(no subject)
Title: Around the World.
Author: Iby.
Spoilers: Nope. Set after D--ms---.
Rating: PG-13.
Characters and Pairings: The Tenth Doctor, Rose, a few original characters; Rose/Ten.
Author's Notes: A rather unorthodox Doctor/Rose reunion!fic. It's only 2,500 words, which surprises me considering the hours I spent on it.
Summary: It's Rose-centric; it takes a look at the life she leads on Earth before the Doctor finds her. It's unorthodox in that she doesn't spend her time fighting evil aliens and discovering spaceships and such, but rather she travels the Earth and discovers its wonders.
I was thinking the other day about what a shame it is that I'll never get to travel through time and space, and that I'd have to resign myself to living on Earth. Then, it struck me that there's really nothing wrong with our planet at all! I think for Rose to finally grow, she has to accept the place she came from, even if it's parallel. She's still a child of the universe, but I wanted her to find her own feet.
Somewhere in Ezuvan Karai, Batticaloa, on the Eastern coast of Sri Lanka. 2009.
;
With reckless abandon, Rose pelted down the crowded street. There was more dirt than usual on the concrete, having been disturbed by the earthquake that had not long ago shook and she nearly slipped as she turned a corner. Baskets and crates lay scattered and tipped over, and squawking chickens flapped their wings in panic inside their cages. The outdoor tables of the dodgy little café that she’d been getting her daily breakfast of appam from, lay toppled over.
“Run!” she screamed, pointing wildly at the hill that jutted up into the sky ahead of her. For a second, the word triggered a memory, but she pushed it down. Her voice was drowned out amongst the screams of others, but she couldn’t see anybody hurt, only panicked. She was no expert, but she knew that staying by the water after an earthquake was a bad idea. She tried to push people into movement as she ran, figuring that was the best course of action.
Her legs felt like they were on fire, pounding against the pavement, but stopping wasn’t an option. Sweat poured down her face, trickling behind her ears and down her neck, to run along her spine and between her breasts. Her shirt was absolutely plastered to her skin, but the uncomfortableness was the least of her worries. She could hear people moving behind her and around her. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining the sound of rushing water, but she didn’t chance a look.
She heard someone calling her name. “Rose! Rose, what is happening?”
Turning her head slightly but not stopping for a second, Rose noticed that Amara, a fifteen year old girl that she’d befriended who worked in the café, was running by her side.
“Don’t stop, ok? Make for the hill and climb!” Her lungs shuddered painfully, not at all pleased with their precious oxygen being used for speech instead of breath. “Just climb!”
Finally, concrete gave way to grass. Trees grew closer together and the ground beneath her began to slope upwards. Almost crying at the pain of it, she pushed down the urge to vomit and scrabbled upwards. Blinking through sweat, she tried to find the easiest route, but as the incline steepened it became harder and harder. People were milling around her, shouting and carrying little babies on their backs. At one point she had to stop and physically haul a small girl up to the top of a rock.
“Stick with me, yeah?!” she shouted.
The girl nodded enthusiastically, and with Amara on one side of her and the girl on the other, Rose continued her ascent.
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the hill began to smooth out. Up so high, there was a breeze and it felt like the most beautiful caress, sneaking between the skin of her neck and the hair that was plastered to it. Pushing on, she eventually found relatively flat ground; flat enough to be able to stand up easily enough. She stopped and wrapped herself around a tree, relying on it to hold her up. She felt something sickly bitter rise in the back of her throat but managed to push it down.
After a minute, she turned and surveyed the crowd. About fifty or so people crowded the area, some clinging to trees, others resting on the gentle slope of the ground, gasping for breath. Everybody was streaked with dirt and mud, cuts and bruises from being whipped by trees on almost every face. Wiping a hand across her forehead, she wasn’t at all surprised to find blood on her fingers.
Shifting her gaze, she could see the distant coastline. As the roaring sound of her blood pumping around her body subsided, she could hear a different rumble. Through the trees, glints of silver and blue moving frighteningly fast could be seen. The water had hit.
Releasing her tree, she looked down the hill and something caught her eye. Her decision was made before she’d even thought it. There weren’t aliens to save or to run from, there weren’t planets at stake or spaceships to catch. She’d long ago decided that if she was ever going to accept living on Earth, be it parallel or no, then she’d have to accept the Earth itself, find its beauty, and not drown herself in Torchwood.
