Doctor Who fanfic: One Times Infinity (Ten/Rose)
DocRating: PG-13 (rating subject to change
Coupling: 10/R
Spoilers: Doomsday
Summary: The walls between universes are more fragile than they seem. Once again it falls to the Doctor to save more than one universe...but can he fight what he wants the most? And who is this unseen enemy? A post-Doomsday reunion, of sorts.
Disclaimer: Unless there's been a terrible mix-up that I don't know about yet, I don't own DW.
AN: I've had this idea rampaging around in my head for half a month now and it’s only just mature enough to be written. This idea could be seen as an amalgam of fics I've read, comments made by the Doctor in canon, too much experience with Kingdom Hearts and something almost bordering on an obsession with reading/watching everything dealing with alternate universes and timelines in each of the many many fandom I belong to.
Credit for feasible grammar and Doc characterization, and the title, and the summary, allll go to the lovely girl who volunteered to beta this fic.
firefaery2
One Times Infinity
Chapter 1: Fluctuation
Rose Tyler frowned slightly as she looked up from her lunch. Lunch was chips, chips, and more chips. They were far from all she ate, but they were a fast and easy meal for a lunch break, and they tasted just the same in this universe as they had in the other- if not as good as the spiked ones she had once had in that doomed school. However, that was probably a good thing, considering the flavoring used on those.
The cafe was far too expensive and most of its food of a low quality, but she always went there for lunch; it had been a restaurant in her home universe that she had visited with the Doctor when she felt homesick and he refused to see Jackie. Mickey was always telling her to try the restaurant across the street- her mum, too. Jackie would regularly advise her to stop dwelling on the old universe and and focus on the wonders of this new one. Rose knew full well what they really meant.
But she was not dwelling. She did not obsess over seeing him again; she did not slack off on her thoroughly fascinating investigations into alien scares to read up on interversal travel. As it turned out, there were no textbooks in the local library specializing in that sort of thing, and she had moved on… in her own way. She lived a life, she smiled and cooed over the bulge that was her younger brother to- be. Life went on as if the Doctor had never been.
Except it didn’t. Not really.
If Rose had anything to do with it, it never would.
She would not- could not- ever truly forget him. He was still alive out there, impossibly far away and sometimes, during her daily Torchwood routine, she would pass the now pointless white wall and she could swear it was not so far away after all- swear that she could feel him, a ghost in her mind, just on the other side. It was impossible, of course; the wall did not really connect her to the other universe anymore. She could not even begin to comprehend the walls that separated her from the Doctor now. Fixed walls, no longer so much as a hairline fracture through which to feel him- he had sealed them all three months ago to protect both universes.
Even so, sometimes, just for a little while, she’d let herself believe that she really could feel him, that he had missed a tiny, insignificant little crack on purpose, that he could feel her too and was trying to send her a little comfort. That he was still thinking about her, too.
It was during those nights that her mother would hold her tight for hours that seemed endless. Her mum never complained and would never reprimand her; Jackie knew what it was like, having lost her husband, and, no matter how many times Rose would end up sobbing nonsensical questions like a child, she never once told Rose to let him go. They both knew Rose would never do it, and Rose occasionally considered the fact that her mum might not want her to anymore than she did.
Rose sighed as her watch beeped and glanced ruefully down at her half-finished plate of chips. One of these days she was going to actually finish her lunch.
Standing and giving her pressed uniform a quick once-over, she was out of the door before the owner finished wishing her a good day. There had recently been a strange explosion all too near to the rift, killing and injuring several people. Torchwood had been working on it for four days and it seemed like any substantial evidence had been diligently eluding them. There were no reported ghost or zombie stories, so that ruled-out anything like the Gelth, and they were left with the mere fact that it was coincidentally close to the rift. In short, they could find nothing to suggest that the event was even within Torchwood’s area of expertise.
Currently they were monitoring the city in search of anything odd that may be relevant. Rose’s job was to search through the recorded interrogations of the survivors for a tenth time and try to spot anything of importance, which was why she was not terribly worried about making her way through the mess of people heading back from lunch-breaks. In fact, she may have stopped off to pick up a gift for Pete's birthday party, to be held next week, if not for the shout that cut straight through the din of the crowd and instantly formed a lump in her throat so big she nearly choked.
A voice she could not possibly have heard.
"Rose?!”
--
The Doctor squinted slightly as he stepped out of the TARDIS. The Earth's sun always seemed entirely too bright in this regeneration. Perhaps he would take to wearing sunglasses, Rose would have certainly gotten a laugh out of that. He swallowed quickly to dispel the sudden dryness in his throat that often accompanied thoughts of Rose.
Three months. Had it really been such a short time? It felt like lifetimes since he had been robbed of his last chance to tell her that. Perhaps it was just that he had done so much in that time. First there was Donna, who had appeared just after his Rose had gone (he blamed the separation for his shortness with her) and then there was Martha. Good woman, Martha. She was intelligent and competent and he had had found himself feeling a little wistful when she had finally decided she wanted to return to her old life. Wistful like when Leela had decided to stay behind, wistful as he had been when any other companion had left. Not like Rose. Rose would never have wanted to go back- to her there was no life to go back to.
