Bigger Than Reality

Chapter 1

It was a chilly winter morning on an otherwise nondescript Friday when Gwen Smith came suddenly and completely awake with a gasping breath. Looking over and seeing her clock read 4:57 am she switched off the alarm and stretched luxuriously in her single bed, breathing deeply to clear her mind of the last remnants of the bad dream that had shocked her awake. Being accustomed to unpleasant dreams and not to wasting time, she threw back her comforter and duvet, hopped out of bed and shucked off her shorts and tank top, trading them for running gear.

By 5:05 am Gwen was outside her apartment building, starting along her newest favorite morning run route. She had a graceful stride and a long, lean, lanky runner's build, due largely to the fact that she had not missed a morning run, regardless of the weather or how she felt, in over eight years. If she had friends in this new town they might have whispered that she was addicted to exercise, or that she simply did not know how to relax and take a day off; but the truth of the matter was that Gwen's morning run was the only time when she did allow herself to relax. It was her time to remember who she was and be herself.

She liked to run without any distractions—no partner, no iPod, no headphones, no audio books or radio—just the sound of the wind in her hair and the lonely solitude of the world before dawn. This half hour or so of running connected her to her old life, and if she really thought about it (which she almost always did), she could nearly feel the ghost of a hand in hers, nearly hear the whisper of the voice she longed for in the wind whipping around her head.

For this half hour she could remember how it felt, once upon a time, to be Rose Tyler. Before that awful day of battle when Rose Tyler was separated forever from her home dimension and her home on the TARDIS, and thrown into a linear time line in a world that didn't need her.

Back in that life Rose Tyler had run a lot—run away from monsters, away from danger, away from her past, and always, always toward her Doctor. There really had been an inordinate amount of running involved in saving the universe. Now, Gwen Smith ran simply to remember the running. There were no monsters (other than the ones that haunted her dreams), little danger, and no Doctor. That was the part that hurt the most—no Doctor. She hadn't believed it was possible to feel this, this impossibly deep mix of love and loss and pain, until it became her life; until that horrible, horrible day on a deserted beach when Rose Tyler's life ended and Gwen Smith's began.

And, if Gwen was honest with herself (which she wasn't always), she did also run to stay in shape, just in case. Actually, that deserves capitals. She ran to stay in shape, Just In Case.

Hoping was perhaps the one thing that Gwen did more fiercely and adamantly than running. Because hoping softened some the sharp edges of that yearning pain, helped assuage some of the gut-wrenching, unfulfilled longing that accompanied her every where she went. Because the alternative—not hoping—was an impossible, completely intolerable option. Because hope made her resilient, gave her direction, and gave her a purpose.

Between hoping and striving for the impossible and the morning ritual of being absorbed in memories, Gwen wasn't sure if she was running toward or away from her demons, and she tried not to think about it. Most days she was just happy if her post-run shower hid the evidence of her tears. The Doctor, her first Doctor, had once told her to live a fantastic life when he thought she was going to be separated from him. So far this was the closest approximation she could manage.

By 7:30 am Gwen was on campus and making her morning stop in her office before spending some time in either the lab or the library. Fridays this semester were a busy affair. After only a couple of precious hours in either the archeology lab or the library, she had three different freshman 101 classes to teach; and today a paper was due, so she would also have 150 or so term papers to grade. Gwen sighed—some day she might even finish her dissertation.