Guardians 3/4
Fic: Guardians
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness... and others ;)
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: They're not mine, no; did you really think they were?
Summary: No, her past’s got nothing to do with why she’s on her way to Cardiff, in the cabin of a Torchwood private plane, the mysterious file and an overnight bag with her.
This is a sequel to Protector, and written for
honorh. With huge thanks to
dark_aegis for BRing and reassuring me that the skience isn't totally naff, and particularly for taking the time to continue BRing even while on a business trip involving 15-hour work-days.
Chapter 1: Disturbances l Chapter 2: Voices through the Void
Chapter 3: And All Comes Tumbling Down
When breath rushes back into her body, the earth’s still trembling. Aftershocks, because they’re easing progressively. Within a couple of minutes, it’s almost still and debris has stopped crashing down on top of her.
She crawls out from under the mess of beams and bricks and bits of crate and other assorted detritus that’s coated her, and shakes herself off. Welcome back - again, she muses with the sense of wryness that still hasn’t left her, no matter how many times she’s done this.
Her torch is missing - but then it probably wouldn’t be working anyway. Unlike her, it’s not indestructible.
And then it hits her. The silence.
It’s not just the end of the tremors. It’s the absence of voices. A voice.
“Jack? Jack!”
There’s no answer.
And she starts to imagine all kinds of things. If it was this bad at her end, what was it like on his side? And maybe he died too. Maybe he died in a way he can’t come back from -
No. Can’t think that way. Got to have faith in him. He’ll come back for her.
“Jack!”
What if the gap’s closed? What if this time whatever’s allowed them to talk to each other, whatever’s sent stuff back and forth between the universes, has been fixed? And maybe that’s all they get. Maybe those last few hours are her and Jack’s equivalent of the Doctor’s two minutes on Darlig Ulv Stranden.
“Rose! Rose, are you okay?”
“Jack!” Relief pours through her. “Yeah, I’m fine.” No point telling him what just happened - that she died yet again. It’ll only worry him, and it’s not as if he can do anything about it. “What the hell happened?”
“Just a minute.” His voice more distant suddenly, he’s yelling. “Hold it there! Watch it. All of you, just stay there, watch it like hawks and don’t let anything move!”
He’s shouting to his team? But didn’t he say he was sending them home so he could talk to her? Still, sounds like it’s just as well they’re here.
“Rose? You still there?”
He’s back. “Yeah. Still here. What happened?”
“The Rift.” He’s sounding breathless. “Just went crazy. Got it under control now, but it’s only temporary. Got my people holding it with the Rift manipulator. We got about twenty minutes maximum to find out why this happened and stop it.”
“Right.” She takes a deep, calming breath. “What happened just before it opened? Anything your end? Cause there was nothing here.”
When he answers her, there’s a question in his voice. “The TARDIS just materialised. But that’s never done anything to the Rift before.”
The TARDIS.
Her heart thumps, pummelling against her chest so hard that it wouldn’t surprise her if Jack can hear it. If the TARDIS is there... then so’s the Doctor.
It’s been fifty-four, almost fifty-five years since she heard his voice. Fifty-four years since she told him she loved him. And probably forty years since she gave up hoping that some day he’d come back for her.
Still, there’s not been a single day in any of those nearly fifty-five years that she wouldn’t have been over the moon to hear the sound of the TARDIS materialising, or to see him walking towards her, brown overcoat swishing at his heels, to see that sunny smile, the way he would shake his head as he grinned, to hear him say her name once more.
Except for today. Now. Now, like she told Jack, she’s not at all sure that she wants to talk to him. Not that she’s likely to get a choice. Not if the TARDIS is there. Because Jack’s going to assume it’s what she wants, no matter what she said.
“Back in a minute, Rose,” Jack’s saying, already sounding distracted. “Gotta go find our visitor before he blows up my security system again.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit! She’s not ready for this. Not at all.
And, as another thought strikes her, a chill runs through her. What if he’s regenerated again? Oh, it’s not that she couldn’t accept his new body as the Doctor. Not when she’s been through it once before. He’s still the Doctor, no matter what body he wears, what voice he speaks with. That’s not it. It’s just... if he’s regenerated, and she never had a chance to say goodbye to the old him...
