FIC: Cracks
Title: Cracks
Fandom: Doctor Who 2005
Pairing: 11/Rose, 11/River (implied future), Amy/Rory
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through 6X07, A Good Man Goes to War
Summary: These can't be the only notes in the world, there's got to be other notes some place, in some dimension, between the cracks on the piano keys. -- Marvin Gaye. Cracks appear in Rose's world.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
Author's Notes/Warnings: No warnings. Story makes use of fanon/almost canon that Ten gave Ten II and Rose a piece of the TARDIS so they could build a new one. All mistakes are mine.
Two things happen when the woman suddenly materializes in the control room of the TARDIS. One, she begins to laugh. Two, the Doctor envelopes her in a gigantic hug, lifting her off the ground, closing the space between them so quickly Amy isn’t even sure she saw the Doctor move.
Rory, as he so often does, echoes her thoughts aloud. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him move quite that fast,” he says.
“Not even with custard involved,” Amy agrees. Rory nods, his mouth open just slightly as they take in the scene before them.
Finally the Doctor puts the woman down, though Amy notices he doesn’t move very far away from her. She is still laughing.
“A bowtie?” the woman asks, choking down her laughter.
The Doctor reaches up and pulls at both ends of the bowtie a little self-consciously. “Bowties are cool.”
“No, they’re not,” she replies, letting one more giggle out.
The Doctor frowns just a little. He turns to Amy and Rory. “They’re cool, aren’t they?”
“Yes, of course,” Amy says at the same time Rory answers, “No, no, really, no.”
“I miss the leather jacket,” the woman says, her eyes suddenly serious.
“Me, too,” the Doctor says. “Sometimes.” He pauses. “Doesn’t really go with the new look, though.”
“New new new Doctor?” she asks.
The Doctor pokes the air in front of him three times. “Well, yes.” He pulls at his suspenders; Amy doesn’t miss that his chest puffs out, just a little. “What do you think?” He does a spin.
“Still not ginger.”
The Doctor grins. “Still rude.”
“No kidding,” Amy says.
“Oh, indeed,” the Doctor says, blinking at Rory and Amy as if noticing them there for the first time. “Let me,” he waves a hand between the woman and Rory and Amy. “Allow me to introduce . . . Amy Pond, Rory Williams, meet Rose Tyler. Rose, Amy and Rory.”
Rory sticks out a hand and Rose meets it, shakes it. Amy smiles but doesn’t offer her hand; Rose smiles back, a little too knowingly for Amy’s taste.
“Never heard of me, have you?” Rose asks.
“Should we have?” Amy replies, getting a slight nudge from Rory for her trouble. She elbows him back.
Rose merely turns back to the Doctor who, Amy is surprised to notice, actually looks embarrassed. “It’s like Sarah Jane all over again!” Rose says.
“It’s completely different!” the Doctor protests.
“No, it’s not!”
“Yes it . . . no, no, it’s not,” the Doctor admits. “I just.” Rose raises an eyebrow. The Doctor subsides, arms crossed over his chest, looking for all the world, Amy thinks, like he’s pouting.
“You’ve gotta show me how to do that,” Amy says, admiringly.
“It comes with time,” Rose says. “I used to.” Rose stops, looks down at the control room floor. She suddenly looks smaller somehow, lost.
“Rose used to travel with me,” the Doctor supplies.
“Do former travelers always suddenly just materialize back in the TARDIS?” Rory asks.
“Ah, no,” the Doctor says, spinning a bit on his heel to face Rose. “In fact, this one . . .” he pauses. “Well. She usually only shows up again when the world is ending.”
“The world is ending?” Amy asks.
“Not yours,” Rose replies. “Only mine.” She looks up again, and for the first time, Amy sees just how sad she is.
***
The Doctor dispatches Rory and Amy to make tea. Amy grumbles a bit on the way but goes easily enough, especially with Rory gently pulling her hand.
The Doctor sits in one of the control room chairs, crossing his legs at the ankles in front of him. “So.”
“So.” It’s a word full of acknowledgements from Rose, and the Doctor knows it.
“How did you get here? We’re in orbit, not even docked on a planet somewhere.”
Rose smiles. “I looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and she looked into me.”
“The TARDIS brought you here?” Neither Rose nor the Doctor misses the fact that the TARDIS’ lights flicker down and glow green for a moment before lighting up to their usual level.
“Not exactly.” Rose pulls what looks like a chunk of rock out of her pocket. “You gave this to us, remember?”
Of course the Doctor does. “To grow your own TARDIS.”
