Title: Present
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes 1: Fix-it fic, already posted on T&C.
Notes 2: Quotations are from Robert Frost, namely 'The Road Not Taken', 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', 'Ghost House', 'Nothing Gold Can Stay', and 'Acquainted With The Night'.
Notes 3: Contains some Classic characters, but only in parts and nothing you need to know about.
Dedication: Claire, Helen, Jilly and Stacey. You know why.
"Barcelona," he says, and she chokes because it isn't him.
She collapses against the floor. "I don't understand," she whispers. She feels sick.
The new Doctor – because it is still the Doctor, she can see that – looks a little embarrassed. "Like I – or he – said," he begins gently, in his voice that isn't Northern and isn't warm in the way it was before. "My people change. Thirteen lives."
Rose puts her hand to her mouth for a moment. "Thirteen lives," she echoes.
"Yeah."
She closes her eyes. Everything that's happened is catching up on her. She falls forward, on hands and knees, and throws up.
And then the strangest feeling surrounds her. Like she's not alone, and never will be alone again. There's something or someone else in her head and wrapped around her, protecting her.
She looks up at this new Doctor, mouth open. "The TARDIS…" she says hoarsely, the taste of vomit in her mouth. "I can feel her."
He looks grave suddenly, this strange, younger Doctor. "You did something that no-one's supposed to be able to do," he tells her. "It's what forced the regeneration in me. You shouldn't have survived it." He reaches across and touches the console. "You're part of her now," he says quietly, in obvious awe.
Rose knows this even before he says it. The TARDIS has told her. The TARDIS whispers in her head, letting her know things that the Doctor doesn't say. She is linked to the TARDIS. The Doctor remembers everything but is different and may not feel the same, because that sometimes changes but sometimes doesn't. She knows what the Doctor has been before. She sees what the TARDIS sees, and understands more than she wants to.
It doesn't hurt like the time vortex did. She remembers that, now, but not as herself. She remembers it as the TARDIS.
She stands, slowly, not sure if her legs will support her. She looks at him, looks at the jacket. "That doesn't work on you," she finds herself saying. "You need new clothes."
He looks down at himself in surprise. "Oh. You're right." He shrugs off the jacket and holds it in one hand. "Better go to the wardrobe then." He frowns, and tight fingers squeeze around Rose's heart. "I think I remember where that is."
"She'll help you," Rose says distantly. "Can I have the jacket?"
He holds it out silently, and she slips it over her shoulders, her arms too short for the sleeves. It is too big for her. She doesn't care. She moves forward, past the new Doctor, and touches the console, above where the soul and heart of the TARDIS resides. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
Everything is different know.
The Doctor touches her shoulder briefly, but it's wrong. He's too short, the hand not big enough. She will get used to it, she knows. Regeneration isn't easy on companions, the TARDIS tells her. The TARDIS has seen it before. Names and blurred faces flash through her mind, of past companions. Sarah Jane. Tegan. Adric. Nyssa. Peri.
She opens her eyes again. "Go get changed," she tells him. "You look a right git. Then you can take me home. I must've scared Mum and Mickey half to death."
He looks at her with brown, earnest eyes. "Back to London," he nods. "To stay?"
She laughs, and it takes him by surprise. "No," she says after a moment. "Not to stay. I can't leave." He nods and leaves the console room and she touches her lips and sheds just one tear.
They go to visit her mum. They arrive barely minutes after she'd left, and Mickey and her mum are both standing where she'd left them, talking.
She leaves the TARDIS first, and the feeling is strange. The TARDIS isn't around her anymore, but she can feel the living machine inside her head still, feeding her information and whispering to her. It is very strange, but she will grow used to it.
Jackie wraps her arms around her, and Rose closes her eyes and welcomes the hug. There is something that her mother can give her that nothing else ever can. Not even her new connection with the TARDIS.
"You're alive," Mickey says, with obvious relief. "How – what happened?" The TARDIS door closes, and she feels it as well as hears it. "Who's that?" Mickey asks.
Rose separates reluctantly from her mother. "It's complicated," she says softly. "This is the Doctor."
Mickey takes a step back. "What're you talking about?" he demands.
Rose looks at the new Doctor, but he is letting her handle this. This is her time, her family. He doesn't know them, not really. He remembers knowing them, but it's not the same.
"It's part of…his people," she explains. "They change. Thirteen lives." She looks down at the ground; the TARDIS' voice soothes her mind. "It's complicated," she says again.
"It's still me," the new Doctor offers. "But not." He looks at Rose. "I'm going back inside." He returns to the TARDIS, and Rose feels as though he is entering her. It will take a while to get used to this, she knows. She looks at Mickey and at her mum, but doesn't cry.
"Rose – is it really him?" Jackie asks. She looks as though she doesn't want to believe, but she's seen enough now to know that most things are possible.
"It's not him," Rose says. "But it is. Different body, different feelings and personality." She looks at the TARDIS. "But it's still the Doctor."
"And you're still going with him," Mickey says astutely. She shrugs one shoulder. "Don't, Rose," he says. "Don't. It's not him. It's not the Doctor you love."
Rose looks at him for a long moment, then reaches her arm out and touches the TARDIS. "I have to go," she says distantly. "There's something that happened, in the future, in the battle. With the TARDIS. I can't leave her now."
"Rose, darling…" Jackie trails off with a sigh. She won't try to keep Rose here, knows she can't. Wishes she could.
The door opens and the new Doctor pokes his head out. "Rose? You coming?" he asks. Rose suppresses a shiver – this is not her Doctor – and nods without looking at him.
"Give me a sec," she says, and hugs Jackie again. "I'll call," she tells her. "But I don't know when I'll be back."
Jackie sighs. "Yeah, yeah," she says. "Just…come back."
"I promise," Rose says, and turns to Mickey. He watches her with new understanding in his eyes, and she thinks for a moment that he knows more than he should. The TARDIS reassures her; he knows nothing. "Mickey…thanks."
"Anytime," he says, and means it. "Take care of yourself. Don't…don't forget who you love."
Her lip trembles then, and she hugs him tight. "Thank you," she whispers. "For everything." He holds her just as tight and presses a kiss to her hair. "I'll miss you."
"Don't forget us," he murmurs. He knows that when – if – she comes back she won't be the same Rose Tyler even as the one standing in his arms right now. "Good luck, Rose."
Rose leaves them both and returns to the TARDIS, to her home. She shuts the door and leans against it for a moment, looking at the new Doctor. He is busy at the console, hitting buttons and pulling levers. He has a similar manic energy to her Doctor, but none of the vocals matching it. He doesn't plead with the TARDIS, doesn't cajole her into doing what he wanted. He just works, eyes alight with enthusiasm.
She thinks she can get used to him, if she has to. She thinks she can get used to him in light shirts and blue trousers and a trench coat that is sort of green. She can get used to his voice and the fact that he isn't much taller than she is. Can get used to wearing the leather jacket, down to her thighs and sleeves rolled up.
But she doesn't want to. And thanks to the TARDIS, she doesn't have to.
It will take careful planning, she knows, and the right circumstances. He may not thank her. But she will do this.
She smiles at the new Doctor and approaches the console. "So, where to?" she asks.
She doesn't seem to need sleep much anymore. She dozes sometimes, but she doesn't need to really sleep, just like the TARDIS doesn't need to sleep. They both recharge; that's all Rose does now. She dozes, steals ten minutes of sleep here and there when she needs to. But she doesn't sleep.
She hides this new and strange quirk from the new Doctor, who she is slowly beginning to call the Doctor without the 'new' as a prefix. In her own no-longer-silent head, she slips sometimes, forgets that she isn't going to be with this Doctor for long.