He buried his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. He had switched to a blue suit since Rose left; he just hadn’t felt right wearing the old one, the pinstripes she loved so much, and prancing around the universe as if she had never been. Regardless of the fact that she was gone from him and his universe forever, she had been and he was never going to allow himself to forget, however many regenerations remained.
It had been a few weeks since Martha had left him and he had not yet found another companion. It wasn’t as if he was searching specifically, but then, did he ever, really? They had always come to him quite suddenly and often a little rudely. They thought he chose them but, in the end, it was them that chose him every time, was it not?
He shook his head, a faint smile on his lips.
"I've gone all soft and poetic in my old age, haven't I?"
The people passing him did not seem to acknowledge that he had spoken. How stereotypically human. He smiled slightly; even he would never fully understand why he loved these silly little apes so much. He shrugged to himself, he had parked the TARDIS here near the rift to allow it to recharge, and so why was he out wandering aimlessly through the city? He could remember a time when he would end up running through these streets for one reason or another at every visit. Rose had proved to be the single greatest jeopardy magnet in the universe. He froze in his tracks. Rose was not here this time and he should be in the TARDIS trying to speed up the repairs so that the universe could be saved again as quickly as possible, not wasting his time living in a memory he could never return to.
Rose was gone. She was never coming back. It was not possible without sacrificing both universes and as much as he may want to, he could never allow himself to indulge in such supreme selfishness. Ever.
He was turning to go back to the TARDIS when she ran into him. More accurately, she slammed full-force into him, carrying an armload of books that went soaring through the air at the sudden collision. If not for his superior reflexes, he might have fallen along with her. Instead, he was just able to catch himself and the flustered brunette, looking rather dashing all the while, if he did say so himself.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm-" The woman looked up and her voice died in her throat.
Her hair was darker; perhaps she had let the blonde grow out and never bothered to re-dye it. Her face seemed more angular, her eyes reflecting the fact that she had lived through terrible, unspeakable things.
But there she stood, gaping up at him as if he had just sprouted polka-dotted antenna.
“-Doctor?!”
He did the only thing he could think of under such insane circumstances.
He kissed her.
TBC…
-----
AN: Well...>.> Rough first chapter, I know, long, monotonous...but it gets all better, I promise! Well, I'd hope so, anyway.
-Yusagi
Coupling: 10/R
Spoilers: Doomsday
Summary: The walls between universes are more fragile than they seem. Once again it falls to the Doctor to save more than one universe...but can he fight what he wants the most? And who is this unseen enemy? A post-Doomsday reunion, of sorts.
Disclaimer: Unless there's been a terrible mix-up that I don't know about yet, I don't own DW.
AN: I've had this idea rampaging around in my head for half a month now and it’s only just mature enough to be written. This idea could be seen as an amalgam of fics I've read, comments made by the Doctor in canon, too much experience with Kingdom Hearts and something almost bordering on an obsession with reading/watching everything dealing with alternate universes and timelines in each of the many many fandom I belong to.
Credit for feasible grammar and Doc characterization, and the title, and the summary, allll go to the lovely girl who volunteered to beta this fic.
firefaery2
One Times Infinity
Chapter 1: Fluctuation
Rose Tyler frowned slightly as she looked up from her lunch. Lunch was chips, chips, and more chips. They were far from all she ate, but they were a fast and easy meal for a lunch break, and they tasted just the same in this universe as they had in the other- if not as good as the spiked ones she had once had in that doomed school. However, that was probably a good thing, considering the flavoring used on those.
The cafe was far too expensive and most of its food of a low quality, but she always went there for lunch; it had been a restaurant in her home universe that she had visited with the Doctor when she felt homesick and he refused to see Jackie. Mickey was always telling her to try the restaurant across the street- her mum, too. Jackie would regularly advise her to stop dwelling on the old universe and and focus on the wonders of this new one. Rose knew full well what they really meant.
But she was not dwelling. She did not obsess over seeing him again; she did not slack off on her thoroughly fascinating investigations into alien scares to read up on interversal travel. As it turned out, there were no textbooks in the local library specializing in that sort of thing, and she had moved on… in her own way. She lived a life, she smiled and cooed over the bulge that was her younger brother to- be. Life went on as if the Doctor had never been.
Except it didn’t. Not really.
If Rose had anything to do with it, it never would.
She would not- could not- ever truly forget him. He was still alive out there, impossibly far away and sometimes, during her daily Torchwood routine, she would pass the now pointless white wall and she could swear it was not so far away after all- swear that she could feel him, a ghost in her mind, just on the other side. It was impossible, of course; the wall did not really connect her to the other universe anymore. She could not even begin to comprehend the walls that separated her from the Doctor now. Fixed walls, no longer so much as a hairline fracture through which to feel him- he had sealed them all three months ago to protect both universes.