“Hmmm. My TARDIS and yours, they’re connected. So when the cracks opened . . .”
“There are cracks? In your universe?”
“There are cracks. Everywhere,” Rose answers, squeezing the TARDIS material in her hand. The Doctor gets up, starts to pace in front of where she’s standing, leaning slightly against the console.
“Everywhere?”
Rose shrugs. It’s anything but nonchalant. “Everywhere in my universe, anyway. So when one opened up in Bad Wolf Bay --”
“You made a wish upon a TARDIS?” the Doctor asks.
Rose smiles again. “It worked once, didn’t it?”
The Doctor spins off, stalks around to the other side of the console. “But the cracks --”
“Are fissures in time and space,” Rose finishes. “You knew that. They were swallowing your universe alive.”
The Doctor looks up from the console to her. “How did you know that?”
“Because you sent them to us.”
The Doctor frowns.
“Not on purpose, of course,” Rose adds. “There was dimensional residue on them, the same kind I have around me. The same kind you . . . well, I guess I don’t know if this Doctor would have any.”
“I’m the same man,” the Doctor points out.
“Yes, well.” Rose looks down. “Anyway. That’s how we know where the cracks came from.”
“How many of them are there?”
“They’re incalculable,” Rose answers. “We are losing whole chunks of time . . . whole worlds. Whole civilizations.”
“But the Big Bang would have reset . . .”
“Your own universe,” Rose finishes. “Whether you moved the cracks over wholesale or our universe is breaking apart because of the new Big Bang and the pressure it created . . .”
“The result is the same,” the Doctor says. “And you think I can fix it?”
“No,” Rose says. “I didn’t come here so you could fix it.”
“What?”
“I came to ask you to stay away.” Rose searches the Doctor’s face.
The Doctor stalks away from the console again. “What? Why?”
“Silence is falling,” Rose says simply.
“Oh, them! I can handle them . . . in fact, I already did. With Amy and Rory . . .” he starts to call for Amy and Rory, but Rose is shaking her head.
“No, Doctor. You are the Silence.” Rose’s voice quivers ever so slightly, but her eyes are clear and steady on the Doctor.
“Tea’s ready!” Amy announces, carrying a tray down the stairs to the console area. She stops short at the sight of the Doctor and Rose staring at each other from opposite sides of the console. “I brought biscuits?”
***
“I thought the Silence were those creepy aliens we couldn’t remember,” Rory says, dipping a biscuit in his mug of tea.
Rose shakes her head. “Yes and no. They were really just . . . parasites. Piggybacking on a bigger name, I reckon.” Rose’s gaze slides over to the Doctor.
“But.” The Doctor is chewing on his lip. “How?”
“I don’t know,” Rose says, shrugging. “All I know is that if enough cracks open up in my universe, it will get pretty damn quiet.”
“Nothingness.” The Doctor looks at her.
“Nothingness.” Rose agrees.
“But why can’t the Doctor fix it?” Amy asks.
“Because I started it,” the Doctor says quietly.
“Seems to me like that’s why you should fix it,” Amy says.
“No. I’ll just accelerate the process, isn’t that right?” The Doctor looks at Rose to confirm, and Rose nods.
“But the cracks in our universe . . . you didn’t cause those,” Rory points out.
“Not that I know of,” The Doctor says. “Could have been me in a different universe, or they began randomly, or . . . they were started by our Silence.”
“You’re not the Silence in this universe, too, are you?” Rory asks, suddenly nervous.
“No. At least, I don’t think so.” The Doctor bites his lip, thinking.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you are, either,” Rose says. “The Oncoming Storm, The Silence . . .different universe, same . . .” she trails off.
The four of them sit for a moment, the console beeping slightly.
“No wonder they want to make a weapon against you,” Rose says quietly.
Amy stiffens immediately, and Rory actually makes a move forward toward where Rose is sitting on the console room floor.
“How do you know about that?” Amy asks icily.
Rose looks beneath her to where the TARDIS’ heart lives.
“You know,” the Doctor says loudly, “this blatant favoritism is beginning to get on my nerves.”
The lights go out completely and the room would be plunged into utter darkness if it weren’t for the light from the heart of the TARDIS underneath the console room floor.
“Um. He’s sorry?” Rory tries.
The lights come up about halfway, just enough so that they can see each other.
“You didn’t come here just to warn me away.” The way the Doctor says it, it’s not a question.
Rose shakes her head. “No. But I do need a Time Lord, or someone with Time Lord abilities. Someone who can pilot the TARDIS, seal the cracks.” She takes a breath. “I need River Song. I need your help to get her.”