The TARDIS always reminds her. The TARDIS fills her head with images and words and sounds of her own Doctor until Rose's head aches and she pushes the TARDIS away, as out of her mind as she can.
She pretends to sleep. Pretends to yawn, and goes off without a fuss to her room when the Doctor mentions that she must be tired. She lays on her bed and talks to the TARDIS, during the hours she's supposed to be sleeping. Only it isn't exactly talking, because the TARDIS doesn't exactly use words, so they communicate in other ways. Through feelings and images and meanings.
She always makes sure the door is locked. Then she takes off the leather jacket, so rarely separated from her now, and puts it on the bed. It still smells a little like him, and she loves that. She lies down on the bed, sometimes curled around the jacket but sometimes not, when the TARDIS wants something else from her.
The TARDIS, Rose has discovered, is living in more than one way. The TARDIS is telepathic, and therefore has a mind. The TARDIS has a beating heart, of sorts, and a soul. The TARDIS has feelings and needs and wants and wishes.
The TARDIS wishes many things, Rose knows. The ship wishes for more people to fill her, sometimes. Sometimes she wishes for children. Sometimes she wishes for emptiness, too, for the quietness and solitude that, she conveys to Rose, is a feeling given to her by Rose's Doctor.
The TARDIS needs many things also. Technical needs – this new Doctor tinkers in the console room as much as her Doctor did – and emotional needs, just like every other living being.
And oh yes, Rose has found, the TARDIS has wants, too. The TARDIS wants certain things that she can have now that she is linked in this way to Rose.
So sometimes they don't just 'talk'. Sometimes the TARDIS asks things of Rose. Things that Rose is at first hesitant to do, but that after a time become easier and more enjoyable and almost necessary for them both in a strange cathartic way.
The TARDIS and Rose have a symbiotic relationship in this sense. Rose recalls the word from GCSE science, but she practically failed that. It is the TARDIS that supplies the word and the sense of it. She feeds off the emotions given by the human, and these emotions are strongest at certain times.
So sometimes Rose undresses in the darkness of her room, making sure the door is locked, and settles onto the bed. The TARDIS' voice in her mind guides her hands, one to her breast – thumb rubbing over her nipple – and the other to her stomach. She traces lazy patterns over her breasts and stomach, down to the pubic hair. She teases herself, grazing her finger over herself, waiting for the TARDIS to let her do what she needs. The anticipation built up from arousal is a treat for the time ship, and both halves of the relationship appreciate it.
The TARDIS urges her on, and she continues slowly, one finger inside herself then two, and three. She shudders and pleads with the TARDIS for release, and the Doctor's face – her Doctor's face – dances before her eyes. She orgasms with a faint cry then collapses, muscles shaking, onto the bedclothes. The TARDIS is around her, soothing and calming her. She feeds from the energy that Rose gives gladly.
Once, a few weeks after he has changed, the Doctor almost finds her like that, naked and covered in sweat and more, because the TARDIS is too busy comforting her to keep the Time Lord away. He knocks on the door and calls her name.
Rose covers herself with a dressing gown and opens the door only a little. "I had a nightmare," she says softly, keeping her eyes away from his. Part of her is disgusted that she can manipulate him so easily, so guiltlessly. But he isn't her Doctor, he is still a stranger to her, and she lets him think that she dreams of the Daleks and wakes in the night and cries in her sleep.
The Daleks are nothing to her now. She and the TARDIS combined destroyed them all, and will destroy them again if any survived. She does not think they did, and the TARDIS has never picked up any signs of the Daleks. There are other enemies, but the TARDIS does not let her see any the Doctor has faced before. Time, the ship tells her once using the nearest equivalent of words that she can, will tell.
She returns to her bed and falls asleep with her head on the Doctor's jacket. She dreams of a slender, ageless woman and of a gangly Time Lord with a too-big grin.
He remembers Jack now, and asks why she didn't remind him sooner. Rose looks at him silently, not knowing what to say. How can she tell him that she had the power of life and death and chose to give life to only one?
They go back to the Game Station, to Platform Five that was, and arrive only a few moments after they left. The Doctor hesitates, not sure of his reception from Jack, but Rose slips out of the TARDIS with ease and confidence and a longing she didn't know she had.
Jack is standing there, gun by his feet, a look of disbelief on his face. Rose gives a cry and rushes towards him, flinging her arms around his neck.
"Jack," she whispers. "God, you're alright. Jack."
She wasn't sure, before. She knew up until the moment she saw him that there was a chance he hadn't lived, that she had only brought him back to life for a moment. But now she knows that she had given him back life, and she hugs him tighter.
"Rose," he murmurs. "I didn't think – the TARDIS was leaving…"
"It got a bit complicated," she tells him with a sigh. "The Doctor's…changed."
Jack slowly pulls away from her and looks at the TARDIS and at the man leaning against the panels of the blue box. He raises his eyebrows slightly.
"That's…odd," he comments finally. "Got fed up of the ears, did you?"
"Regeneration," the new Doctor tells him simply. Jack frowns for a moment, trying to remember where he has heard this before, and then his expression clears. The Doctor nods.
"Are you alright?" Jack asks Rose in a low voice, asking a dozen different things with those three words. Rose glances at the new Doctor, and at the TARDIS, and gives an awkward shrug. "Oh, Rose."
"It's fine," Rose said quickly. "And you – you alright? You were dead."
The Doctor is at her side in a moment, a strange and awful expression on his face. "What? Dead? That's not possible."
Jack shakes his head. "But I was. I remember dying. The Daleks were there, and they killed me. I was gone." He looks thoughtfully around. "What happened? How did you stop them?"
"I didn't," the Doctor says after a moment. "Rose did." He turns slightly accusing eyes onto her. "Rose, what did you do?"
Rose looks away, and Jack touches her shoulder gently. She shakes him off almost angrily and moves to kneel next to a pile of ashes that is the remains of a Dalek.
"I looked into the space-time vortex," she says distantly. "Into the heart of the TARDIS. I became the TARDIS and I destroyed the Daleks and I brought Jack back to life and then I killed -"
She cuts herself off, not necessarily of her own volition because the TARDIS is whispering urgently to her, trying to stop her from revealing more than she should, more than is necessary for them to know.
"Rose – that's impossible," Jack is saying, but she barely hears him. The ashes of a Dalek are sticking to her palm.
"It should be impossible," the Doctor agrees. "No idea how she did it. But she's made a link with the TARDIS, too."
"Like you have?" Jack tries to understand.
"No. Stronger. Different." The Doctor takes a step towards Rose. "I haven't talked about it before," he tells her. "You've had a lot to deal with, I get it. But, Rose, you and the TARDIS…don't think I haven't seen."
"You don't need to know," Rose says flatly, standing up and dusting her hands on her jeans. The TARDIS thrums quietly in the back of her mind, feeding her thoughts and ideas.
"Rose, what's going on?" Jack demands. "I don't – "
"You don't need to know!" Rose repeats louder, spinning around to face them. Her eyes hold a faint glow in them, and her voice is tinged with that strangeness that the Doctor recognises from before his regeneration, when she and the TARDIS had fully merged. "It's not important," she says, a desperate edge to her voice, which slowly returns to normal. "Please, don't…I can't…"
She pushes past them both with a sob and enters the TARDIS. She grabs hold of the console and shakes with dry tears.
She never thought it would be this hard.
Jack and the new Doctor enter the TARDIS, and Jack's hand rests on her back.
"C'mon, Rosie," he says gently. "Let's go get some ice cream or something."
Rose allows herself to be comforted by Jack, ignoring the itching sensation at the back of her mind that is the jealousy of the time ship.
She and Jack lie curled around each other on her bed. The leather jacket is under their heads, cool and soothing. Rose's eyes are red from tears. He holds her tightly, trying to help.
