Chapter Text
Frustrating, he thinks, as he strains his ears to his surroundings, wincing only slightly as loud music of all kinds continues to blast from all directions. Even with his superior hearing abilities, he couldn’t even make heads or tails which lyric is for what beat, what with how all of them seem keen in overlapping one another. It’s maddeningly and annoyingly incomprehensible how anyone had approved of this, especially since it makes even conversing difficult. Of course, long-ago memories of Time Lord council meetings and UNIT negotiations had given him the ability to zone out the noise and pick only what is necessary with all the blabbering, so the excessiveness of the atmosphere had not mattered for most of the day, if he were being honest.
Only, it seems that his centuries of experience seems lacking at this particular moment in time, and he manages not to sound too winded when her elbow manages to nudge him in a vulnerable spot at his side. All because he’d not understood her words the first time, the frustrated, wobbly furrowing of her eyebrows he knows to be there confesses.
Not his fault he didn’t hear her exactly the first time; that would be her school’s funfair having problems controlling the sound system.
Craning his head closer to her than before, he motions for her to repeat what she’d said. Still, he’d not taken his eyes off the stack of cups situated a few metres away from him, sniffing a little when he had to adjust his stance to maintain what he believes had been the most optimum angle to, well, stare at his target.
There’s something sweet and soft that drifts lazily in the air, and with her mouth much closer to his ear, he could hear the concern and worry that curls around her words. “You think she needs any help?”
He blinks, lashes fluttering quickly over the tops of his cheeks, before finally tearing his eyes away from the offending plastic pyramid that has become the bane of his existence for the past two minutes.
Blonde, he observes. Honey-blonde, long, slightly wavy that acts as curtains, shielding her face from observation. Tall as well, and he reckons that she’s just slightly shorter than him, if about one or two inches. There’s an air of familiarity he can’t seem to grasp fully, but it could be the boots and leather jacket she’s donning despite the harsh 2PM London cloudless summer weather. Reminds him too much of—
He looks away. Even now, he could almost feel the beginnings of bitter laughter strangling his chest.
Stupid, stupid Doctor for even considering such a thought. Her jacket isn’t even a dark blue.
“Why’d— Why’d you think that?” It comes out strained, and he wishes very much that he’d continued calculating the speed and force needed to win that octopus plushie Rose had cooed over just a few minutes ago.
It’s not her. (Of course, he’d looked again just to be sure.)
The ball he rolls between his palms is a sort made from lightweight foam. Perfectly round. Fits his hand. Pink.
He puffs out a breath through his nostrils harshly and throws. It misses its mark. It’s okay. They can always just buy the plushie online. Better yet, Rose could probably make them herself if she so wants to. She’d probably make a better looking one anyway. She—
She’s still looking at her. Belatedly, he realises Rose hasn’t answered him yet either. He swallows. Dread grows in the pit of his stomach, roiling acid and heavy like stones.
“Rose?”
Confusion and hesitation paints her face almost too vividly, bottom lip caught between her teeth and her nose scrunched. Quietly, he pulls her aside, just a few steps to their right to make way for others lining up for the game, his hand gently pushing her to follow. “Rose, dear, are you okay?”
“I am, really.” Her eyes are wide and honest when she finally looks at him, nodding a little in confirmation, and perhaps he should feel relieved at that.
But, he’d not missed the reluctant way her eyes had moved to him when she’d told him that, and he’d certainly not missed the eagerness of her gaze returning back. There’s confusion present too, and suddenly, he no longer finds the little eyebrow furrow of hers adorable.
“I don’t—” A huff of frustrated breath leaves her mouth. “I don’t know, but I get the feeling she’s lost.”
It’s most likely an unnecessary worry on his part. After all, Rose has always been observant and kind. Her singling out one person because she’s concerned is a very Rose Noble trait, one he still teases is something she’d inherited more from Shaun than Donna.
It doesn’t matter that there had to have been hundreds of people visiting the school for the fair, several most likely in a similar state of disorientation from navigating the building’s fairly confusing floorplan, and yet the only person that had caught her attention is someone nearest to the hastily set-up information booth. Neither did it matter that one second, Rose had been enthusiastically cheering him on and his admittedly lousy attempts to win her a prize; she becomes hyperfixated, he becomes panicked, and they both seem not to know why the next.
