eponymous_rose | Doctor Who

Title: Flying Ships
Author:

eponymous_rose
Word Count: 1620
Rating: PG
Characters: The Doctor, Jackson, Rosita, Frederick
Spoilers: 2008 Christmas Special
Betas: Huge thanks to

imsane_honest and

oldstarnewshine for the spectacularly detailed betas; any remaining mistakes are entirely my own fault.

This is how it has always been; he can't remember what came before.

Sometimes the nightmares seem old, images that cling to the very soul after waking, strange and foolish and terrifying as only a child's dreams can be. He turns too quickly, sees a glint of metal in a smile, hears a scream in the shriek of the factory whistles.

Sometimes the nightmares seem new, unreal, the product of a sudden illness, a fit of some sort. He wakes with Rosita's hand on his shoulder. He wakes with his hand over his eyes, his mouth. He wakes alone, reaching for a warmth beside him, a fire extinguished.

Sometimes he dreams of flying ships.

---

"We'll build it, Rosita, my girl." His hands are steadier today; hers are still quick, nervous, but they settle on the table next to his, pausing only to ghost across the plans he's drawn.

"We'll need help," she says. It's something of an understatement, but he can tell that she's serious, that she's started to believe.

Caught off-balance, he freezes, then laughs, digging into his pockets, pulling out the crisp pound notes; he knows this, knows the magic of a pretended something-from-nothing, and watches her eyes widen. "That can be arranged!"

She maintains the pretense of a thoughtful frown, and he looks away, watching his own hands trace the outlines of the balloon; even on paper, in his scribbled sketches, his T.A.R.D.I.S. shines, hums, sings.

Rosita touches his arm, and, slowly, he meets her eyes, catches the twitch at the side of her lips. "You're utterly daft, you know."

"Hardly," he says, and this time her laugh is real, in her voice, in her eyes, for the first time since the Cybermen, since the terrible night they'd met. He feels a thrill beyond the snatches of identity, beyond the incongruous warmth of the winter sun, beyond even the beautiful machine breathing into life on paper.

He speaks, and she smiles.

---

"I've been at this for ages. The place just attracts soot," Glowering at the layer of grime she's been painstakingly removing from the table of their humble abode, she straightens. "You bring anything to eat?" Her arms are crossed forbiddingly, but there's a hint of gentle mockery in her expression, a teasing warmth.

He shrugs out of his coat, rolls up his sleeves, and joins her in picking away the worst of the mess. "The butcher will be by later," he says, and can't quite resist the urge to tug self-importantly on his lapels. She makes a point of studiously ignoring the resulting smudges of soot. "We'll have a bit of a feast tonight."

Her face is still screwed up in concentration, but he can tell by the way her shoulders relax that she's more pleased than she'd care to let on. "All right," she says. After a long moment, she glances up at him. "Hang on."

And, in that moment, there's a strange sensation of dread turning his stomach at her expression. He clears his throat. "What?"

"Have you forgotten something?"

For an instant, he's afraid he'll have to grab the edge of the table to steady himself. From the corner of his eye, in the periphery of his thoughts, there's a darkness, a flicker of shadow and steel, and he wonders self-consciously if this is right, if a Time Lord should feel this uncertainty, this doubt. "No," he says, cheerfully enough, "I never forget anything."

"Right." She smirks. "How silly of me - you're the Doctor! You never forget."

He laughs. "Now you're catching on."

Standing, with an expression of infinite patience, she pats him on the shoulder. "But next time, remember to pick up that ball of twine, would you? Jed's getting a bit impatient, trying to keep the frame together without it, you know."

"Ball of-" He stares at her, then laughs again, louder this time, and after a startled moment she joins him. "Yes, Rosita, I shall remember the ball of twine tomorrow."

Rolling her eyes, she moves off to inspect the soot-covered wall. "Are all Time Lords this-" She pauses, waves a hand eloquently. "-oh, I don't know, this stark raving mad?"

"Only the best ones," he says, and winks.

---

He'd hoped there'd be something strange, something supernatural about these killings - they'd followed the trail of bodies expecting steel, expecting cold, alien brutality, not an ordinary-looking man with a knife and a wild-eyed expression. Now, in the alley's dim lamplight, he knows the retreating footsteps are human; there's something terrible about that, and he turns to tell Rosita as much.