"I hate him," she whispers. "But I can't. I don't. Not really."
"He's not the Doctor you love," Jack says quietly. "It'll take a while to get used to, I guess."
"Yeah." She shifts slightly, hiding her face in his chest. "Jack…I'm changing."
"I know," he agrees. "I can see it. You're not my little Rosie anymore."
"I was never 'little' Rosie," she retorts, a smile lacing her voice. "You've never called me that."
"Maybe not aloud," he concedes. "Rose…talk to me about the TARDIS." The walls give a hum, and machinery somewhere groans. Jack strokes her hair. "Rosie."
"I don't know how to," she confesses. "I haven't told the Doctor anything. I didn't think he knew."
But she thinks now that she ought to have known. The way he looks at her sometimes when he sees her wandering the corridors, fingers trailing along the walls. The way he talks gently to her sometimes when the TARDIS has once again got the flight a bit wrong.
She should have known, she thinks.
"When I looked into her," she starts slowly, "she looked into me, too. And she sort of…merged with me. We were the same for a while." Her face lights up, and she pulls away from him a little so that she can see him properly. "I could see everything – all of time and space, and I understood it all. It hurt, but I could do it. I scattered 'bad wolf' throughout time and space, letting myself know that I had to come back, that I was it. And I destroyed the Daleks, I reduced them to ashes – it was incredible. And I brought you back, 'cos you're Jack, and I couldn't not, you know? And then the Doctor…"
Her breath catches in her throat and she almost starts crying again, but manages not to. He strokes her hair and her back comfortingly.
"He said…that I was seeing what he sees everyday," she continues after a moment. "And I told him that my head hurt, and he…he kissed me." Jack's arms tighten around her. "He kissed me and took the vortex into him, only it…it was killing him. He regenerated, and it's all my fault."
"No, no," Jack hurries to say. "It wasn't your fault, sweetheart. Don't think that."
Rose shrugs a little and rests her head against his chest again. She feels drained of energy, listless. Something isn't right, she knows, but she is too tired to sort it out.
"The TARDIS is still in me," she murmurs. "There's still something there. We're linked. I can feel her, and she can feel me. It's like…she's part of me. And I'm part of her, and we're all connected. D'you see?"
"Shh," he soothes her. "Go to sleep."
"I can't," she says. She can't move her limbs, they feel heavy suddenly. "I don't sleep much anymore. TARDIS doesn't need sleep." She reaches out to touch his cheek. "Jack, something's wrong," she says sluggishly. "There's something wrong…draining energy…"
The TARDIS catches her consciousness as she falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When she wakes up, nearly a day later, she finds herself in the infirmary. The Doctor hovers over her on one side, Jack on the other. She looks at them both, then pushes herself up so she is sitting on the examination table.
"That," she says dangerously, "was not nice."
"What happened?" the Doctor asks. She can tell that he hates being out of control, not knowing what's going on. "The TARDIS just stopped – and Jack said you collapsed." He looks worriedly from her to Jack, and then back again. "Rose, I need to know what's happening."
"She stopped me talking to Jack," Rose observes, swinging her legs over the side of the table and standing up. She nearly collapses, but Jack catches her. "TARDIS, stop this," she whispers. "Please, help me."
"Rose, this isn't good," Jack says quietly. "You've become too dependent on a machine – it's not healthy."
"I'm not dependant," Rose insists. "We're part of each other. You couldn't separate us even if you tried." She pulls away from Jack and stumbles across to the wall. Touch helps her connection sometimes, she has discovered. "Please, stop it," she says again. "It's just Jack. He's not a threat. C'mon, honey, you like Jack."
A screech of electronics sweeps through the infirmary, and the Doctor and Jack cover their ears. Rose kicks out at the wall.
"Stop it," she yells. "Stop it!" She presses against the wall and whispers something that the others can't hear. The room quietens. "That's better," Rose soothes. She turns to the Doctor. "It's not your business," she tells him. "I'll talk to her, but…it's not your business."
The look on the Doctor's face is pained. "I've travelled with the TARDIS for hundreds of years," he says, voice slightly strangled. "This is the first time this has happened, Rose, and I can't even go to the Time Lords for advice. TARDISes aren't meant to connect with anyone."
"She was lonely," Rose admits after a long moment. "She loves you, but she was lonely, and then I looked at her and I saw her and now she won't let go." She sags against the wall. "It's alright," she tries to assure them both. "It's safe. She promises."
"Then why did you fall asleep, Rose?" Jack demands. "You were out for a whole day."
"She was jealous," Rose says. "She…it's complicated…" She is unsure; she doesn't know what to say. If she tells them too much, the Doctor will work it out and stop her. But if she says too little, both men will try to disconnect her from the TARDIS, and she cannot allow that to happen.
She doesn't know if she is thinking that or whether the TARDIS is, but it doesn't seem to matter. She pushes it away.
"It's just…easier," she tried to explain. "It's just…I understand what's happening. Like with the console, I know how to operate it now. And I know…why the TARDIS uses the energy she does. I see what she sees." The Doctor is worried, but she ignores it. She cares little for what he thinks now. "You can't separate us," she says. "It would kill both of us."
Jack pales and strides forward. "Rose, I can't believe you did this. Didn't you think?"
"I had to save him!" she screams, pushing him away. Hot-red pain flashes through her. "I had to get him out of there!" She leans back against the wall, letting the TARDIS ebb away her misery. "I had to get him out of there, but he died anyway," she finishes dully. "The TARDIS helps me."
"Rose, I'm not dead."
"But you're not him," she snaps. "And you're not going to be." She looks at him for a long moment, then: "I'm going home," she says. "I need to see my mum." She leaves the infirmary, and the TARDIS shuts the door behind her.
She lied to them; she doesn't go to see her mother. Instead she goes back to Platform One, ten minutes after the TARDIS had departed last time. She stares dully at the destruction in the observation deck, at the blue maintenance staff scurrying around tidying and clearing and hiding all sign of the damage that has happened here.
She picks up the ashes that were once a cutting from someone's grandfather, and carefully places them in a box she found in the TARDIS kitchen.
She goes to Utah in two thousand and twelve and takes some dirt and sand from the desert above the underground bunker. She sees Goddard, and Goddard sees her, but they say nothing to each other.
She goes to Cardiff and asks Charles Dickens to sign her Doctor's favourite copy of 'Great Expectations'. He asks her where the Doctor is and she tells him that he's away.
She isn't really lying, she tries to convince herself. He is away.
She goes to Justicia and to twenties London and to all the other places the Doctor took her, and she takes a souvenir from each and every one. She puts them all carefully in her room in the TARDIS, and then allows the TARDIS to rest in a tiny corner of space and time where no one will notice them. She closes her eyes and lets the TARDIS take along the corridors.
She ends up in the Cloisters, and she has been here before. She knows which of the Doctor's companions have spent time here, too. Images of a loud Australian fill her mind.
"Why did you do that?" she asks quietly. "There's no reason." Waves of jealousy ripple over her from the TARDIS. She sighs. "It's Jack," she says. "He's like my big brother. You don't have to be jealous."
Images of the Doctor – her Doctor – are pressed into her mind, with the same jealousy.
"You can't be jealous of him," Rose says firmly. "I won't let you be." She taps her foot against the floor. "You can't be."
A shudder of fear runs through the TARDIS suddenly. Rose sighs and shakes her head.
"I'm sorry," she offers. "But I can't – you know." She feels the door of the infirmary open, feels the pounding of feet running through the corridors, searching for her. Words come into her mind and crowd her mouth and she knows that the TARDIS will speak through her.
The Doctor finds her first, and stands almost breathless in front of her.