“No,” Amy says. “No. You can’t have her.”
“Amy,” the Doctor says.
“No. Besides, we don’t even know where she is,” Amy says, softer this time. Rory merely looks at the floor.
Rose smiles slightly. “I don’t need Melody. I need River.” She pauses. “And as for Melody, I might be able to help with that.”
Amy looks at Rose, defiant. “You know where she is.”
“I know where she might be,” Rose corrects her, gently.
The Doctor looks at her hard.
Rose shrugs. “What? She’s always stopping round for tea in her future. At least, I think it’s her future. Trans-dimensional travel is easier again, or something.”
The Doctor stands up, starts pulling levers on the console. The floor shifts underneath them as the TARDIS lurches forward.
“That’s good enough for you? You’re just taking her word for it?” Amy stands up, still furious.
The Doctor looks at Rose. “That’s good enough for me,” he says, pushing a button but not taking his eyes off of her.
***
The Doctor finds Rose in the swimming room, her legs up to her ankles dangling in the pool. He had tried to get everyone tucked into bed. Rory and Amy are curled up together on the bottom bunk of their bed; their sleep is fitful (the TARDIS is keeping a nightlight of sorts on near their room), but they are otherwise down for the count, sleeping out the journey to Stormcage.
Rose, on the other hand, looks as awake as ever, staring into the depths of the pool. The lights of the TARDIS are low around her, her face illuminated mostly by the lights inside the pool.
“Your room is still here, if you want it,” the Doctor says, sitting down beside her and sticking his legs into the pool.
“You didn’t roll your trousers up,” Rose points out, the now wet fabric sticking to the Doctor’s legs.
He shrugs. “I took off the shoes. And the socks,” he adds.
“Fair enough,” Rose says, smiling. “My room?”
“The uh . . . the TARDIS wouldn’t . . . let it go,” the Doctor wiggles his toes. “You look good,” he says, his gaze searching Rose’s face, her hair. “Like you’re well.”
Rose meets his eyes. “You look different.”
“Ah. Radiation poisoning.”
“I see,” Rose says. “I like the hair.”
“Yeah?” The Doctor grins. “It’s a little long in the front, but I’m not usually too fussed about it.”
Rose raises an eyebrow at him.
“It just does this! It’s not like before.”
“When you spent an hour in front of the mirror in the morning getting it to stick up like that?” she finishes.
“Well . . . yes.”
Rose laughs.
“There it is,” the Doctor says.
“What?”
“You haven’t laughed since you came aboard.”
“Yes I have.”
“That bowtie business doesn’t count.”
Rose laughs again. “The bowtie is ridiculous.”
“Bowties are cool,” the Doctor reiterates, straightening it again.
“Okay.”
“They are!”
“Okay.” Rose looks at the Doctor. “Whatever you say.”
“Now those are words I could get behind,” the Doctor says.
Rose smiles again, but looks out at the water.
“I wanted to ask you. Well. I wasn’t sure why you need River when you have someone with ‘Time Lord abilities’ of your own,” the Doctor says, deliberately keeping his voice even.
Rose doesn’t look at him, or answer.
“But then I thought . . . you don’t have someone like that in your universe, do you?” The Doctor says this quietly, but the question is still deafening. Rose takes so long to answer that the Doctor is almost sure she isn’t going to, but then she says:
“No.”
No one says anything else for a long while.
“The doctors said it was cancer, but I think they just didn’t know what to call that kind of rapid cell disintegraton.”
“Rose . . .”
Rose shakes her head. “When it happened, it happened fast. He didn’t suffer much.”
“When?”
“About a year after.”
“Rose, I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
Rose finally looks at him. “I know.”
“I never would have left him if I thought the cellular generation was unstable.”
“I know.” She pauses. “And you . . . whatever you did during the Time War, well, it killed you, too. In my universe, there are no more Time Lords.
The Doctor is silent for a moment. “You could stay here.”
Rose tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “That’s the rub, isn’t it? I have to go back, because I have the link back to my TARDIS or as much of a TARDIS as we could build before . . .” Rose stops. “The other TARDIS is cued to me; River alone couldn’t do it -- not until I give her the controls.”
“But the force from the blast should be able to get her back into this universe, at least through the last crack before it closes. If you went with her . . .”
“If I went with her, there would be no one to make sure the cornerstone of the TARDIS was safe from the impact so she could make her way here, if all else fails. And two people couldn’t travel on that, especially without the cracks. I’m sure this TARDIS would let her in, even without me. Besides, someone has to re-imagine the universe when the cracks are sealed. Make sure things are in order.”
