What Sarah Said

Rating: G

Summary: It's a lie, and she doesn't know how long she'll be living it, and it'll break her heart-- but Sarah Jane was right...

Disclaimer: I don't have even the faintest right to any Doctor Who characters.

Notes: Title from the Death Cab for Cutie song. Love is watching someone die...

-

"Can we really be sure of your loyalty to this organization?" says the interviewer-- leaning over her desk, now, to give the impression that she knows all Rose's secrets; that Rose has been found out.

Maybe it's arrogance, but Rose knows that'll never be true. "Absolutely."

"Even if the Doctor comes around?"

She'd expected the question, but she still finds it hard not to wince. But she doesn't: "Yes," she says, perfectly calm.

"But you were a... companion... of his... for such a long time," says the interviewer, making the word not only sexual but filthy and perverse. She should slap her; her heart screams she should slap her. "Can you really turn against him so easily?"

Another question she'd expected, and she has her answer prepared. "Easily?" she says, voice cracking just a little. "Nothing about this was easy. Or quick, either-- no, he drew it out, he did. 'E took me from my home, sayin' there'd be adventure and fun an' we could always go back. Forgot to mention he's crap at actually pilotin' his ship. I was missing for a year, y'know that? They thought my boyfriend killed me. It's a miracle he didn't wind up in prison."

"And yet you didn't leave."

"Yeah, well, that was just the first couple months. It was fine; it was all fine. An' then he-- changed." She swallows. She knows why she's lying, but that isn't making it any easier; she'd really hoped that would make it easier. "He was so-- I dunno-- happy, y'know? He'd just pull you along. And then he abandoned me."

"I thought he said there was no way to get through this... 'rift'." She pronounced the word like it was a fictional construct.

"Not then. This was before. He left us. Alone. On an abandoned ship with a load of evil clockwork robots in the fifty-first century. He left us. Ask Mickey. For a girl. He'd said..." She struggles for words. "He'd said he wasn't even capable of it; I'd thought he wasn't even capable of loving anyone; ask Sarah Jane. Turns out he could. Turns out he just didn't love us. But he just wouldn't tell us that, not any of us; just kept us followin' along..."

And that was why this lying was so hard, she realizes; because it could so easily be the truth. It could be how she feels; she has all the reasons for it; and that's why it will work. "He doesn't think about anything. He cares about people, but show 'im a person and... I don't know what it is. I'll swear he changed. He's reckless, he's thoughtless, he couldn't even say it--" Her voice breaks, and that's why this will work; because it's true. "It could've even been a lie, for all I cared, I just wanted to hear it-- three words, and he couldn't even say it to me. He couldn't even say it!"

She sobs, and swallows, and says: "It's like he considers it... a terrible tragedy, for him. Another wound to cart around. Another story to tell. I'm a story, to him; I think we all were. Everything, a story he can star in."

Her voice shakes, as she tries to keep it firm. "He betrayed me first," she says. "He betrayed me a long time ago. If he comes back here, and you tell me to do something against him... I won't hesitate a second."

The interviewer's face has softened, and suddenly Rose wonders if she knows exactly what Rose means; if she might just possibly be one of the Doctor's girls. If, years and years ago, she'd been swept off her feet herself. It would account for the sympathetic and ever-so-slightly condescending expression on her face when she says, "I understand."

The lie (which so much of isn't a lie) seems to have worked; the interviewer scribbles something down and closes her file. "Well," she says, and stands. "We'll notify you of the results in a few days. But for what it's worth..." She sticks out a hand; it's hard, but Rose takes it. "Welcome to Torchwood, Rose Tyler."

"Thank you," Rose says, and leaves as quickly as she can.

Because maybe it's plausible, maybe it shouldn't be a lie, but it still is one; and she doesn't know how long she'll have to live it now. Maybe the rest of her life; maybe for no reason whatsoever. Maybe she'll even grow to believe it herself...

But if there's a moment-- any moment-- when he comes around, and they tell her to betray him, and she can smile and set him free...

If there's anyone she can help, by being in Torchwood, or anything she can prevent...

She's watched him live and watched him die and watched him save the world and walk away. Like Sarah said: it'll break her heart.

Some things are worth that.