orange_crushed | Fic: The man in the moon. (Rose/Ten II, PG short, regeneration.)

The man in the moon. This is a short vignette, Ten II and Rose, in some relatively peaceful future. Deals with thoughts of regeneration, so please don't read if the Tennant stuff is hitting you hard. PG for one naughty thought (he's Ten, after all.)

She pokes him gently with her index finger and he comes back from that particular ledge. Oh, so many ledges in the world, and only one of her.

He is bending over in the garden, a trowel dangling absently in his hand, digging between the petunias to reach the root of a particularly stubborn weed; he is doing nothing at all, really, when his hands begin to itch. They itch under the gloves and so he takes the gloves off. Looks at the palms and the backs and the nails and then falls backwards onto the patio stones in agony.

It only lasts a second; a bright sensation of fire beginning in his center, winding pressure through the arteries and bursting his lungs; just for a second, that pain. He is human enough, while his vision blurs, to think he's having a heart attack. He lies on his back and tries to breathe normally and counts the beats: one, and two, and three, and so on. So it's not-

-oh.

"Oh," he says. He stares up at sky, which is perfectly calm. A plane passes overhead, leaving a thin trail of atmosphere; it streaks a long papercut in the blue. A letter, a gap. But not really. He is the only one with this face now. Oh, indeed. It answers a lot of questions about genetic metacrisis and hands in jars and cross-universe synchronicity and what a reckless tosser his other self is, still, always; he wonders whether or not he was alone, and then tries very hard not to think about that at all.

This does mean he wins, though: Rose's fondness for this body has been established. Many times. Once at a family Christmas party, in the broom closet.

He lies there for a long time, feeling the stones warm and then cool underneath him. His suit is a spare one, for puttering around in, patched at the knees and elbows; the seams are a gentle pressure and the thread itches slightly. Grass, growing between the slates and spilling out at the edges of the garden wall, brushes against the knobby parts of his wrists, his ears, the gaps at the ankles where he hasn't worn socks. He shuts his eyes and feels the cells of his skin beginning to burn under the sunlight, just enough. It has been seven years in this body, this universe; seven years of her and her people and burning the roast and trying not to get shot with lasers at work; seven years gone already, and today this body is really his. He thinks he might start letting her throw his birthday parties.

He really does like cake.

"Doctor ?" he hears her call. Her feet make soft noises on the patio stones, treading noises like apples falling from a tree. "You're on the ground- what are you doing on the ground ?" He opens his eyes and she's kneeling beside him, blocking the sun- in her silhouette he can see every stray hair pulling out of her braid, every curve in her jaw and her throat and her shoulders. She is so very herself, and it has always hurt that he wasn't, and now he is, and that hurts, too.

"I'm trying to sympathize with earthworms," he says. He'll tell her tonight. He'll tell her and she'll cry a little and stare off at the ceiling and hold his hand tightly, as if that could be felt as well, across the vast distance. Maybe it can be. Maybe all this time he's felt it too, her warm star, the sun he orbits, the gravity in the gentle press of her palms; maybe that's what made it seven years and not seven days until the resurrection. Maybe they've shared more than a hatred for pears. He might be jealous, but he's not stupid enough to believe the beach was ever forgotten.

"Ridiculous man." She pokes him gently with her index finger and he comes back from that particular ledge. Oh, so many ledges in the world, and only one of her. He is lucky after all. "Really, are you alright ?"

"Yes. I'm alright." He reaches up, blind in the glare, and cups her cheek with his hand. "I'm always alright."

Somewhere it stopped feeling like a lie.