Between A Girl And A Box [1/?]
DISCLAIMER & OTHER WARNINGS
Rose Tyler looks into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looks into her; two hearts beat as one and the Bad Wolf is born.
Reapers materialise, drawn to her sudden unexplained appearance, and so she is quick to establish a reason. The Wolf creates herself, spreading the words backwards and forwards through time, imprinting them across the lifespans of the human and the eleven-dimensional entity.
Every letter laid across eternity entwines the souls of her progenitors further, connecting them as intricately as the trans-dimensional spirals of the Vortex connect Time and Space.
Bad Wolf sees all there is, all that was and all that ever could be.
At the back of her consciousness, thoughts fly: purely motivated, with no thought to self-interest. Rose Tyler’s mantra to save the Doctor at any cost, a heart’s desire synced to an all-powerful heart.
It is what allowed their fusion, what kept the human from burning when she reached out for the goddess.
Images assault Bad Wolf from every spatio-temporal direction, painful in intensity, but she ignores them all in favour of those relating to Her Doctor. Two-hundred thousand years and seconds away, she feels his hollow despair, his sense of failure.
She must return to him.
With her power, she knows she can appear at his side with a mere thought. But Her Doctor will need the TARDIS once he is rescued, and there is much to do before arriving there.
Bad Wolf strews the message to herself and the Doctor across the cosmos, wherever they are in the universe, etching her name: a warning and a promise.
She is nowhere and everywhere at once.
Wherever she exists, she changes events.
In a gilded palace and upon a 51st century ship, she sees a woman. Formidable in her own right and worthy of respect - whose presence, whose gall has Bad Wolf snarling at her. A tiny tweak of the timelines and possibility and probability, and the lone fireplace becomes a portal once more. Her Doctor is returned to her.
The beach where her human heart is overwhelmed with despair and hopelessness the first time she truly loses him. Bad Wolf embosses her name there: a message that they are connected and always will be. There will always be a way back. Rose Tyler promised him forever, and it’s an oath that Bad Wolf will keep.
She encounters an ancient threat intending to feast on the time energy within her organic self, their grasping stone hands greedy for her insides. She reaches out and sends help - a child, one of the few humans Her Doctor has ever trusted to pilot the TARDIS. The Wolf calls the Sparrow, who has too much potential, a timeline that shines bright, and makes her his unknowing salvation.
Not every change is one she welcomes, but even she must make sacrifices.
She sees the other Time Lord - the diseased one that both the TARDIS and Her Doctor have always had a bond with, in spite of everything. She experiences him tearing her apart, perverting her organic self into a paradox device, his essence swimming in her blood. It makes her human heart sick and her organic self scream, but at the same time his demise is impossible.
As long as she exists, he will too.
She walks through time and approaches what she knows is a pivotal moment.
A barren beach signifies the end of her, and Her Doctor carving out a part of himself for fear of experienced the pain of love once again.
The human heart of her is anguished at the idea of Her Doctor being left alone once more, cursed to an existence of running without a hand to hold. The eleven-dimensional intelligence that is bonded to Her Thief knows what the pain will do to him in the future. They know the choices he will make because of it, the choices that will herald the universe’s end all the faster.
Bad Wolf sees the key to her return - the Most Important Woman in Creation, and the countless timelines that bounce off of her. Time loves Donna Noble almost as much as it does Her Doctor and her human self, and Bad Wolf feels so much potential there.
Events progress as she intends until Bad Wolf glimpses the beach once more. The desolate strip of land she named for herself to give hope is where it is shattered instead. The hearts that joined to create the Bad Wolf stutter in disbelief.
All of her plans, all of her work seems to be for naught.
Because of the Doctor’s guilt, his self-sacrifice and above all his love for the human heart of her that makes him want to protect her. He intends to leave her behind once more, without even learning that
Donna Noble will leave him after that and he will be alone again.
The Lonely God once more, and the universe will tremble at his misery.
Bad Wolf decides she doesn’t like this reality, and so she will change it.
Her progenitors would never dare. The human heart fears the repercussions of paradox, and the organic entity lacks the emotional drive to effectuate the change. But now that they have merged, those inadequacies and fears melt away.
The girl in the TARDIS, the TARDIS in the girl, the Wolf in their heart.
Reality collapses into nothing but an echo with the wave of her hand, and from its ashes a new one emerges.
The pain of that destruction and creation echo in the very marrow of her being, but she ignores her. Her Doctor was right when he said Time is always in flux, but she is the one who controls it.
Bad Wolf shapes and guides events, directs the creation of the Second Self - a duel in the clouds, the immortal captain, the Dalek’s gun and a baptism of fire.
Because he will save them all.
His deeds will change the fate of a saviour in the wilderness, raise a madman from ashes, free a general from the prison of mind and reunite two hearts divided.
Bad Wolf intervenes time and again, without the knowledge of permission of Her Doctor. She is careful with the timelines, testing and weighing, choosing which outcomes have the least amount of impact on the universe.
Her Doctor’s face doesn’t change, the Orangey Girl and the Pretty One aren’t ripped from him, the Impossible Girl doesn’t lose herself or her heart. But changing reality is a hard task, however omnipotent the agent, and not for the faint of heart.
Some things she cannot stop or alter.
Bad Wolf sees the woman who would let the universe burn for love of Her Doctor, and Bad Wolf wants to tear into her timeline, erase her and her presumption. But the soft human heart reminds her that the loud professor is the only one who can save him and everyone else. Her Doctor will die if the Pond daughter is not there, and she won’t gain his trust without those precious, painful syllables.
Fixed events remain fixed even for the Bad Wolf.
But she can change it. Alter it a bit, correct circumstance, letter and law until it suits.
It is her nature after all. Bad Wolf has more inherent ability than any Time Lord because she is the true highest authority. Her capacity is…
Flagging.
Her human heart is waning the farther she reaches.
Wane is a weak word. She is dying.
The realisation causes the part of her that remains Rose Tyler to panic. She tries to draw away from the TARDIS, attempting to separate them on her own.
But it’s hard to rip yourself apart, even as an all-powerful avatar of creation and destruction.
Rose Tyler discovers that the longer Bad Wolf exists, the harder it is to pull back from her. The goddess does not want to give itself up.
The TARDIS is trying to help now too, bringing them closer and closer to Her Doctor. He will help, give his life for them despite their protest, and they will separate.
The two entities that begot Bad Wolf will separate and rest.
But her shadow will remain, ready to rear up when needed.
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