She proceeded to tell him about how, three times a year; her mum would pour a drink and get out the photographs of her dad.

They finished breakfast, and walked through to the console room as Rose finished telling him about Pete Tyler.

“She wasn't there for him . . . nobody was. It was a hit and run driver, an' Dad was dead when the ambulance got there. She wished there'd been someone there for him, that's what Mum always says. So I was thinking, could we, could we go and see my dad when he was still alive?”

“Where's this come from, all of a sudden?” Although he knew only too well that dreams could leave powerful emotions on the waking consciousness.

“All right then, if we can't, if it goes against the laws of time or something, then never mind, just leave it.”

“No, I can do anything. I'm just more worried about you.”

“I want to see him.”

“Your wish is my command. But be careful what you wish for.”

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The Doctor and Rose walked up the ramp together hand in hand to the console. Rose's bottom lip started to quiver as she tried to hold back the tears.

`Hey, hey, it's all right,' he said as he looked down at her and saw her starting to cry.

`I'm sorry,' she cried, `I'm really sorry.'

He reached out and hugged her. `I know, and I accepted your apology, didn't I? And now it's my turn to say sorry.'

`You, what've you got to say sorry for?'

`For not explaining it better, for letting you put your entire existence in jeopardy. You asked me about killing your grandfather; I should have told you that the reverse can be just as bad.'

He released her from the hug and put an arm around her shoulder. `Let's go to the living room and we can talk about it.'

They sat on the plush sofa, and he held her hand as he looked into her tear streaked eyes. `How can I explain it so that you'll understand it?' he asked himself. `It's like building a house of cards, have you ever done that?'

`Yeah, of course . . . not since I was a kid though.'

'Well I think it's time you did it again.' He reached over to the coffee table in front of the sofa and picked up the deck of cards that were lying there.

'The first card is your mum,' he said as he picked the card off the top of the deck. 'Queen of spades. Oh please, don't give her a spade, she'd only hit me with it.' Rose let out a giggle.

'Now where's your dad's card? There we are . . . king of hearts.' He took the two cards and stood them together to form a pyramid. 'Now you . . . ace of diamonds, and this next card is you being born . . .'

He stood those two cards together and started to build the base of the pyramid of cards. 'Your first full nappy, your first smile.' He paused for a moment as he picked up the ace of spades. 'Six months into your life, the death card. This is your dad's death.' Rose blinked back the tears that were welling in her eyes.

He carried on building the pyramid, each card having significance in her life, until he reached the top. 'And finally, you reach the end.' He smiled at her. 'All as it should be. Now, take out the ace of spades on the bottom row.'

Rose reached forwards, and ever so carefully tried to remove her father's death card from the base of the pyramid. She'd nearly got the card out when the support above it gave way and the whole pyramid collapse.

Rose started to see what he was getting at. `Is that what was happenin' in the church? Did I knock the house of cards down?'

`Yeah, your dad was the king of hearts on the bottom layer, and you tried to take his death out of the pyramid.'

She could feel the tears coming again, and he cupped her cheek in his hand and wiped a tear away with his thumb. `Your dad was a very brave man, he put himself back in the deck to keep the cards from tumbling down, you should be very proud of him.'

`I am,' she squeaked through a single sob. `An' I got to hug him, and it felt so good, all those years growin' up, I just wanted him there so he could hug me, an' now he has.'

Come here, he said, holding out his arms in invitation. She fell into his arms, and he rocked her in a hug as she wept for her father. They sat there for a long while in silence, the Doctor resting his chin on the top of her head, patting and rubbing her back until she was all cried out.

Having cried out her grief, she started to think of the positive things that she had gotten from meeting her father, and remembered, no, treasured the conversation she'd had with him.

[`I was never there for you.']

[`You would have been.']

[`But I can do this for you. I can be a proper dad to you now.']

[`But it's not fair.']

[`I've had all these extra hours. No one else in the world has ever had that. And on top of that, I got to see you. And you're beautiful. How lucky am I, eh? So, come on, do as your dad says. You going to be there for me, love . . .? Thanks for saving me.']

When she had finished crying, the Doctor gently and tenderly kissed the top of her head. They had shared something in that tender embrace, a mutual grief for people they had lost, but also a deepening of their friendship and the start of an unspoken love.

She looked up and smiled at him. `Thanks for that, you were right again when you said `be careful what you wish for'.'

`Hey, I'm always right, me,' he said cheekily.

`You wish,' she shot back with a weak smile.

`So, what do you want to see next then?' he asked her, as he stood up, holding his hand out for her.

She took his hand and pulled herself up off the sofa. `I don't know; whatcha think?'

`Oh, I know, seeing you there, crying, it's reminded me of this planet. C'mon, to the wardrobe,' he said like Bruce Wayne saying `to the bat poles'.

The Doctor went up the spiral staircase to the upper gallery, while Rose stayed on the lower level.

`So what kind of outfit am I lookin' for?' she called out.

`Something for cold weather, should be in the fourth section, they go Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, quite logical really,' he called back from the gallery above.

`Oh yeah, that's clever. Oh, by the way, you'll have to stop callin' this a wardrobe, 'clothing department', or 'emporium', would be more like it.' She started perusing the myriad of winter clothes.

`How cold?' she asked.

`Very, think Arctic, polar explorer.'

`Blimey, an' you think I'm gonna enjoy this?'

`Trust me; you're going to love it.'

They both emerged from the wardrobe (department, emporium) dressed like Inuit Eskimos, covered head to toe in fur. They immediately burst into fits of laughter. The Doctor couldn't help but admire Rose's face; it was beautifully framed by the fur around the hood, accentuating her gorgeous smile and hazel eyes.

