Fic: Tempus Edax Rerum
Fic about Rose. Cause she did kill all those Daleks that one time.
PG for unfun imagery.
Sort of Rose/TARDIS.
Tempus Edax Rerum
When Rose sleeps, the TARDIS talks to her in musical waves of liquid-light. Rose listens, and though she misses some quick beats and the more subtle intonations, she thinks she understands a little of what the ship says, and of what she wants her to understand.
"Article 9," says a dusky voice, ringing in her ears. Rose's arms are heavy, the gravity of the law holds her steady to the ground.
Before her eyes text flies past, in a hand she recognises. A list of names, the Doctor's handwriting. "A death list," another voice says.
And a garden of flowers die, flowers the size of men and they cry out as they die. Screams demanding, despairing, pleading for the acknowledgment that they existed.
it was better this way
A single leaf falls into fertile earth.
"That would have been enough," says the voice that was the Doctor.
These things are only as real as memory. The TARDIS shimmers within Rose, and shows her a war that didn't happen. It is fire and poison, plant against animal and all the world is left a sterile hulk of rotting flesh and flower.
"I don't understand," Rose whispers, but the TARDIS ignores her. She sees a flash of white in a dark sky. Just before the sky burns as a world falls inside out. "Is that-?"
The TARDIS tells her no, tells her that it is a Dalek world.
She is in space, breathless, her freezing hands reach into nothingness. Now she sees the Earth below, twists and turns and finds herself facing a fleet of grey and hard-edged ships. Something silver streaks over her shoulder. Light spears her pupils, and she is enveloped in the awesome silence of a hundred exploding cities in the skies.
When it is over, the silver remains.
It reaches out towards her, touches her cheek. "Precious," it whispers, as though an endearment. Rose looks into its face and see herself: a shining facsimile.
"Who are you?" she asks.
"Nemesis," the silver replies.
"Those ships?"
"Cybermen," Nemesis tells her. "Your world is safe now, theirs has ended."
"The Daleks?" she says hopelessly.
"Exterminated," laughs Nemesis. "Don't worry, they return. Always they return and the killing begins again. You will have your chance."
one he destroyed, one of many
"But I killed them all," says Rose, and she realises she is crying, that the TARDIS is crying. She feels grief, and it is alien in its terrible age.
You did, the TARDIS agrees, you are like him.
"The plants," she knows.
One species exterminated to save another, to save yours, murmurs the ship. There is salt and sadness in her, her sorrow is not for Rose, and she is not angry.
i remember for you
You are a killer without regrets, says the TARDIS. Rose can feel nothing, but she remembers: "The war," she says. "His world, his people."
No, is the reply. It strikes through her chest, grates against the beat of her heart. Show me, she demands silently, show me.
And there is gold, golden seas spreading out and through and every moment is a universe of its own. They fall around her like rain and she catches one on her tongue, and Rose remembers, Rose can feel and Rose knows.
She is on fire, the flames lick around her eyes and throat, her flesh is scorched and charred, curling away from milky-white bones and there is no blood, no blood at all.
And
She
Will
Not
Scre-
Rose breathes and wakes, and touches her eyes to find them dry.
PG for unfun imagery.
Sort of Rose/TARDIS.
Tempus Edax Rerum
When Rose sleeps, the TARDIS talks to her in musical waves of liquid-light. Rose listens, and though she misses some quick beats and the more subtle intonations, she thinks she understands a little of what the ship says, and of what she wants her to understand.
"Article 9," says a dusky voice, ringing in her ears. Rose's arms are heavy, the gravity of the law holds her steady to the ground.
Before her eyes text flies past, in a hand she recognises. A list of names, the Doctor's handwriting. "A death list," another voice says.
And a garden of flowers die, flowers the size of men and they cry out as they die. Screams demanding, despairing, pleading for the acknowledgment that they existed.
it was better this way
A single leaf falls into fertile earth.
"That would have been enough," says the voice that was the Doctor.
These things are only as real as memory. The TARDIS shimmers within Rose, and shows her a war that didn't happen. It is fire and poison, plant against animal and all the world is left a sterile hulk of rotting flesh and flower.
"I don't understand," Rose whispers, but the TARDIS ignores her. She sees a flash of white in a dark sky. Just before the sky burns as a world falls inside out. "Is that-?"
The TARDIS tells her no, tells her that it is a Dalek world.
She is in space, breathless, her freezing hands reach into nothingness. Now she sees the Earth below, twists and turns and finds herself facing a fleet of grey and hard-edged ships. Something silver streaks over her shoulder. Light spears her pupils, and she is enveloped in the awesome silence of a hundred exploding cities in the skies.
When it is over, the silver remains.
It reaches out towards her, touches her cheek. "Precious," it whispers, as though an endearment. Rose looks into its face and see herself: a shining facsimile.
"Who are you?" she asks.
"Nemesis," the silver replies.
"Those ships?"
"Cybermen," Nemesis tells her. "Your world is safe now, theirs has ended."
"The Daleks?" she says hopelessly.
"Exterminated," laughs Nemesis. "Don't worry, they return. Always they return and the killing begins again. You will have your chance."
one he destroyed, one of many
"But I killed them all," says Rose, and she realises she is crying, that the TARDIS is crying. She feels grief, and it is alien in its terrible age.
You did, the TARDIS agrees, you are like him.
"The plants," she knows.
One species exterminated to save another, to save yours, murmurs the ship. There is salt and sadness in her, her sorrow is not for Rose, and she is not angry.
i remember for you
You are a killer without regrets, says the TARDIS. Rose can feel nothing, but she remembers: "The war," she says. "His world, his people."
No, is the reply. It strikes through her chest, grates against the beat of her heart. Show me, she demands silently, show me.
And there is gold, golden seas spreading out and through and every moment is a universe of its own. They fall around her like rain and she catches one on her tongue, and Rose remembers, Rose can feel and Rose knows.
She is on fire, the flames lick around her eyes and throat, her flesh is scorched and charred, curling away from milky-white bones and there is no blood, no blood at all.
And
She
Will
Not
Scre-
Rose breathes and wakes, and touches her eyes to find them dry.