Five times Rose got lost before she found the Doctor
Five times Rose got lost before she found the Doctor, TenII/Rose, rating (PG)
100 word drabbles (out of order because timey-wimey)
She pretends she's taking vacation photos, 600
iii.
Most don't realize when time shifts just so, when a new memory appears like it belongs. Rose always knows. Like she knows right now that the Doctor is dying, somewhere, somewhen, and came to her to say goodbye (and hello).
She's lost in some wrong universe, winded from the jump, and the memory surprises her, unused and out of place.
(not the first time - red bicycle when you were twelve)
His expressive face tells her that it wasn't their first reunion on that snowy street. She straightens and reprograms the cannon. She knows now that she will find him.
iv.
Another day, another wrong turn. Rose is alone in a courtyard made of ice. The cannon has for the first time taken her somewhere she knows the Doctor has been: Woman Wept.
She wonders if he's been here since the last time they held hands under the towering waves, and was comforted like she is by the barrenness.
Meditating on the icy statue before her - it is joyful but speaks of longing - it occurs to her that it isn't her coordinates that are wrong. This planet has moved. They'll soon fix that. First, Rose allows herself to weep.
ii.
Her new universe is beautiful, and it suffocates her. Rose dreams of open doors, walls broken down, but deals in doors slammed shut and small cubicles.
The first door is at Torchwood. Leave well enough alone, they say, we can't risk it. They ignore her rudimentary model of the dimension cannon. In a fit of dramatics that would impress the Doctor, she tells them they'll regret this, and speeds off on Pete's motorbike. It's six hours before she realizes their highway system is just different enough.
When the stars start going out, it takes Torchwood a week to find her.
v.
Rose starts carrying a camera. No one can see these pictures, all of these new universes, just her and - if she dares hope - the Doctor.
And here's where I stopped for tea that time I got lost on a deceptively Earth-like planet. It was so peaceful I almost dropped everything to stay, she'd say, leaving unsaid why she couldn't, because planets were dying and the Doctor was nowhere to be found. And this is the time I almost lost my arm in that civil war.
She inhales lavender-like steam from her mug and pretends she's taking vacation photos.
vi.
When she finally finds him, she still feels lost, unsettled. After the not-regeneration, she sees it, her imminent future, in the reluctance in his eyes, the sorrow of things yet to come. The Doctor has changed. But Rose has changed more.
She meets him and is guilty when she thinks that perhaps he is the one she has been searching for. - “One life, Rose Tyler-”
They start that life the night they get back home (this is home now?), warm lips a supplication on the crook of her neck, hope bursting white-hot in her chest. Maybe she is found.
i.
“Will you ever stop wandering off?” she hears his gruff sandstone-and-leather voice when she dreams about the wall, pounding on it with useless fists.
He was right- Rose has a propensity to wander. Call it carelessness or adventurousness, Rose didn't care. She never thought it might be irrevocable. So lost in a place so wrong, with her mum's fine china crunching underfoot and the sun blotted out by dirigibles.
She has to try so hard to believe that she's not lost forever, that when he comes back and says 'you can't', she is only motivated to prove him wrong.
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
100 word drabbles (out of order because timey-wimey)
She pretends she's taking vacation photos, 600
iii.
Most don't realize when time shifts just so, when a new memory appears like it belongs. Rose always knows. Like she knows right now that the Doctor is dying, somewhere, somewhen, and came to her to say goodbye (and hello).
She's lost in some wrong universe, winded from the jump, and the memory surprises her, unused and out of place.
(not the first time - red bicycle when you were twelve)
His expressive face tells her that it wasn't their first reunion on that snowy street. She straightens and reprograms the cannon. She knows now that she will find him.
iv.
Another day, another wrong turn. Rose is alone in a courtyard made of ice. The cannon has for the first time taken her somewhere she knows the Doctor has been: Woman Wept.
She wonders if he's been here since the last time they held hands under the towering waves, and was comforted like she is by the barrenness.
Meditating on the icy statue before her - it is joyful but speaks of longing - it occurs to her that it isn't her coordinates that are wrong. This planet has moved. They'll soon fix that. First, Rose allows herself to weep.
ii.
Her new universe is beautiful, and it suffocates her. Rose dreams of open doors, walls broken down, but deals in doors slammed shut and small cubicles.
The first door is at Torchwood. Leave well enough alone, they say, we can't risk it. They ignore her rudimentary model of the dimension cannon. In a fit of dramatics that would impress the Doctor, she tells them they'll regret this, and speeds off on Pete's motorbike. It's six hours before she realizes their highway system is just different enough.
When the stars start going out, it takes Torchwood a week to find her.
v.
Rose starts carrying a camera. No one can see these pictures, all of these new universes, just her and - if she dares hope - the Doctor.
And here's where I stopped for tea that time I got lost on a deceptively Earth-like planet. It was so peaceful I almost dropped everything to stay, she'd say, leaving unsaid why she couldn't, because planets were dying and the Doctor was nowhere to be found. And this is the time I almost lost my arm in that civil war.
She inhales lavender-like steam from her mug and pretends she's taking vacation photos.
vi.
When she finally finds him, she still feels lost, unsettled. After the not-regeneration, she sees it, her imminent future, in the reluctance in his eyes, the sorrow of things yet to come. The Doctor has changed. But Rose has changed more.
She meets him and is guilty when she thinks that perhaps he is the one she has been searching for. - “One life, Rose Tyler-”
They start that life the night they get back home (this is home now?), warm lips a supplication on the crook of her neck, hope bursting white-hot in her chest. Maybe she is found.
i.
“Will you ever stop wandering off?” she hears his gruff sandstone-and-leather voice when she dreams about the wall, pounding on it with useless fists.
He was right- Rose has a propensity to wander. Call it carelessness or adventurousness, Rose didn't care. She never thought it might be irrevocable. So lost in a place so wrong, with her mum's fine china crunching underfoot and the sun blotted out by dirigibles.
She has to try so hard to believe that she's not lost forever, that when he comes back and says 'you can't', she is only motivated to prove him wrong.
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.