But Jack never said. And he would have, wouldn’t he? Or maybe he didn’t have time, or maybe the Doctor’s had his new body for so long that it never even occurred to him, just like she was after a while after the Doctor regenerated. There were times when she almost forgot that he used to wear a different body, that she had to be reminded that the Doctor she went to Cardiff with those times was dark and short-haired and Northern. He was simply the Doctor to her and that was that.
“Rose.”
She shivers, and can almost feel every single hair on her body standing on end. It’s the Doctor. He’s there, on the other side of the Void.
And it’s her Doctor still; he hasn’t regenerated again. Though, of course, for him it could be no more than a couple of years, couldn’t it? Not like the almost fifty-five it’s been for her, and the over two hundred it’s been for Jack.
His voice is thick with emotion, almost cracking at the end of her name. Then there’s a pause, during which she struggles against the lump in her throat. There’s so much she wants to say to him. So many things she wishes, over the decades, that she’d had a chance to say, but never did. And now, now she knows what he did to Jack, so many things she needs to accuse him of... things she desperately needs him to explain.
“Doc -” she begins, but her voice is cracking, a lump forming in her throat making it difficult for her to get the word out. She has to swallow before she can try again. “Doctor.”
And... what? What do you say to the man who once meant more than life to you, but you haven’t seen or spoken to in over fifty years? The man who you’ve never forgotten, never stopped loving, but in whom you’ve just been completely disillusioned in the last couple of hours?
But he speaks again before she’s managed to get it together enough to say anything, and she could be talking to a completely different man than the one who said her name. “Blimey! Never thought I’d hear your voice again! How are you? How’s Mickey? And Jackie? And Pete, too?”
Oh, even after all this time she knows full well what he’s doing. Distancing. So bloody typical of him. He’ll never let anyone see what he’s really feeling if he can avoid it. Their forcible separation hurt him - she knew that anyway from the way he looked at her, the way he spoke, on Bad Wolf Bay, and what Jack’s just told her reinforced it. Being able to talk to her again now should bring all that pain back, but he’s forcing it away, locking it down inside - because he knows it’s only going to hurt again when this ends.
He doesn’t need to tell her that this - a few minutes’ conversation - is all they can have. That there’s nothing he can do to bring her back to him.
Even if, now, that’s still what she wants after all this time. And after what she’s found out tonight.
She can’t even answer him. What’s she supposed to say? She can’t just tell him that her mum, dad and Mickey are all dead. That’s going to lead to questions she’s not ready to answer, and to subjects she really can’t talk to him about with a Void between them. Not with his tendency to dodge and sidestep, to change the subject or just walk away.
No; if she ever does get to tell him what she thinks of him for abandoning Jack, that’ll have to be face to face. And the chances of that happening are pretty much zero.
“ ‘M fine,” she says finally, though she knows it’s only been a couple of seconds. “Gettin’ on with life. You know how it is.”
And this conversation is torture. It’s a relief when Jack interrupts, and she can’t help wondering if he’s doing it for her.
“Doctor, Rose, can you save the reunion stuff until later? We’ve got a Rift emergency to figure out, otherwise two universes are gonna be tumbled into chaos.”
“Right! Yes!” the Doctor exclaims. “That’s why I’m here!”
“Um... you sure about that?” She can tell Jack’s frowning. “Cause the Rift only went into overdrive as the TARDIS arrived.”
“Nah, there was already Rift activity.” Typical Doctor, sounding so convinced that he’s right and all the humans are wrong. “That’s what brought us here.”
Us? He’s got a companion with him? But of course he has. Like Sarah-Jane told Mickey that time, the Doctor likes travelling with an entourage. He won’t be alone.
“It was the TARDIS’s doing, actually. She picked up an energy spike from the Rift and alerted me. Decided I’d better come and see what you lot’ve done this time and if you need my help.”
“And instead you caused an earthquake,” Jack comments dryly. “Just as well the Hub’s reinforced to withstand a nuclear attack.” After a moment, he adds, “Rose, I never asked where you are in Cardiff. What’s the damage like over there?”
“Haven’t been outside this building yet,” she explains. “Not sure I could get out - well, not without a bulldozer or a digger. This place looks like a bomb hit it.”
There’s a sharp, audible intake of breath, and she has no idea whose it is. Then the Doctor speaks, and she knows it was him. “Rose! Are you all right? Well, obviously you're all right. You're talking, for one. And you don't sound like you're in pain. Are you? In pain, I mean. Were you hurt? You weren't, were you? Rose?”
