Fic, The Lady in the Fireplace, 15/32: Coming Around, Part II

[loveslashangst]

Story: The Lady in the Fireplace
Author: Melinda Kitty melindakitty
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Reinette, King of France and (eventually) Ninth Doctor
Rated: oh, so Adult for slash, bisexuality, mature content, language, abuse of REALLY good champagne, and lots and lots of sex (multiple pairings/groupings)
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did, Rose would be more BadWolf and less Angst, Ten would post a sign on the door sayin' "If the TARDIS is a rockin', don't come a knockin'", and half of their adventures through time and space would consist of finding new and unusual places to have a juicy shag.
Spoilers: AU, DURING "The Girl in the Fireplace". If you haven't seen the first three series of Doctor Who, you WILL be spoilered. I like to mess with canon. And you have my word that -- despite how this starts -- I'm a passionate Rose/Ten shipper.
Summary: OTP Rose/Ten with a lot of interesting liaisons along the way. So what exactly DID Ten do in Versailles? This French farce will have love, drama, sex, and eventually as close to a happy ending as I can manage. Be forewarned, though, I may take you places that would make RTD's head explode.

As a reminder, Melinda is on vacation this week and next, and Faithful will be on hiatus as a result. Updates of Lady in the Fireplace and Dancing Lessons will continue as planned, though. --ophymirage

On with the show:

In which Ten feel thoroughly sorry for himself and then does something else really stupid. (Stick with him folks, he’s only Gallifreyan. He is clever, though, so he’ll figure it out.)

Again, some dialogue taken from “The Girl in the Fireplace”. Again, kinky spin is mine.



The Doctor sits on the decking until the cold of the metal (some kind of a titanium-tungsten alloy) seeps through his clothing, making him more uncomfortable than he already was. He’s exhausted, in sore need of a shower, bruised, battered, abandoned, and about as depressed as he’s been in a very, very, VERY long time. (And he is NOT crying. That would be beyond depressing. Besides, he still has some pride. Somewhere. Perhaps in the pocket of his other suit with the spare key to the TARDIS.)

Shit.

If only Reinette hadn’t seduced him. If only Rose hadn’t lied to him. If only he’d obeyed his usual policy: Don’t Get Overly Involved. It always ends badly. (Case in point, his current predicament. He never learns, does he?)

A violent man would find something to smash. A melodramatic man would put his head down on his arms and weep. A politic man would negotiate his way back into the TARDIS. A ruthless man would negotiate his way back into the TARDIS and abandon Rose on the nearest habitable planet. (That would fix her but good.)

He still can’t believe she nicked his screwdriver. “That was really, really low!” he shouts at the TARDIS.

Not surprisingly, she doesn’t answer. He didn’t really expect her to. Doesn’t really expect her to.

This is all Reinette’s fault. Her and her fine champagne and complicated knickers. If she hadn’t...

Hang on. There’s an idea. Shoe’s on the other foot, yeah?

Grinning at his own cleverness, he gets to his feet (which are now in the RIGHT shoes, thank you very much.)

“I’m so sorry, Rose,” he calls. “You were right, I’ve spent my whole life running away. Well that’s done now. Keep the TARDIS -- it’s my gift to you. I’ll just find someplace to settle down, shall I? France is as good a place as any, I suppose. I’m sure REINETTE will be glad to see me, at least.”

He waits.

No answer from the TARDIS.

Irritated, he calls louder. “I said, I’m sure REINETTE will be glad to see me. Oh, and do be sure to disconnect the fireplace once I’m gone. We won’t be bothering you again.”

He waits again.

The TARDIS is silent.

In spite of himself, he wonders what Rose might be doing in there. After the way she sucked up half the energy from the Heart of the TARDIS -- and threatened to spit it at him, no less -- it’s a bit unnerving to consider what she might be capable of. Could be bad. Very bad.

He tries the door to the TARDIS again. Locked. He pounds on it. “Rose. This isn’t funny. Let me in. Right now!”

No reply.

“Please?”

Still nothing.

He presses a hand to the door. For whatever reason, the TARDIS isn’t talking to him either. It’s like She’s distracted with something. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear it was girl talk.

“Traitor,” he mutters. She’ll have to answer to him later, when Rose is sobbing in a mess of blown circuitry. (Now there’s a strangely heartening thought.) He turns away. Takes comfort in the surety that it takes more than a sonic screwdriver to keep a heap like the TARDIS running.

He sighs, unsure what to do next. The TARDIS is in the hands of a traitorous seductress. This fifty-first century ship’s a derelict, damaged by an ion storm and mangled by well-meaning but homicidal repair droids. Worse still, because those same droids have been dispatched (through no small amount of cleverness and sacrifice on his part), there’s no one left to maintain the ship. He’d do it himself, but he’ll most likely run out of working parts after not so awful long. Actually, come to think of it, he’s not sure how much time he has left before life support systems fail. Unsettling thought, that.

So maybe his threat is a good one after all. He’s Harry sodding Houdini in a time machine? Well. What does a consummate escape artist do when his irate demi-god of a girlfriend nicks his motor?

Goes back to Reinette, of course. At least she understands him. She’ll probably forgive him too -- she’s only loved him her whole life. (Unlike SOME people he can think of.)

He has a long time to think on the trudge back to the fireplace room, which irritates him. Thinking is very low on his list of desirable activities right about now. He wants so much to hate Rose. She seduced him... well... sort of. He did kind of go along for the ride. And what a ride it was.

His whole body tightens sweetly at the memory. Splendid. Marvellous. Mind-blowing. He can still taste the beautiful cultures. Feel them turning in his mind...