Even so, sometimes, just for a little while, she’d let herself believe that she really could feel him, that he had missed a tiny, insignificant little crack on purpose, that he could feel her too and was trying to send her a little comfort. That he was still thinking about her, too.
It was during those nights that her mother would hold her tight for hours that seemed endless. Her mum never complained and would never reprimand her; Jackie knew what it was like, having lost her husband, and, no matter how many times Rose would end up sobbing nonsensical questions like a child, she never once told Rose to let him go. They both knew Rose would never do it, and Rose occasionally considered the fact that her mum might not want her to anymore than she did.
Rose sighed as her watch beeped and glanced ruefully down at her half-finished plate of chips. One of these days she was going to actually finish her lunch.
Standing and giving her pressed uniform a quick once-over, she was out of the door before the owner finished wishing her a good day. There had recently been a strange explosion all too near to the rift, killing and injuring several people. Torchwood had been working on it for four days and it seemed like any substantial evidence had been diligently eluding them. There were no reported ghost or zombie stories, so that ruled-out anything like the Gelth, and they were left with the mere fact that it was coincidentally close to the rift. In short, they could find nothing to suggest that the event was even within Torchwood’s area of expertise.
Currently they were monitoring the city in search of anything odd that may be relevant. Rose’s job was to search through the recorded interrogations of the survivors for a tenth time and try to spot anything of importance, which was why she was not terribly worried about making her way through the mess of people heading back from lunch-breaks. In fact, she may have stopped off to pick up a gift for Pete's birthday party, to be held next week, if not for the shout that cut straight through the din of the crowd and instantly formed a lump in her throat so big she nearly choked.
A voice she could not possibly have heard.
"Rose?!”
--
The Doctor squinted slightly as he stepped out of the TARDIS. The Earth's sun always seemed entirely too bright in this regeneration. Perhaps he would take to wearing sunglasses, Rose would have certainly gotten a laugh out of that. He swallowed quickly to dispel the sudden dryness in his throat that often accompanied thoughts of Rose.
Three months. Had it really been such a short time? It felt like lifetimes since he had been robbed of his last chance to tell her that. Perhaps it was just that he had done so much in that time. First there was Donna, who had appeared just after his Rose had gone (he blamed the separation for his shortness with her) and then there was Martha. Good woman, Martha. She was intelligent and competent and he had had found himself feeling a little wistful when she had finally decided she wanted to return to her old life. Wistful like when Leela had decided to stay behind, wistful as he had been when any other companion had left. Not like Rose. Rose would never have wanted to go back- to her there was no life to go back to.
He buried his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. He had switched to a blue suit since Rose left; he just hadn’t felt right wearing the old one, the pinstripes she loved so much, and prancing around the universe as if she had never been. Regardless of the fact that she was gone from him and his universe forever, she had been and he was never going to allow himself to forget, however many regenerations remained.
It had been a few weeks since Martha had left him and he had not yet found another companion. It wasn’t as if he was searching specifically, but then, did he ever, really? They had always come to him quite suddenly and often a little rudely. They thought he chose them but, in the end, it was them that chose him every time, was it not?
He shook his head, a faint smile on his lips.
"I've gone all soft and poetic in my old age, haven't I?"
The people passing him did not seem to acknowledge that he had spoken. How stereotypically human. He smiled slightly; even he would never fully understand why he loved these silly little apes so much. He shrugged to himself, he had parked the TARDIS here near the rift to allow it to recharge, and so why was he out wandering aimlessly through the city? He could remember a time when he would end up running through these streets for one reason or another at every visit. Rose had proved to be the single greatest jeopardy magnet in the universe. He froze in his tracks. Rose was not here this time and he should be in the TARDIS trying to speed up the repairs so that the universe could be saved again as quickly as possible, not wasting his time living in a memory he could never return to.
Rose was gone. She was never coming back. It was not possible without sacrificing both universes and as much as he may want to, he could never allow himself to indulge in such supreme selfishness. Ever.
He was turning to go back to the TARDIS when she ran into him. More accurately, she slammed full-force into him, carrying an armload of books that went soaring through the air at the sudden collision. If not for his superior reflexes, he might have fallen along with her. Instead, he was just able to catch himself and the flustered brunette, looking rather dashing all the while, if he did say so himself.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm-" The woman looked up and her voice died in her throat.
Her hair was darker; perhaps she had let the blonde grow out and never bothered to re-dye it. Her face seemed more angular, her eyes reflecting the fact that she had lived through terrible, unspeakable things.
But there she stood, gaping up at him as if he had just sprouted polka-dotted antenna.
“-Doctor?!”
He did the only thing he could think of under such insane circumstances.
He kissed her.
TBC…
-----
AN: Well...>.> Rough first chapter, I know, long, monotonous...but it gets all better, I promise! Well, I'd hope so, anyway.
-Yusagi