“Rose is immortal. Like me.” Does the Doctor hear that edge to Jack’s voice too?
“Wha - Oh! Oh, of course!” Oh, yeah, the Doctor’s oblivious to any tension. “Huon energy! It’s still inside you, Rose. I didn’t get it all out. Thought I did, but... well. Can’t have, can I? And it’s inside you, and all this time it’s been wanting to get back to its source. It’s been calling out to the TARDIS, and the TARDIS’s been calling out to it. To you. That’s why -”
“Why all the disturbances recorded since I got here have been worse,” she says as the truth dawns. “It was me.”
And did he know? All this time, did he know that she was like Jack? And he still took her with him, leaving Jack behind?
“Yep.” The way he emphasises the consonant tugs at her, bringing back so many memories it hurts. “The energy reaching out, trying to get back to its source, calling through the Rift.” Now, there’s another familiar tone in his voice, that fake-casual one that always revealed pain. His eyes always gave it away. If she could see him now, she knows he’d be looking anywhere but at her, and his eyes would be bleak. “Only it can’t. You can’t. You’re trapped, and the energy’s trapped with you. And for as long as you’re alive, and the TARDIS is alive...”
“Then it’ll keep happening.”
“Yep.” And his tone’s dipped, so very solemn now. “It’ll keep happening. Over and over and over, until the walls break down and the Void’s ripped open.”
“And two universes are destroyed,” she guesses.
The silence from the other side gives her her answer.
***
“Well, that’s great that we know what’s doing it. But what can we do to stop it?”
The frustration’s clear in Jack’s voice, and it’s an echo of her own feelings. So she and the TARDIS are magnetically attracted to each other. Great. Now what?
“I don’t know,” the Doctor answers.
“Come on, Doctor, you’ve got to know!” Jack’s shouting now. “You saw what just happened. You’ve just told us what’ll happen if it carries on. So what are we gonna do about it?”
Her legs are shaking. She sinks unsteadily down onto a piece of warped and broken corrugated roof, uncaring that it wobbles under her weight. Her mind’s reeling, the Doctor’s prognosis repeating over and over inside her head, and ideas ranging from the bizarre to the desperate churning past her.
“Rose,” the Doctor says abruptly. “You’re in Cardiff, right?”
“Yeah. First time I’ve been here in this universe,” she adds. That’s significant, she knows.
“Right. And on your side is this the worst disturbance there’s been?” Oh, yes, the Doctor’s mind is working in the same direction as hers.
“Couldn’t say without a precise measurement.” And she doesn’t have those kind of instruments with her - if she did, they’d probably be destroyed anyway. “But I’m guessing it is. The only other times it’s been anywhere close... well, my guess was they were echoes of activity on your side. The Gelth, Blon Fel Fotch - those dates seem to match up.”
“Was there a massive eruption in 2007 too?” Jack asks. “Close to the end of the year?”
“Yeah, that’s in the records.” Obviously, he knows what it was.
“Right,” the Doctor says again. “And... a wild guess, Rose, but have even minor disturbances been worse since you ended up over there?”
Oh, she knows where he’s going, all right, and the logic makes sense if the TARDIS has been trying to reconnect with her - or with the energy inside her - ever since she crossed the Void.
“Looks like it, yeah.”
“Is all this getting us anywhere?” Jack demands, urgency in his voice. “Cause we’ve got about five minutes left before the manipulator won’t be able to hold the energy in any more. And unless you’re gonna tell me you know a way to get over there to Rose and bring her back here I don’t know how talking this over any more is gonna solve this.”
“We can’t. Not if you don’t want both universes to implode.” The Doctor’s response is immediate and firm.
“They’re gonna implode anyway!” Jack yells. “You just said so!”
“There’s a way to control it.” The more panicky Jack gets, the calmer the Doctor seems. “It’s worse now because Rose is in Cardiff and so’s the TARDIS. If both of us - Rose and the TARDIS - get as far away from Cardiff as we can, and never come back, everything should stabilise. Won’t solve the problem for ever - there’ll still be echoes of disturbances on your side, Rose - but it won’t be as bad as this.”
“I can do that, yeah,” she says immediately. “You could leave now, and I’ll get out of here - I could even relocate to Australia if that’d help. But you can’t keep the TARDIS away from Cardiff, Doctor! It’s where she gets her fuel!”