“Amara! Watch her.” She quickly but gently passed the little girl to her friend. “Stay right here.” She pointed to her tree. “Stay here, and I’ll come and get you.”
Amara looked panicked. “Rose! What are you doing?”
Even though her body screamed at her in protest, and the evolutionary instinct to steer away from danger in the name of self preservation welled up inside her, she started to make her way back down the hill. About six or so stragglers were stuck halfway up, obviously hurt or simply unable to climb any more.
She dug her heels into the soil for a steady footing. “I’m going to help.”
. . . .
Several miles inland from the West Bank of the Nile, past The Valley of the Kings, Egypt. 2011.
;
With the peak of al-Qurn at her back, Rose studied the landscape in front of her. Everything seemed to burn orange, and the endless sand was almost enough to convince her that the grass she’d always known, was in fact a myth. Pushing her sunglasses back up her nose, she studied her map carefully.
A man came to stand beside her. “What do you think?”
Wrapped up in the desolate nature of the desert, she’d almost forgotten that she travelled with a party of fifteen. She looked up at him and smiled. She was no archaeologist, no anthropologist, no expert, not like him, but she liked that he asked her for her opinion. She’d met him a week ago, wandering between the pillars of the Temple of Karnak, and when he’d said that he was looking for a tomb in the western arm of the Valley of the Kings, and asked her if she’d like to come along, she hadn’t been able to say no.
She couldn’t help but smile at him. He was quite handsome, and she’d even found herself making out with him the night before. As usual, a sadness had hummed inside her, but she’d made an effort to enjoy the moment. “Looks good to me.”
From behind, another spoke, female this time. “We’re at the coordinates. This is the spot the ground penetrating radar found an anomaly.”
Not long after, they split up to search the area, making sure to maintain visual contact with each other.
Not quite knowing what she was looking for, Rose instead chose to wander, taking in the grandeur of the Theban Hills. Out here, it was quiet. The main area of the Valley had been crawling with tourists and beyond that, in Luxor, was the hustle and bustle of city life. The idea of tombs, housing within them objects so ancient, was beyond exciting. It almost made her feel like she was travelling through time.
Scuffing the toe of her sandal covered foot into the sand, she tried to push her sadness to the back of her mind. She refused to let it consume her, not when she stood before history. She’d come to Egypt to see the pyramids, unable to resist the notion of visiting a place where people had thought that they were close to the stars, the heavens.
The wind beat at the sand and her clothes; a white cotton shirt with long sleeves and light brown cotton pants - they were as cool as one could get whilst still offering protection from the sun. Her pony-tail was slung through the back of her cap, its brim shading most of her face.
She pressed on, keeping an eye on her location. Minutes passed, as she ambled along. Suddenly though, her foot slid into something, disappearing ankle deep into sand.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Dropping to her knees, she scooped at the sand and found herself staring at a step. It was exactly the same colour as the sand around it, but was harder and defined by its angles.
She opened her mouth to call out to her companions, but decided not to. She wanted a moment to hold history in her hands.
One month later
;
With her heart in her throat, Rose made her way down the stairs and into the adjoining corridor . A flashlight attached to her helmet lit the way, and she couldn’t breathe for excitement at seeing the worn and cracked yet beautiful decorations on the walls.
She’d done it. She knew that he’d be proud of her, and it filled her with a sense of calm. She didn’t have a TARDIS or a Time Lord, but with a little initiative, a lot of luck and a sense of adventure that couldn’t be stopped, she’d managed to put her feet on ancient soil.
. . . .
Machu Picchu, north-west of Cuzco, south-eastern Peru, 2013
;
With clenched fists, Rose tried her best to ignore the once familiar sounds of the TARDIS materializing. She’d imagined the noise from time to time since she’d begun her new life on Earth, and she had no intention of letting the impossible distract her from the beauty of the Urubamba Valley and the odd collection of jutting rocky mountains, some impossibly tall and thin.
It had taken her four days to walk the Inca Trail with her group, and now that she was here, she wasn’t going to let anything ruin it.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
That voice, the voice that she’d imagined in her head to spur her on, whenever she’d felt that perhaps an adventure was too much for her, reached her ears.
