For the last month or so over on the forum we have been holding a fanfiction competition for our members. After reading through all the entrants, with the moderating team choosing a final 3, the forum members then voted for their favourite and here it is, by Adribetty394.
He holds her image behind these new eyelids. He sees her; she is an eternal battle of dark roots in blond hair, edible ball bearings, and the Universe shinning out like a sun from every pore.
He follows a heart beat like a road map and knows that in finding him he will find her. He wonders if---sensing him in their world--- he is holding her tighter, asking her to run and not look back
He doesn’t want to interfere or interrupt; he only wants to see her… because he can. Because it very possibly doesn’t matter anymore.
The heart beat in his mind is only a wall away now and he sits across the street, eyes on the bright blue door --- like a protest against the relentless white that surrounds it.
The door clicks open and his head snaps up, three figures on the threshold. She makes a grab for her keys as she is unceremoniously shoved out the door.
“A walk? What do you mean a walk? What are you two going to do in there…”
A little boy with crazed brown hair and clever eyes asks questions with the tilt of his head and jumps up and tugs on her shirt.
“Jack, is that your father’s screwdriver? Doctor,” she sighs looking up at the figure in shadows urging her out the door, “I thought we said you wouldn’t let him play with it. I don’t need a walk…”
He finally succeeds in pushing her out the door and for a second their eyes meet across the street. The man with the single racing heart stands, shoulders squared with annoyance and trace amounts of fear. He only spares a glance for him, crouching pathetically on the pavement; he turns back to her with a grin.
“Rose,” the voice sends a shiver down his spine; tinged with ginger wit, morphed, changed. Still familiar, “He isn’t playing, he’s helping me with a posotronic entigator and you most definitely need a walk.”
The little boy is sitting on his hip now and their identical grins make her shoulders ease, she bounces on the balls of her feet, she kisses them both.
She whispers something in his ear and his face shifts--- he’s been caught--- clever clever Rose. She smiles at the boy, “When I come home, the toaster better be in one piece.”
He smirks at the boy, they share a secret thought, “Dog’s not going to build itself is it?”
The little boy’s face lights up at the prospect and they melt away into the house. Distractions gone, he jumps in with both feet and takes in the whole sight of her. She still hasn’t got any time for the roots of her hair and her shirt looks like it’s seen many football games and nights of dancing and warm deserts on galaxies too far away to name.
Now she is marriage bands and bedtime stories and unreachable adventures.
She doesn’t look both ways when she crosses the street, but she makes it through just fine. He briefly wonders how she’s made it this long without the most basic safety precautions, as if life with him weren’t dangerous as it was… and then she’s there.
She doesn’t see him, that is, she smiles and says good morning and bounces away and is ageless and glorious and too happy to care.
“Rose?”
She turns ---not slowly as one would see on silver screens in black and white--- she turns in a flurry dropping purse, phone, and keys. She runs to him, she’s nineteen again. She’s never heard his voice before but she’s heard her name sound like a prayer before --she’s heard it not a minute ago-- and here he is now, only he isn’t, only he is.
She clings to him and she still smells of the stars and cherry. The sun may or may not have set and risen before they let go.
His voice is like a whisper, may she never hear this voice shout, “The world broke again, Rose.”
She smiles and he knows she won’t ask; she doesn’t want to know. She’d always wanted to know, but there are bigger things now, “His first word was Doctor.”
There was no space in his huge ancient brain for Mother Rose, “It’s cracked to a million bits.”
“He still won’t call you dad,” she laughs, and she has things she needs to say to him, things he no longer understands, “mum hates it… and I think you love it.
He finds himself begging, “The Silence is chasing me.”
“He has your eyes,” she begs back.
She’s still the one thing in existence he won’t resist, “Not mine.”
“But they are,” she holds this face and studies it; “they’re old and bright.”
This Rose, she has finished running. Her Universe has shrunk. He thinks he is happy for her, so he has to let her know, “The Silence is coming here too.”
He doesn’t want to see her cry, so he closes his eyes as she pounds against his chest, he lets her cling to his tweed lapels but he won’t see her cry. He can’t help but hear it in her voice, “Will you fix it for him?”
His Rose isn’t here. This woman before him, she is an impossible man’s wife; she is a brilliant little boy’s mother. She once saved worlds and kissed stars and she is magnificent and her name is Rose--- but she’s not his Rose.
“Yes,” he promises, because this life of hers is precious, more precious to him (he must admit) than it probably should be.
Because she needs him to, he doesn't let the Silence take him, “Yes Rose, I’ll try and save you.”
*~*~*
The Universe is healing now and he thinks he deserves this. He thinks he’s earned this much. He wants to see her because he can.
Right now, she is all roots; her dark pigtails fly up like sparks on rusted estate swings. She is hard cherry candies, sticky fingers, and swinging up up up.He watches from a bench, subtle as he can, careful not to give off ‘stalker vibes’ as Amy often warns. The little boy that runs up to her has adoration in his eyes. She asks to be pushed higher and he sends her as far as his little arms can.
When it isn’t enough, Rose jumps. She grabs at the wind with her sparkling finger tips. This is his Rose.
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