And, then there.
It had only been a moment, but there had been an interesting emotion that crept into her face, something akin to surprise and something else. It had only been a moment, a barely even there thing, but it had her chew on her lip and crinkle her nose before her face had smoothed out as if it had been nothing.
Only a moment, but he’d long since learned that the most powerful, beautiful and cruel things could happen in one.
He should call Donna. He should, because damn it, it’s summer break, Rose bought him a ticket, and they’re supposed to be having fun doing normal human fun things in underfunded secondary school funfairs. Donna had made him promise he wouldn’t let anything happen to Rose, alien or not, and he intends to keep it.
But, as he shoves his hands into his pockets to search for his phone, Rose decides it to be the best time to run up to her. He should have figured she would, remembering the way she had wrung her hands in front of her and the restless shifting of weight she’d done with one leg to another, her bravery only needing to be gathered in the meanwhile. Again, he reiterates in his mind with exasperated fondness as he scrambles after her, a very Rose trait.
(“Which?” his mind asks. “Either or,” his response, unthinking.)
When Rose has reached the stranger, he’s still halfway there, stalled by a parent and child he’d almost bumped into. The apologies that leave him doesn’t ease their justified indignancy at his carelessness, and so he forces himself to be genuine, offering sorries and promises to be careful. It doesn’t really do much abating, but when the woman turns to look at Rose, he swears he could see brown and hazel and gold.
“Umm, hello! Are you looking for a classroom? … Or, someone? A — A teacher? Maybe I could—”
Uncertainty and embarrassment makes the russet of his niece’s cheeks bloom maroon when none of her questions elicited any kind of response, and whatever had gripped his heart (—because, he’d seen those eyes before; because, he’d know them anywhere and anywhen; because—) in a sentimental kind of sadness is replaced by the need to protect. “Excuse me,” he manages with cold politeness as he brushes past the still fretting parent, eyes crackling something fierce at the scene in front of him.
“‘m fine.”
“But—”
“Exactly. Butt out, kid.”
“That’s a bit rude to say to someone wanting to help, don’t you think?” No one can fault him for the anger he couldn’t control that creeps into his voice, and he has to run his tongue on the roof of his mouth, a physical act he does in hopes of distracting him long enough not to burst out shouting then and there. Even with the loud, raucous background music wouldn’t be enough to drown his voice out if that were the case, and he’d rather not upset Rose anymore than she already is.
Nevertheless, once he’s certain his niece has all but huddled behind him, encouraged by his gentle tug, he continues on with gritted teeth and tightly clenched jaws. “Your parents didn’t teach you manners?”
It’s reminiscent of a lightning bolt, the speed in which her gaze flickers at him so quick that it shakes him, while its thunderous claps come in the things in her eyes so heavy and so intense it silences everything around him in its echo. Suddenly, she’s no longer six-foot-something, shrinking now as her shoulders slowly slump forward. There are words on her tongue, and he could almost feel them being made in the air, hear the shallow breath of hers when she opens her mouth,
“Da—?”
Between the noise and the ping! that comes from the device on her hand he’d not heard her and she’d cut herself off. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, not when, with face screwed and mind racing, he recognises the casing and the cobbled up parts sticking out at the sides as technology too advanced and too alien to be from here and now.
Without thinking, he grabs her arm, feeling the leather crease under his palm, and it shocks her, electricity flowing from his skin to hers.
The seamless manner of how her face falls and reconstructs itself should have awed him in its practiced artistry, reforming her composure with each smoothening line and wrinkle. Instead, it gnaws at him, because he’d seen this once too and he had hated every single inch of the plastered calm. But, he shouldn't be seeing it now, because it had been four lifetimes and billions of years ago and she’s clearly not her.