Putting it down to exhaustion and altitude sickness, she sat down on her pack and studied the Huayna Picchu Mountain thoughtfully, marvelling at the way it had clawed its way out of the earth.
“I’m real, you know. You can turn around.”
She laughed and pulled an apple from her bag. She was just about to take a juicy bite of it when a familiar hand fell on her shoulder. She froze, her eyes staring a whole into the rock before her, and even when a body covered in brown coat sat beside her, she didn’t move.
“I was going to take you here, you know. I thought about it, but decided to go with New York instead. Well, that turned out to be 1950s London, but that’s neither here nor there.”
Still frozen, her apple pressed to her lips.
“You found your way here all on your own, Rose Tyler.” There was a sense of awe in his voice.
At the use of her name, the world seemed to move again and she dropped the apple on the grass. Turning to him, she looked him in the eye. His hair was as ruffled as ever, his eyes as beautiful and although he’d picked up a few more freckles, he was still her Doctor. “You’re here.”
He smiled, and it was just as she remembered it. “Yup. I’m here, sitting at 7,970 feet altitude in the middle of the ruins of Machu Picchu with you. We do find ourselves in the oddest of places, don’t we?”
She smiled back, her shock overwhelming her joy. “I’ve taken to visiting odd places. Been doing a bit of travelling.”
A proud look came to his eyes. “You always were made for adventure.” With that, he threw his arms around her.
. . . .
The TARDIS, The Vortex, time nonexistent, but three experienced months since Peru.
;
Shutting the door of their bedroom behind her, Rose made her way to the Console Room and the Doctor. He was, as usual, poking around in things that ought not be poked around in, but his manic energy was irresistible.
“Where are we, then?”
He looked up at her and beamed. “Well, technically the planet doesn’t have a name. Not in the time we’re heading for. A little group of settlers have just arrived though, so maybe we can give them some suggestions, eh?”
Taking his hand, she hauled him up and they made their way to the doors. “What about Desta?”
The Doctor hugged her to him. “Sorry?”
Rose fiddled with the lapels of his coat. “Desta? It’s the name of this girl I met in a little village in Ethiopia. We spent two days carting water in buckets to her house. It means happiness. ”
He leant forward and pressed his lips to her temple. “It’s got my vote.”
Hand in hand, they made their way outside. It wasn’t long before Rose had run off and disappeared from view, and the only way the Doctor managed to control his nerves was by reminding himself that she would never stray too far and that now, more than ever, she could take care of herself.
Her return to the TARDIS had brought about a life of adventuring that was very different to the one they’d led together seven years before. Oh, they still delighted in each other’s company, he still knew more than she did of the universe, but now she was all grown up. She’d battled so much by herself, journeyed the harshest landscapes of the Earth, fought off greedy hands that had sought to take her money and body, navigated her way across deserts, found hidden treasures and made friends in the unlikeliest of places. She loved her planet just as much as she did the universe.
A few minutes later, she popped up safe and sound, just like he’d known she would. “Doctor, you’ve got to come and look at this!”
She took off and he ran after her, eager to see what she’d found.
Nine hours later.
;
Having left the newly named planet Desta, the TARDIS swirled around in the Vortex. Curled up around each other on the couch in the library, Rose drummed her fingers against the Doctor’s thigh.
He purred happily and nuzzled his nose against her cheek. “Rose? Tell me a story.”
Rose smiled, touched. It was a high honour indeed, to be asked to recount a tale of adventure to a man who had all of time and space at his fingertips.
For, now, whenever the Doctor told a story of something magical, Rose had one to tell as well.
"Well, there was this one time, in Xi'An, China..."
. . . .
Well, there it is. It doesn't feel particularly like a Doctor Who fic, but in the end I hope that's ok, because I wanted to see Rose develop as a human, an adventurer of the Earth, in her own right.
I did actually give some thought as to not making this a reunion fic, for fear that it might diminish the effects of everything Rose has learnt. In the end, obviously, my shipper side won out, but I really do hope that the story conveys the idea that she's grown and is an explorer entirely independent of the Doctor.
I'm still not too sure what to think of it, but I hope you liked it!
