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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.'

She's still worried about him and the electricity as evidence by the concern in her expression. Yes very much of the same things. She's exhausted but too anxious, scared and worried to stop doing anything.

"And some of us look good in pink." She rushes off toward the fountain. "M'goin' to head back after this. Ought to be close to midnight and you can have a go at the information you've got, see if maybe we can figger where to go next, yeah?"

He smirks a little, twisting two wires together and definitely not letting himself get slightly electrocuted again because those two fingers are still numb. 'Some of us look very good in pink.' The difference between the carousel and the fountain isn't going to be quite as much as the one between the clock and the carousel had been, so he doesn't have to work quite as fast this time anyway.

'That sounds good to me. If it is close to midnight then...' She might just come in the door. That would be amazing and too easy. He barely wants to consider it as an option because at this point he's not used to the universe just being that nice to him. 'I'll have all the data I should need to work out what sort of pocket you're in, or if it's a parallel in it's own right. Pocket makes more sense since there's no one else around.' Rambling. A little. He reins it in a bit. 'But! Yes, coming back here afterward. Good idea.'

Not getting electrocuted is good, particularly when Rose is not there to make concerned face at him in person. She grins at the compliment. He's very good at this distraction bit.

"Yeah..." That very vague yeah confirms that she's feeling the same things he is. She might just come in the door but the universe is generally much, much crueler to her than that. Traditionally she has to fight to get back to him. She doesn't expect this to be any different. The rambling is nice, it serves to distract her, to keep her from thinking too much about the easy way. It also makes him feel more there with his science-y rambling that she only understands a part of.

"All right, I'm here."

At least this time he's not really concerned anymore about universes collapsing any more than he was about using stars as energy sources before. Wouldn't be quite so one-sided again. He was almost finished re-assembling it, so she gets a quick 'Just a second' before he follows it up with the same routine as done the other two times.

'Okay, got it! You can come back now. Please.' The last word is really more to circumstances please working out okay this time than it is to her, although the sentiment is obviously there. 'Just need to do some more calibrating and some extra-dimensional triangulation - "triangulation" is the term that always seems to be used even when it isn't actually triangulation being done. Or anything about three-anything. Are you coming back yet?'

That day, the fact that he was using stars as an energy source meant as much as words he might not have said. She knew, Doctor. Not that words wouldn't be brilliant as well.

The please would make a wreck of her if she weren't already a wreck. "On my way."

And if her breathlessness is any hint, she's on her way at a full out run. "Everything okay there?"

Because it wouldn't do for her to get back and him be gone anymore than it would do for her to get back and find she's still alone and he's in a populated City.

'We'll know in a few minutes judging by the sound of it.'

Actually, knowing she's on her way back makes it slightly more difficult to concentrate, but when has that been any different? It'll really only be important if she comes back and still isn't there, and even if she does, it isn't as though this isn't something he's going to keep in his room and continue working on in the off-chance it happens again for real. There's no need to have either one of them continue running about the City in pocket dimensions or anything of the sort, and in the meantime it might help him learn something about how this place operates. Actually it's probably going to be quite useful after all the anxiety has dissipated.

Stairs because at least she's doing something active to get back to him instead of waiting for a lift but by the time she flings open the door, she's entirely out of breath and disheveled. Also, she doesn't miss that he answers her 'is everything okay' with the implication that it will be if she's back. She's learned to look for little things like that in the things he does say.

"Doctor," It's said breathless, hopeful and more than a bit scared because what if he's not there?

It's probably a good thing she's so good at picking up on all the nuances and subtleties in his words since he so rarely comes out and actually says anything bluntly enough for the casual listener. But she knows that by now anyway.

Waiting on her to show up takes so much longer than he feels anything has an honest right to, but it's so totally worth it when he actually hears the door bang open. He stands up so fast the chair falls over and turns the corner to see her. 'Rose.' And a shout couple of long steps and there is a great big swinging you about a bit kind of hug happening.

"Doctor!" She wraps her arms tightly around him, burying the face in his shoulder and the curve of his neck. She's crying but she's also smiling. "You're here. You're really here. I thought I'd got lost again." Because she won't ever say that he left her behind because he didn't, not on purpose.

She's not going to let go of him anytime soon.

Not yet, at least. He sort of considers leaving her with the human version to be leaving her on purpose, even though it was also what he thought was the best decision at the time. But he's not ever going to make that mistake again. It was too difficult the first time and he doubts he'd have the willpower for a second. That's also going to be a fun conversation still.

