spacepeterpan | IC Inbox

Hello, you've reached the Doctor, not at the TARDIS, well, maybe at the TARDIS, won't know until I answer, leave me a message after the TARDIS engine sound if you've got one, just a "please help" is fine although more details would probably be good, whatever you can manage, and I'll get back to you, and maybe save your planet, ta!

[Followed right after by about a second of the sound of TARDIS engines, followed by the thump of its landing.

Feel free to leave a message for the (eleventh) Doctor here!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

spacepeterpan

[...oh, he might circle back to being offended later, but at the moment, he's more concerned about the state she's in, and inwardly processing his own feelings about it. The way she's talking, it almost sounds as though she's found someone else, and if there's some sort of reflexive pang of jealousy, there, he's also relieved to think she might have some kind of stability in her life, too--some of the things he can't and never could give her.

Which of course goes out the window when she explains who she is talking about. The Doctor's just baffled for a moment about why she even brought him up at all. So what if he's married, it's not as though she'd-

No...

No, nonono.]

Whot-

[He gaps for a second, looking even more confused, then sort of scandalized, then just offended like she'd got him a birthday present but he wasn't around so she gave it to his arch-nemesis instead because why not.]

You-

Him?

[There you go.

He's just flabbergasted for a moment before he shakes his head, then rubs his forehead. Being affronted isn't the most important thing, and his pride really especially isn't, and he focuses down. What can he even really say, there, about the things he does feel he has answers for?]

...blimey, between you and me, I wish he was here. I definitely remember you having better taste, Rose Tyler.

[...he's somewhere between one-third and two-thirds joking. It's partly vanity, of course, but it's mostly frustration with his other selves.]

At least with Sandshoes, I've got an idea what's the matter with him, but Eyebrows...

[He trails off, really not sure where to begin. Some of what he wants to say probably wouldn't make any sense to her; some of it would probably infuriate her; and some of it would taste too much like revenge on his part, even if it's revenge against his own future self. He'd really thought he'd sworn off wanting to reject one of his selves completely, and yet...

He shakes his head, too troubled even to do a remotely convincing job of covering it up, especially since he knows he can't just keep it totally to himself--not with what Rose is talking about--and that means he has to confront it.]

...something's not right, and whatever else you do, I want you to be careful.

[Things he never wanted to have to do: warn Rose Tyler to be careful around him.]

From:

bigbadrose

OI!

[Completely outraged on behalf of Eyebrows for a moment!!! And then blushes and flails and FISTS ON HIPS!] I don't know what you're thinkin', but you can write it right off because he's--

[But he seems so serious and she just arches an eyebrow.]

[And then gets more depressed.]

[And falls over sideways onto her bed and makes a small pillow fort, which does not work on the bed, so she kicks them off onto the floor and makes one with a chair and tents it over with a comforter, so now she has a wolf cave, complete with her feet way under the bed.]

I'm not into seducing married men.

[GROWL.]

[And actually looks fairly hurt that he thought of her like that.]

[And she is.]

And I'm trying to be careful.

He said I--

[Swallows thickly and sad wolf pile.] I hurt him so much he could never go through that again. I am not so daft as to do that to anyone. Anyone. [ H U F F. ]

[Chews a nail.]

It's hard just bein' friends though! Not like you're thinkin'!!!

But Sarah Jane... [Another thick swallow!] She said it was because you can't be friends without love. S'true, yeah? So. It just...

I can't be me. [SAD SAD GRIN TRYING TO BE AS BRAVE AS HELL!!!] It's killing me, Doctor.

Edited Date: 2018-04-22 10:05 am (UTC)

From:

spacepeterpan

...whot?

[He was already a bit confused by her reaction, but whoa, when did he say anything about seducing anyone?!]

Oi, I didn't mean like that.

[If she's offended at the idea of him thinking she'd do that, he'd triple-offended at the idea of her thinking he'd think that. ...he might have just a little bit, because again, vanity, plus old habits, but that was such a small part of his thought processes he barely even registered it.

The Doctor makes a face and lets out a breath, doubly uncomfortable both at the talk of seduction and Rose getting upset, and at the thought of having to actually explain himself better.]

No, I meant... him. ...me, my... future. I've had... dark episodes, Rose, even Sandshoes hasn't seen all of the ones I know about yet, and I've only had glimpses of some, and I don't want you to get hurt.. more.. because of them.

From:

bigbadrose

[... POUTS AT THAT.] Why not? I could!! .... If I wanted to. Which I don't. But I could!