Now it is the Doctor’s turn to look out over the water. “You almost sound like you don’t want to come back.”
“I. Of course . . .” Rose pauses. When she inhales, the Doctor can hear how shaky it is. “Of course I do. I’m just -- tired of getting my heart broken.”
“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor says, reaching out his fingers to touch her face. She closes her eyes and allows the touch. “What happened to the Rose who launched herself through dimensions just to get back to this one? Who looked into the heart of the TARDIS?”
“She’s still here; she just knows she has to go back. Doesn’t she?” Rose opens her eyes.
“Someone has to keep an eye things over there. Rose Tyler, Defender of the Universe.”
Rose smiles. “Keeping everything in balance. I belong over there. Somehow this universe has become my alternate reality.”
“I’m not sure how that happened,” the Doctor admits.
“Me, either,” Rose says. “Somehow things always change; we always move on.”
“Not always,” the Doctor says. “Not everything changes.”
“No?” Rose’s tongue darts out to lick her bottom lip, like she can’t help it; she doesn’t even know she’s doing it, but it makes the Doctor smile.
“No,” the Doctor says, and leans down to kiss her.
***
When they get to Stormcage, they can’t decide who should go to talk to River, so in the end, they all go.
As soon as River sees the four of them, she grins and says, “Let’s go.”
***
“He’s hovering,” River says.
“He’s hovering,” Rose agrees, watching the Doctor skip around the console, checking settings and punching buttons.
He takes a minute to look up from the typewriter. “I am not.”
“Hovering,” Amy says. The Doctor looks to Rory, who nods.
“Calibrating,” the Doctor corrects, holding up a finger.
“Whatever you say,” Amy answers, earning grins from both Rose and River.
The Doctor claps his hands together. “Now,” he says, turning to where River and Rose are standing.
“Now,” River says, “Rose and I are going to get down to business.”
“Rose has the piece of the other universe’s TARDIS, and I’m landing us right on the crack in Bad Wolf Bay; where the crack is on the other side, anyway. Between those two things, and a boost from this TARDIS,” the Doctor pauses as the lights around the console go so bright for a moment that everyone has to shield their eyes.
The Doctor blinks. “Alright, then. Yes. With a boost -”
“We should be able to make it back to my universe, where River will be able to pilot the TARDIS back in time and, well, create an explosion big enough to restart the universe and seal the cracks,” Rose says.
“And with any luck, I’ll be able to seal the cracks without a Big Bang, but that remains to be determined,” River adds.
“You mean do what I couldn’t do,” the Doctor says, dryly.
“Exactly.” River grins.
“But how will River get back to us?” Rory asks.
“We stay here, on the crack, and when the time comes --”
“Geronimo,” River finishes for the Doctor.
“And everything is okay in Rose’s universe?” Amy confirms.
“As long as I have this, it is,” Rose holds up the TARDIS cornerstone. “In a way, she grounds everything -- including my memories.”
Amy still looks doubtful, but she takes Rory’s hand and nods.
River looks at Rose. “Ready?”
Rose nods. “Ready.”
Amy suddenly steps up and hugs River. “Be careful, okay?” she whispers.
“Okay,” River whispers back.
Amy lets go, looks at Rose. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Rose says. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. “This is for you. Wait until River comes back.” Amy takes the piece of paper and nods.
The Doctor steps forward as Amy steps back. “Right. River and Rose.” He looks between them. “Right.”
“We’ll be fine,” River says.
“And careful,” Rose says.
“Of course. Yes.”
Rose steps forward and wraps the Doctor in a hug. “Good-bye, then,” she says.
“It’s never good-bye,” the Doctor says, but Amy doesn’t miss the way he presses his face into Rose’s hair, just for a moment.
“Right,” Rose says, finally letting go.
“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor says. Rose’s eyes fill with tears, but she smiles.
The Doctor goes back over to the console. “In three, two, one.” The Doctor rings the bicycle bell, and then they are gone.
***
It’s not until much later, after River has returned to them, and when Amy is holding Melody tightly in her arms at the exact coordinates that Rose gave them, that it occurs to the Doctor that this is the real reason Rose made the journey.
***
Epilogue
When Rose gets home, River is there, sitting at the kitchen table, Jackie’s old tea set spread out before her.
Rose smiles.
“Did you tell him?” River asks, pouring Rose some tea.
“No. Spoilers,” Rose says.
They drink the rest of their tea in silence, two women bound together by their knowledge of what it is like to love the Doctor, and to lose him.
