In Your Arms

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The Doctor and Rose left Jenny to get more rest. She wanted to tell them all about her time trying to find him, but they could both see her exhaustion, so he made her rest.

They walked into the hallway. “So, do you understand now?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Rose nodded with a small smile. Not wanting to put any pressure on her hurt ankle, she slid down the wall to sit. She winced as her right foot was used for balance. Then she slowly slid her leg out, suddenly wishing she had a pillow to rest her foot on. Still, the flooring of the TARDIS wasn’t too bad…

The Doctor sat across from her. He tilted his head and looked as if he wanted to ask something.

“What?” she asked.

“I was just wondering,” he said almost distantly at first. Then his eyes gleamed with mischief.

“What is it?”

“Just wonderin’ if you were still ticklish.” He shrugged as if it was nothing.

Her eyes widened. “No, no.” She pointed her finger at him. “Don’t you even dare. See this foot? It may be sprained, but I’ve got another and two arms that can fight.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “I was just wondering!” he defended. And she rolled her eyes. Never mess with a Tyler woman, the Doctor thought. Mickey had said that to him multiple times whenever Rose was angry.

He looked at her. No anger shown on her face. She just rested her chin on her left knee, looking back at him. She sat stiff, though. He stood up and sat next to her, pulling a tube of ointment out of his jacket. He had grabbed it just before leaving Jenny to rest again.

“It’ll help heal your ankle, and it’ll get rid of your scars,” he told her, twisting the cap off.

The moment he mentioned ‘scars’, she shifted slightly, her face becoming guarded. “Yeah?”

He stopped. “Rose, what happened?”

She stared at her foot. “Nothing.”

He lifted her chin and sternly looked at her. “I need to know.”

She moved her head away. “It’s fine. I promise. No need to burden you with anything else.”

“Burden me?” He was baffled. How could she ever burden him?

“You’ll only blame yourself.” She avoided his eyes.

He continued to look at her intently and said gently, “You could never burden me, Rose.”

She shook her head as if she didn’t believe him and tried to stand up. It was more of a struggle than it should’ve been. He hadn’t wanted to admit it before, but Rose had definitely seemed physically weaker than she once was. He’d thought she was just in a bit of shock. But when she so easily sprained her ankle…he knew something was up. Sure anyone could sprain an ankle standing up so quickly when not used to running, but Rose had sure spent a lot of time trying to find him again. She should’ve been used to running—right? And even if she wasn’t, she shouldn’t have sprained her ankle as bad as it was. Every step she took, he could see the stiffness, the pain clouding her eyes, and the wincing—whether or not she realized what she was doing, which was very possible, because she was Rose. She was never focused on herself, but on others. And earlier, she was very curious about Jenny.