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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Her attempts do settle things down for a couple of minutes but it's quite quickly that they return to their previous disturbed state. He turns toward her a bit more and pulls her a little closer even though for the most part the dream is still convinced that she isn't there - just image after image of her disappearing, actually falling into the Void, being trapped in an alternate version of the City forever without even anyone else to talk to in person, or flat out dying in any one of the various manners it got so close to happening. Mix in a little bit of orange skies on fire to break up the monotony, and he's probably mumbling or outright speaking aloud in a relatively steady stream. Lots of no's and various emissions of her name in general among other mumblings, with furrowed brow and faster breathing.

At first she snuggles in closer, shushing and reassuring him sleepily. As his mumblings get more urgent and his breathing gets faster, she slowly wakes up. She's bleary and still sleep-confused about what's going on but she puts one hand on his shoulder and one in the middle of his chest, shaking him lightly.

"Doctor, wake up. Come on, it's Rose. I'm right here." And then a bit more urgently. "Doctor, wake up."

Edited 2011-10-08 03:17 (UTC)

It takes a few seconds to disengage from the dreams entirely, but when it does happen it's nearly directly after her more urgent insistence and with a sharp inhalation. He blinks several times and looks over at her for a moment and then just up at the ceiling, slowing the breathing and such back down. 'Bad dream. Thank you.' Maybe she isn't totally awake and they'll both just go back to sleep.

No such luck, Doctor. She's sleep deprived but not to the extent he is and concern about him keeps her awake. She's giving him that worried face, brows pulled together. She runs her fingers up over his cheek and into his hair.

"Might help if you talk 'bout it. You were sayin' my name and no a good bit."

He is entirely dubious of her idea about talking about it. He opens his mouth to say that he isn't sure he feels like talking about it until she gets her fingers on his cheek and then up in his hair. That's relaxing still. He starts to talk again and then pauses. Sigh. 'Really, it's just... Nightmares. They happen a lot.'

That makes her frown but she keeps gently running her fingers through his hair as he talks.

"A lot? Is that why you haven't been sleepin'?" She thought it was just his sleep patterns. "I could've kept you company."

Not that having her here helped this time.

Oh, fff. Dammit. Be more careful with your words. Hadn't meant to say that they happened a lot... He sighs again and then replies. 'We--, ...n-not all the time. I don't have them all the time. But...' He glances back over at her and realises he can't really lie to her when she just saw it. Great. 'It's fine. I mean, yes, that's why, but I'm fine. I don't need a lot of sleep.'

Rose props herself up a bit, watching him carefully. She smooths one hand over his chest, her other hand resting in his hair. She still has her worried face on.

"We'll start havin' a nap here every few days, me and you, yeah? I can wake you up from nightmares and we'll both get a bit of sleep."

He shifts his attention from the ceiling to her and watches her adjust her positions and closes his eyes when she smooths over his chest, inhaling deeply and then letting it out all in a rush. 'No, it's fine. Really. I don't want, you to get...' Wrapped up in it. Or really even know that it's happening, that would have been better. Something like that.

"Doctor, it's not like goin' to sleep with you as a pillow's a hardship."

It's said with a teasing smirk but it's just barely covering the concern. She knows he won't stand for it if she makes it about her being worried about him. The only way she's got a chance is if she makes it about her.

That earns her a thin-lipped smile in return. 'I've been told I make rather boney pillows,' he says, with a small amount of amusement, mostly covering up the waking up he's still doing and the calming down that's still happening. 'I'm used to having them; you don't have to go through that bother for just some old dreams.'

She raises an eyebrow at him. "Do I look like I'm complainin'?"

She cups his face in both hands, just watching him for a moment. "I want to help and s'not a bother." She leans in to press a kiss against his cheek, letting him feel her concern and her real desire to help him. She pulls back to look at him a bit. "Could be all clever ruse to get you into bed with me."

He looks down, and quietly replies, 'No, I suppose not.'

When she cups his face and looks at him he doesn't have much else to do but look back at her, unless he wants to be annoying and refuse to, and at this point in time he doesn't. He can see the sincerity in her eyes when she says it, so the kiss she presses against his cheek manages to reinforce that fairly well. He closes his eyes again and swallows, keeping them closed until she's about halfway through her final statement, at which point he opens them again and just looks tired but amused just the same. 'Could be working.' Really it's all just reminders that when she's here he doesn't have to do things by himself, which when she was here before was still something he had a hard time fully wrapping his mind around and thus wasn't learned well. Back to self-auto-pilot very quickly.