Fandom: Doctor Who 2005
Pairing: 11/Rose, 11/River (implied future), Amy/Rory
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through 6X07, A Good Man Goes to War
Summary: These can't be the only notes in the world, there's got to be other notes some place, in some dimension, between the cracks on the piano keys. -- Marvin Gaye. Cracks appear in Rose's world.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
Author's Notes/Warnings: No warnings. Story makes use of fanon/almost canon that Ten gave Ten II and Rose a piece of the TARDIS so they could build a new one. All mistakes are mine.
Two things happen when the woman suddenly materializes in the control room of the TARDIS. One, she begins to laugh. Two, the Doctor envelopes her in a gigantic hug, lifting her off the ground, closing the space between them so quickly Amy isn’t even sure she saw the Doctor move.
Rory, as he so often does, echoes her thoughts aloud. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him move quite that fast,” he says.
“Not even with custard involved,” Amy agrees. Rory nods, his mouth open just slightly as they take in the scene before them.
Finally the Doctor puts the woman down, though Amy notices he doesn’t move very far away from her. She is still laughing.
“A bowtie?” the woman asks, choking down her laughter.
The Doctor reaches up and pulls at both ends of the bowtie a little self-consciously. “Bowties are cool.”
“No, they’re not,” she replies, letting one more giggle out.
The Doctor frowns just a little. He turns to Amy and Rory. “They’re cool, aren’t they?”
“Yes, of course,” Amy says at the same time Rory answers, “No, no, really, no.”
“I miss the leather jacket,” the woman says, her eyes suddenly serious.
“Me, too,” the Doctor says. “Sometimes.” He pauses. “Doesn’t really go with the new look, though.”
“New new new Doctor?” she asks.
The Doctor pokes the air in front of him three times. “Well, yes.” He pulls at his suspenders; Amy doesn’t miss that his chest puffs out, just a little. “What do you think?” He does a spin.
“Still not ginger.”
The Doctor grins. “Still rude.”
“No kidding,” Amy says.
“Oh, indeed,” the Doctor says, blinking at Rory and Amy as if noticing them there for the first time. “Let me,” he waves a hand between the woman and Rory and Amy. “Allow me to introduce . . . Amy Pond, Rory Williams, meet Rose Tyler. Rose, Amy and Rory.”
Rory sticks out a hand and Rose meets it, shakes it. Amy smiles but doesn’t offer her hand; Rose smiles back, a little too knowingly for Amy’s taste.
“Never heard of me, have you?” Rose asks.
“Should we have?” Amy replies, getting a slight nudge from Rory for her trouble. She elbows him back.
Rose merely turns back to the Doctor who, Amy is surprised to notice, actually looks embarrassed. “It’s like Sarah Jane all over again!” Rose says.
“It’s completely different!” the Doctor protests.
“No, it’s not!”
“Yes it . . . no, no, it’s not,” the Doctor admits. “I just.” Rose raises an eyebrow. The Doctor subsides, arms crossed over his chest, looking for all the world, Amy thinks, like he’s pouting.
“You’ve gotta show me how to do that,” Amy says, admiringly.
“It comes with time,” Rose says. “I used to.” Rose stops, looks down at the control room floor. She suddenly looks smaller somehow, lost.
“Rose used to travel with me,” the Doctor supplies.
“Do former travelers always suddenly just materialize back in the TARDIS?” Rory asks.
“Ah, no,” the Doctor says, spinning a bit on his heel to face Rose. “In fact, this one . . .” he pauses. “Well. She usually only shows up again when the world is ending.”
“The world is ending?” Amy asks.
“Not yours,” Rose replies. “Only mine.” She looks up again, and for the first time, Amy sees just how sad she is.
***
The Doctor dispatches Rory and Amy to make tea. Amy grumbles a bit on the way but goes easily enough, especially with Rory gently pulling her hand.
The Doctor sits in one of the control room chairs, crossing his legs at the ankles in front of him. “So.”
“So.” It’s a word full of acknowledgements from Rose, and the Doctor knows it.
“How did you get here? We’re in orbit, not even docked on a planet somewhere.”
Rose smiles. “I looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and she looked into me.”
“The TARDIS brought you here?” Neither Rose nor the Doctor misses the fact that the TARDIS’ lights flicker down and glow green for a moment before lighting up to their usual level.
“Not exactly.” Rose pulls what looks like a chunk of rock out of her pocket. “You gave this to us, remember?”
Of course the Doctor does. “To grow your own TARDIS.”