"Rose, that was so utterly stupid," he says, more furious with her than he has ever been Rose isn't afraid except in the part of her that is only Rose, not TARDISrose. "You could've crashed us, you could've killed yourself!"
"'I dwell with a strangely aching heart'," Rose says, the TARDIS speaking in riddling quotations.
"Rose, what…" He is perplexed and worried now, the anger gone. He kneels in front of her, hands on her bent knees. "Rose, please. Talk to me. You always used to."
"'When we locked up the house at night, we always locked the flowers outside'," she quotes, looking at him earnestly. Her plan will be so much easier if he can understand, she knows now.
He frowns faintly. "Robert Frost? Rose, what…" Realisation dawns, and he nods slowly. "Ahh. I see. Uh." He thinks, then speaks carefully. "Nature's first green is gold," he quotes. "'Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; but only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, so dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.'" He reaches up and cups her cheek, wiping away tears she doesn't know are there. "But Rose, gold isn't the only colour."
"'I have been well acquainted with the night'," Rose says earnestly. "'I have walked out in rain --and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat and dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.'"
"That's not Rose," Jack says from the door. "That's the TARDIS."
The Doctor nods, but doesn't look away. He keeps looking at her, trying to keep a connection alive that was already mostly dead by the time he first smiled at her.
"'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveller'," he says softly. "Will you not be a traveller with me still, Rose? TARDIS?"
"'Whose woods these are I think I know'," Rose quotes, almost angrily. "'The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.'"
Her eyes glow bright with the light of a thousand stars for a moment, then she sags and looks at the Doctor clearly for the first time since he entered.
"She doesn't want you to do this," she whispers. "She loves you, but she doesn't want you to do this."
The Doctor shakes his head slowly. "Rose, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't try to help you?"
"A better friend," she whispers forlornly. "Please, I have promises…" She reaches out wildly at the air. "No, don't," she says quietly. "Stop that." The light in the Cloisters flickers momentarily.
"Rose, lay it out for me," the Doctor says at last. "Help me understand this."
"It's a connection," she says tiredly. She feels as though she has explained this a hundred times. "It's different." She touches his forehead, his nose. "Like you're different. You're not the same. Neither am I, now. I've touched the void, and the void touched me, and it's never going to be the same again." She looks up at Jack suddenly. "You should probably go," she says, voice choked. "It's not safe anymore."
"What's not safe, Rosie?" Jack asks gently.
"I'm not," she confesses. "It's making me go mad, I want it to stop." She frowns suddenly. "No, I don't. Why did I say that? I don't know what's happening?" She scowls up at the ceiling. "Stop that," she says. "Stop it. It's happening. Just be patient."
"What's happening?" the Doctor presses.
She looks at him calmly. "It's a surprise," she says. "You can't know yet." She smiles suddenly. "Let's go somewhere fun. Somewhere with sun and sand. Yeah?"
"Yeah," Jack says after a moment, seeing something in her. "Yeah, let's do that, Doctor. Rose deserves some downtime. She could go shopping."
The Doctor glances back at him, then nods. "Alright," he agrees. "Somewhere fun."
Rose stretches out on a beach on a planet across the universe from Earth. The TARDIS was unforthcoming with details, and Rose supposes that means this place isn't dangerous – although how it can't be, with the Doctor present, she doesn't know.
She is well aware that, several hundred feet down the beach, the Doctor and Jack are discussing her, and her connection to the TARDIS. She can't quite bring herself to care. The TARDIS has nearly amassed enough power for what Rose wants to do, and the calculations are nearly complete.
All she needs to do now is get the TARDIS to the right place and time, but that is going to be very difficult now. She berates the TARDIS, although she isn't sure that the time ship can hear her from this distance. She can still feel the ship, but she can't hear her easily. Now that the Doctor knows how deep the connection is, she will not be left alone, she is sure. And she cannot pilot the TARDIS if the Doctor and Jack are watching her and stopping her.
It's not even as if the TARDIS can pilot herself, she muses, adjusting her sunglasses over her eyes. That would make things easier. But Rose has never been one to back down from a challenge.
Cold fear creeps into her stomach suddenly, and she swallows against a lump in her throat. A challenge.
That's what the TARDIS is doing, she realises suddenly. Rose has more power than the TARDIS, and the ship is testing her. That's why she is being so loud in Rose's head.
She laughs from sheer relief. She isn't going mad. She had really thought that she was, for a while, but now she knows better.
She isn't going mad, and the TARDIS loves her and will help her. She is almost ready to complete her plans.
Almost ready.
Jack drops onto the sand next to her. "You're getting burnt, Rosie," he tells her cheerfully. "Want me to rub some oil on?"
A month ago, Rose reflects sadly, if Jack had said something like that the Doctor would have glared at him. This Doctor just smiles and pulls a book out of the picnic hamper.
"I'm fine," she says. "What did you bring to eat? I'm hungry."
"Sandwiches," the Doctor reports. "Ham, cheese, and…" He makes a face. "Tuna."
Rose gives a small sigh. Jack's hand reaches to cover hers. Her Doctor's favourite sandwiches were tuna. They used to tease him about it. She remembers sitting in the kitchen, making faces at him behind his back as he made sandwiches for them all. Domestic.
The TARDIS gives a shudder and it echoes through Rose, making her shiver. They both miss their Doctor.
She points up at the clouds. "Look, there's a Dalek."
Jack follows her gaze. "Yeah," he agrees after a moment. "I guess. That one there's a snake."
"No," Rose disagrees with a laugh. "It's a caterpillar."
"You can't tell," Jack grins.
"It's got little legs," Rose tells him. "Look, there, see." She reaches over and takes his hand to point at where she means. She balances, half-leaning on him, one hand spread over his ribs. She looks at him suddenly, a strange thought curling through her mind. "Jack…"
"Yeah, Rosie?" he asks absently, still watching the clouds. "What is it?"
She dips her head and kisses him, her hair falling around like a cover. His lips are too warm and a strange shape, and he doesn't respond. She pulls away, dissatisfied.
"It's not right," she whispers apologetically.
"No," he nods, watching her carefully. "You're my sister, Rose. And I'm not him."
"Try me," the Doctor offers, voice strange. "Am I right?"
She looks up at him, then slowly rises and approaches him. He stands still before her, and she slowly reaches up and kisses him.
His lips are cooler, and his hands slide around her waist as if they've done this before. His lips part and his mouth is warm. She closes her eyes and for a moment she can pretend that it's her Doctor.
But it isn't, and she pulls away, not hiding her reluctance.
"You're not the same," she tells him. "You can't try to be. You can't tell me you feel the same."
His hand cups her cheek in a familiar gesture; she doesn't turn into his palm as she did in the church that day.
"Rose, I can't tell you anything. You won't believe me."
She nods, accepting it for truth.
She dreams later, and it isn't a dream from the TARDIS for once. This dream comes from someplace else.
She dreams that she is on Platform One. All the guests are there, and they all stare at her. She is afraid.
They speak to her, saying things that she doesn't always understand. Few words make sense.
"Be careful," the tree Jabe says softly.
"Have you seen the sheep?" asks the diminutive Moxx of Balhoon. "I believe they are lost." He moves past her with Jabe, and Rose stares after them for a moment.
There are other people here too, people she doesn't quite recognise and people she does. They approach her one by one or in groups.
A dark-haired man, dressed in black and with a slight smirk, bows to her slightly. "Lady," he says, his voice slithering around her. "Are you certain?"
"Who are you?" Rose asks, frowning. She should know this man. She is sure the knowledge is right there, but she cannot grasp it. He shakes his head at her and moves away, letting more come forward. These are familiar to Rose.
"You're a very violent young woman," Harriet Jones observes, looking Rose over critically. The woman next to her – Margaret – nods in agreement. Rose shakes her head; she is sure this isn't right. She brushes past them and runs into a redheaded woman.
