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electrictoesTitle: Not Quite My Own (4/7)
Characters/Pairings: Ten, Rose, OMC. Ten/Rose.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: AU from The Last of the Time Lords. Potential spoilers for everything before that.
Disclaimer: Still don't own Doctor Who.
Summary: There's a new companion in the Doctor's life. And someone important missing from Rose's.
Author's Note: Thank you to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
wishiknewwho for the beta & for being amazingly helpful with this & the next two chapters.[Bad username or unknown identity: ]
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
“What are you doing here?”
Rose pulled away from the Doctor at the sound of her son’s voice. “John...”
There was a scowl on his face, his eyes flashing from Rose to the Doctor. He looked confused and irritated, but above all he looked angry. “Why are you here?”
“I was looking for you.”
He gave her a long look. “Why?”
Rose stepped forward, reaching out a hand to stroke John’s cheek. He stepped away and she dropped her hand. “I was worried. We were all worried.”
“Surprised you even noticed.”
Rose turned to look at the Doctor; he had barely moved at all since she had stepped out of his arms, his mouth still ajar and his eyes still wide. He had not been expecting to see her; she wondered how much he knew about her son.
Looking John in the eye again, her heart almost broke. There was a hurtful, accusatory look in his eyes. She spoke slowly. “Of course I noticed. You nearly gave your grandad a heart attack when you emptied your bank account.”
“You didn’t notice I was missing, then. You noticed the money was gone. Typical.”
“No, John, that’s not what I said-”
“Whatever. What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
His voice was becoming raised and Rose was unsure of what to do next. She looked at him for a moment before speaking. “I... Jake told me I could get here, to the Doctor, and I thought-”
“You weren’t looking for me at all, were you?” Looking more pained and frustrated, he balled his hands into fists.
“John-”
“Forget it.”
Rose sighed as he stalked off, knowing he wouldn’t want her to follow. She turned to look at the Doctor again. Her heart sped up just at the sight of him, as though it had awoken after eighteen years of sleep. It beat only for him, really, as cliché as it might sound.
The Doctor met her eyes and blinked. He sent her a loving look and then stepped forward. “I’ll go after him.”
Rose watched as he turned his head to watch Johnny walk down the pavement, quite a distance away already. She softly laid a hand on his arm, wanting to say something. “Doctor.”
“Rose.” He beamed. “Please don’t go anywhere.”
The Doctor headed off in the direction Johnny had gone, trying to process the last few minutes as he walked. Rose was here, he had held her. His Rose, in his arms. And she was Johnny’s mother. He was angry with her, he’d run away from her. As he turned the corner, scanning the street for any sign of Johnny, he contemplated that fact. How could anyone run away from Rose Tyler? It was difficult for him tor register when for such a long time all he had wanted to do was run towards Rose. But this was different, this was family. Johnny was a teenage boy and Rose... Rose hadn’t seemed quite herself, there was something in her eyes, like a fire that had gone out.
He found his young companion in an alleyway, leaning against a wall and breathing hard. He stepped forward, not sure what to say but determined to convince him that he should come back to the TARDIS, should talk to Rose.
“John-”
“Johnny, it’s Johnny.” He insisted, his voice heavy with emotion.
“Your mum...”
“It’s Johnny. It has to be Johnny, okay? I spent my entire life being measured up to some guy I’d never even met. Not even my father, just this John guy that my mother had given her life to. And he left her behind, but she still loved him and I was never going to be good enough because no matter how hard she tried to fill her life with me I wasn’t him.”
“I’m sure that’s not-”
“I don’t want to live my life in the shadow of someone else’s memory. My mother named me after a man who broke her heart, and every time she looked at me, every time she said my name, she remembered. So it’s Johnny.”
The Doctor felt a wave of guilt wash over him. There was little doubt in his mind who Johnny had been named after and he wasn’t sure which was harder to deal with; that he had broken Rose’s heart or that he had ruined Johnny’s life. This boy, still so young, had spent his life fighting someone who wasn’t even there, being compared to a man he had never known.
He watched as Johnny slid down the wall then joined him a few moments later. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Johnny stared at his shoes. “S’not your fault.”
It wasn’t until then that he noticed tears in his young companion’s eyes. He hesitated for a moment, unsure what to do. He had never been great with crying companions. Sure, he could offer a hug with the best of them, but that wasn’t what Johnny needed. He was reluctant to say anything, but with everything that had happened, he felt it was time to shift Johnny’s anger away from Rose, to a more deserving recipient. “It is, Johnny. It’s all my fault.”
“What?” Johnny looked up at him, wiping at his eyes furiously.
“You asked me what your mother had to do with all this, with parallel universes and you being so far away from home and I didn’t explain, but I should.”
“Go on then.”
The Doctor regarded Johnny for a moment, and then spoke. “Your mother was born in this universe. Zeppelin free. Your grandmother too. And then, they met me. I made mistakes, I got cocky and things went wrong. They were trapped in Pete’s World, I couldn’t get to them, to her.” He eyed Johnny again, trying to gage his reaction. “I gave up.”
“You...” Johnny breathed.
“I couldn’t get to her without destroying two universes.” He found that now he had started to explain, he felt compelled to continue, to make sure Johnny knew the facts. “I was tempted. But your mother and I had been so complacent for so long – we were younger then, we thought were so clever – everything had gone wrong. If I had started to find a way through the void, I would never have stopped. I would have destroyed the multi-verse just to...” He trailed off, meeting Johnny’s eye once more. “I broke her heart, and I’m sorry for that.”
“But you don’t even have a name.” Johnny’s voice was quiet, even.
“Your mother could hardly name you Doctor, could she?” He leaned back against the bricks. “I thought that she would be getting on with her life.”
“No.” Johnny was angry now, he rose to his feet. “You knew she wasn’t; you weren’t, why would she be? You knew but you left her there, with her heart breaking and her life being screwed up and you didn’t even...”
The Doctor stood too, but Johnny stepped away from him. “I couldn’t-”
“I spent my entire life being measured up to you and I came up short, every time. But you’re a coward, you’re sitting there making excuses when really, you were afraid. So you say you’d have destroyed universes and you say you thought she was happy, because it makes it all a little bit easier.”
“That’s not what I-”
“It’s hard being compared to Mr Perfect. But when you fall short against a coward, makes you wonder...” He stalked off then, out of the alleyway and out of the Doctor’s sight.
He was angry at everyone. He was young, and he was confused, afraid. The Doctor had created a hole in Rose’s life too big for even her son to fill. Rose had been unhappy, of course she had. The emptiness in her eyes had come from living a life of loneliness. He wondered why he hadn’t realised it sooner, when those were the eyes that stared back at him every time he looked in a mirror.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-23 12:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 10:44 pm (UTC)Thanksfor reading. Have posted chapter 5 :)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-23 01:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 10:44 pm (UTC)Chapter 5's up now!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-23 02:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 10:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-23 05:39 am (UTC)*wonders where they go from here- can there be a happy ending here?*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 10:45 pm (UTC)As for the happy ending, time will tell..
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-23 03:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 10:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-24 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 10:46 pm (UTC)Chapter 5's up :)
x
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 04:22 am (UTC)*squishes Johnny*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 10:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 11:31 pm (UTC)*looks shifty*