tampered | Log ongoing; closed

Log ongoing; closed

When; Oct 8
Rating; PG-13 at the most
Characters; Rose Tyler, The Doctor
Summary; Rose ends up with 'Last Man Standing' curse while the Doctor ends up with Nightmares the next day. It's all a wreck.
Log;

When Rose woke up that morning, the City was a deserted ruin. When faced with an apocalypse, or if you're Rose Tyler, the first order of business is always to find the Doctor. She checks City Solutions, the ship where they get chips then Donna's flat followed by Amy and Rory's as well as the TARDIS'. When all of those come up empty, Rose begins to get worried. By afternoon she's panicked, having searched the City over. Come evening, she's a wreck and that's when her device decides to start broadcasting. She's in tears, tracks of mascara on her cheeks. It's like losing him at Canary Wharf all over again but somehow this is worse. She's losing everything she could have had with him that she never even imagined she'd get before.

“I need you back. Please. Doctor please, find me.”

She sits on a bench for a moment, giving into the absolute wreck of a girl she is inside then wipes at her cheeks with the heels of her hands, takes a deep breath and stands up. Rose Tyler doesn't wait for the Doctor to find her. She finds him.

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He doesn't really know how to comfort people aside from hugs and cooing words when he's with them, and he's got even less know-how when all he can do is watch them try not to cry over a vid-link. The muscles in his jaw work as he watches her stay together and speak, and he nods tightly after the suggestion.

'Yeah. We'll do that. Good to be prepared.'

The smile is appreciated but he can't really manage a decent one in return - really just a softening around the eyes if anything. There's a very small pause before he replies. 'Meet you there.'

She breaks into a run back toward the flat. It's almost harder to keep it together when he's having a hard time dealing as well. She doesn't speak again because there's no point. She doesn't know what to say but she does keep checking the device to make sure he's there and to let him know she's still there. She finally reaches the building and bursts into the lobby then presses the button for the elevator.

"Had to pick the top floor, didn't we?"

She's fidgety, like she'll open the door to the flat and he'll just be there. Okay, that's what she's hoping. "We'll fix this, right? I'll find you or you'll find me." Her face twists a moment and she can't keep the tears back. "Don't stop looking for me, Doctor. Please."

He reasons that he runs everywhere anyway so he might as well run back to the flat as well. Neither one of them seems to feel much like talking at the moment either, so it's not as though he has to save his breath for anything. They probably slam into the lobby(s?) at about the same time, and then there's just waiting on the elevator. He bobs up and down on the balls of his feet waiting on it, both ways, not sure what to do with his arms either so at one point they're clasped behind him, the next folded in front of him.

Her first words earn a wry twist of the lips in return. The ones after that... He looks down - not into the device, just down - and swallows hard. 'Never have.' It's not really a response in the volume it ought to have been; more to himself than anything, but she might hear it.

Getting out of the elevator he calmly gets to their door and unlocks it, walking inside and doing the same look around he did both this morning and afternoon, somewhat on the slow side since he's doubting it will yield anything. 'Rose. You here yet?'

Edited 2011-10-02 07:29 (UTC)

She hears it and by this time, she's an absolute wreck. She's less calm about unlocking the door on her end and it takes her a few tries to get it but she flings the door open and pushes it shut with her toe.

"Doctor?" She checks out the rooms, including his room, which is still very much his domain and not some place she usually ventures. She glances down at the device addressing it again.

"Not here."

And then she sits down on his bed and pulls one of his shirts closer, hugging it to her. "What do we do now?" He can probably tell from the device that she's in his room.

Not here either. Damn. This all feels distressingly familiar, except this time he can't delude himself with the knowledge that at least she's with her family and people she knows like she ought to've been anyway. At this point it's the Doctor and Rose - that's how it ought to be, and now she's in yet another parallel but this time there's nobody else in it with her. He really wishes it were at least the other way around.

He can tell that's where she is and can't completely tell how he feels but goes to peer into his own room where she should be just because... he does. The sight of the empty bed where she is not sitting really doesn't help at all. And he really, really doesn't want to tell her he doesn't know what to do.

'I'll figure something out. There's always something. Or maybe it's just a curse. Hopefully it's just a curse... But something.'

She nods, raking her hands through her hair in another effort to pull herself back together.She slides his shirt on, leaving the front unbuttoned and gets up, moving into the living room part of the flat. "All right, so curse. That just means we wait 'til midnight, yeah? Not long 'til then."