"Everything changes," the woman says in an Australian accent. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" A taller man in a cricket outfit takes her arm and hurries her away, giving Rose a guarded look.
"The things you've seen," comes the voice of Gwyneth. Rose turns to see the maid. "The darkness." She opens her mouth in a silent scream and then disappears.
There are others, and they all talk at once. Rose sees Clive and Raffalo and the boy who sprayed 'Bad Wolf' on the side of the TARDIS. There is Cassandra and Simmons and Van Statten and Cathica. There is Suki and Stuart Hoskins and Nancy and Doctor Constantine and Algy and even the Anne Droid.
There is Adam, and he steps close so she can hear him.
"It's going to take a better man than me to come between you two," he says. Rose pushes him away. He won't be pushed. "It's not like I changed anything," he goes on. "What are you changing?"
Rose's head is spinning, and things blur. The noise is too much, and she stumbles away, trying to make it stop.
Hands grip her arms, stilling her. She looks up and gasps.
"This is a dream," she says, knowing it now with a certainty she didn't have before. "I saw you die."
"I'm not dead, Rose," he tells her.
"But you changed," Rose says, voice choked with tears. She looks away. "You're gone."
"No, I'm not." He cups her face with his hand, thumb wiping a tear away. "Rose, love, look at me." She can't. "Rose." He taps her nose. "C'mon, my brave angel."
She smiles involuntarily and looks up at him finally. He is looking tenderly at her; everything is as she remembers. The same eyes, the same nose and sticking-out ears. The same loving expression.
She gives a cry and throws her arms around him. He hugs her tightly, and she thinks that this cannot be a dream, it must be real, because she can feel him and smell him and his hearts are beating against her chest.
"Rose," he says finally, pulling away from her. "Look around."
Rose does as he says, and her breath catches as she sees. They are in Van Statten's underground base, in the cage. There is no Dalek, and the chains lie slack on the concrete.
"Why are we here?" she asks, a little afraid. "What's going on?"
"Remember what I told you, Rose," he says, walking towards the centre of the room. "I want you to live. Not stay caught in your memories."
"I'm not," Rose says, but he sees through her.
"You've got to move on," he says insistently. "I changed, I didn't die. The new me is still me, just with a different face."
"He hates tuna," Rose says. "He doesn't hold my hand. He doesn't joke about stupid apes and he doesn't love me."
"Of course he does," he says, turning sad eyes on her. "But in a different way. Rose, I can't stop you doing anything. I'm not real – I'm just in your head. And your head's a bit crowded these days, isn't it?"
Rose touches her forehead. "The TARDIS," she nods. "My TARDIS is part of me now. I look after her." Her face darkens. "I should have been able to save you. And I will. I know how."
He looks sadly at her. "I know you do, Rose. I wish you wouldn't."
"Why?" she asks. "We'll be together – the way it should always have been."
"Yes," he agrees, with a hint of reluctance. "I should have told you long ago."
"I'm getting you back," she says with determination. "I have to. My Doctor."
He stoops and picks up the end of a chain. "You're locked up and you can't even see it," he whispers. "Oh, Rose. You looked like an angel when I saw you…you always have."
He stands again and holds his arms out; she steps into his embrace and lifts her head and he kisses her. It is sweet and soft and gentle, and it makes her know this is a dream.
She wakes up crying, Jack's arms around her.
Rose asks the Doctor to take her somewhere several days after the dream. She has spent long hours thinking about what the dream-Doctor said to her, but she has inevitably decided to continue.
The TARDIS thrums in the back of her mind, quiet now that Rose has asserted her dominance. Rose wonders idly if the TARDIS regrets their merging. The TARDIS reacts strongly to that thought, throwing images of right-ness at her and making the lights flash. It is enough for Rose to know that the TARDIS has no regrets about what they have done.
About what they will do.
She stands in the console room and asks him to take her somewhere.
The Doctor looks at her. She can't tell what he is thinking – she doesn't know him well enough – but she is fairly sure he means to say no. She will give him a chance.
"Where do you want to go?" he asks her.
"Platform Five," she says. Caution is on his face now and in his new – wrong – brown eyes.
"Rose, what are you asking me?" he questions.
"I'm asking you to take me to Platform Five," she says patiently. She can afford patience. She has all the time in the universe, after all. "I want to go back there." 'Need' would be a better word, but Rose is sensible enough to know that using it would put her at a severe disadvantage.
The Doctor's mouth twitches at one side, a hint of his confusion and concern. "Rose. Why?"
"I just do," Rose shrugs. "I just need...some closure." The TARDIS hums her approval; the centre column lights up momentarily. The Doctor glances at it, then at Rose.
"I wish you'd talk to me," he says. "This isn't good for you, Rose, being so connected to the TARDIS."
"It's not," Rose says at once.
"Are you just saying that, or is it true?" he asks intently. Rose gives an awkward sort of shrug. He nods slowly. "When?"
It takes a moment for Rose to understand. "After the Daleks," she says then. "I just...need to make peace." She shoves her hands into the pockets of the leather jacket; the fingers of her right hand curl around a sonic screwdriver that the TARDIS helped her find. An older model, she knows, but adequate for her needs. The leather jacket doesn't smell like him so much anymore, but there isn't long to wait now.
Jack speaks now for the first time in this conversation.
"Rose, I wish I understood what's going on with you, but I don't. I don't think even you do. Can't you try to explain? Or get the TARDIS to?"
Rose doesn't look at him; she can't. If she does she thinks she will cry. "There isn't a language for this," she says. "It can't be calculated or defined or..." She trails off. "Please. I just want to go to Platform Five."
She can do it without their help, but it would be easier if they take her then. She has to conserve energy. The things she is planning will take more power than the TARDIS is accustomed to using. More, she thinks, than is safe. But the TARDIS expresses distaste at that idea, and assures her that it is fine. It is manageable, just once. Never again. It shouldn't happen in the first place, but the TARDIS has no choice but to make this exception. The TARDIS dislikes this new Doctor as much as Rose does.
The Doctor looks at her, and then gives a nod. "Alright," he agrees. "We'll go to Platform Five. But then we're going to find someone who can help you, Rose."
Rose gives a smile. "Fine," she nods. "That's absolutely fine with me."
The TARDIS feels her amusement and gives her equivalent of a laugh. The walls of the console room echo with the strange sound, then Rose swallows it, leaving silence.
"I'm going to go get a cuppa," she says then. "Let me know when we're there?"
"I get the feeling you'll know anyway," Jack comments. She looks at him and smiles faintly before leaving the console room.
Strangely, the TARDIS does not warp the corridors for her, so she walks for almost five minutes before reaching the kitchen. When she does, it isn't the same as it was before. Now it is white, with regular circles embedded in the wall, some giving light. The TARDIS feels a little different too, and she doesn't quite understand why. But the essense is the same.
There are strange people in the kitchen, but she can put names to their faces instantly because of her connection to the TARDIS. Nyssa. Adric. Tegan. The Doctor in his fifth body.
Her mouth opens in surprise and for a moment there is silence. Then the Doctor puts his teacup down and stands up.
"Hello," he greets. "Who are you?"
"And how did you get into the TARDIS?" Tegan demands, overcoming her surprise more quickly than the other two.
Rose stares at her for a moment uncomprehendingly, then looks back at the fifth Doctor.
"This isn't right," she says strongly. "I'm not supposed to be here. It will interrupt the timestream."
The Doctor is filled with confusion and understanding, warring with each other equally. "The timestream? You're from the future, then?"
"Yes," Rose nods. "A long way in your future." She looks around. "This shouldn't have happened."
"Doctor, what's going on?" Adric asks, moving to stand next to the Time Lord.