Eventually she'll teach him that he no longer has to do things on his own, that he's not alone. She's got a good deal of patience where he's concerned. She can't say that it doesn't make her sad though, all the back sliding he did with her gone. She settles one hand back in his hair, the other resting back on his chest again.

"Good thing. Might bruise my ego a bit otherwise."

He calms back down even more, relaxing into her side where she's come up to meet his, feeling her hand messing with his hair and the weight of it on his chest... It's nice.

'Wouldn't want to do that. Can only handle one bruised ego 'round here at a time, yeah?'

She feels him relax a bit and it's nice. It's progress. Her brow furrows a bit in confusion.

"Definitely only one bruised ego allowed at a time but why's yours bruised?"

She will start telling him how amazing he is here in a moment. Doctors with bruised egos are not allowed, not when there's a Rose Tyler around.

'Well... I meant, shouldn't bruise yours up in case mine does. Get bruised.' He wasn't really thinking when he said it. I mean, sure, he would have preferred she not know about any of the nightmares or choose to be involved in their solution or anything like that, but he doesn't feel like his ego was really bruised because she does know. He doesn't think he does, anyway.

"Got it," she nods a bit, watching him carefully for all those little signs she has to look for with him. She considers things for a moment, weighing their options and what the best immediate solution to this all is.

"Want to try and stay awake for a while or try to go back to sleep?"

Either way, she's not leaving his side. Possibly (or probably) not for a good while. She'll forward the phones at work to her device and head to work with him then when he gets off, he can head to work with her. Or something of that sort. At least that's how she feels right now.

He does the same considering for a little bit. 'I'm not really sure what difference it makes. Hopefully it won't happen again that... badly, anyway.' Because that would just suck and mean something was probably happening.

'Both sleepy, the pair of us anyway.' He shrugs in as much as it's possible lying down with someone all along you like she is and then continues. 'Might as well.'

Rose nods a bit and lays her head down on his chest, relaxing again. She draws lazy patterns on his chest with her finger.

"Mum used to tell me to think of things that made me happy. She'd say my dad was watchin' over me."

She's quiet for a few seconds, listening to his hearts beat. "You've got me for that. The watchin' over."

Not that it works terribly well since she sleeps so much more than he does but it's the thought that counts.

The thought that counts and it's such a wonderfully simple, just sort of there kind of thought; the sort you give to someone else because you like them and because it is a little easy thought. All the familyness related to it helps add some undercurrent as well - little human family who accepted him and let him in for Christmas and believed in him even when they might not have liked him all that much. It also reminds him of an old man who'd said nearly the same thing.

When she lays her head on his chest, he adjusts the arm he had around her, letting his hand rest on her waist and holding her not quite as close as he had been while asleep, but close to him nonetheless. All quite back near to the brink of sleep where they had been before.

'Thank you.'

That's the thing with human families. Half the time they don't like each other very much but they accept each other and love each other anyway. He might be over nine hundred years old but he's still got a good deal to learn about things like that.

She smiles sleepily at his expression of gratitude and stifles a yawn. One of her legs tangle up with his a bit as she settles in next to him. "S'what m'here for. Forever, 'member."

Yeah, families back home were a little odd and standoffish and really not quite as accepting of difference as that. It's a little difficult to get around what you were first exposed to.

He smiles a bit even 'Yeah, forever.' The tangling is nice though. Koala-ing is something he's finding is wonderfully similar to hugs but... more. So better.

Soonish they both probably start falling back asleep (?) and then of course curse and pretty much instantly he's in very much the same position.

She repeats the same scenario really until he wakes up again. This time she's a bit more aware and suspecting that it's not just nightmares to blame. She smooths a hand over his chest, giving him worry face.

"Maybe some tea would help?"

Since clearly he's not going to discuss it with her beyond what he already has. Or at least he won't prompted.

Even with her calming he awakes with a start, breathing heavily until he gets his bearings and attempts to relax back into the bed. Her hand smoothing things over his chest is helpful. Pushes him back down into it and provides a solid presence. The worry face he will deal with in a moment. Hopefully.

'Yeah, tea. Tea- Tea might not be a bad idea,' he says, ridding himself of the final few nightmarish images. Maybe there'll be some discussing there, since he doesn't really have any reasons - particularly now - to hide things from her.

sounds fine to me.

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you can assume he woke up at the end of this if we want to not just keep having her wake him up

Sounds good

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