It’s not a solution. It’s only putting a plaster on an open wound. It’ll hold things for a while, but not indefinitely. They’re only putting off a real solution for another time.
Though that would work if... “Doctor, you think you can come up with a longer-term solution if we do that?”
She can barely hear him when he says, “I hope so.”
That’s it. That’s all she needed to hear. He really doesn’t know what to do.
“No.”
“No, what?” the Doctor replies immediately.
“No. We’re not gonna do that.”
“Guys? Time’s running out here!” Jack warns. She hears a shout from behind him, though she can’t distinguish words, then, in a much sharper tone, Jack shouts back, “We’re trying! Give us a couple more minutes, okay?”
“What, then, Rose?” the Doctor asks, ignoring Jack.
She’s had hardly any time to think this through, but it makes total sense. There’s only one thing they can do. That she can do.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Can your people hold the Rift for another five minutes? That’s all I need.”
“I’ll find out.” His answer’s matter-of-fact, and she hears running footsteps immediately afterwards.
“Rose!” There’s alarm in the Doctor’s voice. “What are you doing?”
“The only thing we can do.” She’s got her mobile out, is already hitting the speed-dial. “Doctor, I have to make a couple of phone calls. Give me five minutes.”
“Rose? Rose!” He’s shouting now, angry, frantic. “What are you doing? Tell me!”
“What I need to do, Doctor.” And she walks away from the sound of his voice.
***
The call to Jeri’s brief. She’s woken her assistant up, of course, but it’s far from the first time that’s happened. As succinctly as possible, she tells Jeri that she’s going away and won’t be back. “Notify everyone who needs to know. And, when you pack up my stuff, you know what has to go where.”
There are papers among her files that can’t just be entrusted to anyone within Torchwood, and she’s long had contingency plans, which Jeri’s well aware of, should anything happen to her. It was always unlikely, but she never quite believed that her apparent immortality was permanent.
Jeri receives the instructions efficiently, asking the minimum of questions. But, as soon as Rose says goodbye, there’s a choke in her voice. “Not gonna say goodbye, Ms Tyler. I’ll see you again some day. I know it.”
“Maybe,” she lies. It’s not going to happen. This is it; the end of Rose Tyler. And it’s worth it. After all, she’s the cause of the problem. She’s the one who looked into the TARDIS in the first place, and she’s the one the TARDIS is calling out to across the Void, across two universes.
She can’t bring herself to speak to Jamie. It’s cowardly, but she leaves a message on his voicemail telling him, her sister-in-law and niece and nephew goodbye. They’ll be fine. They’ve got each other and they’re happy. The kids barely know their Aunty Rose, and Jamie... well, he won’t have to come up with any more excuses as to why his sister, who’s twenty years older than he is, looks young enough to be his daughter.
And then it’s back over to the Rift, to tell the Doctor and Jack. It’s only fair.
“Rose, you’ve got one minute!” Jack’s yelling as she returns. “Then... well, I don’t know what’s gonna happen this time.”
“One minute’s enough,” she says, her tone firm and strong. “Doctor, Jack, I told you I knew what to do. This is happenin’ cause the TARDIS is calling out to me, right? Trying to reach me across the Void. I can’t get back to your universe, but I can leave this one.”
“Yeah, so I don’t understand,” Jack says. “What’re you -”
“No, Rose.” There’s sheer horror in the Doctor’s voice. “No, you can’t. You can’t!”
“It’s the only solution, Doctor. You know it as well as I do.”
“Rose -”
“What’s she talking about?” Jack interrupts.
The Doctor’s voice is taut, almost breaking. “She’s going to throw herself into the Rift. The force of the TARDIS will pull her into the Void, and she’ll die.”
“No!” Jack yells immediately. “Rose, there’s got to be -”
“There’s no other way. The Doctor knows that, Jack. You ask him. And time’s up,” she adds, calmer than she’s ever been in her life. “Let the Rift go.”
Whether Jack’s instructed his team to release his manipulator device, or whether the Rift’s erupting on its own, she can’t tell. But the ground beneath her feet is falling away again, deep fissures appearing all around her.
She braces herself and takes a deep breath. “See you in hell.”
In the darkness of the ruined warehouse, the universe falling apart all around her, she dives gracefully, swanlike, into the Rift, and it seals around her.
