A/N: If you recognize it, I don't own it. A couple of inspirations combined to make this fic: first, one of my favorite poems; second, the juxtaposition of Ten's description of Cloney and the fanfic norm of Rose's doubts and Cloney's surety; third, plain curiosity as to whether I could write something like this convincingly. Personally, I think I managed okay.

Rage, Rage

"Jason, calm down!"

"Why should I?" Rose flinched back as he snarled at her. He was angry, always angry, like the Doctor had warned – born in battle, of blood and hatred, full of fire and unwilling to be helped. He was never violent but sometimes, Rose thought it might be better if he was.

The Doctor was wrong. Not only did Jason not need her, he didn't want her. He didn't want her to help him. And she didn't know how to, anyway. You made me better; now you can do the same for him, he'd said. But she hadn't realized until she looked back that her presence had helped him – how, how could she do it consciously and when he didn't want her around?

"Why should I?" Jason repeated, more angrily than before. "Have you any idea what it's like to be born full of memories of crimes you haven't committed, and lives you never lived? Have you any idea what it's like to accomplish the only goal you've had for hundreds of years when you're only a few minutes old? Can you even imagine, Rose Tyler," and he spat the name as if it was a curse, and she flinched away again, "what it's like to be rejected by yourself and left with some stupid little human on a backward planet, your entire life laid out before you in a pattern that you don't want?"

"Jason – "

"Don't call me that!"

"It's your name. You never answer to anything else!"

"Jason," he repeated, his voice full of venom. "A Greek name. Healer. The name you chose for me – just so you can feel closer to him!"

"No!" she cried, wrapping her arms around her stomach as if clutching a mortal wound. "I love you! Why can't you accept that? I love you!"

"You don't love me. You love him. And you settle for me – the copy. An echo of a better person. The closest you'll ever get."

"I love you," she repeated weakly, stepping forward and reaching out toward him. She didn't know what she'd do when she reached him – didn't really expect him to stand still and let her. But he did let her, and Rose lay a hand on either side of his face. "Jason, I really do. I love you for yourself, not because you look like him, not because you act like him!"

Jason stared into her eyes. She met them unflinchingly. He was tense under her hands. Even when he reached up and twined his fingers with hers, there was no softening in his face or posture.

"I don't love you," he said and shoved her hands away. Rose hiccupped, biting back a sob. "I don't. You act like I was created to love you. I wasn't. I remember how he loves you, but I make my own choices. I wasn't made for you. I'm an accident. A freak blip on the curve of probability. A mistake. I was never meant to exist, and I certainly don't exist for you."

"I love you anyway," Rose repeated. She didn't know what else to say. Anything could set him off again, when he seemed to finally be calming down. But staying silent wasn't an option. "I've loved you since the first time I looked into your eyes. Because I saw the future there – the future we could have together. If only you'd give it a chance. If only you could believe that I want to love you, Jason Watson, even if you did pick a surname out of a book. You're not a mistake to me. You're everything."

"You only love me because I'm the only thing you've got left," he sneered. He reached up and pressed a fist to his chest, an automatic movement that he probably didn't even notice. It was the right side of his chest – he was always trying to find his other heart. Rose looked at him sadly.

"I love you more than I ever loved the Doctor," she said, and knew it was a stupid thing to say. Jason scoffed and let himself fall back. He was standing quite close to the wall; it caught him and he leaned against it, staring at her with all the fury of the Oncoming Storm.

"Only because the Doctor said you should."

It was a struggle, it really was. Rose wasn't used to watching her words. It had never mattered before if what she was thinking came out of her mouth. Now it mattered; her earnest confessions would only make him angrier, would only make him believe less that she could love him. So she didn't cry No! and spill out her heart. She stopped and mulled over her words.

"He was always untouchable. Even when we were happiest together, he was never within my reach. He could never love me back, not like I loved him. You're human. We could… we could be to each other what me 'n the Doctor never could've. If you want."

"And if he came back tomorrow to take you with him?"

Another long pause. It was tempting to say that she would leave with the Doctor and leave him alone with his rage, like he wanted her to. But Rose knew, in her heart of hearts, that she wouldn't go. She knew, deep down, the truth:

"I would tell him that he lost his chance with me when I fell in love with you."

Jason stared at her, but still his eyes didn't soften. His face retained that hard, flat expression she had so rarely seen before. That face dared her to try and break through, dared her because he knew he would enjoy watching her fail, dared her because if she did get through, a whole flood of rage was waiting on the other side. He stared at her, searching for lies, looking for answers in her eyes.

Then he grimaced, his hands moving to clutch at his single heart. He slid down the wall, suddenly short of breath. The metacrisis hadn't been kind to him. He struggled every day to adapt to his human body, when his mind and memories told him so clearly that it was wrong. Rose rushed to his side and wrapped her arms around him. Normally he was okay and his new, human body could cope with the stress of everything – but sometimes, when he worked himself up too much, this happened. His heart had to work hard to compensate for what his brain was saying. Rose held him, just held him without saying a word until his pulse settled down and his breathing evened out.

"Don't know how you humans manage it."

"That's why I always ask you to calm down… so that you can manage it too." Rose was relieved that he no longer sounded angry – just tired, tired to his bones and sick of working so hard for such a mediocre life. She didn't stop hugging him, and he didn't push her away.

"I still don't love you."

"I'm not asking you to."

"You want me to, though."

"I can't help that. I wouldn't ask you to love me."

"Would you still love me even if I was dying?" It was a challenge, not a question.

"Are you dying?"

"No. Not yet. This heart has at least five more decades before it'll have serious trouble."

She couldn't tell if he was lying or not. His answer didn't change hers. "I'd love you more if you were dying. Gotta pack it all in to the time we have left, yeah?"

Though Jason didn't respond to this, he still didn't push her away. As long minutes passed, Rose realized that he was calming down. He wasn't as tense now as he'd been. He reached up and took her hand, holding it as if he wasn't sure what to do with it. But their hands still fit together perfectly.

"Don't give up on me," he said, tired, defeated for the moment and unable to conjure up his rage. "I don't love you, but… but I hate myself. This bloodlust. Fire. Poison. I don't love you, but I need you."

This admission stunned her. This was a side of him Rose had never seen before. It was almost vulnerable – except that Jason would never let himself be vulnerable, not to her or anyone. Instead, it was bitter, angry that he should need anyone. She hugged him more tightly and squeezed his hand. "I can't stop loving you. And I'll always be here for you."

"Stupid little human."

"Yeah." Rose kissed his cheek. Jason let her, though he did sneer at her again.

And inside him, rage was building again, but a rage of a different kind; all of his passion, all that uncontrollable anger, was beginning to reroute to a new target. It began to rail against the forces in this universe that would seek to erase him like the mistake he was. How human it was to focus everything on clinging to life with both hands, as Rose now clung to him. How human.

How human it was to want to live. Despite everything, to want to live.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.