“Hmmm. My TARDIS and yours, they’re connected. So when the cracks opened . . .”
“There are cracks? In your universe?”
“There are cracks. Everywhere,” Rose answers, squeezing the TARDIS material in her hand. The Doctor gets up, starts to pace in front of where she’s standing, leaning slightly against the console.
“Everywhere?”
Rose shrugs. It’s anything but nonchalant. “Everywhere in my universe, anyway. So when one opened up in Bad Wolf Bay --”
“You made a wish upon a TARDIS?” the Doctor asks.
Rose smiles again. “It worked once, didn’t it?”
The Doctor spins off, stalks around to the other side of the console. “But the cracks --”
“Are fissures in time and space,” Rose finishes. “You knew that. They were swallowing your universe alive.”
The Doctor looks up from the console to her. “How did you know that?”
“Because you sent them to us.”
The Doctor frowns.
“Not on purpose, of course,” Rose adds. “There was dimensional residue on them, the same kind I have around me. The same kind you . . . well, I guess I don’t know if this Doctor would have any.”
“I’m the same man,” the Doctor points out.
“Yes, well.” Rose looks down. “Anyway. That’s how we know where the cracks came from.”
“How many of them are there?”
“They’re incalculable,” Rose answers. “We are losing whole chunks of time . . . whole worlds. Whole civilizations.”
“But the Big Bang would have reset . . .”
“Your own universe,” Rose finishes. “Whether you moved the cracks over wholesale or our universe is breaking apart because of the new Big Bang and the pressure it created . . .”
“The result is the same,” the Doctor says. “And you think I can fix it?”
“No,” Rose says. “I didn’t come here so you could fix it.”
“What?”
“I came to ask you to stay away.” Rose searches the Doctor’s face.
The Doctor stalks away from the console again. “What? Why?”
“Silence is falling,” Rose says simply.
“Oh, them! I can handle them . . . in fact, I already did. With Amy and Rory . . .” he starts to call for Amy and Rory, but Rose is shaking her head.
“No, Doctor. You are the Silence.” Rose’s voice quivers ever so slightly, but her eyes are clear and steady on the Doctor.
“Tea’s ready!” Amy announces, carrying a tray down the stairs to the console area. She stops short at the sight of the Doctor and Rose staring at each other from opposite sides of the console. “I brought biscuits?”
***
“I thought the Silence were those creepy aliens we couldn’t remember,” Rory says, dipping a biscuit in his mug of tea.
Rose shakes her head. “Yes and no. They were really just . . . parasites. Piggybacking on a bigger name, I reckon.” Rose’s gaze slides over to the Doctor.
“But.” The Doctor is chewing on his lip. “How?”
“I don’t know,” Rose says, shrugging. “All I know is that if enough cracks open up in my universe, it will get pretty damn quiet.”
“Nothingness.” The Doctor looks at her.
“Nothingness.” Rose agrees.
“But why can’t the Doctor fix it?” Amy asks.
“Because I started it,” the Doctor says quietly.
“Seems to me like that’s why you should fix it,” Amy says.
“No. I’ll just accelerate the process, isn’t that right?” The Doctor looks at Rose to confirm, and Rose nods.
“But the cracks in our universe . . . you didn’t cause those,” Rory points out.
“Not that I know of,” The Doctor says. “Could have been me in a different universe, or they began randomly, or . . . they were started by our Silence.”
“You’re not the Silence in this universe, too, are you?” Rory asks, suddenly nervous.
“No. At least, I don’t think so.” The Doctor bites his lip, thinking.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you are, either,” Rose says. “The Oncoming Storm, The Silence . . .different universe, same . . .” she trails off.
The four of them sit for a moment, the console beeping slightly.
“No wonder they want to make a weapon against you,” Rose says quietly.
Amy stiffens immediately, and Rory actually makes a move forward toward where Rose is sitting on the console room floor.
“How do you know about that?” Amy asks icily.
Rose looks beneath her to where the TARDIS’ heart lives.
“You know,” the Doctor says loudly, “this blatant favoritism is beginning to get on my nerves.”
The lights go out completely and the room would be plunged into utter darkness if it weren’t for the light from the heart of the TARDIS underneath the console room floor.
“Um. He’s sorry?” Rory tries.
The lights come up about halfway, just enough so that they can see each other.
“You didn’t come here just to warn me away.” The way the Doctor says it, it’s not a question.
Rose shakes her head. “No. But I do need a Time Lord, or someone with Time Lord abilities. Someone who can pilot the TARDIS, seal the cracks.” She takes a breath. “I need River Song. I need your help to get her.”