***
tbc
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness... and others ;)
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: They're not mine, no; did you really think they were?
Summary: No, her past’s got nothing to do with why she’s on her way to Cardiff, in the cabin of a Torchwood private plane, the mysterious file and an overnight bag with her.
This is a sequel to Protector, and written for
honorh. With huge thanks to
dark_aegis for BRing and reassuring me that the skience isn't totally naff, and particularly for taking the time to continue BRing even while on a business trip involving 15-hour work-days.
Chapter 1: Disturbances l Chapter 2: Voices through the Void
Chapter 3: And All Comes Tumbling Down
When breath rushes back into her body, the earth’s still trembling. Aftershocks, because they’re easing progressively. Within a couple of minutes, it’s almost still and debris has stopped crashing down on top of her.
She crawls out from under the mess of beams and bricks and bits of crate and other assorted detritus that’s coated her, and shakes herself off. Welcome back - again, she muses with the sense of wryness that still hasn’t left her, no matter how many times she’s done this.
Her torch is missing - but then it probably wouldn’t be working anyway. Unlike her, it’s not indestructible.
And then it hits her. The silence.
It’s not just the end of the tremors. It’s the absence of voices. A voice.
“Jack? Jack!”
There’s no answer.
And she starts to imagine all kinds of things. If it was this bad at her end, what was it like on his side? And maybe he died too. Maybe he died in a way he can’t come back from -
No. Can’t think that way. Got to have faith in him. He’ll come back for her.
“Jack!”
What if the gap’s closed? What if this time whatever’s allowed them to talk to each other, whatever’s sent stuff back and forth between the universes, has been fixed? And maybe that’s all they get. Maybe those last few hours are her and Jack’s equivalent of the Doctor’s two minutes on Darlig Ulv Stranden.
“Rose! Rose, are you okay?”
“Jack!” Relief pours through her. “Yeah, I’m fine.” No point telling him what just happened - that she died yet again. It’ll only worry him, and it’s not as if he can do anything about it. “What the hell happened?”
“Just a minute.” His voice more distant suddenly, he’s yelling. “Hold it there! Watch it. All of you, just stay there, watch it like hawks and don’t let anything move!”
He’s shouting to his team? But didn’t he say he was sending them home so he could talk to her? Still, sounds like it’s just as well they’re here.
“Rose? You still there?”
He’s back. “Yeah. Still here. What happened?”
“The Rift.” He’s sounding breathless. “Just went crazy. Got it under control now, but it’s only temporary. Got my people holding it with the Rift manipulator. We got about twenty minutes maximum to find out why this happened and stop it.”
“Right.” She takes a deep, calming breath. “What happened just before it opened? Anything your end? Cause there was nothing here.”
When he answers her, there’s a question in his voice. “The TARDIS just materialised. But that’s never done anything to the Rift before.”
The TARDIS.
Her heart thumps, pummelling against her chest so hard that it wouldn’t surprise her if Jack can hear it. If the TARDIS is there... then so’s the Doctor.
It’s been fifty-four, almost fifty-five years since she heard his voice. Fifty-four years since she told him she loved him. And probably forty years since she gave up hoping that some day he’d come back for her.
Still, there’s not been a single day in any of those nearly fifty-five years that she wouldn’t have been over the moon to hear the sound of the TARDIS materialising, or to see him walking towards her, brown overcoat swishing at his heels, to see that sunny smile, the way he would shake his head as he grinned, to hear him say her name once more.
Except for today. Now. Now, like she told Jack, she’s not at all sure that she wants to talk to him. Not that she’s likely to get a choice. Not if the TARDIS is there. Because Jack’s going to assume it’s what she wants, no matter what she said.
“Back in a minute, Rose,” Jack’s saying, already sounding distracted. “Gotta go find our visitor before he blows up my security system again.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit! She’s not ready for this. Not at all.
And, as another thought strikes her, a chill runs through her. What if he’s regenerated again? Oh, it’s not that she couldn’t accept his new body as the Doctor. Not when she’s been through it once before. He’s still the Doctor, no matter what body he wears, what voice he speaks with. That’s not it. It’s just... if he’s regenerated, and she never had a chance to say goodbye to the old him...
