{Theta'Amor} Pandora's Box
Title - {Theta'Amor}
Characters - Nine/Rose
Summary - Months after Rose was left in a parallel universe with her mum and dad, Rose has finally in some capacity moved on from the Doctor. Now, as the winter months roll into the British countryside where her new home resides, Rose and her family celebrate their first Christmas and New Years together. Through times great design, something has been set into motion that will once again test Rose's heart. All of it happens on a fateful New Years Day...
Genre - Romance - Drama - AU - Angst
Rated - T
Rose paced around her room, mind frantic and all out of sorts. Her eyes fixated themselves hard on his leather jacket, for it was getting harder and harder to deny that some sort of cosmic event was occurring.
"You're not supposed to be here! Why are you here?!" Rose shouted. She felt utterly ridiculous yelling at a jacket, but it was true, his jacket and his sonic weren't supposed to be here. A sudden and sickening nausea hit her stomach with her forehead starting to boil over with an onset fever. Rose swayed to and fro off balance as her body weakened at an alarming rate. Rose had never in her life felt this horribly sick before and to have it happen to her so suddenly was also troublesome. She walked back over to her bed on two uncoordinated, wobbly legs and as soon as she made contact with her mattress, her body had begun to shudder violently.
Her body was a living, breathing paradox. Rose felt insanely hot but she also felt like she could never get warmed up again. Tears fell freely from her eyes, for she wasn't just sick with a fever, she was hurting from her head all the way down to her toes. She wanted to cry for her mum and dad for help, she wanted nothing more than to scream out for them but it hurt too much to breathe. Just what in the world was going on with her? Why did this feel so familiar, why did it feel like this had happened to her before? An instant wave of deja vu hit her like a tonne of bricks. Rose held his leather jacket tightly to her chest until her knuckles blanched as a memory had dislodged itself from her subconscious.
"I think you need a Doctor."
Rose found herself staring at her Doctor straight in the face with his stormy blue eyes calmed but with a gaze so filled with love that it almost drowned her. She felt his strong leather clad arms wrapped tight around her waist, his face drew in closer to hers, heart flying fast inside of her rib cage. With one more dip of his head, his lips came into contact with hers and at the center of her soul came a wondrous release of all of the fire and all of the chaos that threatened to consume her 19 year old body. But in that moment, in that solitary moment, she had shared all of the knowledge of the entire cosmic fabric with the man she had fallen in so much love with.
Millions of languages had been translated in a matter of seconds, eons of unanswerable questions had now been solved, her mind flying through billions of years of evolution. Within her soul and within her very DNA, she had seen the chaotic and cataclysmic beginnings of Earth. She had seen the factors that went into giving birth to her little corner of the universe with millions of years blazing by her in cosmic crescendo after cosmic crescendo. Faster and faster, still reaching into the past before the time of the milky way galaxy. She could almost see it, she could almost taste how the universe was born from absolutely nothing. It was a question that humanity had been struggling to answer ever since her kind had looked up at the stars and had become aware of how small and insignificant they were.
And Rose had a front row seat to the whole show, and it was beautiful. It was transcendent in its indescribable weight. She looked to the side of her and saw her Doctor holding onto her hand, body glowing with a radiant aura. Had they always been glowing like that? It was in that moment where Rose felt a sense of greatness, a sense of transcending her own humanity, like she was evolving into something else entirely...
And almost as soon as it happened, the moment of truth had passed by in a flash with her eyes finally closing on her. When she had opened her eyes again finding herself back in her bedroom, fever broken and body free of pain, she had remembered. The Doctor, her Doctor had kissed her. And it was the most life changing kiss a man could and would ever give to her. She had finally seen why he had to regenerate, his body had begun to change and evolve into something that was too much to be contained in a physical form. Rose looked at her clock, she was out for much longer than she had thought she was. It was close to midnight and the new year was upon her.
Then a sound, a sound that she thought she would never hear again pierced through the silence...And she didn't quite believe it either, but regardless, her legs had a mind of their own as she started to sprint downstairs not caring if she was just in her pajamas. From the windows, she could see it. The TARDIS was beginning its descent outside and out on their front lawn. Rose had never run so fast, she rushed past the hired help, causing quite a stir up and killing the silence in the mansion completely.
When she did finally manage to open up the massive wooden door, the TARDIS lantern had become a beacon through the thick, snowy fog. Her heart throbbed in her chest, sweat breaking out on her forehead, and eyes fixating themselves on the TARDIS door. What filled her with anxiety was not the fact that the TARDIS was here, but specifically who would be coming out of that TARDIS. Would it be the one who had left her and abandoned her, or would it be the man who laid his life on the line for her? In a matter of precious seconds she would find out. When the TARDIS door finally did crack open, Rose sucked back her breath and bit down on her lower lip with her nerves tingling all over her body.
He had fallen gracelessly out of the TARDIS and landed on the cold ground, and with all of his strength he lifted himself back onto his feet. And with that, Rose felt her heart soar into the clouds.
His eyes crisp and clean like the pure and fresh snow that fell from the heavens...
He stood there draped in a loose fitting white silk shirt that hung over his shoulders like a tarp, donning a pair of charcoal dress trousers. Standing barefoot and beautiful in the heavy-laden and freezing fog. His blue eyes looked haunted, almost shelled out at their core. The pain engraved in his guilt ridden expression, the regret of not arriving there sooner ripping him apart. Tears fell freely without shame from his eyes, he looked so much smaller somehow. He looked so lost and so fragile. If he were a rock, he'd already been eroded down to sand.
Rose looked at her blue eyed and strikingly handsome Doctor with tears of absolute joy running down her face. He had come back to her, her Doctor had somehow transcended all of time and space and had come back to her...He was like a phoenix, rising from the ashes and was miraculously standing there right in front of her eyes...
Rose started to walk towards him, but her feet had decided that walking wasn't good enough, she had to run. And run she did, straight into his arms and tackling him into a snowbank. His arms cradled her tightly, tears falling from his eyes as he sobbed with all of his strength into her neck. Rose couldn't help but forgive him, this wasn't the man who broke her heart, this was the man who became a warrior in her name. This man with his manic smile, with his peerless bravery, with his scarred but beautiful soul, with his powerful and commanding northern accent.
This was her Doctor.
"I am so sorry Rose! I never meant to leave you...Never wanted to..."
The new year had arrived, fireworks tinted the sky in a misty pink and purple hue all around them lighting the sky. She could hear the piano in the family room being played with her family singing Auld Lang Syne, all of it passing over her head as her attention focused itself solely on her Doctor. And then he said something...He had said something that she had never expected him to say to her...
"I love you..."
{To be Continued}