“No,” Amy says. “No. You can’t have her.”
“Amy,” the Doctor says.
“No. Besides, we don’t even know where she is,” Amy says, softer this time. Rory merely looks at the floor.
Rose smiles slightly. “I don’t need Melody. I need River.” She pauses. “And as for Melody, I might be able to help with that.”
Amy looks at Rose, defiant. “You know where she is.”
“I know where she might be,” Rose corrects her, gently.
The Doctor looks at her hard.
Rose shrugs. “What? She’s always stopping round for tea in her future. At least, I think it’s her future. Trans-dimensional travel is easier again, or something.”
The Doctor stands up, starts pulling levers on the console. The floor shifts underneath them as the TARDIS lurches forward.
“That’s good enough for you? You’re just taking her word for it?” Amy stands up, still furious.
The Doctor looks at Rose. “That’s good enough for me,” he says, pushing a button but not taking his eyes off of her.
***
The Doctor finds Rose in the swimming room, her legs up to her ankles dangling in the pool. He had tried to get everyone tucked into bed. Rory and Amy are curled up together on the bottom bunk of their bed; their sleep is fitful (the TARDIS is keeping a nightlight of sorts on near their room), but they are otherwise down for the count, sleeping out the journey to Stormcage.
Rose, on the other hand, looks as awake as ever, staring into the depths of the pool. The lights of the TARDIS are low around her, her face illuminated mostly by the lights inside the pool.
“Your room is still here, if you want it,” the Doctor says, sitting down beside her and sticking his legs into the pool.
“You didn’t roll your trousers up,” Rose points out, the now wet fabric sticking to the Doctor’s legs.
He shrugs. “I took off the shoes. And the socks,” he adds.
“Fair enough,” Rose says, smiling. “My room?”
“The uh . . . the TARDIS wouldn’t . . . let it go,” the Doctor wiggles his toes. “You look good,” he says, his gaze searching Rose’s face, her hair. “Like you’re well.”
Rose meets his eyes. “You look different.”
“Ah. Radiation poisoning.”
“I see,” Rose says. “I like the hair.”
“Yeah?” The Doctor grins. “It’s a little long in the front, but I’m not usually too fussed about it.”
Rose raises an eyebrow at him.
“It just does this! It’s not like before.”
“When you spent an hour in front of the mirror in the morning getting it to stick up like that?” she finishes.
“Well . . . yes.”
Rose laughs.
“There it is,” the Doctor says.
“What?”
“You haven’t laughed since you came aboard.”
“Yes I have.”
“That bowtie business doesn’t count.”
Rose laughs again. “The bowtie is ridiculous.”
“Bowties are cool,” the Doctor reiterates, straightening it again.
“Okay.”
“They are!”
“Okay.” Rose looks at the Doctor. “Whatever you say.”
“Now those are words I could get behind,” the Doctor says.
Rose smiles again, but looks out at the water.
“I wanted to ask you. Well. I wasn’t sure why you need River when you have someone with ‘Time Lord abilities’ of your own,” the Doctor says, deliberately keeping his voice even.
Rose doesn’t look at him, or answer.
“But then I thought . . . you don’t have someone like that in your universe, do you?” The Doctor says this quietly, but the question is still deafening. Rose takes so long to answer that the Doctor is almost sure she isn’t going to, but then she says:
“No.”
No one says anything else for a long while.
“The doctors said it was cancer, but I think they just didn’t know what to call that kind of rapid cell disintegraton.”
“Rose . . .”
Rose shakes her head. “When it happened, it happened fast. He didn’t suffer much.”
“When?”
“About a year after.”
“Rose, I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
Rose finally looks at him. “I know.”
“I never would have left him if I thought the cellular generation was unstable.”
“I know.” She pauses. “And you . . . whatever you did during the Time War, well, it killed you, too. In my universe, there are no more Time Lords.
The Doctor is silent for a moment. “You could stay here.”
Rose tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “That’s the rub, isn’t it? I have to go back, because I have the link back to my TARDIS or as much of a TARDIS as we could build before . . .” Rose stops. “The other TARDIS is cued to me; River alone couldn’t do it -- not until I give her the controls.”
“But the force from the blast should be able to get her back into this universe, at least through the last crack before it closes. If you went with her . . .”
“If I went with her, there would be no one to make sure the cornerstone of the TARDIS was safe from the impact so she could make her way here, if all else fails. And two people couldn’t travel on that, especially without the cracks. I’m sure this TARDIS would let her in, even without me. Besides, someone has to re-imagine the universe when the cracks are sealed. Make sure things are in order.”