But Jack never said. And he would have, wouldn’t he? Or maybe he didn’t have time, or maybe the Doctor’s had his new body for so long that it never even occurred to him, just like she was after a while after the Doctor regenerated. There were times when she almost forgot that he used to wear a different body, that she had to be reminded that the Doctor she went to Cardiff with those times was dark and short-haired and Northern. He was simply the Doctor to her and that was that.
“Rose.”
She shivers, and can almost feel every single hair on her body standing on end. It’s the Doctor. He’s there, on the other side of the Void.
And it’s her Doctor still; he hasn’t regenerated again. Though, of course, for him it could be no more than a couple of years, couldn’t it? Not like the almost fifty-five it’s been for her, and the over two hundred it’s been for Jack.
His voice is thick with emotion, almost cracking at the end of her name. Then there’s a pause, during which she struggles against the lump in her throat. There’s so much she wants to say to him. So many things she wishes, over the decades, that she’d had a chance to say, but never did. And now, now she knows what he did to Jack, so many things she needs to accuse him of... things she desperately needs him to explain.
“Doc -” she begins, but her voice is cracking, a lump forming in her throat making it difficult for her to get the word out. She has to swallow before she can try again. “Doctor.”
And... what? What do you say to the man who once meant more than life to you, but you haven’t seen or spoken to in over fifty years? The man who you’ve never forgotten, never stopped loving, but in whom you’ve just been completely disillusioned in the last couple of hours?
But he speaks again before she’s managed to get it together enough to say anything, and she could be talking to a completely different man than the one who said her name. “Blimey! Never thought I’d hear your voice again! How are you? How’s Mickey? And Jackie? And Pete, too?”
Oh, even after all this time she knows full well what he’s doing. Distancing. So bloody typical of him. He’ll never let anyone see what he’s really feeling if he can avoid it. Their forcible separation hurt him - she knew that anyway from the way he looked at her, the way he spoke, on Bad Wolf Bay, and what Jack’s just told her reinforced it. Being able to talk to her again now should bring all that pain back, but he’s forcing it away, locking it down inside - because he knows it’s only going to hurt again when this ends.
He doesn’t need to tell her that this - a few minutes’ conversation - is all they can have. That there’s nothing he can do to bring her back to him.
Even if, now, that’s still what she wants after all this time. And after what she’s found out tonight.
She can’t even answer him. What’s she supposed to say? She can’t just tell him that her mum, dad and Mickey are all dead. That’s going to lead to questions she’s not ready to answer, and to subjects she really can’t talk to him about with a Void between them. Not with his tendency to dodge and sidestep, to change the subject or just walk away.
No; if she ever does get to tell him what she thinks of him for abandoning Jack, that’ll have to be face to face. And the chances of that happening are pretty much zero.
“ ‘M fine,” she says finally, though she knows it’s only been a couple of seconds. “Gettin’ on with life. You know how it is.”
And this conversation is torture. It’s a relief when Jack interrupts, and she can’t help wondering if he’s doing it for her.
“Doctor, Rose, can you save the reunion stuff until later? We’ve got a Rift emergency to figure out, otherwise two universes are gonna be tumbled into chaos.”
“Right! Yes!” the Doctor exclaims. “That’s why I’m here!”
“Um... you sure about that?” She can tell Jack’s frowning. “Cause the Rift only went into overdrive as the TARDIS arrived.”
“Nah, there was already Rift activity.” Typical Doctor, sounding so convinced that he’s right and all the humans are wrong. “That’s what brought us here.”
Us? He’s got a companion with him? But of course he has. Like Sarah-Jane told Mickey that time, the Doctor likes travelling with an entourage. He won’t be alone.
“It was the TARDIS’s doing, actually. She picked up an energy spike from the Rift and alerted me. Decided I’d better come and see what you lot’ve done this time and if you need my help.”
“And instead you caused an earthquake,” Jack comments dryly. “Just as well the Hub’s reinforced to withstand a nuclear attack.” After a moment, he adds, “Rose, I never asked where you are in Cardiff. What’s the damage like over there?”
“Haven’t been outside this building yet,” she explains. “Not sure I could get out - well, not without a bulldozer or a digger. This place looks like a bomb hit it.”
There’s a sharp, audible intake of breath, and she has no idea whose it is. Then the Doctor speaks, and she knows it was him. “Rose! Are you all right? Well, obviously you're all right. You're talking, for one. And you don't sound like you're in pain. Are you? In pain, I mean. Were you hurt? You weren't, were you? Rose?”
