Rose throws open the curtains allowing the morning sun to caress the room in its light and warmth. She vaguely remembers a time when a new day filled her with hope and excitement, but now it just feels like a reminder of the time that is slipping away from them. The ticking clock of her husband's last days.
She busies herself with cleaning to distract from her morose musings. She wouldn't waste their time together being despondent. With their lives, any day could have been their last they were fortunate to have gotten to this point.
Movement out of the corner of her eye had her turning suddenly to face her husband, freezing almost immediately upon realising he was still asleep.
He was fine, she reassures herself.
The countless monitors reaffirmed that thought after all. It didn't stop the nightmares. Ever since they'd figured it out she'd wake in a cold sweat, the lingering grief of having watched her husband die in her arms, with the knowledge that it would one day be her reality.
Sometimes she found herself berating herself for being selfish, they'd had a long and happy life together, seen the extraordinary and yet she still found herself longing for longer. It hadn't started off that way.
-x-x-
Rose was sat at the dining table staring blankly at her laptop screen. It'd been three days since she'd gotten back to this universe and she had a report to fill out now that all the stars were back because people don't just forget something like that.
Since the cyberwars, there was a certain tension amongst the people of London of the xenophobic kind. They didn't take well to aliens, despite the cybermen's human origins they needed someone to blame. Pete was preparing a press conference to ease their minds but he couldn't do that until she completed her report.
Her fingers drummed uselessly at the side of her face from where her hand was propping her head up. She'd been at this an hour and was not even a fifth of the way through yet. Her mind was running at a million miles an hour whilst simultaneously going nowhere.
Maybe she was hungry.
She pulled herself from her seat and headed over to flick the kettle on. She reached for her mug from the permanently open cupboard, grabbing a tea bag in the process. Placing the mug on the counter and the teabag in the mug she stared listlessly at the speckled counter as she let the sound of the bubbling kettle wash over her.
When was the last time she'd eaten? What had she eaten? Was this her life now? Planning meals, making tea and writing reports? It wasn't exactly riveting. Very... domestic.
She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of footsteps on the cold tiles, her head whipped round to face the sound, hand reaching for the stun gun under the counter automatically. As the intruder stepped into view she brought the gun up, aiming for their chest, she charged up the weapon, fingers prepared to fire when her brain registered the figure now holding their hands up.
"Doctor." Rose sighed, lowering the gun she let it power down before tossing it onto the counter, she rubbed a hand down her face wearily, "I forgot you were here."
"I can see that." The Doctor-but-not-quite said almost bitterly.
Rose glared at the touch of judgement in his tone.
"Its Torchwood standard procedure, it only stuns."
"Doesn't mean I have to like it." He shot back in that high and mighty tone that was so similar to his Timelord counterpart.
Rose scoffed, "Lest I remind you that you are here because you committed genocide against the Daleks. Again. And apparently cannot be trusted on your own not to commit another."
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Decay (Hiatus)
Fanfiction'Humans decay. You wither and you die.' Once upon a time, Rose held the power of all of time and space in her hands and her only wish had been to protect the Doctor, to protect him from the daleks, himself and to protect him from his loneliness. In...
