Diverging Paths
Title: Diverging Paths
Character/Pairing: Nine/Rose/Ten
Rating: All Ages
Summary: Missing scene from The Parting of the Ways. Takes place immediately after the heart of the TARDIS is opened.
Disclaimer: Sadly, Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and not me.
Spoilers: Through S2
Author's Notes: This story is the direct result of my watching all three series of the new Doctor Who again(and then spending too much time thinking about it). I was actually trying to write a sequel to another story when this came out of nowhere.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost- “The Road Not Taken”
The panel on the console is finally open and gold light fills the room. She looks into the heart of the TARDIS and two images begin to run parallel in her view. In one scene she leaves the TARDIS, locks the door and never turns back. She finds a job and goes back to school. Along the way she meets a handsome young man. He makes her laugh and she tries to fall in love. Eventually he convinces her to marry him and then one day to start a family. When the children are both old enough to be in school she goes back to work. The children grow up and become parents themselves. Life is good to her. Her husband loves her the rest of his life. She is happy, if not quite content, and safe.
The second scene shows a far different life. She saves the Doctor and ends the war. His face changes, but his hearts don't, and they make promises of forever. The life they make together is thrilling and passionate and dangerous. She sees and does things she never thought possible, his hand holding hers tightly all the way. Evil finds them again and their luck finally runs out. They emerge victorious but it is an empty victory. A gut wrenching and hollow separation is their only reward. Their paths diverge, forever separated by a void that cannot be breached. She lives out her days defending a different earth in her own fashion. She does it alone because she no longer has a heart to share or to give. Her days stretch out and she is always searching for something else.
The scenes run parallel and a golden voice rings through her mind. “ Think carefully human child. The choice is yours and it must not be made lightly. There will be no opportunity to turn back once the path is taken.”
For her there is no choice. She hears the echoes of his words, “I could save the world but lose you.” There is only one path she can take. The decisiveness and strength of her step onto the chosen path resonates through time and space. Resonates and creates new, previously unseen fractures. The path is no longer straight, nor its end clear.
New possibilities emerge as Rose absorbs the vortex and becomes the Bad Wolf. The Bad Wolf considers the potentialities and scatters her name across time and space in not one, but two universes.