Furious. He’s furious. Righteous wrath to the hilt. He’s going to lose her and she knew and she didn’t tell him. Underhanded. Sneaky. Very bad form. She’s outwitted him. Charmed him. Bewitched him with the most amazing...

And he is NOT grinning like a boy fresh from the Academy, in love for the first time. He doesn’t love her, he hates her. Betrayal. Remember the betrayal. Remember the way her skin feels under his hands. The fierce, bruising kisses. The moment she told him she loved him...

Well, shit.

He breaks into a jog, anxious for this humiliation to be over. Not thinking is going very poorly.

The fire still burns in Reinette’s fireplace. He steps onto the platform and hits the switch. It revolves him into the eighteenth century.

“Reinette!” he calls.

No answer. The room is awfully cold and still in spite of the fireplace. Grey light. It’s raining out. Rather a gloomy reception. (And, with a day like this has been, why is he surprised?)

“Reinette!” he calls again. Looks down hallways that are oddly empty. One would’ve thought more courtiers and servants and suchlike would be wandering about.

He peers into a little sitting room. “Reinette?”

“Doctor!” Mickey stands by the window in a fully powdered wig and knee breeches. (Surely that’s one of the signs of the apocalypse.)

“Mickey,” he says smoothly. Hopefully getting rid of him will be easy. To his annoyance, Mickey comes over. Takes his hand. Pumps it. Pulls him into a full hug.

“Doctor! It’s so good to see you!”

Small talk. He hates small talk almost as much as he hates Domestic. “Yes. Quite.” He extracts himself from the hug. “Umm. Say. Is Reinette around?”

“Oh.” Mickey has an odd look on his face. “Her.”

“You just missed her,” says a familiar baritone voice from the shadows by the window. “She’ll be in Paris by six.”

“Ah.” Well. So much for that plan. Maybe he can steal a horse. Ride after her. Paris could be fun. He likes Paris. And Paris is almost as fond of him as London is.

All thoughts of merry chases end when the King steps into the grey light. He looks like he’s had an even worse day than the Doctor. (If that’s possible.)

The King glances at Mickey. “Leave us.”

Mickey bows. Leaves, still bowing to the King. Closes the doors behind him.

(Well. That’s a change.)

“We have been grateful for the use of your servant,” says the King. “He is an honest man. Loyal and obedient.”

The Doctor decides that adding “and a complete Idiot” would be impolitic. “As Your Majesty says.” There. That was politic. He smiles, pleased with himself.

The King looks at him. Blinks in surprise. “Good Lord. She was right.” He approaches, each step careful, as if he can’t believe his eyes. “She said you never looked a day older.” He touches the Doctor’s face gently. His hand slides over the light stubble on the Doctor’s cheek. (He could really use a shower and a shave. God, it’s been a long day.) “So many years since I saw you last, but not a day of it on your face.”

And that’s when he realizes why His Maj looks like hell. “I just... missed her?” He can’t quite bring himself to say “dead”.

The King nods, a lifetime of grief in his eyes. “By hours.”

“I’m really sorry.” He says it by reflex. It’s what he always says when some poor alien dies during an Adventure. But this is different. This he FEELS, a white-hot pain between his hearts. He puts a shaking hand on the King’s shoulder, earnest. “Your Majesty, I am really, really sorry.”

The King’s thumb strokes his cheek. “She spoke of you many times.” He withdraws his hand. Pulls a letter from the inside pocket of his ornate coat. “Often wished you’d visit again.” The twinkle in the King’s eye is a pale shadow of the wonderful sparkle the Doctor remembers so vividly. “You know how women are.”

Nodding numbly, the Doctor takes the letter. His knees don’t work right anymore. He could use a nice, stiff drink and a sit down. He could use a long sleep to forget everything. (He could use a nice, sincere hug from Rose and to hear her tell him with the overconfidence of youth that everything will be all right.)

Sod it. Still angry with Rose, remember? What IS it about that girl?

The letter is a slice of reality with neatly-folded corners and a drop of sealing wax in the middle. His hand trembles harder. He brings the letter to his nose. Inhales. Sandalwood and cinnamon, even now. He missed her. Madame de Pompadour. He missed her. By hours. He missed her. He could’ve returned to see her. Hold her. Touch her one more time.

And he’s acting like he loved her too. Absurd. Ridiculous. He hardly knew the woman. A day. He had a day with her. Less than a day. A night. Should be lost among the thousands of nights...

But that night was precious, wasn’t it? Important. He knows with absolute certainty that it will stand in his memory as a fixed point by which other events are reckoned as “before” or “after”. Like the day he looked into the Untempered Schism and ran. The day he realized what the Master had become. The day he first met Sarah Jane Smith. The night Romana decided to stay. The night he and Jack... Well, never mind that. (Champagne always did get him in trouble.)

The night Rose blew his mind...

He pauses. Music. Dance. A thousand thousand lives, turning in his mind. Flowing through him as the aeons passed. To be fully part of so many, and to be loved so deeply by one.

Rose is the best he ever had.

And now he’s ruined it. He. Himself. Not Reinette. Not Rose. “I’m really sorry.” And he actually means it. (Of course, the apology would probably work better if she were actually in the room, but it still feels good to say the words aloud.)

Somewhere outside, a whip cracks. Horses neigh. A carriage clatters over the pavements. He doesn’t need to look out the window to know it’s a hearse.

He missed Reinette. And if he’s not very careful, he’ll miss Rose too.

The King turns to the window. Rain pours down the window panes. "La Marquise n'aura pas beau temps pour son voyage."



Link to All Previous Chapters

Crossposted to: time_and_chips