Author: Iby.
Spoilers: Nope. Set after D--ms---.
Rating: PG-13.
Characters and Pairings: The Tenth Doctor, Rose, a few original characters; Rose/Ten.
Author's Notes: A rather unorthodox Doctor/Rose reunion!fic. It's only 2,500 words, which surprises me considering the hours I spent on it.
Summary: It's Rose-centric; it takes a look at the life she leads on Earth before the Doctor finds her. It's unorthodox in that she doesn't spend her time fighting evil aliens and discovering spaceships and such, but rather she travels the Earth and discovers its wonders.
I was thinking the other day about what a shame it is that I'll never get to travel through time and space, and that I'd have to resign myself to living on Earth. Then, it struck me that there's really nothing wrong with our planet at all! I think for Rose to finally grow, she has to accept the place she came from, even if it's parallel. She's still a child of the universe, but I wanted her to find her own feet.
Somewhere in Ezuvan Karai, Batticaloa, on the Eastern coast of Sri Lanka. 2009.
;
With reckless abandon, Rose pelted down the crowded street. There was more dirt than usual on the concrete, having been disturbed by the earthquake that had not long ago shook and she nearly slipped as she turned a corner. Baskets and crates lay scattered and tipped over, and squawking chickens flapped their wings in panic inside their cages. The outdoor tables of the dodgy little café that she’d been getting her daily breakfast of appam from, lay toppled over.
“Run!” she screamed, pointing wildly at the hill that jutted up into the sky ahead of her. For a second, the word triggered a memory, but she pushed it down. Her voice was drowned out amongst the screams of others, but she couldn’t see anybody hurt, only panicked. She was no expert, but she knew that staying by the water after an earthquake was a bad idea. She tried to push people into movement as she ran, figuring that was the best course of action.
Her legs felt like they were on fire, pounding against the pavement, but stopping wasn’t an option. Sweat poured down her face, trickling behind her ears and down her neck, to run along her spine and between her breasts. Her shirt was absolutely plastered to her skin, but the uncomfortableness was the least of her worries. She could hear people moving behind her and around her. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining the sound of rushing water, but she didn’t chance a look.
She heard someone calling her name. “Rose! Rose, what is happening?”
Turning her head slightly but not stopping for a second, Rose noticed that Amara, a fifteen year old girl that she’d befriended who worked in the café, was running by her side.
“Don’t stop, ok? Make for the hill and climb!” Her lungs shuddered painfully, not at all pleased with their precious oxygen being used for speech instead of breath. “Just climb!”
Finally, concrete gave way to grass. Trees grew closer together and the ground beneath her began to slope upwards. Almost crying at the pain of it, she pushed down the urge to vomit and scrabbled upwards. Blinking through sweat, she tried to find the easiest route, but as the incline steepened it became harder and harder. People were milling around her, shouting and carrying little babies on their backs. At one point she had to stop and physically haul a small girl up to the top of a rock.
“Stick with me, yeah?!” she shouted.
The girl nodded enthusiastically, and with Amara on one side of her and the girl on the other, Rose continued her ascent.
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the hill began to smooth out. Up so high, there was a breeze and it felt like the most beautiful caress, sneaking between the skin of her neck and the hair that was plastered to it. Pushing on, she eventually found relatively flat ground; flat enough to be able to stand up easily enough. She stopped and wrapped herself around a tree, relying on it to hold her up. She felt something sickly bitter rise in the back of her throat but managed to push it down.
After a minute, she turned and surveyed the crowd. About fifty or so people crowded the area, some clinging to trees, others resting on the gentle slope of the ground, gasping for breath. Everybody was streaked with dirt and mud, cuts and bruises from being whipped by trees on almost every face. Wiping a hand across her forehead, she wasn’t at all surprised to find blood on her fingers.
Shifting her gaze, she could see the distant coastline. As the roaring sound of her blood pumping around her body subsided, she could hear a different rumble. Through the trees, glints of silver and blue moving frighteningly fast could be seen. The water had hit.
Releasing her tree, she looked down the hill and something caught her eye. Her decision was made before she’d even thought it. There weren’t aliens to save or to run from, there weren’t planets at stake or spaceships to catch. She’d long ago decided that if she was ever going to accept living on Earth, be it parallel or no, then she’d have to accept the Earth itself, find its beauty, and not drown herself in Torchwood.