Now it is the Doctor’s turn to look out over the water. “You almost sound like you don’t want to come back.”
“I. Of course . . .” Rose pauses. When she inhales, the Doctor can hear how shaky it is. “Of course I do. I’m just -- tired of getting my heart broken.”
“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor says, reaching out his fingers to touch her face. She closes her eyes and allows the touch. “What happened to the Rose who launched herself through dimensions just to get back to this one? Who looked into the heart of the TARDIS?”
“She’s still here; she just knows she has to go back. Doesn’t she?” Rose opens her eyes.
“Someone has to keep an eye things over there. Rose Tyler, Defender of the Universe.”
Rose smiles. “Keeping everything in balance. I belong over there. Somehow this universe has become my alternate reality.”
“I’m not sure how that happened,” the Doctor admits.
“Me, either,” Rose says. “Somehow things always change; we always move on.”
“Not always,” the Doctor says. “Not everything changes.”
“No?” Rose’s tongue darts out to lick her bottom lip, like she can’t help it; she doesn’t even know she’s doing it, but it makes the Doctor smile.
“No,” the Doctor says, and leans down to kiss her.
***
When they get to Stormcage, they can’t decide who should go to talk to River, so in the end, they all go.
As soon as River sees the four of them, she grins and says, “Let’s go.”
***
“He’s hovering,” River says.
“He’s hovering,” Rose agrees, watching the Doctor skip around the console, checking settings and punching buttons.
He takes a minute to look up from the typewriter. “I am not.”
“Hovering,” Amy says. The Doctor looks to Rory, who nods.
“Calibrating,” the Doctor corrects, holding up a finger.
“Whatever you say,” Amy answers, earning grins from both Rose and River.
The Doctor claps his hands together. “Now,” he says, turning to where River and Rose are standing.
“Now,” River says, “Rose and I are going to get down to business.”
“Rose has the piece of the other universe’s TARDIS, and I’m landing us right on the crack in Bad Wolf Bay; where the crack is on the other side, anyway. Between those two things, and a boost from this TARDIS,” the Doctor pauses as the lights around the console go so bright for a moment that everyone has to shield their eyes.
The Doctor blinks. “Alright, then. Yes. With a boost -”
“We should be able to make it back to my universe, where River will be able to pilot the TARDIS back in time and, well, create an explosion big enough to restart the universe and seal the cracks,” Rose says.
“And with any luck, I’ll be able to seal the cracks without a Big Bang, but that remains to be determined,” River adds.
“You mean do what I couldn’t do,” the Doctor says, dryly.
“Exactly.” River grins.
“But how will River get back to us?” Rory asks.
“We stay here, on the crack, and when the time comes --”
“Geronimo,” River finishes for the Doctor.
“And everything is okay in Rose’s universe?” Amy confirms.
“As long as I have this, it is,” Rose holds up the TARDIS cornerstone. “In a way, she grounds everything -- including my memories.”
Amy still looks doubtful, but she takes Rory’s hand and nods.
River looks at Rose. “Ready?”
Rose nods. “Ready.”
Amy suddenly steps up and hugs River. “Be careful, okay?” she whispers.
“Okay,” River whispers back.
Amy lets go, looks at Rose. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Rose says. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. “This is for you. Wait until River comes back.” Amy takes the piece of paper and nods.
The Doctor steps forward as Amy steps back. “Right. River and Rose.” He looks between them. “Right.”
“We’ll be fine,” River says.
“And careful,” Rose says.
“Of course. Yes.”
Rose steps forward and wraps the Doctor in a hug. “Good-bye, then,” she says.
“It’s never good-bye,” the Doctor says, but Amy doesn’t miss the way he presses his face into Rose’s hair, just for a moment.
“Right,” Rose says, finally letting go.
“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor says. Rose’s eyes fill with tears, but she smiles.
The Doctor goes back over to the console. “In three, two, one.” The Doctor rings the bicycle bell, and then they are gone.
***
It’s not until much later, after River has returned to them, and when Amy is holding Melody tightly in her arms at the exact coordinates that Rose gave them, that it occurs to the Doctor that this is the real reason Rose made the journey.
***
Epilogue
When Rose gets home, River is there, sitting at the kitchen table, Jackie’s old tea set spread out before her.
Rose smiles.
“Did you tell him?” River asks, pouring Rose some tea.
“No. Spoilers,” Rose says.
They drink the rest of their tea in silence, two women bound together by their knowledge of what it is like to love the Doctor, and to lose him.