roleplay for ibringlife, <lj site="livejournal.com" user="the_cor

[rude_not_ginger]

The Doctor flipped a few final switches on the TARDIS console, adding the information he'd just recieved about Aislinn into the systems, should he ever run across another muse like her again. Well, he doubted it would be exactly like her, but...the same genus at least.

He turned, picking up the teacups that were left behind. Funny, he would've thought Rose would've been back by now. The sound of a familiar key in the lock made him look up. Speak of the devil...

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[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"It's all right, I've got a prepared list of the things you'll owe me for for the rest of forever, this is on it," he tossed her a teasing smirk, but his hearts weren't exactly in it. Easier to pretend everything was okay on the trip but now...they were just going to wait.

"Fancy a cup of tea?" He'd just had one with Aislinn, but he felt the need returning.

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"Tea'd be nice, yeah."

She wandered idly around the console room, letting herself be distracted by how alien this place still was even now that it was a more permanent home. She still didn't know how half the controls in this thing worked.

"They'll probably have a lot in common, both being used to all that upper-class society stuff. Lots to talk about without having someone asking a million stupid questions because they never paid attention in history class."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," the Doctor replied, "She's a very serious, ambitious individual, got a lot on her plate, what with refurbishing France, changing buildings, laws. She's got a whole war to be blamed for in a few years time, can't miss that. In waltzes this poet from a romantic period, with drug problems and chock full of...ideas and art and...she'll probably just...toss him out, you know. Go back to Louis." The name was not said with a lot of pleasantness behind it.

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"We know she'll do that, though. Maybe not toss him out, but go back to Louis. Kind of sad if you think about it. Her history's written. One meeting with one person, no matter how charming... I don't think it'll change her life enough to change history."

It was a comforting thought, in some sense, and it was what she knew she had to count on in order to avoid a paradox-causing, world-ending disaster, but it was still a little sad, she thought.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something---after all, he was one person, and he had altered her life in so many, many ways---but thought the better of it and closd it. He knew Reinette intimately, and Byron only briefly. He had no idea how the meeting would turn out.

"She wrote her own history," the Doctor said, "History should be more of a servant and less a master, don't you think?" For most people, anyway.

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"It is for some, I suppose. Most of us are just along for the ride."

The knowledge didn't trouble her, not really. Along for the ride could be more than enough, she'd found.

"It's all terribly romantic though, isn't it? Travelling back in time to meet a woman he's spoken to once, isn't that just the kind of thing you'd expect of a poet?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Rip a gash in the time and space vortex, endanger billions of lives, yes, yes, very romantic," the Doctor muttered, glancing at the state of the vortex. It seemed to be doing all right.

He glanced over at Rose, "How can you be so enamoured of him when he's off...you know, trying to convince...trying to alter history for another woman?"

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"Oh, stop it, I'm not really enamoured," Rose protested. "Well, maybe just a little."

She leaned back against the TARDIS wall, thoughtful, staring at a point on the ceiling as she considered the question seriously.

"I dunno what it is. I mean, anyone'd be attracted. He's got the advantage before he even starts talking, and then he does and of course you don't want to trust him, all those pretty words,I don't even want to trust him... but I kind of do. Want to, I mean. And I'd be lying if I said I weren't a bit jealous, but I was a bit jealous of Reinette already, so..."

She shrugged, and looked back at the Doctor.

"I like him. I can't explain it with logic, not even alien logic."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I'm not attracted," the Doctor replied with a distasteful note in his voice. Well, not really. The wit was nice, though. Broke up some of the tension.

He turned back to the console, glancing at the time stream, "Why were you jealous of her?" he asked. It wasn't as if he could see what Byron was saying or doing to Reinette through the time stream but...it almost felt like he was watching over her, making sure nothing damaging was taking place.

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"Hm?"

Rose blinked, not having expected him to focus on what had been an offhanded comment. She'd barely realized she'd said it, to be honest.

"Oh, Reinette. I don't know. It was stupid, really. I just thought... when you came back pretending to be drunk, you looked like you'd had such fun, and then you were so willing to run back to her world and maybe get stuck there forever, when you'd never... there wasn't anything like that, with me."

It had always stung a little, that he'd been willing to give up travelling, to be stuck in that world, all to save one woman who was already dead.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Fun, yeah, it was fun. Needed a bit of a break that day." Something like that, at the very least. Rose didn't know all of what had gone on that night, and that...that was probably for the best. "As for leaving, I couldn't have left her," the Doctor replied, quietly, "She was counting on me. She needed me. Had to make a choice."

He turned his head to look at Rose, "I would've done the same for you, you must know that."

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"But you didn't, did you?"

She didn't mean it to come out sounding accusatory, but her voice took on a hint of that seemingly of its own accord.