“They did,” she tells him when she’d finished, a strangled exhale and two heartsbeats later. It’s almost too levelled for his liking. Calculated, as if she’s taking into consideration something fragile and volatile and coming to the conclusion that it is best to keep her voice neutral. It reflects even the shrug she does: a sharp rise and fall of her shoulders, and it shouldn’t bother him as much as it should. It does anyway, and his nostrils flare at the wrongness of it. “But, I guess I’m too much like my father.”
… What?
Then: “He always was so bloody rude.”
Oh.
Oh.
He remembers where he’d seen this face before, pulled from the mind of a scarred woman he’d mistaken was once his, all because he thought she’d forgotten him. (All because he’d thought it cruel to find a her that had claimed not to have known him at all. He could still remember, floppy haired and fez wearing daft man that he had been, desperately wanting, ignoring the possibility that it wasn’t her. Remember me, please. It’s me.)
If only it were younger, with child fat lining her now sharp cheeks and eyes less severe in the way only time has yet to develop. He wishes he could stop the sob that rises from within his chest. It sounds so ugly to his ears; all kinds of desperate longing and hope. His fingers tremble and he isn’t sure whether he should tighten his grip on her arm or take it back to his side before walking paces away for — for safety.
Rassilon. He doesn’t even know her name, but she’s here.
He should probably ask how, for how long, or even why she’s here, because— Because, surely, if she’d travelled through universes, it must be for something important, right? Or, if her mother— Oh, how his hearts stutter, hope a strong enough emotion that renders him breathless. If Rose Tyler is here. With her.
(It would be an hour later, when he is in the solace of his room, eyes stinging and breaths coming short and laboured, that he permits himself the self-hatred and deprecation and guilt and anger: at opened breaches; at parallel worlds; at time lost; at metacrisis clones that had taken a place that should’ve been—)
But, what comes out of his mouth is, “are you okay?” Soft and gentle, and not at all what his selfish, selfish desires want to ask, and yet it doesn’t matter what he wants, because those things could wait.
Rose — not his Rose, Donna’s, and yet empathy overflowing so much like how his own would. Rose Noble said she looks lost, and he wonders if she’s right. If she needs help. His help.
Maybe it isn't what she’d thought he’d say either, because suddenly her upper lip wobbles something fierce and she’d pulled her arm away from him harshly, and isn’t that just so much like his Rose?
“I shouldn’t be here.”
There’s a certain way hearts die from words, and he could attest to that when he realises what she’s said. Brown eyes regard him with a half-lidded stare, but the steel in her shoulders and the slight shifting of her right foot tells him she meant what she’d said. A mistake she intends to rectify.
“No, wait,” he means to reach her. Familiar desperation makes his arm tremble (she’s leaving; she always leaves him; she—), and it is only when she dodges his attempt that he does not make any further move towards her, because she’s staring at him like he’s a stranger. And— And, he supposes he is, but that could— that could be fixed. He could fix whatever needs to be fixed, if that’s why she’s here, he just needs a chance to do so.
One chance. Just one.
His breath is a jolty tiny inhale that makes him choke, and it burns his lungs. It hurts. “Please.”
“I have to go.”
He wants to try, right hand itching to grab hers, fingers flexing by his side. It’s only Rose’s warmth behind him that has him frozen in place and unable to move. He licks his lips and finds salt there. “Will I— Will I see you again?”
She doesn’t answer, not that he expects her to, not when she’d already turned around and started walking away.
She doesn’t want to see him. No. Nononononono—
And, if he looks like a starving dog hungering for even a meagre bone the way that he currently feels, then fine. He’ll have a bone. Or, even the smallest of crumbs if that’s what she can only offer him. He’ll have anything, because damn it if the universe shows him what he could have had just slip right through his fingers and he couldn’t even take a single grain of sand.
He feels a comforting hand on his back, urging him, and it is that reassurance that it’s okay for him to want this that makes him sob. “Can I at least know your name?”
Oh, he doesn’t deserve it, not at all, but he’d forsaken the need to weigh the total of his sins and care the second he’d realised that she’s Rose Tyler’s daughter. He’ll have anything.
Then, she pauses, tilting her head just slightly, and it feels like the most he’s ever been blessed. “… Mia.”
(“Da—?” she had almost said, and it had mattered. It matters so, so much.)