“Rose is immortal. Like me.” Does the Doctor hear that edge to Jack’s voice too?
“Wha - Oh! Oh, of course!” Oh, yeah, the Doctor’s oblivious to any tension. “Huon energy! It’s still inside you, Rose. I didn’t get it all out. Thought I did, but... well. Can’t have, can I? And it’s inside you, and all this time it’s been wanting to get back to its source. It’s been calling out to the TARDIS, and the TARDIS’s been calling out to it. To you. That’s why -”
“Why all the disturbances recorded since I got here have been worse,” she says as the truth dawns. “It was me.”
And did he know? All this time, did he know that she was like Jack? And he still took her with him, leaving Jack behind?
“Yep.” The way he emphasises the consonant tugs at her, bringing back so many memories it hurts. “The energy reaching out, trying to get back to its source, calling through the Rift.” Now, there’s another familiar tone in his voice, that fake-casual one that always revealed pain. His eyes always gave it away. If she could see him now, she knows he’d be looking anywhere but at her, and his eyes would be bleak. “Only it can’t. You can’t. You’re trapped, and the energy’s trapped with you. And for as long as you’re alive, and the TARDIS is alive...”
“Then it’ll keep happening.”
“Yep.” And his tone’s dipped, so very solemn now. “It’ll keep happening. Over and over and over, until the walls break down and the Void’s ripped open.”
“And two universes are destroyed,” she guesses.
The silence from the other side gives her her answer.
***
“Well, that’s great that we know what’s doing it. But what can we do to stop it?”
The frustration’s clear in Jack’s voice, and it’s an echo of her own feelings. So she and the TARDIS are magnetically attracted to each other. Great. Now what?
“I don’t know,” the Doctor answers.
“Come on, Doctor, you’ve got to know!” Jack’s shouting now. “You saw what just happened. You’ve just told us what’ll happen if it carries on. So what are we gonna do about it?”
Her legs are shaking. She sinks unsteadily down onto a piece of warped and broken corrugated roof, uncaring that it wobbles under her weight. Her mind’s reeling, the Doctor’s prognosis repeating over and over inside her head, and ideas ranging from the bizarre to the desperate churning past her.
“Rose,” the Doctor says abruptly. “You’re in Cardiff, right?”
“Yeah. First time I’ve been here in this universe,” she adds. That’s significant, she knows.
“Right. And on your side is this the worst disturbance there’s been?” Oh, yes, the Doctor’s mind is working in the same direction as hers.
“Couldn’t say without a precise measurement.” And she doesn’t have those kind of instruments with her - if she did, they’d probably be destroyed anyway. “But I’m guessing it is. The only other times it’s been anywhere close... well, my guess was they were echoes of activity on your side. The Gelth, Blon Fel Fotch - those dates seem to match up.”
“Was there a massive eruption in 2007 too?” Jack asks. “Close to the end of the year?”
“Yeah, that’s in the records.” Obviously, he knows what it was.
“Right,” the Doctor says again. “And... a wild guess, Rose, but have even minor disturbances been worse since you ended up over there?”
Oh, she knows where he’s going, all right, and the logic makes sense if the TARDIS has been trying to reconnect with her - or with the energy inside her - ever since she crossed the Void.
“Looks like it, yeah.”
“Is all this getting us anywhere?” Jack demands, urgency in his voice. “Cause we’ve got about five minutes left before the manipulator won’t be able to hold the energy in any more. And unless you’re gonna tell me you know a way to get over there to Rose and bring her back here I don’t know how talking this over any more is gonna solve this.”
“We can’t. Not if you don’t want both universes to implode.” The Doctor’s response is immediate and firm.
“They’re gonna implode anyway!” Jack yells. “You just said so!”
“There’s a way to control it.” The more panicky Jack gets, the calmer the Doctor seems. “It’s worse now because Rose is in Cardiff and so’s the TARDIS. If both of us - Rose and the TARDIS - get as far away from Cardiff as we can, and never come back, everything should stabilise. Won’t solve the problem for ever - there’ll still be echoes of disturbances on your side, Rose - but it won’t be as bad as this.”
“I can do that, yeah,” she says immediately. “You could leave now, and I’ll get out of here - I could even relocate to Australia if that’d help. But you can’t keep the TARDIS away from Cardiff, Doctor! It’s where she gets her fuel!”