"I've crossed time," Rose says. "I don't know how. But I must get back."
"We could take you," Nyssa suggests.
"No, that won't work," the Doctor says. He is watching Rose carefully. "What is it?" he asks. "You look as though some great tragedy has occured. No, wait, forget I asked."
Rose smiles softly. "You're very sweet," she says softly. "That doesn't change." She looks at the walls of the TARDIS. "I think I should just be able to walk back," she says. "The TARDIS is being very strange today." She looks at the four innocent faces - because the Doctor's face is innocent here too - and she thinks just for a moment that what she is going to do is wrong, very wrong. But she shakes it off and smiles. "Sorry to interrupt." She turns and leaves the kitchen and comes face to face with Jack, in her own familiar TARDIS.
"Rose!" he exclaims. "You've been gone for hours - we couldn't find you anywhere."
Rose frowns. "Time is strange," she muses. "It was only a few minutes for me. Are we there, then?"
"Yes," Jack nods. "Rose...are you sure about this?"
For one awful moment she thinks that Jack has discovered everything, that he knows what she is about to do. Then the TARDIS reassures her. Jack is only concerned about what she might find on Platform Five, she is reminded. He knows nothing of her true purpose for coming back to this place.
"Yes, I'm sure," she nods. "I need to do this, Jack. It...I need to."
Jack nods again, then wraps his arms around her and hugs her tightly. "I love you, Rosie," he admits. "If this is going to help...well, you know I'd do anything for you, right?"
Warmth floods her, and she gives a genuine smile - the first for a long time. "Oh, Jack. Thank you. That means a lot."
She steps out of the TARDIS onto Platform Five and her breath catches in her throat. She is here. The piles of ashes are all around. The equipment that the Doctor was working on lies discarded.
She glances at Jack and the Doctor, who hover near the TARDIS.
"I'm going to look around," she tells them. "I won't be long. Wait here."
She goes down to floor one hundred and thirty-nine, and can barely recognise the floor. A hundred years ago in this timeline, she and the Doctor were here with Adam.
She goes to the room where she was forced to play the Weakest Link, where she thought she was going to die. She remembers being transported and then confronted with dozens - hundreds - of Daleks.
She walks aimlessly around the corridors, memorising every nuance of colour, every temporal marker. She kicks at the piles of ashes that are everywhere, scattering them across the metal floors and covering her trainers in a grey film. She pulls the leather jacket closer around herself and returns to floor five hundred. She will begin.
Jack and the Doctor are still standing by the TARDIS, talking. She can hear them even before she is close to them, thanks to the TARDIS. They are discussing her again. She doesn't care.
"It's time," she says. "I'm sorry. It's time." She lifts her arm, palm towards them. "I'm sorry," she repeats. "I don't have a choice."
"Rose, what are you - " The Doctor is cut off when Rose's eyes start to glow. Sick realisation dawns, but even now he doesn't know it all. "Rose, no, you can't…stop this, Rose."
"No," she whispers. "We will not." The TARDIS' energy is linked to her, and she moves her palm forward. The Doctor is shoved back against the blue box and hits his head hard enough that he drops, unconscious, to the floor.
Jack takes a step towards her, but she turns flashing eyes on him and he halts.
"Rose, what's going on?" he demands. He is concerned for her, she can see, and scared too. That's good. She doesn't know why it's good, only that it is. Is that her or the TARDIS, she wonders? Does it matter?
"This is what I have to do," she says. "This is what I've always had to do." She pulls the words 'Bad Wolf' from one of the walls, and floats them around him. "This is what I am. I am the bad wolf, I make all things right."
"Make what right?" Jack demands. "Rosie, please, let me help you."
"You can't help me," she says, her voice taking on an otherworldly quality. The TARDIS is within her now. "No one but he can help me."
"He?"
"The Doctor."
Jack waves his arms. "But you just knocked him unconscious, Rose, how can he -" He cuts himself off abruptly, eyes wide. "No, not this Doctor. Your Doctor. The old Doctor. That's who you need."
"My Doctor," she breathes. "My Doctor. My own." She grasps hold of the threads of time that she can feel thanks to the vortex and the TARDIS and she begins to pull. Jack falls to his knees, pain flashing through him as she creates instability.
"Rose, you don't know what you're doing," he chokes. "This isn't right."
"Get into the TARDIS," she orders him calmly. "You'll be safe there."
"Safe from what? Rose, what are you doing?"
Rose ignores him and goes to the TARDIS. She opens the door and gestures for Jack to enter. After a moment he does, but he tries to drag the Doctor after him.
"No," she says with authority. "He stays."
"Rose, I can't let you do this," Jack tells her, fighting against the pain. "I can't let you disrupt time like this."
Rose's lips curl. "What makes you think you have a choice?" she asks. "Go." Her voice is full of power, and the TARDIS doors slam shut. Jack is inside and will not be getting out, the TARDIS assures her. The Doctor - the wrong, new, strange Doctor - is here with her.
"It's time," she says yet again, and takes a deep breath. The power of the TARDIS flows into her, and she begins to reweave time.
Light is condensed and expanded as she plays with time, fingers slipping in and out of time streams with unnatural ease. She should never be able to do this. Not even the Time Lords at the height of their power were able to do this, not even Rassilon, the TARDIS whispers. She is all of time and none of time, and she will create what she likes out of it.
But she is careful. She remembers the lessons he taught her, even if he didn't think that was what he was doing. With the memory of his guidance, and the presence of the TARDIS inside her, she is careful but dedicated.
She will have him back.
The Doctor lies on the floor at her feet, and he starts glowing after a while, with the same light that she glows with. The light of time, of the vortex. Soon, she predicts, that light will change. It will become the light that she saw at his regeneration.
The thought fills her with fresh energy, and she plucks at the threads that bind time, pulling them into place - or out of place.
This is going to be perfect.
Hours pass. She has to reweave time so that it leaves no marks, no rifts, no weaknesses. There will be a scar - there always is from such things, the TARDIS has taught her - but there will not be a weakness for anyone to exploit, there will be nothing that can bring chaos and destruction like the Reapers.
It will be perfect.
It has to be.
The glow surrounding the Doctor is brightly white now, too bright to look on with the naked eye, but Rose looks with the eyes of the TARDIS and tries to see what is happening. Too far back and he will not be her Doctor, and that won't do. She cannot stay like this.
She loves him, and she needs him back, and in a very short time she will have him. She will not let him go again.
It is nearly done. She is tired and it is a struggle to remain upright. The TARDIS persuades aching limbs to move, and she sits next to the shining form of the Doctor. She can't be sure, but she thinks the hair is shorter and the ears are bigger.
She is so tired.
It is nearly done.
She falls into unconsciousness as the last threads of time fall into their places. She sprawls across the Doctor's chest, but doesn't hear the two heartbeats, and doesn't feel the hand come up to stroke her hair. She doesn't hear the TARDIS door opening, doesn't hear Jack's exclamation as he rushes out. She doesn't feel herself being lifted into strong arms and then carried into a dark TARDIS. She doesn't know anything for endless hours upon hours as she rests in blissful darkness.
There is a presence in the TARDIS that Rose knows by heart. She smiles as she returns to consciousness. It worked. He is here.
Jack is next to her, holding her hand. She squeezes slightly, not opening her eyes but wanting to let him know that she is awake.
"Rose?" His voice is tight and concerned, and Rose tries to open her eyes now, to see his face. But there is something over her eyes; she pulls her hand away from his and reaches up. He reaches to stop her. "No, Rose. You damaged your eyes. You've got to keep the bandage on for now."
Rose accepts this, knowing there is little that the Doctor and the TARDIS cannot fix. "Did it work?" she asks instead. "Did it work?"
