Sitting on the Console Room floor of the Tardis, Rose Tyler glared at the unconscious body of the stranger who - a few minutes earlier - had materialized inside the Doctor's clothes, the same man who had tried to convince her he wasn't some alien impostor, saying he was the Doctor, and that he had been forced to regenerate after absorbing the energy of the Time Vortex.
He would have died, otherwise, he had said, because no life form was meant to hold that much energy, not even a Time Lord. Then, after what looked like a tremendous agony, he had slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Observing his chest rising rhythmically, Rose realized he was still alive, though deadly pale. He lay there on the metallic mesh that was the Tardis floor, looking absolutely helpless.
Helpless, Rose thought, brooding on that word. She turned to face the Tardis control panel, realizing that nobody could prevent her from giving shape to the crazy idea that was just forming in her desperate mind. Travelling through space and time with the Doctor - her Doctor, the one with clear blue eyes, large ears and a smile that melted her heart - she had learned a few tricks about that machine.
Maybe now was the time to put them to use: not for fun, this time, or for the sake of adventure, but for a good cause.
- Wait for me, Doctor. I won't let you die this time - she muttered, walking past the intruder's body and stopping in front of the lit console. Tears were welling in her eyes, and she swallowed hard to keep control.
She knew she could do it. The Tardis was a powerful time machine, and no one could keep her from using it, now.
She operated the commands with haste, following the same procedure she had learned while watching the Doctor: pneumatic lever up, turn the handle of the manual compressor twice, power amplifier handle down, then she went on to set the configuration on the temporal display, the device that focused the precise time and place she wanted to return to.
While the sentient machine whirred under her feet, Rose calibrated the little mechanism, hoping to be precise: she had to go back in time to Satellite 5, one or two minutes earlier than the previous time, when it had been already too late, because the Time Vortex had been already unleashed.
Of the previous time she remembered very little: her mother and Mickey had helped her to open the heart of the Tardis, and she had lost herself in a warm white light. She had woken up in the Console Room - less than half an hour ago, that was - in the Doctor's arms. Then all had started to go terribly wrong: a few words of explanation, his words of goodbye then the pain, the blinding light and the regeneration. He had disappeared, consumed by the energy of the Time Vortex.
Rose shook her head, closing her eyes tight and clenching her fists to delete that painful image from her mind.
- No, it won't happen again. I won't let it happen. I know I can - she told herself, trying to find the courage to engage the time drive, to whirl back in time to save the Doctor.
Swallowing back her tears, she pulled down the main lever and the world all around her started to vibrate and to shake, folding on itself, while the Tardis crossed time and space reaching back to Satellite 5, one hour earlier. Reaching back to the Doctor. Her Doctor.
A few moments later, Rose brought herself up to her feet, feeling dizzy and beaten, and hurried to the monitor to check if she had landed in the exact moment in time and space she needed to be.
According to the time navigation monitor, the Tardis had appeared on the level just below the Control Room of Satellite 5, the place toward which - when the Doctor had sent her back home with an excuse, only to save her life - an army of Daleks was converging, armed and ready to exterminate every living thing on the orbiting station, with the Doctor at the top of the list.
If she wanted to save him from the Daleks and the Time Vortex she had to be very careful and, above all, she had to hurry.
- If only I knew what happened last time - she muttered to herself, while a shiver of bad omen ran through her spine. She was about to exit the Tardis when she remembered about her strange and uninvited guest: feeling a little guilty, she went back inside to check upon his health, but apparently there hadn't been any change.
The unknown guest still rested on the floor, not moving and barely breathing. From time to time, he had a slight seizure that would bring a painful wince on his face, and a thin gust of light would seep out of his mouth, dissolving immediately in thin air. His skin was pale white, and he had freckles on his face.
- I'm so sorry you're ill, my friend, but I just can't stay here to look after you - she said to him, even though she knew he couldn't hear her. - I have to go and save someone who's more important.
The most important, she added in her mind, but didn't speak it aloud.
Then she went back to the Tardis door and swiftly slipped outside, without making a sound. The corridors of that particular floor where dark and silent: the Daleks had probably reached the upper floor, by that time.
I'm late, she thought in anguish, feeling her heart beating hard in her throat.
She started to run almost on tiptoe, trying to reach a maintenance shaft she had used once in the past: that shaft would take her safely to the upper floor without being noticed. But right now all the corridors around her looked the same. She stopped abruptly in her tracks to catch her breath, just before walking past another corridor.
And then she heard a faint sound coming from the left, from the corridor she was about to cross. She flattened herself against the wall, standing utterly still, but her heart was beating so fast she feared someone could hear it in the distance.
But luckily for her, the silent and deadly Dalek glided past her along the corridor without noticing her. The heartless bio-mechanical creature seemed single-minded in the pursuit of its objective, like a blood hound following the trail of a wounded prey.
Hardly believing to be still unharmed, Rose reached the end of the corridor and finally spotted the opening of the maintenance shaft: a long metal stair ran vertically among tubes and circuitry, disappearing in the dark.
It was a tight passage, with little air, but it was her only chance to reach the upper floor. If she wanted to rescue the Doctor, she certainly wouldn't let a bastard of a Dalek spoil her plans. Not a chance.
Pulling herself up, step after step, she climbed up the narrow metal stair, loosing her grip from time to time: the heart of the station was hot and her hands were sweaty, because of the high temperature and, most of all, because she was worried. But her anguish kept her going up, until she was climbing her way up with her elbows.
A few minutes later, exhausted, she finally came out of the shaft and lay on the plastic floor, panting. She knew she couldn't afford to rest for long, but her body seemed to refuse to obey. But then she heard a very familiar sound: the raucous siren of the Tardis, the other Tardis, the one from the past, the one she knew she had brought back to the Station on her own. It was materializing inside the Control Room.