Her eyes are wide, and her hands twitch once before coming to rest on his shoulders. "Doctor?"

"What-" He looks down, sees the tear in his waistcoat, the blood staining the fabric, and looks again at her face; she's shivering, but her eyes are resolute, and he wonders, not for the first time, what he's done to deserve such a loyal companion, what he's done to deserve them all. "Oh, Rosita, I'm fine. He just nicked me in the struggle, is all."

She raises an eyebrow in a carefully skeptical expression. "Let me see."

With an exaggerated sigh, he lets her undo the buttons of the waistcoat, then of the shirt, pulling back the torn material to inspect the cut. Some part of him is convinced that this is all very improper, but he quashes that feeling quickly enough; nothing to be modest about, not for a Time Lord, not for someone with all of time and space in plain view. There's an emptiness in those memories, though, and he pushes them away, hissing when Rosita's gentle fingers trace along the short cut across his ribs. "A little more careful, please?" he breathes.

"You baby," she says at last, voice quavering with what can only be relief - she looks absurdly flushed in the guttering light of the streetlamps. "You'll be fine. Just a scratch; it's already stopped bleeding."

"I hate to say 'I told you so'," he says, "but I did, you know."

She doesn't look at him, but helps him button his shirt again. "Next time, let me know you're going to jump him, so I can give him a piece of my mind first."

With a faint smile, she reaches for the same button as him, and he takes her by the hands, draws on the jagged, raw memories. Some part of him knows what he should say, what he should do to keep her safe, but his mind stumbles over the words, fixes on the absurdity of this girl trying to protect him. "It's not a companion's place-"

"To the devil with 'a companion's place'." She pulls away, leaving him to finish making himself presentable. "You saved my life once - do me the courtesy of letting me return the favour."

He picks up the coat he'd discarded at the start of the fight, busies himself with straightening his collar so he doesn't have to look at her. "Rosita," he says, "I think you've managed that just fine on your own."

Later, when he's yelling at some new threat to this city, when he's reaching for the hole in his mind, when he's standing back to stare at the half-finished balloon, grinning at the sheer wonder of all of time and space opening up before him, he feels her hand on his arm. They don't talk about it.

They don't have to.

---

Sometimes he sees the stars wheeling overhead, catches glimpses of constellations he nearly remembers.

He and Rosita stand under the Christmas sky after dinner, the pinpricks of light half-hidden by the smog and the whirling snow, watching the Doctor - the real Doctor, the one and only - solemnly present a small toy train to Frederick.

"You know," says Jackson, and sighs, watching his breath fog in the air, "he made me a different man. A better man." He's unable to suppress a chuckle at his son's incessant questions about the train, how it works, where it comes from; the Doctor goes from bemused to downright panicked.

Rosita snorts, indelicately. "Right."

He glances over, raising an eyebrow. "Do I detect a hint of disagreement?"

"You couldn't detect your own-" She pauses, appears to reconsider, and clears her throat. "There's only one Doctor."

Jackson shrugs. "Exactly."

With a grin, she elbows him. "Don't interrupt. There may be just the one Doctor, but there's also just one man who swore to remain here and protect London as long as it needed protecting."

"Oh, Rosita," he says, and combs a hand back through his hair. "Those were borrowed words. His words."

"I don't believe that," she says, with such finality that he turns to her, sees the set of her shoulders, the little twitch in her jaw, the half-smile still lingering on her lips. "You don't believe it, either. You know why?"

"I'm sure you'll enlighten me," he says, and finds he has to blink a few times to see her clearly.

"Look at him," she says, and nods to the Time Lord and the boy, abandoning their solemn discussion in favour of chucking snow at each other. "I think, if anything, you made him a better man."

He watches the two - giddy with shared adventure, dropping to make angels in the snow, laughing - and knows the tears will come later, for all of them, but for now-

Rosita's fingers brush against his sleeve, and just like that, he's laughing, drawing her into a one-armed hug. "I was only doing what every companion does best," he says, ignoring the way the words catch in his throat. "Keeping the Doctor in line, you know. Thankless duty that it is."

"Jackson Lake," she says, "I think we'll be just fine."

And he takes her by the hand, scoops up his son, and together, they lead the Doctor to the Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style, to the beautiful flying ship bobbing gently in the breeze, and show him their world from the sky.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: parents' house