“Amara! Watch her.” She quickly but gently passed the little girl to her friend. “Stay right here.” She pointed to her tree. “Stay here, and I’ll come and get you.”
Amara looked panicked. “Rose! What are you doing?”
Even though her body screamed at her in protest, and the evolutionary instinct to steer away from danger in the name of self preservation welled up inside her, she started to make her way back down the hill. About six or so stragglers were stuck halfway up, obviously hurt or simply unable to climb any more.
She dug her heels into the soil for a steady footing. “I’m going to help.”
. . . .
Several miles inland from the West Bank of the Nile, past The Valley of the Kings, Egypt. 2011.
;
With the peak of al-Qurn at her back, Rose studied the landscape in front of her. Everything seemed to burn orange, and the endless sand was almost enough to convince her that the grass she’d always known, was in fact a myth. Pushing her sunglasses back up her nose, she studied her map carefully.
A man came to stand beside her. “What do you think?”
Wrapped up in the desolate nature of the desert, she’d almost forgotten that she travelled with a party of fifteen. She looked up at him and smiled. She was no archaeologist, no anthropologist, no expert, not like him, but she liked that he asked her for her opinion. She’d met him a week ago, wandering between the pillars of the Temple of Karnak, and when he’d said that he was looking for a tomb in the western arm of the Valley of the Kings, and asked her if she’d like to come along, she hadn’t been able to say no.
She couldn’t help but smile at him. He was quite handsome, and she’d even found herself making out with him the night before. As usual, a sadness had hummed inside her, but she’d made an effort to enjoy the moment. “Looks good to me.”
From behind, another spoke, female this time. “We’re at the coordinates. This is the spot the ground penetrating radar found an anomaly.”
Not long after, they split up to search the area, making sure to maintain visual contact with each other.
Not quite knowing what she was looking for, Rose instead chose to wander, taking in the grandeur of the Theban Hills. Out here, it was quiet. The main area of the Valley had been crawling with tourists and beyond that, in Luxor, was the hustle and bustle of city life. The idea of tombs, housing within them objects so ancient, was beyond exciting. It almost made her feel like she was travelling through time.
Scuffing the toe of her sandal covered foot into the sand, she tried to push her sadness to the back of her mind. She refused to let it consume her, not when she stood before history. She’d come to Egypt to see the pyramids, unable to resist the notion of visiting a place where people had thought that they were close to the stars, the heavens.
The wind beat at the sand and her clothes; a white cotton shirt with long sleeves and light brown cotton pants - they were as cool as one could get whilst still offering protection from the sun. Her pony-tail was slung through the back of her cap, its brim shading most of her face.
She pressed on, keeping an eye on her location. Minutes passed, as she ambled along. Suddenly though, her foot slid into something, disappearing ankle deep into sand.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Dropping to her knees, she scooped at the sand and found herself staring at a step. It was exactly the same colour as the sand around it, but was harder and defined by its angles.
She opened her mouth to call out to her companions, but decided not to. She wanted a moment to hold history in her hands.
One month later
;
With her heart in her throat, Rose made her way down the stairs and into the adjoining corridor . A flashlight attached to her helmet lit the way, and she couldn’t breathe for excitement at seeing the worn and cracked yet beautiful decorations on the walls.
She’d done it. She knew that he’d be proud of her, and it filled her with a sense of calm. She didn’t have a TARDIS or a Time Lord, but with a little initiative, a lot of luck and a sense of adventure that couldn’t be stopped, she’d managed to put her feet on ancient soil.
. . . .
Machu Picchu, north-west of Cuzco, south-eastern Peru, 2013
;
With clenched fists, Rose tried her best to ignore the once familiar sounds of the TARDIS materializing. She’d imagined the noise from time to time since she’d begun her new life on Earth, and she had no intention of letting the impossible distract her from the beauty of the Urubamba Valley and the odd collection of jutting rocky mountains, some impossibly tall and thin.
It had taken her four days to walk the Inca Trail with her group, and now that she was here, she wasn’t going to let anything ruin it.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
That voice, the voice that she’d imagined in her head to spur her on, whenever she’d felt that perhaps an adventure was too much for her, reached her ears.