`Is this real fur?' she asked him, she had a thing about wearing fur for fashion.

`Yeah, ecologically resourced by the Sámi, the indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting the Arctic area of Norway, Sweden, and Finland.'

`Oh . . . okay.' She lowered the hood as they headed for the console room. `I'm boilin' in this.'

`Don't worry, when we get outside you'll be really comfortable.'

`And where is it we're goin'?'

`Hang on, I'll show you.' He de-materialised the TARDIS and activated the view screen. `There we are, Woman Wept.'

`Eh?'

`That's the name of the planet, Woman Wept.'

`What an unusual name, why is it called that?'

`Here, look, when the first explorer's came through this system, they saw this continent.' Rose stood beside him and looked at the view of the planet below.

`What continent?' she asked him in confusion.

`Ah, hang on; I'll just rotate the view.' The image on the screen started to turn, and suddenly, like a Rorschach inkblot test, Rose could see the shape of a woman with her head bowed forward, with a peninsula, shaped like a forearm and hand in front of her face.

`There you are, a woman lamenting,' he said with a smile as he saw the recognition in her eyes.

`Lamentin', isn't that some sort of song?' she asked.

`That's a lament, but `to lament' is to express passionate grief about something,' he told her as he started the Time Rotor.

`Oh.'

The Time Rotor stopped and he shut down the console. `Come on then, let's go see,' he said, pulling up the hood and holding out his mittened hand for her. She pulled her own hood up, and mitten in mitten, they walked down the ramp.

He stepped out of the TARDIS and turned to face her as she stepped onto the snow covered ground. She looked out on the scene of magnificent desolation, it was midnight, and the landscape was illuminated by an eerie twilight from the moons above.

She could feel the cold prickling her cheeks, and saw snakes of ice dust drifting off into the distance, where the horizon blended with the sky. `Blimey', she panted, `this cold takes your breath away.' Her breath creating puffs of steam as she spoke.

`Couldn't we have seen this at the north or south pole on Earth?'

`This beach, yeah, but that ocean, that's something else,' he said with a grin, waggling his eyebrows and nodding behind her.

`Beach?' she started to ask as she looked behind her for the first time.

`Oh . . . My . . . God!'

There was a curved cliff of ice, over a hundred feet tall, crested with snow. Rose's eyes followed the wall up as it curved over them, and nearly fell backwards as she saw the leading edge of the frozen wave with snow blowing off the top of it.

The Doctor came and stood beside her. `There was an enormous coronal mass ejection that caused the star to cool down. It disrupted the weather patterns and caused a sudden drop in air pressure that sucked super cooled air from the troposphere. The whole ocean froze in an instant.'

`Ooh, I love it when you talk dirty,' she teased.

He laughed and lowered the hood on his fur coat. `Brrrr, minus thirty-ish I'd say. Lower your hood and listen,' he said.

Rose lowered her hood, and felt the cold around her ears. Apart from a faint hissing sound as ice crystals rode the ice dunes, it was silent, really silent; the silence that comes from a planet with no other life forms on it.

The Doctor had moved quietly behind her unnoticed, and she turned to look at him. `It's so peac . . .'

SPLAT! A soft snowball hit her in the face.

`Oi!' she said in surprise. `Right, now you're for it.' She stooped down and scooped up a handful of snow with her mittens, forming it into a ball. She launched it at him, and he just managed to dodge out of the way.

`Rubbish,' he taunted. `That was a proper girly throw that was.'

`Ooh, you are SO for it now,' she said with a grin as he launched another salvo at her. There was a furious exchange of frozen artillery, accompanied by fits of uncontrollable laughter carrying across the silent landscape.

Before long, Rose was out of breath, and her lungs were burning with the cold, both of them were filling the air with a fog of warm breath.

`Well,' she gasped, `not such a girly throw now, is it?'

He gave a single laugh. `I have to admit,' [pant] `that my initial assessment,' [gasp] `based on that one throw, may have been a little hasty.'

`Hah! Is that the Time Lord admitting that he's not always right?' she teased. His speed took her by surprise as he scooped her up and carried her in his arms. She squealed with laughter as she held on around his neck.

`I told you I'm always right,' he said, as he easily threw her through the air and into a snow drift, where she disappeared in a cloud of snow.

Arms and legs wind milled, until her head popped up out of the Rose shaped hole in the snow, with an enormous grin on her face.

`You do realise that there'll be payback for that,' she said as she held out her hand. `C'mon, help me up.'

He leaned forward, grabbed her hand, and started to pull her to her feet. Halfway to her feet, she deliberately dropped her weight and pulled him off balance. He fell forwards on top of her and ate snow.

`Plah!' He spat out a mouthful of snow. `Brrrr, that's cold,' he laughed, and then they both just stopped and looked at each other. He looked down into those sparkling, hazel eyes that appeared darker in the moonlight. She lay there under him; aware of his body on top of her, his eyes seemed to glow with an electric blue as they caught the reflected light off the snow.

[`What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?'] she heard in her head again. As quickly as the moment had arrived, it had passed.

`Er, we'd better think about getting back on board before we freeze out here,' he told her, slightly self conscious of where he was and what he was doing.

At the moment, Rose wouldn't mind freezing where she was, and with who was on top of her, but the moment had passed, and she was starting to feel the cold.

`Thanks for this,' she said seriously. `Acting like a kid again was just what I needed.'

`Just what the Doctor ordered,' he joked as he climbed off her and pulled her to her feet. He put an arm around her shoulders, and she hugged him around the middle as they sauntered back to the TARDIS.