"I know you said you'd find a way back to me, that you'd have waited and hitched a ride back with another version of yourself and I'd never know you'd been gone, but the thing is, Doctor... the thing is, in one timeline, for all that time you had to wait, I'd be stuck waiting on the other side. I'd be there until I starved to death or something, me and Mickey alone up there until you could set things right so it never happened."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I'd have been back before you had time to miss me," the Doctor replied, easily. His stomach was in knots at her words, though. If something had happened to him, and he couldn't make it back, they'd have been trapped on a dead spaceship in a strange time, with a TARDIS that would power down and die when he did, no matter what timeline he was in. They would've been alone.

"I probably would've had myself program a time right after I crashed through that window, you wouldn't have had a moment to even worry about it."

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, okay. No sense dealing in what-ifs. You got back, no problem." Rose forced nonchalance, but her tone had taken on some hard edges now that they were actually discussing this, out loud and with words.

"But what about that last time, with the Void open, and the two Earths connecting. You said you had to stay behind and open the Void on one side, but you also said it'd close itself. That you didn't have to do anything special to it once you'd opened it. So all you really would've had to do is wait til every last Dalek got sucked in and then, at that last second, pushed one of those yellow button transport thingies and then you'd have been with me, in person, and not orbiting a sun just to give me one last look at what I'd never have again."

She was suddenly very near to crying, and bit the inside of her lip hard to keep from actually doing so.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Rose," the Doctor took a step towards her, as if to hug her or touch her or...but he stopped himself. Some kind of self-preservation, protecting himself from getting too close.

He shook his head, "I couldn't take the TARDIS," he said, feeling his own voice break slightly at his words, "It's the only thing I've got left, literally, the only thing. I gave up so much for the universe, I wasn't going to just let it claim my ship. You think I wouldn't have---" He took a breath to calm himself before he said something he would've regretting letting go.

"If I thought that going with you to the other universe was the only way to save you, I would've," he said, "But it wasn't."

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

Rose just nodded, not trusting herself to speak for a minute, not until she knew her voice would come out strong and unbroken and not burden him with more tears than she'd already shed.

"Yeah, I know. I get that. You can't leave the TARDIS. Anything else, anyone else, but not that."

And she did get it, which was why there wasn't any malice in those words, no bitterness, just sadness.

"So you want to know why I'm not jealous of Byron and Reinette? It's the same reason I'm not jealous of you and Reinette, or you and the TARDIS, or of the entire bloody universe for getting to keep you, you and him both, now, for long after I've gone. It's not that I'm not jealous, that's not it at all. It's just that I can't let jealousy stand in the way of--"

Love, she wanted to say, but she'd confessed that to him already and it was too early to even think about whether or not she'd fall that hard for Byron, if she'd even get a chance to.

"-- of living my life the way I want to."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Her words sank into him, and he felt something very like guilt prick at him. He wanted to be able to say that she was wrong, that there were people and things besides the TARDIS that he'd stay for but...even he knew that wasn't the case. He was a runner, he'd always run.

"There's nothing going to happen between Byron and Reinette," the Doctor replied with some small confidence, "If you want to...to live your life the way you want with Byron, you won't have jealousy with her standing in the way."

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"No, I've just got all those other people standing in the way. I wasn't kidding when I said he was like Jack. His concept of commitment is probably remembering to call you by the right name."

She was smiling again, teasing, really, but perfectly aware that jealousy of Reinette was hardly the first thing standing between her and Byron.

"I'm hardly going to run off with him, am I? I'm already living the life I want, here, with you. If it it happens that he and I... if we get to know each other better, that isn't going to make me change my mind about travelling with you."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I've no doubt one day you'll find someone, want to settle down and all that," he made a bit of a face at the notion of 'settling down', "When that time comes, I...I won't stop you."

No matter how much his inner mind was telling him that he would. He would protest, he would argue, he would figure out some way to make her stay.

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"Maybe."

She cast him a doubtful glance.

"Maybe it'll even be someone from my own world and my own time. But it'll be a ways off anyway. I'm still having way too much fun, and I don't think the universe has been saved nearly enough times yet."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

A small smile touched the edges of the Doctor's lips. He knew he wasn't the sort of man that would be settled down just around ever, but it was nice to know that she wasn't quite ready to run off and leave him just yet.

"Always plenty of times to save the universe out there. And plenty more, when things start going wrong, eh?"

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"You know it."

She smiled, relieved that the tension that had been there for a few minutes was gone, not wanting to turn this trip sour when he'd been kind enough to take them there.

"Speaking of which, everything all right with, you know, time?" She gestured vaguely at the TARDIS control center. "I know I said I trusted him not to wreck things, but let's face it, I don't even trust me not to wreck things and I'm used to time travel."