Putting it down to exhaustion and altitude sickness, she sat down on her pack and studied the Huayna Picchu Mountain thoughtfully, marvelling at the way it had clawed its way out of the earth.
“I’m real, you know. You can turn around.”
She laughed and pulled an apple from her bag. She was just about to take a juicy bite of it when a familiar hand fell on her shoulder. She froze, her eyes staring a whole into the rock before her, and even when a body covered in brown coat sat beside her, she didn’t move.
“I was going to take you here, you know. I thought about it, but decided to go with New York instead. Well, that turned out to be 1950s London, but that’s neither here nor there.”
Still frozen, her apple pressed to her lips.
“You found your way here all on your own, Rose Tyler.” There was a sense of awe in his voice.
At the use of her name, the world seemed to move again and she dropped the apple on the grass. Turning to him, she looked him in the eye. His hair was as ruffled as ever, his eyes as beautiful and although he’d picked up a few more freckles, he was still her Doctor. “You’re here.”
He smiled, and it was just as she remembered it. “Yup. I’m here, sitting at 7,970 feet altitude in the middle of the ruins of Machu Picchu with you. We do find ourselves in the oddest of places, don’t we?”
She smiled back, her shock overwhelming her joy. “I’ve taken to visiting odd places. Been doing a bit of travelling.”
A proud look came to his eyes. “You always were made for adventure.” With that, he threw his arms around her.
. . . .
The TARDIS, The Vortex, time nonexistent, but three experienced months since Peru.
;
Shutting the door of their bedroom behind her, Rose made her way to the Console Room and the Doctor. He was, as usual, poking around in things that ought not be poked around in, but his manic energy was irresistible.
“Where are we, then?”
He looked up at her and beamed. “Well, technically the planet doesn’t have a name. Not in the time we’re heading for. A little group of settlers have just arrived though, so maybe we can give them some suggestions, eh?”
Taking his hand, she hauled him up and they made their way to the doors. “What about Desta?”
The Doctor hugged her to him. “Sorry?”
Rose fiddled with the lapels of his coat. “Desta? It’s the name of this girl I met in a little village in Ethiopia. We spent two days carting water in buckets to her house. It means happiness. ”
He leant forward and pressed his lips to her temple. “It’s got my vote.”
Hand in hand, they made their way outside. It wasn’t long before Rose had run off and disappeared from view, and the only way the Doctor managed to control his nerves was by reminding himself that she would never stray too far and that now, more than ever, she could take care of herself.
Her return to the TARDIS had brought about a life of adventuring that was very different to the one they’d led together seven years before. Oh, they still delighted in each other’s company, he still knew more than she did of the universe, but now she was all grown up. She’d battled so much by herself, journeyed the harshest landscapes of the Earth, fought off greedy hands that had sought to take her money and body, navigated her way across deserts, found hidden treasures and made friends in the unlikeliest of places. She loved her planet just as much as she did the universe.
A few minutes later, she popped up safe and sound, just like he’d known she would. “Doctor, you’ve got to come and look at this!”
She took off and he ran after her, eager to see what she’d found.
Nine hours later.
;
Having left the newly named planet Desta, the TARDIS swirled around in the Vortex. Curled up around each other on the couch in the library, Rose drummed her fingers against the Doctor’s thigh.
He purred happily and nuzzled his nose against her cheek. “Rose? Tell me a story.”
Rose smiled, touched. It was a high honour indeed, to be asked to recount a tale of adventure to a man who had all of time and space at his fingertips.
For, now, whenever the Doctor told a story of something magical, Rose had one to tell as well.
"Well, there was this one time, in Xi'An, China..."
. . . .
Well, there it is. It doesn't feel particularly like a Doctor Who fic, but in the end I hope that's ok, because I wanted to see Rose develop as a human, an adventurer of the Earth, in her own right.
I did actually give some thought as to not making this a reunion fic, for fear that it might diminish the effects of everything Rose has learnt. In the end, obviously, my shipper side won out, but I really do hope that the story conveys the idea that she's grown and is an explorer entirely independent of the Doctor.
I'm still not too sure what to think of it, but I hope you liked it!