Except she's desperately worried it's not a curse and they're stuck this way for two more years 'til one of them finds a way back. It's not the solitude or the apocalypse that bothers her. She can survive those things. It's not having him that will do her in.

He follows her without really meaning to; mild force of habit, sort of just because it feels... impolite not to, and it's a way of feeling like they're not quite so far apart if they're still technically standing in the same place. Or what would be the same place if they were... in the same place.

It may not be long to midnight but he doesn't particularly feel like just sitting around waiting on midnight to show up with or possibly without an actual solution to things, so he actually goes back to his room, tosses his coat on the bed, grabs a couple of things, and sits back down at the kitchen table with the device to at least attempt to work out where she's actually gone off to. Can't hurt to try, anyway.

'Shirt looks good on you.'

The way he follows her is nice, comforting. She left his room because it felt odd to be there for too long. She watches him in the device, perking up a bit when he compliments her.

"Yeah, liable to start raidin' your closet now, y'know."

And she gets up to wander over to the dining room table, she stands in the same position she would if she were looking over his shoulder. "If it is a parallel universe, there ought to be a crack, yeah? Like I used to find you."

'There's not much to raid from.' Which is the truth, however amused he is by the idea of her doing it. Rose in his clothes is really not something he thinks he has a problem with.

That would be true if they were in any sort of universe that made sense, but so far this one has proven to be annoyingly impermeable to most of the cosmic sort of rules he hadn't realised he relied so much upon. But it's not a bad idea, and he isn't sure how much saying all of that would help things. 'If there is one, hopefully I can figure out where it is between the two devices.' His own flips around for a moment as he tries to see if there's something he can pull open, and then rights itself as he sets it back on the table and messes with one of the things he brought over off to the side.

"Cinna'd fix that if you gave him half the chance. He's been dyin' to get his hands on you." It's true. In Donna's words, the Doctor may be a long streak of nothing but suits are perfect for that. She will probably just wear his shirts after he's taken them off, let them be laundered after a day while she 'borrows' another.

She's got another suggestion that sh'es not terribly fond of voicing but if it gets her back to him quicker..."I could take my device out, sort of run it 'round some places and see if I could help with the detectin'."

She hates the idea of leaving where he is, even if he's not technically here. She feels closer to him here but it's more important to figure out how to get back.

That makes him pause for a second. 'He's what?' He didn't know Cinna wanted him for anything aside maybe to stay out so Rose could work. 'S he want me for?' He's a bit distracted by what he's trying to work on, whether he thinks it will work or not notwithstanding.

'That might... help, yeah. I'm got a decent read link between the pair of them but it's not telling me anything I both already know and don't know simultaneously, which is... Very annoying.' He's trying to push around that though. 'I'm not sure Rose. I'm not going to ask you to, because I'm not sure it will, but if you want to try it, I'll see what I can glean from it from here.'

"He wants you to model for him." It's said with the first bit of teasing and a real smile she's had since this all started. "You look fantastic in a suit, Doctor." And some flirting. It's good distraction.

She sobers a bit and then nods. "Okay. I'll head out. Jus' keep talkin' to me, yeah?" She doesn't want to feel like he's leaving her alone again. "'Bout anythin'." And she'll talk back because she sort of assumes he's having some what of the same feelings she is. "M'gonna start with the fountain and the carousel then the clock. Seem to be where most people come in at so I figger it's probably the weakest point."

'Of course I do.' That is just a given. And was basically an automatic response, which is evident by how he stops what he's doing again and actually looks at her. 'He wants me to what?' The Doctor's done a great number of things throughout his lifetimes; he doesn't quite recall modelling coming into things very often. It doesn't take very long to accept the idea though. 'I suppose if I can pull off kool-aid I can probably handle... Cinna-things.'

Well if there's one thing he can usually do, it's talk. 'Good idea. Let me know when you get to each one just to make sure I get readings from the right place.' There's a couple seconds pause before the next statement. 'Especially let me know when you get near the clock. I can't stand the clock.'

He gets a smile, a bit more strained now that she's actively moving away from where he is. "That'll make Cinna happy and you'll get more shirts out of it so I can steal 'em." Can't argue with that logic, can you, Doctor?

She's taking the stairs at a jog now, figuring they'll be faster than the elevator. "Should I start at the clock? Why do you hate the clock? Other than...time lord."

He's having memories of discussions about hot pants and Elvis suits that he's definitely not going to bring back up ever of his own volition. But no, he can't argue with that.

'The clock is... weird. I don't like it. Doesn't feel right. Do you not feel it?' It's strange to think about not feeling things like that. 'Not that everything here doesn't. Most everything. Not everything.'

