#cq's fic: the doctor tells the truth

[chocolatequeennk]

The Doctor Tells the Truth

This is a deleted scene from chapter three of Gold Can Stay. If you were on Tumblr at the time, you know this story gave me fits. Right from the start, it refused to do what I wanted it to do, and chapter three was no different. Originally, I wanted to include the Bad Wolf revelation in this story. It was part of the reason I made a point to mention that Rose could hear the TARDIS from inside the cabin. 

So, here’s an early version of that conversation. Some of this got repurposed into Believing and Knowing, where they do end up talking about her telepathy.  

With the rain beating against the windows of their mountain cabin, it was the perfect day to stay inside and make apple butter. The pot bubbling away filled the room with the warm scent of cooking apples, and the patter of rain on the windows added a countermelody to the slight hiss and pop of simmering liquid.

The Doctor was leaning against the counter flipping the sonic screwdriver in the air. Rose looked up at him through her lashes, then down at her nails. “So,” she said nonchalantly. “Have you been sleeping in my bed every night since the Coronation?”

He sputtered and nearly dropped the sonic, catching it at the last minute. “What… how did you…” Realisation dawned on his face. “You were awake last night.”

“Yep.” She leaned her weight back on her hands. “So, have you?”

He pushed his tongue against the side of his mouth, and Rose wondered if he knew how many tells he had. Finally, he nodded. “Is that all right?”  

“Yeah, it’s all right.” Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders. Rose wasn’t ready to let it go completely though, and after some consideration, she said, “I’ve been sleeping better this week than I normally do when we’re away from the TARDIS. I thought it was just because we’re close enough that I could hear her, but maybe it’s you, making me feel safe.”

She watched as his neck and ears turned a dull red. Making her appreciation of his actions clear was a calculated risk; such a pointed statement could easily push the Doctor away. However, after the way he’d been acting recently, she didn’t think he wanted to be pushed away, which meant it might just draw him in instead.

He opened his mouth, then his eyes narrowed. “Hold on. You hear the TARDIS?” Rose nodded. “Here, in this cabin?”

“Well, yeah. I have to admit, I’m glad we parked so close. I had an awful time sleeping at Mum’s last month when I couldn’t hear her.”

“And you can hear her hum when you’re in your own bed?”

“Of course I can.” Rose chuckled. “It would be pretty silly to not be able to hear her while I’m in the TARDIS, wouldn’t it?”

But the Doctor didn’t join in the laughter. “How long have you been able to hear her like that?”

Rose started to tell him she’d always heard the TARDIS, but she realised it wasn’t true. She furrowed her brow and thought back. “I heard her back when I first started travelling with you,” she said slowly, “but only sometimes.”

“And now you hear her hum constantly in the back of your mind?” She nodded. “Does it change pitch sometimes?”

“Yeah. Sometimes—this’ll sound daft, but don’t laugh—sometimes it sounds sorta like she’s laughing.”

“Sometimes she is.”

Rose’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, Doctor?”

Instead of answering, he went back to flipping the sonic in the air. This was not a conversation he wanted to have. The cowardly part of him had hope he would never have to tell Rose the whole truth about what had happened on the Game Station. She’d been glorious when she’d stepped out of the TARDIS, surrounded by the light of Time, but it had also been one of the most terrifying things he’d ever seen. Of all the times he’d thought he’d lost her, none had affected him as much as this one.

Rose wouldn’t let him escape the conversation though. “Oh no you don’t.” She jumped down from the table and snatched the sonic out of his hands. “You can’t just… quit the conversation halfway through. You know something.”

He leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, striving for a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “I know lots of things.”

Rose gritted her teeth. “Something specific about why I can hear the TARDIS’ hum from here.”

His fingers clenched around his arm, then relaxed. So, no getting out of it then. “The TARDIS doesn’t hum, Rose.”

“Yes she does!”

The Doctor shook his head. “Not audibly.”

He stepped around her to the stove, not wanting the apples to scorch and needing something to occupy his hands, since she’d so rudely taken the sonic away. He watched her with out of the corner of his eye while he stirred the cooking fruit. Rose was clever; it wouldn’t take her long to pick up on what he was hinting at. He only hoped her reaction would be positive when she figured it out.

“She communicates telepathically.”

“Yep.”

“And that hum is her… talking?”

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “More or less. The hum you constantly hear is just her presence. Telepaths can sense each other, the way you can look at me and see me standing here.”

Rose crossed her arms over her chest, and her expression was inscrutable. “Explain.”

The Doctor pointed at the kitchen table, and she sat down across from him. “What do you remember about the Game Station?” he asked.

Pain crossed her face. “You sent me away.”

His jaw dropped open a little. He hadn’t expected that answer, or the obvious difficulty with which she’d said the words. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rough. “But if I hadn’t, well…” He shook his head; he was getting ahead of himself. “Do you remember how you got back?”

Rose nodded. “Mickey and Mum helped me open the heart of the TARDIS, and then…” She frowned. “It all goes a bit hazy after that, until I woke up just before you regenerated. There was this… golden light, and I remember seeing your face, but not much else.”

The Doctor turned and leaned against the counter. “When you opened the heart of the TARDIS, you… well, you merged with her,” he said with quiet reverence. The image of Rose as Bad Wolf had been terrifying, but it was also beautiful and humbling.

The words triggered a memory locked away in Rose’s mind. I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me. “I am the Bad Wolf,” she said, the words feeling both right and strange on her tongue.

She almost regretted them when fear sparked in the Doctor’s eyes. “The two of you managed to fly back to the Game Station, and then…” He pressed his hands against the table and looked down.

“And then what, Doctor?” she asked sharply. “Don’t stop there, now that you’re finally telling me the truth.”

He sucked in a breath, and the muscle in his jaw twitched. “You were… you were the closest thing to a goddess I’ve ever seen.” He looked at her again, and this time, she saw reverence mixing with the fear. “A goddess of Time, with the power of the Vortex running through you. You used it to destroy the entire Dalek fleet.”

Hazy images from dreams came into sharp focus. “The Time War ends.”

“You did what I couldn’t. You ended the War.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before? You told me you sang a song, and the Daleks ran away.” Of course, she’d known from the start that wasn’t what had happened, but she’d figured he didn’t want to tell her what he’d really done to chase the Daleks away.

Looking at his face, so white his freckles stood out starkly, Rose realised something she hadn’t expected.

“You were afraid.”

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was, Rose?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “You had the full power of the Time Vortex running through your body. It could have killed you—it should have, really.”

And here is where that deleted scene ends. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get this conversation about telepathy to work in this chapter. I could never segue gracefully into the next part of the conversation. That’s the main reason I changed direction with this chapter, and I really like how the final version of chapter three runs.