glory_jean: (love is)
Title: A Hand to Hold
Character/Pairing: Rose, Nine, Ten, Ten II, Jackie
Setting: Parallel Earth, post JE (An AU fix-it if it's not clear)
Rating: All ages
Summary: It's not what you think.
Disclaimer: Based on characters owned and created by BBC, used without permission
Author's Notes: Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Another experiment in prose. Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] bananasandroses for the read through and the encouragement to post this.



A sharp click near her nose wakes her and she opens her eyes to his blue ones – no, brown. His head is propped up by his hand, elbow braced against the softness of the mattress.

His voice comes to her as a whisper.

It's not what you think.”


.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.



She half dozes off at work somewhere in the middle of a teetering stack of paper and his Northern tones reach her ears, “Time's in flux. It's changing every second. Your cozy little world could be rewritten like that.”

She hears the sharp click of his fingers

“Nothing is safe. Remember that. Nothing.”

She hears the click again and wakes up.


.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.


"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff."

She wakes to him watching her face, head propped up by his hand.

"I know those are your words, but you never said them to me."

"I never said them at all."

She frowns at this.

“He doesn't have forever, you know. Despite what he may think.”

She doesn't ask who he means.

“But I have you.”

“Do you?”

“Don't I?” panic edges her voice.

His eyes are warm. “As long as you need me.”

She looks at him, confused.

“You can do anything, anything, Rose Tyler. You know that, right?”

She regards him as a curiosity and he smiles, his cheeks dimpling adorably.

“But do you know what you need, more than anything else in the universe?” he asks.

She shakes her head and he reaches forward, grasping her hand and pulling it to his lips.

“A hand to hold.”


.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.



Tony is sitting up in his high chair and while Jackie flits around adding food to his tray.

“I know this wasn't what you expected, Sweetheart, but you're doing fine, really,” she tells Rose suddenly.

“What?”

“You and the Doctor. Or who ever he is, really. I know you meant to stay.”

She sits beside Tony and offers him a bit of something on a spoon. She smiles up at Rose.

Then things start to get strange.

The world shifts and buzzes like static on a TV screen - or the flicker of a hologram, perhaps.

She sees her home of long ago.

“You've had genuine shock and trauma,” her mother is saying. “You can get compensation.”

Then world buzzes back to normal and Jackie is looking up at her expectantly.

“Pardon?” Rose says.

“I asked if you were alright.”

“Yeah, fine,” Rose says a bit sheepishly.

“I wouldn't have fought you, Sweetheart. I want you to know that. You deserve to be happy.”

“Thanks, Mum.”


.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.



Sometimes the shifting scenes come out of nowhere now. She aimlessly flips through the TV channels and suddenly before her is a flickering image from a lifetime ago.

"Do that for me Rose," he says as before, "have a fantastic life."

With a flicker and a buzz, the image shifts.

"I'm burning up a sun to say goodbye."


.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.


"I'm losing my mind," she sobs into his shirt.

"No, you aren't."

"How can you be sure?"

"Rose, what does Bad Wolf mean?" he asks, urgently.

"You know very well. It means..."

the darkness... the big bad wolf -

"It means- "

there's something of the wolf about you...

"It -"

I create myself. I take the words...

Her breath is harsh in her lungs.

I scatter them in time and space.

She can see gold behind her eyes.

A message to lead myself here.

"It's always meant the same thing Rose. We just haven't been very good at listening." His voice is so quietly gentle, so much like he used to speak to her, the tears threaten again.

"Are we really going to do this, then?"

I can spend it with you, if you want.

"We are," he says firmly, his voice and eyes steady.

"Okay. Do it, then."


.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.



The howl echoes soundlessly and even the dark space between the universes convulses.


.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.



She looks at him, new, new Doctor, new, new, new Doctor, her first Doctor....

Blue eyes and brown, blue suit and brown, three in one, two halves of a whole - she can't see which is which anymore.

"Time is like a great big wibbly, wobbily ball of timey whimey...stuff."

"Your cozy little world ...."

"It's not what you think..."

"Do that for me Rose..."

"Re-written like that..."


"Where are we going?" she asks.

"Farther than we've ever gone before."

"Do you wanna come with me?"


"Yes." she answers.

*click*

Date: 2009-02-16 07:36 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] inwe-amandil.livejournal.com
This is brilliant...but i think te timey-wimeyness is making my head explode

Date: 2009-02-16 08:09 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] ladychi.livejournal.com
ext_19866: (peter carlisle cupid)
An experiment in prose gone well, I should say. It was a highly visual experience... every word sharpened the image in my head. Fantastic job! I'm so glad you posted. Well done.

Date: 2009-02-17 02:14 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] ladyofgallifrey.livejournal.com
I'm so confused! I first was going to ask why you would write a 10II/Rose fic and then with all the wibblyness... I don't know whether to be happy or back in my JE funk. So, I would say you succeeded in timey-wimeyness!

Date: 2009-02-17 02:49 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] ladyofgallifrey.livejournal.com
I wasn't very fair to you in my original comment. Let me say that you really did succeed - very well! I heard and felt the "clicks" just like [livejournal.com profile] ladychi indicated. I can SO see this happening, particularly because of Bad Wolf (which I do believe was left hanging for a reason... and my one slim hope that I hold out for a plausible 10/R reunion.)

So you deserve kudos for a very effective bit of prose. The fact that you left us all wondering is a tribute to just how good it is.

Date: 2012-06-20 07:30 pm (UTC)From: [identity profile] jer832.livejournal.com
glory, this may not make sense, but I'm going to try. The last couple of times I read this, I kept tripping over "Do that for me, Rose," he says as before, "have a fantastic life" especially since it is followed immediately by "I burned up a star to say goodbye." (Also, granted, especially since it's Nine who said it) The Doctor doesn't want to know what futures he's arriving at; he just wants to blunder into them... but that's only his own futures and from moment to moment. Why assume he doesn't know something about Rose's? I wonder, what if what he says is also a message to (future) Rose? When the Bad Wolf and the Time Lord merge in their power, what does the Doctor learn? Is he part of (in on) the Plan? If Rose doesn't go back for him, it's what it sounds like when the hologram is speaking. (Ditto if she and Handy stay with Jackie. ) If she does.... (And he's looking right at her when he says it. ok, granted it's not RTD, it's fanfic. But fanfic makes more sense)

(The blue eyes brown eyes, parts of a whole reminded me of Fayth's Encroaching Madness). I think I should stop babbling. As one writer to another, maybe it's time for you to hit me upside the head and tell me that Bad Wolf didn't involve the Doctor in her messages to Rose

Date: 2013-08-23 02:22 pm (UTC)From: [identity profile] jer832.livejournal.com
No problem, really. You really didn't have to worry about answering my rambling, but I'm glad you did because it's given me another chance to read this marvelous story and tell you it is and always will be one of my absolute favourites, because of... everything about it, really. The way it's styled and set up; how it intrigues; how it makes me think, wonder, question myself as reader, want to question them as characters. I can picture a Writing (or even a Pop Literature) prof spending a class on this. I can see DW fans arguing the meanings and implications over coffee or wine.(I know that's what I'd do if I lived face to face and not on a keyboard in the ether) I can see future DW fanfic writers finding this and going 'Wow!'.

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