[... Okay probably not. She couldn't even seduce Jack. He just loved her because she loved him so much she made him immortal. It's complicated.]

From:

bigbadrose

[And 11 gets a stare.]

[Cold. Quiet. Icy. Flat.]

[Idiot.]

[Sweet idiot.]

[How to phrase this without hurting him.]

Um.

[Idiot.] You pointed a gun at me. I told you to blow me up to save the planet. You sent me away how many times? I nearly destroyed time and space, exactly how many times? Five? That we know of? I made Jack the Face of Boe. I shot the devil out of a spaceship into a black hole.

[DEEP BREATH, NOSTRILS FLARE AND EYES FLASH ANGRILY.] In order to get back to you using my dimension cannon, I got to experience over and over my own private hell, that I lit'rally told Ted here that I genuinely think was constructed just for me as revenge by the Devil for the black hole thing. Because I got to find you over and over in varyin' states of dead.

Your future isn't bloody capable of hurting me. [Growls.] That's the problem. There's nothing he can do to hurt me anymore. As hurt as I get? It's all me, not you. I'm untouchable, Doctor. [Eyes flash and she looks a lot more Bad Wolf than not, even without the glowing gold eyes.]

Darkness I can handle just fine. [Feral teeth bared.] It's everything else I can't.

From:

spacepeterpan

[...of all of it, the parts that really sting are those moments, those flashes of something cold in its fury and arrogant in its pride, that reminds him far more of certain horribly mistakes he'd made than of Rose Tyler. How much of that was a new way she wore her customary bravado as a mask? How much was something that had genuinely changed in her? Even if he hadn't expected her to stay forever that girl who tossed out words she'd heard him use, hoping to fend off the Sycorax, he really hoped she'd never have to become calloused, to take on those tones that were so familiar from inside his own head--familiar because he'd practiced dreading them for so long, and cringed whenever he began to hear them in his own voice.

For a moment, he almost gapes at the way she responds--but afterward, he seems more dismayed than convinced.]

Rose... ...the only way to be untouchable's to build a suit of armor to hide away in.

[Metaphorically or otherwise (although they tended to go hand-in-hand, eventually). He was pretty confident that wasn't really the case, here, but hearing her talk that way had rattled him a bit, in all honesty.]

...I'm not saying you can't take it. ...but you shouldn't have to, not from someone you trust.

[Also he really means more than just disappointing her, but...]

From:

bigbadrose

[THE TEETH BARING GETS WORSE.]

[And then that statement.]

[And she just shakes.]

[And paces about her room.]

[She can't even cry. She's angry again.]

[She doesn't want to be but...]

[But letting it go is exactly like she told him.]

[Raw. Defenseless.]

[Finally:]

[QUIETLY, and not looking back at the camera phone:]

I'd rather be hurt a billion times over than give up. You know me.

And... it's too late. For the armor thing.

[Gently fingering a tack board of pictures on the wall.] That was over the second you left Jack behind.

[Finally back at the camera phone.] I'm unbreakable. Your mistake was always assuming I was fragile. Track record, Doctor. You've died a ton. Jack's died even more. I've never died. Not once. Remember what I said when I was angry? 'Bout Jack and River? That's why. Because it's stupid. [SNARLING IN SPITE OF HERSELF AGAIN, though she keeps it 1/2 under control.] I'm more durable than all of you bloody combined. [Eyes flash, truly angry again.] I've already been through hell and poured the time vortex into the dalek emperor's head. You got mad at your clone for genocide, but so what? I already did it once too, and the daleks are never evar gone for good are they? [Grinds teeth.]

I didn't get this way because of you. I got here in spite of you. And if that's part of me you can't stand ta have around you? [Throws hands up in the air.] No worries, you don't have to see it 'less you drag it out, all right? But I'm not a weapon, I'm not a soldier, I'm not a TimeLord, but I'm also a billion times tougher than all o' ya. So I meant what I said. He can't hurt me beyond what I allow. And what I allow? Is on me. And I can't allow anything, because he's too bloody fragile and broken. See? I'm not that stupid. I get it.

[She's also not so stupid as to think this doesn't kill him too. And she wished she wasn't... this way now. She told 10 before he brain-wiped himself clean of it that it was being a live wire, she'd always been this way, but now she had no insulation to protect everyone else from her. And the Doctor....]

[Just seemed so determined to grab her with both his hands bared.]

[And maybe it would shock something resembling sense into him. But probably not, it was the Doctor, after all.]