'Me too.' Really that's good because he doesn't want to put her down or let go either. 'Glad you didn't; that was going to be hard to work out.' Which was supposed to be kind of oh, ha ha but personally feels a little too close now that he's said it. He compensates with an extra squeeze.

Such a fun conversation. Can you hear the sarcasm? At least he'll win points if he can convince her he's never going to make that mistake again.

She's going to facilitate that not putting her down thing by wrapping her legs around his waist and continuing to just hold on. They probably look ridiculous. Rose doesn't really care. "Yeah, but I woulda busted through and found you."

Because Rose isn't the girl who waits. She's the girl who goes after the Doctor.

He can do that. Hopefully. He'll need the points at that particular moment in time anyway.

Well that does make it a bit easier to hold her up. Not that he was particularly having a problem before, but even still. 'Course you would. You're brilliant, Rose Tyler.' And he loves standing here in the doorway, covered in Rose, but holding someone up you can't really do anything else with them, so after a few seconds he walks over to the hammock thing with her and sort of falls sideways and backwards into it. There's not really any contact lost, just a little more freedom to move about.

The falling into the hammock gets a bit of a sniffley giggle out of her and she untangles her legs just long enough to stretch out along the length of his body. Now that it's over and she's here with him, all the strength she was using to stand up straight just sort of leaves. She relaxes against him, face still buried against his shoulder and neck.

There's probably not a great deal of her skin touching his but maybe her cheek against his jaw or neck but if he's getting any feelings off her it is a rush of relief, gratitude and so much love that it's nearly overwhelming even to her. "I missed you."

What she means is she missed being able to touch him and hug him and have him next to her like this. It's enough just to have his voice anymore or to see him. She's thoroughly spoiled now.

Well if it's overwhelming to her even, he's probably going to be super effected by it, which you seemed to insinuate. There's some deep breathing and some swallowing around lumps in throats before he manages to reply. 'Missed you too. Set yourself a new standard for ignoring the "Don't Wander Off" rule. I'm starting to wonder if you understand the very basic meaning of the words.'

Given that she's so close anyway it seems like it would be a shame to not turn his head and kiss her temple or cheek or whatever's at the correct face level right now, so he does, and then settles into her and the hammock a bit more.

Yeah, pretty overwhelming. She just lost him and got him back again. It feels like Bad Wolf Bay minus the leaving. She grins a little at his words. "Pretty sure I got 'em. Always wander off in search of the Doctor, saving the Doctor or finding the Doctor. In the rare case you get lost, don't worry, it'll give the Doctor something to do while he finds you."

She takes a deep breath and shifts just a little so that her head is more on his chest than before, listening to his hearts beat.

He laughs. 'Well, I suppose that's not too far off, given the history. Thank you for taking my personal boredom into such constant consideration.'

They're actually probably quite steady and relaxed right now, despite all the recent emotions-things happening. There's all that relief and quiet glee at getting her back and the tiredness from before any of this started, mixed in with the feelings coming from her and cuddling and such - it's actually on the relaxing side at this point. Though, that could just be a reaction to the overwhelming aspect of things. Get too much input, get sleepy.

"You're welcome. It's what you love 'bout me." The words aren't really intentional. They just sort of slip out with a bit of sleepy laughter.

Very relaxing and all that stress, all those emotions are very good for making one sleepy. She'll close her eyes, snuggling up close to him.

She's definitely right whether she meant to say it or not, although his best response is really just a little bit of nodding. More of the reaction is internal than anything.

He really doesn't want to sleep; he wants to lie here and enjoy the fact that she's here, still, now, and not stuck somewhere else, again, but it doesn't take very long for his eyes to drift closed as well.

And thanks to the universe deciding it actually doesn't feel like being this nice, instantly upon hitting the first level of unconsciousness there are all sorts of the things he usually hides away and doesn't think about. Given the proximity to nearly losing her again, that one is pretty near the top for recurrence's sake, although there are other people he lost or who left him mixed in, whether in memories that actually happened or reconstructed events. It very quickly makes for very disturbed and restless sleep.

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...I wonder if he has two of those shirts now since she technically got it in the parallel

No he has one shirt like that and so does she :D

of course. that makes so much more sense.

Slowly she'll end up wearing all his shirts at some point

rosey shirts! yay! at some point he will try one of hers on to make her laugh.

And she will, so much.

he'll stretch it out so much but ask if it's 'his colour'.

And she'll just laugh and tell him yes. He should always wear pink

cinna would probably say differently. also not sure how to nightmare but we can mess with it?