Oh she hasn't forgotten that. It's still in the plan. Fortunately for him, she doesn't expect him to wear her clothes.

"I hear the tickin' and that's a bit nerve wrackin'--" she pauses because she still remembers what it was like to have the time vortex inside of her, the way that he feels all the time. "Sorry. Not anymore." And she does sound sad about that. It helps her understand him when she can feel those things. She bites her bottom lip, forcing a small smile. "Glad it's not everything."

She reaches the bottom of the stairs and heads out the door toward the clock.

Damn.

'It is definitely not quite everything.' Good, so they were on the same page with that one. The apology for not miraculously transcending human limitations to feel all of time as it exists as its own sort of identity and dimension in itself, he feels is probably a bit on the gracious side for her, and doesn't really know what to do with it except shrug it off. Really it's just sort of nice that she remembers at all, even if that was rather a bad thing ultimately.

He's sort of regretting sitting here just messing with things he's not certain are going to do anything. At least running around would have been distracting. 'How's... work, been. then...?' He doesn't know. But he's trying to talk about something.

Definitely on the same page. She remembers. Some of it is fuzzy, too bright and filled with a lot of pain but she does remember enough. It's not something she regrets and maybe that's a bad thing since he lost one of his regenerations saving her but she saved him and in the process, she's able to understand him a little bit more. It's mostly a win.

"S'all right. Better now that Cinna's show is over. Less frantic but it's been busy. Made at least half a dozen appointments for people to come in for help with their clothes. How's things at your work?"

She'll help him chatter away because the emptiness and the quiet is odd. "Almost to the clock."

She's getting lots of running done today.

He ought to be paying more attention to things. He didn't know Cinna had had some sort of show recently.

'Thanks,' for the clock notification. 'Sounds a bit busy still, yeah.' His device goes sideways but still faces him as he works on something else. 'Mine's been alright. Mostly left to do my own things. Experiments and such. Go over there, do a bit of jiggery-pokery, blow something up every other week, come back home.'

"I like the home part. Keeps you 'round a lot." She's grateful that he keeps the device on him. It helps being able to look down and see him. She stops, standing in front of the clock and looking up.

"Alright, Doctor. I'm here. Seems loud but might be 'cause the City's empty on my end."

He mumbles something about shops and Cinna and being home that I doubt even he bothered to pay enough attention to to understand it. His attention is focused elsewhere at the moment.

Her words attract it more, so than what he was looking at though, and he picks up his device to peer into it, looking at her look up at the clock. Even the secondary-pan-parallel proximity is making his nerves go a little frazzled, but he tries not to show it. Instead, he pulls the sonic out, and grabs one of the other things he was looking at, attaches it to the back of his own device, and then points the sonic at the screen. Three seconds of reading, then he's pulling it back apart and setting things down to look at them. 'Okay, got it. Which one's next?'

She gets the jest of his mumbling. Really they both need to find a job working together. At least as much work would get done, possibly more.

"M'thinkin' the carousel." She's already headed that way. She checks the time on the device. It's getting close to midnight but she wants him to get the readings in case something like this happens again or if it's not a curse. She doesn't even want to think about that. In fact doing so makes her more than a little ill.

It would definitely economize the time they spend walking to the other's job, at the very least.

He attempts to smother a yawn into the back of his hand and nods until it has passed. 'Okay. Carousel it is.' He's got to get this reconfigured before she gets there and might be working a little too quickly on it if the small zap and subsequent ow are anything to go by.

'It's still sort of surprising so many people want fashion help considering at practically any given moment something rendering it obsolete can happen. Turn into a... flamingo or something. Whole new wardrobe.'

And only irritate one employer in the process. "Hey, you all right?" She hears that ow. She's rapidly approaching the carousel.

"Well they always turn back. Well, so far as we've seen. Can't run 'round naked waitin' to turn back into a flamingo." And a pause. "M'here."

'I'm fine. Electricity.' It's not that it's difficult to do, he's just anxious and tired and they're both probably a lot of the same things right now, and knowing that doesn't do much to help.

The conversation does though. 'Well. True. You could probably get away with running around naked as the flamingo though. Still only need the one set of clothes.'

He repeats the same process as before when she says she's at the carousel, putting the reconfigured things together again and sonicking the assembled contraption before starting to pull it back apart for the fountain. 'Okay, got it.'

Every day is 'go to work with your partner day' after this

They're so broken

in their defence I do think they have some 'parallel universes are bad' trauma to deal with

Just a bit

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