- No! Wait! - she wailed in a small voice, scrambling to her feet with a tremendous effort.
The Control Room was only a few meters from her actual position and in the corridors there was no one to be seen, neither human nor Dalek. So Rose threw herself out of her hiding place, running as fast as she could toward the room where the events were unfolding, hoping to be still in time to change things, hoping that the Time Vortex hadn't already crushed the Dalek army, together with every single living cell in her Doctor's body.
She wouldn't let it happen, this time. She would rather die herself than let him be destroyed.
Hiding behind a corner of the metal walls of the station, Rose was finally able to look inside the Control Room, and when she set her eyes on the familiar shape of the Doctor she couldn't suppress a smile He's here, and he's still alive, she thought. The Time Vortex hasn't been unleashed yet!
Then she saw herself.
Or, more precisely, an incredible creature of light that had her face and her body, but was clad in a radiant halo of swirling energy. The Doctor talked to her and the creature replied, but Rose couldn't hear what they where saying. Then, with the motion of a single hand, her other self disintegrated all the Daleks in the Control Room and all those hovering outside the station, waiting to attack.
Wow, breathed Rose in a hushed voice, with a gesture of triumph.
But all of a sudden the other Rose grimaced, raising a hand to her forehead, her face looking like she was in terrible pain. Even in the distance, she shone so bright it hurt Rose's eyes, like looking into a blazing fire.
No one is meant to absorb so much energy, Rose thought, remembering something the Doctor had said before changing, before dying.
She watched while the Doctor reached to her - the other her - self-confident as usual, but in his eyes she saw an expression of infinite love. He, who had lived for more than nine hundred years, who could travel through space and time, was looking at her like she was the most beautiful life form in the whole universe.
Softly, he cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand, murmuring something to soothe her, then he locked lips with her in a passionate kiss. And the white light engulfed them both. But all of a sudden, a furious gush of energy came out through the other Rose's eyes and the Doctor absorbed it in himself, like a piece of black rock under the sun.
Oh, no! Please, no! Rose thought, finally understanding what was happening before her: that was the Time Vortex, that was the cosmic energy that had destroyed all Daleks and that, in a few seconds, would burn every single cell in the Doctor's body, making him change.
She realized it had been no accident: the Doctor knew very well what would happen, he knew that energy would kill him. However, he faced the Vortex without fear.
Paralyzed by that revelation, Rose saw her Doctor take the other Rose, now unconscious, in his arms and carry her to safety inside the Tardis. Then the Time Lord spaceship disappeared, and Rose knew fully well what happened next.
Unfortunately, everything would be happening again just like it did the first time, because she didn't have the guts to change the future: she had remained frozen still, watching the Doctor die in her place, she hadn't raised a finger to save him. She had let him die, once again.
With a heavy heart, she went back to her Tardis: on Satellite 5 - now liberated - nobody seemed to notice her. She felt like she had become invisible, empty. Defeated, she closed the Tardis door behind her, shutting out a past she knew she couldn't change anymore.
Her Doctor was gone for ever, and would never come back. Ever again.
And she would never have the chance to tell him what she felt for him.
Assisting like a stranger to the only kiss they would ever share, and of which she had no direct memory, had torn a hole in her soul. Reading in the Doctor's eyes what his true feelings for her were had left her heartbroken.
Sitting on the Console Room floor of the Tardis, with her back against the wall and her head on her knees, Rose could only weep in utter desperation, unable to accept what was happening around her, cursing the moment she decided to go back in time. Instead of making her feeling better, that trip had only added to her miserable condition.
The pain for the death of her Doctor was hard enough to bear: the notion that she had been the cause was way too much to handle. The Doctor had sacrificed himself for her, taking the energy of the Time Vortex in his body so that she could live, but right now Rose didn't know what to do with herself and the life the Doctor had given her.
It's no life without him, she muttered, tears streaming from her eyes, thinking back to the thousand moments of adventure they had shared, inseparable companions through countless dangers and enemies, on Earth and in space. Maybe she should go back home to her mum, like the stranger had suggested: maybe going back to her old life, the insignificant little life she lived before meeting him, was the only way. In time, its emptiness would eventually ease her suffering.
Rose felt so devastated and utterly helpless that, when something next to her moved, she didn't even lift her head.
- Rose - her uninvited guest said, still wearing the Doctor's leather jacket, still stealing his smell. He called her name in a soft, caring voice, but it was not his voice Rose needed to hear, so she ignored him.
- Rose Tyler! - he called again, loud, after a few seconds. At the sound of his voice, which boomed in the soft-whirring air of the silent Console Room of the Tardis, Rose startled.
She pulled up her head from her knees to glare at him, ready to verbally assault him, to scold him for disturbing her grief in such an indelicate and unacceptable fashion.
But when her eyes locked with his, her bitter words died in her throat.
The stranger was kneeling on the floor, right in front of her, and his hazel eyes looked at her from a young and freckled face. In a moment of absolute clarity, Rose realized she knew that look, she knew those eyes that looked at her like she was the most beautiful life form in the whole universe.
Something lit up inside her, giving her back her will to live. Her Doctor had died to save her, but his incredible Time Lord powers had brought him back.
- Doctor... - she whispered, smiling still in tears.
- Rose - said again the Doctor, the new Doctor, smiling in return, trailing two fingers gently on her cheek to dry her tears away. - I'm taking you home. Christmas eve, remember?
- How can I forget? - she replied, with a shaking voice, but happy.
Santa had just brought back her beloved Doctor, the most important person in her life: a younger Doctor, true, with unruly hair and a remarkable set of teeth, but still - unmistakably - fantastic.