"It worked."
Two words, and she feels as if her heart is going to explode. She gives a choked sort of cry, and she reaches for the bandages over her eyes again. She needs to see him - the TARDIS is strangely silent in her mind, and is feeding her no images.
"No," Jack says firmly. "No, Rose. It's not safe."
"Doctor?" she breathes, ignoring Jack except to lower her hands. She tries to sit up; Jack stops her. "You're real," she says, not quite questioning. "You're here."
"Jack, could you go and fetch Rose a cup of tea?" The Doctor's voice is tightly controlled, but she knows him too well, and shrinks back against the pillows. He is angry.
"Sure," Jack says quickly - too quickly, so Rose knows that although he is worried about her, he is angry too. "I'll be back…soon." There is a moment's pause before he leaves, and Rose again wishes she could see.
Footsteps crossing the room, pacing back and forth. Rose curls her fingers into fists and waits.
She doesn't have to wait for long.
"You stupid, stupid little girl," he says. His voice betrays no emotion; he has passed anger and is now in the cold fury that has always scared her. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" Rose doesn't speak. "Answer me!" he thunders.
"No," she whispers after a moment. "I don't have an idea. I know exactly what I've done."
"You've messed with nature and time. You stupid, pathetic little ape."
Rose chokes on her breath. "I…Doctor, I couldn't…" It all swells up in her and tears prick under her closed eyelids, but she cannot shed them. "It wasn't right! I was supposed to save you! And I didn't, you died and you changed and it wasn't you and you didn't love me and it was just so, so wrong! And the TARDIS agreed, she helped me!"
"And that makes it right, does it?" he demands, approaching her. His hand grips her shoulder, and he gives her a small shake. "That excuses it? Oh, the TARDIS helped you, that must make it perfectly normal! Never mind the consequences!"
Rose bites her lip hard before asking. "Is she alright? I can't…can't feel her like I did."
"She's exhausted herself," the Doctor says bluntly. "She's on stand-down. Life support only. We're dead in space because of you, Rose." Rose shakes her head in distress. "Yes. And who knows what you've done to me."
"I had to," she whispers. "I couldn't go on without you."
"I've always been here, Rose!"
"No, you were gone," she corrects sadly. "It wasn't you. Wasn't the same."
He is silent for a moment, then his hand clasps hers. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "Sorry I didn't get a chance to explain it all to you. Sorry I changed. Sorry for all of this mess."
"Have I really messed up?" Rose ventures in a small voice.
"No," he is forced to admit. "The timeline seems fine, the TARDIS will recover, and I'm alright, at least for the moment."
Rose smiles. "Good. Good." She squeezes his hand. "So when can I get these bandages off?"
The Doctor is silent for a long moment, and fear creeps into Rose's stomach.
"We'll see," he says eventually. "Get some rest, Rose. I'll…I'll be here when you wake up."
"Promise," Rose demands, knowing it is childish but needing the reassurance.
"I promise."
Rose sleeps for another day - making the total of her slumber, Jack tells her, over four days. She doesn't believe him, but then the tiniest whisper from the TARDIS confirms what he has said. The voice of the TARDIS is exhausted in her mind, and rarely speaks now. She finds she misses it more than she imagined she would.
She wants to take the bandages off when she wakes up. Jack helps her to sit up, wedging pillows behind her back and bringing her tea and biscuits.
"Jack, I can't see to eat," Rose says laughingly. "Can't I please take this bandage off? Why do I need them, anyway?"
"Your eyes were damaged when you…did what you did," he tells her. "We…they're not healed yet."
Rose is cold suddenly. "There's practically nothing the TARDIS can't fix," she says.
"But she's on standby," Jack reminds her. He is uncomfortable, she can tell, and doesn't want to tell her what's going on. "It's just going to take a little longer, Rosie."
"A little longer?" Her voice rises, almost hysterically. "Jack, tell me what's going on!" She reaches out along her link to the TARDIS and finds only sadness and slumber there. "What's happening?" she demands. "What happened to my eyes?"
"Rose."
The Doctor. Rose takes a deep breath and relaxes; she trusts that he will tell her what is happening, and fix her - no matter what the physical damage.
"Please, tell me what's happening," she says.
"Rose, I need you to stay calm," the Doctor tells her. "I'm going to take the bandages off, and I want you to keep your eyes closed for me for a while, alright?"
His tone, gentling and careful, makes her sit absolutely still. His hands touch her temples and he begins to unwrap the bandages that wrap her head. When his hands pull away, she obediently keeps her eyes closed.
"I'm going to wash your eyes now, Rose," he tells her, in that same gently voice. "This might sting a bit." A warm cloth is patted carefully against her eyelids, and it doesn't sting. She is still, obeying him for now. "Alright, Rose, open your eyes."
Rose opens her eyes, and then blinks several times. She takes a deep, shaky breath and reaches out. The Doctor's hand finds hers and squeezes tightly.
"What can you see?" he asks her.
"Nothing," she says blankly. "Nothing. It's all dark."
"Right." The Doctor touches her cheek briefly with his fingertips. "I'm going to shine a light in your eyes, Rose." She hears the buzzing of the sonic screwdriver, but she can't see the familiar blue light. "No response," the Doctor mutters.
"That's…not good," Jack murmurs. The Doctor shushes him.
"I'm blind, not deaf," Rose says shakily. "Oh god. I'm blind, aren't I?"
"We don't know anything yet for certain," Jack says quickly. "There's doctors, treatments that we don't have on the TARDIS. As soon as we can, we'll go somewhere and get you fixed up."
"Only you can't," Rose says with eerie prescience. "It's permanent. Isn't it, Doctor?"
He sighs. "I…yes."
She hears Jack shift. "No, there must be something -"
"She looked into light as bright as a star," the Doctor says curtly. "Without anything covering her eyes. The human eye can't do that. Her eyes are completely burnt out. It was too much energy for her to have."
"So I'm…blind." Rose swallows hard against the lump in her throat. "There's always consequences, right Doctor?" She shakes his hand off when it comes to rest on hers. "I'd…can I be alone, please?"
"Alright, Rosie," Jack says after a moment. "Yell out if you need anything." He leaves, his footsteps telling her so, but the Doctor stays next to the bed.
"Please, Doctor, I can't take another lecture from you," she whispers. She is crying now. "I just…just need to be alone for a while."
"You bring me back just to be alone?" he questions. "Was it worth it, Rose?"
She reaches out to find him; her outstretched fingers hit his chest, and she moves up to find his face. His funny chin, his cool lips, his big nose. Her fingertips brush over his eyelids and along his forehead. She traces his ears.
"Yes," she says at last. "Oh yes. Worth every second of darkness I'm going to have."
The covers are moved around her, and then a body slips into the bed next to her. Instinctively she curls into him, her head resting over one of his hearts.
"Oh, Rose," he sighs. "I'm so, so sorry."
"Don't be," she says softly. "I'm not."
The TARDIS whispers confusedly into her mind, and she can't understand it, but she doesn't need to. Her Doctor is here.
Jack tries to help her learn Braille, but they end up laughing at each other because he keeps making jokes and messing around. He says they'll have to find a proper teacher. She nods and smiles but says nothing. She keeps hold of his hand as they walk carefully from the library to the kitchen, and she sits at the table while he cooks.
She will miss cooking, she thinks.
Jack tries to help her eat, but she waves him away and manages by herself. The meat is cut, and her fork finds the plate three times out of five. She carefully reaches for her glass and doesn't spill any water.
She will get better at this, Jack assures her.
He reads to her in the sitting room and makes sure she doesn't need anything. He helps her to the bathroom and makes sure she knows where everything is. He waits outside until she is done. He takes her to her bedroom and finds pyjamas for her and faces the wall as she carefully changes, mostly not falling over or putting things on wrongly. He helps her get dressed in the morning, too, describing the clothes to her so she can choose what she wants to wear.