It’s not a solution. It’s only putting a plaster on an open wound. It’ll hold things for a while, but not indefinitely. They’re only putting off a real solution for another time.
Though that would work if... “Doctor, you think you can come up with a longer-term solution if we do that?”
She can barely hear him when he says, “I hope so.”
That’s it. That’s all she needed to hear. He really doesn’t know what to do.
“No.”
“No, what?” the Doctor replies immediately.
“No. We’re not gonna do that.”
“Guys? Time’s running out here!” Jack warns. She hears a shout from behind him, though she can’t distinguish words, then, in a much sharper tone, Jack shouts back, “We’re trying! Give us a couple more minutes, okay?”
“What, then, Rose?” the Doctor asks, ignoring Jack.
She’s had hardly any time to think this through, but it makes total sense. There’s only one thing they can do. That she can do.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Can your people hold the Rift for another five minutes? That’s all I need.”
“I’ll find out.” His answer’s matter-of-fact, and she hears running footsteps immediately afterwards.
“Rose!” There’s alarm in the Doctor’s voice. “What are you doing?”
“The only thing we can do.” She’s got her mobile out, is already hitting the speed-dial. “Doctor, I have to make a couple of phone calls. Give me five minutes.”
“Rose? Rose!” He’s shouting now, angry, frantic. “What are you doing? Tell me!”
“What I need to do, Doctor.” And she walks away from the sound of his voice.
***
The call to Jeri’s brief. She’s woken her assistant up, of course, but it’s far from the first time that’s happened. As succinctly as possible, she tells Jeri that she’s going away and won’t be back. “Notify everyone who needs to know. And, when you pack up my stuff, you know what has to go where.”
There are papers among her files that can’t just be entrusted to anyone within Torchwood, and she’s long had contingency plans, which Jeri’s well aware of, should anything happen to her. It was always unlikely, but she never quite believed that her apparent immortality was permanent.
Jeri receives the instructions efficiently, asking the minimum of questions. But, as soon as Rose says goodbye, there’s a choke in her voice. “Not gonna say goodbye, Ms Tyler. I’ll see you again some day. I know it.”
“Maybe,” she lies. It’s not going to happen. This is it; the end of Rose Tyler. And it’s worth it. After all, she’s the cause of the problem. She’s the one who looked into the TARDIS in the first place, and she’s the one the TARDIS is calling out to across the Void, across two universes.
She can’t bring herself to speak to Jamie. It’s cowardly, but she leaves a message on his voicemail telling him, her sister-in-law and niece and nephew goodbye. They’ll be fine. They’ve got each other and they’re happy. The kids barely know their Aunty Rose, and Jamie... well, he won’t have to come up with any more excuses as to why his sister, who’s twenty years older than he is, looks young enough to be his daughter.
And then it’s back over to the Rift, to tell the Doctor and Jack. It’s only fair.
“Rose, you’ve got one minute!” Jack’s yelling as she returns. “Then... well, I don’t know what’s gonna happen this time.”
“One minute’s enough,” she says, her tone firm and strong. “Doctor, Jack, I told you I knew what to do. This is happenin’ cause the TARDIS is calling out to me, right? Trying to reach me across the Void. I can’t get back to your universe, but I can leave this one.”
“Yeah, so I don’t understand,” Jack says. “What’re you -”
“No, Rose.” There’s sheer horror in the Doctor’s voice. “No, you can’t. You can’t!”
“It’s the only solution, Doctor. You know it as well as I do.”
“Rose -”
“What’s she talking about?” Jack interrupts.
The Doctor’s voice is taut, almost breaking. “She’s going to throw herself into the Rift. The force of the TARDIS will pull her into the Void, and she’ll die.”
“No!” Jack yells immediately. “Rose, there’s got to be -”
“There’s no other way. The Doctor knows that, Jack. You ask him. And time’s up,” she adds, calmer than she’s ever been in her life. “Let the Rift go.”
Whether Jack’s instructed his team to release his manipulator device, or whether the Rift’s erupting on its own, she can’t tell. But the ground beneath her feet is falling away again, deep fissures appearing all around her.
She braces herself and takes a deep breath. “See you in hell.”
In the darkness of the ruined warehouse, the universe falling apart all around her, she dives gracefully, swanlike, into the Rift, and it seals around her.
***
tbc