Back To You

Chapter thirteen: Hope...

The Doctors point of view

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my emotions.

"M-Molly, can you come in here please?" Any attempt to stay neutral failed, my tone panicked and urgent. The door opened, revealing a timid looking Molly. "I need you to help me."

"Sure, right... I mean, what do you want me to do?" She stepped into the room, her hands buried feel in her pockets.

"I need you to take another blood sample." Biting anxiously at my thumbnail, I paced around the room.

"Okay." She turned to leave the room.

"No, from me."

"Oh. Would you mind me asking why?"

"Too complicated and too little time." Confusion fluttered across her face, before she regained her usual small smile. She collected a needle, and placed her small fingers around my wrist, turning it over. She pushed back my sleeve, and glanced at me, waiting for my approval. "It's fine, you can do it." I barely felt the small scratch, tapping my foot repeatedly against the the floor.

My hearts were beating erratically, trying to comprehend what my mind was screaming at a thousand miles an hour. The possibility of my theory being correct was improbable - almost impossible - yet my veins were singing the glorified melody of hope.

A small glass vial was held in front of me, and I clutched at it with shaking hands. Approaching the metal table, I picked up Rose's most recent sample, and held it side by side with mine, tilting them towards the light. I waited. After a few minutes I saw the familiar glow in Rose's sample, and shortly after, in mine. I felt a smile begin to creep onto my face, but I forced it back into hiding. I needed definite proof before I could even consider talking to Jackie or Pete. I couldn't let them get their hopes up only to let them drastically fall yet again. I couldn't be that cruel, they didn't deserve any of this.

Jackie had looked after Rose for her whole life, loved her and cared for her, then I swanned in and took her away, causing her pain. And Pete... Pete had only known Rose for a short amount of time. She was his daughter, yet not his daughter, and it must've been so confusing for him yet he loved her regardless. They didn't deserve this; Rose didn't deserve any of this.

With a redundant sigh, I placed the samples back onto the table, the glass clinking softly against the metal. I opened the door, to be met with the harrowing sound of Jackie's sobs from another room further down the corridor. After the soft click of the door closing behind me, all noise ceased for a moment, before heavy footsteps, followed by softer ones, and the cream of a door swinging open. Jackie stood there, frozen. Black streaks of ruined mascara crept along from underneath her eyes to her chin. A petulant Pete stood sheepishly behind her, seemingly unsure of what he should be doing. Quivering rage overcame Jackie, and she strode across the greying, patterned carpet. She used the momentum gathered from her rapid movement to strike me across the face. The scarlet stinging sensation numbed everything else; my ears began ringing, ignorant to her shrieks of betrayal, my chest fell numb against her pounding fists. Pete tried to pull her away, but she collapsed against me, a dead weight weeping and muttering of broken promises.

"You said..." she whispered.

"I know," was all I could muster up, because she was right of course, I said that she would be safe. That she would always return, and always return home to her mother. She died because of me. I cradled her head, as my own tears began to fall. "It's all my fault." I choked out, clinging on to Jackie, and her clinging on to me.

"You couldn't have known this was gonna happen." Pete said, and Jackie turned to look at him. "Rose didn't even know until after you were separated, and she couldn't bear the idea of telling you when there was nothing you could do about it to get back to her. Jacks, I know you've lost Rose, so's the Doctor. But he's lost his child too."