At night she lies in her bed, eyes open. It doesn't make a difference, all she sees is darkness. She waits in the bed in silence, and eventually he comes.
He slips into her bed and holds her close to him. She presses as close to him as she can.
He asks her how her day was, sometimes, but not often because she hasn't lost any of her temper with the loss of her sight, and she tells him that he would know, if he were around during the day.
Sometimes they talk about the places they used to visit, but Rose sometimes cries when they do that. She will never see those places again.
Sometimes he talks about Gallifrey, about the Time War, about other Time Lords he has known. Describes his home planet to her.
Sometimes she tells him about when she was a child, or about her connection to the TARDIS.
Sometimes they don't talk at all. Sometimes they just lay silently in each others' arms.
And sometimes they argue. Sometimes they scream at each other, hurtling accusations and stinging words until Rose is exhausted by it and the TARDIS shuts him out of her room.
Tonight is different, and she knows it the instant he doesn't lie down in her bed when he enters her room. She sits up, facing him by listening to his footsteps.
"Rose, this is wrong."
Rose frowns faintly. "What is?"
"This. Me. You. All of it."
Rose stills. "Doctor…"
"I shouldn't be here, Rose. Not like this. I should be the other me. And you shouldn't be blind." She can imagine him pacing about, waving his arms. "I shouldn't - you shouldn't - "
"Shouldn't what?" she asks quietly. "Shouldn't love you? I'm sorry, no one told me I had a choice in that." He is silent. "I don't regret anything I've done, Doctor. Not coming with you, not coming back to you, to Platform Five. Not joining with the TARDIS, and not changing you back. I don't regret any of it. But if you do…If you regret this, Doctor, I want you to take me home."
He is still silent, and Rose is scared. Scared that she has pushed him too far, that he will say he has regrets and take her home. Scared of so many things.
She lays back down and pulls the duvet up over her head. She is hot underneath it, but at least the Doctor cannot see her face this way. But he pulls the cover away, and she is exposed.
"You love me?" he asks in a strange voice.
"'Course I do," Rose says, wishing that she wasn't blushing. "Why d'you think I had to get you back?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I do."
"I thought…maybe you just…I don't know, you never said anything."
"Neither did you," she whispers. "You just kissed me and took the vortex out of me and then regenerated."
"You remember that?" he asks in surprise.
"Yes," she says simply. "Since you regenerated."
"Oh." The bed shifts as he sits down. "I, uh, didn't think you did."
"But I did." She turns her face in his direction. "It was good."
"Yes?" His tone is slightly eager. She smiles at him.
"Yeah." She reaches out and touches his shoulder. "Do I get my hug, or what?" He lies down next to her, holding her tightly. "So, um…you don't regret?"
"I have a few," he says dryly. "But…not about this." And then his lips are on hers, cool and wet and better than she remembers.
"Do you know," Rose says, a few days later when they are all gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, "I can see some things in the TARDIS."
Jack folds her fingers around a glass. "Really?"
"I couldn't see anything the other day on…whatever that planet was," Rose continues. "But then when we came back, I could see the console, just a bit."
The Doctor's hand rests briefly on her shoulder. "It's probably because of your link to the TARDIS," he says. "She's letting you see what she sees, in your head. So you're not really seeing, but it'll let you get around a bit."
Rose nods. "And I remember where things are, so I can move around my room now," she tells them. "And the TARDIS is helping."
She knows the Doctor and Jack still don't trust her connection with the TARDIS, but they accept it, at least for now, mostly because it is making it easier for her to get around.
"We should go see your mom," Jack says, putting plates down onto the table. Rose feels for her fork and carefully spears something. She grimaces at the taste of carrot.
"You had to," she complains. "And no."
"We should," the Doctor says. "See Jackie, I mean. And Mickey. They should know."
"Know what?" Rose asks tiredly. "That I've changed so much I'm practically not human anymore? That I'm blind? That I'm going to live as long as the TARDIS? What do you want her to know, Doctor?"
He hugs her tightly, and she rests her head on his shoulder.
"We don't have to do anything," he assures her. "But I do think we should go see Jackie."
"We need more biscuits, for one thing," Jack added, trying to lighten the mood.
Rose gives a smile. "I guess," she nods. She disentangles herself from the Doctor and stands up. "I'll be in my room," she tells them.
"Do you need help?" Jack asks. Rose shakes her head.
"I'll be fine," she assures them. "The TARDIS will help me." Her hands drop to her sides, her hands level with the ground and fingers stretched out. She is sure that the two men are watching her carefully, but the time ship guides her steps surely. She leaves the kitchen and walks down the corridor, her left hand touching the wall. The TARDIS warps the corridors, so she does not have far to go.
She sits on her bed and takes a deep breath. She is not ready to see her mother again, she knows, and she isn't sure if she ever will be again. She must do it, but she will be uncomfortable during the visit.
The Doctor enters the room, and she turns her face towards him. His hands cup her face and he kisses her gently.
"I meant it," he tells her. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to."
"What about doing something I want to do?" she asks softly. Her hands find the lapels of his leather jacket, and she slips it from his shoulders. "Doctor…"
"Rose…" he whispers as his hands drop from her face to her shoulders. His thumb rubs the side of her neck softly. "My sweet Rose. My angel."
"My Doctor," she breathes, and her fingers find the hem of his shirt. She raises it, and stops. "You'll have to help," she says softly.
"No…you do it," he says. "Learn me, Rose." A joyful expression lights up her face, and she leans forward slightly, finding his mouth and kissing him. Her fingers trail over his chest, memorising each contour. He hisses into her mouth when she brushes his nipples.
"My Doctor," she murmurs again. He doesn't deny it. She presses her palms against his shoulders, then pulls his shirt up and over his head. He helps only by raising his arms. She lowers her head to his chest and finds his nipple quickly. She takes it into her mouth and his grip on her shoulders tightens.
"Rose," he says, and she smiles against his chest. Her hands move to find his belt, and she struggles with the buckle for only a moment. She pulls the belt from its loops and discards it. The metal buckle gives a clunk, letting her know that it has landed on the floor. She finds his mouth again and kisses him. Her fingers make short work of the button and zip of his trousers.
"Stand up," she whispers, and he obeys. She carefully rises and after a moment of fumbling she pulls his trousers down and finds to her delight that he isn't wearing underwear. His hands skate around her waist. One hand settles on her hip, the other sneaks under her t-shirt.
"You're wearing too many clothes," he reproves her. She laughs and lets him take her shirt off. She reaches behind herself and unclasps her bra, letting it slip off her shoulders. She hears him take a breath, and she smiles.
"You're beautiful," he tells her honestly. "My Rose…my angel…"
She smiles and reaches to undo her jeans, but his hands are already there, and he divests her of the remaining clothing quickly. She stands bare and in the dark but not alone.
"My Doctor," she says yet again, reaching out for him. His tongue flicks over a nipple and she moans in delight and surprise. Without sight, she discovers, she feels things more intensely.
He backs her onto the bed carefully, and she runs her hands over his arms and back as he explores her body with his mouth. Then he is on top of her, his weight comforting to her, and he kisses her as he pushes himself inside her. She cries out into his mouth and tears creep down her cheeks. He kisses them away and moves slowly inside her at first, but she lifts her hips to meet his and before long they come together.
They go to see her mother on the next day, and Rose comforts her mother and hugs Mickey and walks away from them on Jack's arm without any regret.
"So," the Doctor says, when Jack and Rose have returned to the TARDIS, "where to now?"
Rose smiles. "Surprise me," she requests.
Please review...