Fic: "The Candle That Burns Brightest"
Title: The Candle That Burns Brightest
Author: icebluenothing
Rating: PG for brief language
Length: 9,200 words. This one’s kind of long, folks.
Spoilers: Spoilers for pretty much the entire season through the final episode, Parting of the Ways. (Seriously, if you haven’t seen that episode, this won’t make any sense at all.)
THE CANDLE THAT BURNS BRIGHTEST
Everything had turned out just fine. Just the way she'd known it would. She'd figured out how to work the TARDIS, just at the last moment -- remembered how she'd seen the Doctor work the controls, which dials he spun, how to prime the hand-pump, found some clearly-labelled Fast Return switch. Something. But she'd made the TARDIS turn around and take her back, to Satellite Five and the Doctor and Jack, and she'd helped the Doctor finish building his Delta Wave thing and he'd never meant to send her away, not at all, it was just an accident and he was so happy to see her, he spun her around in a huge grinning hug. The Delta Wave wiped out the Daleks and everyone was safe and everything came out just fine. Just like she knew it would.
And then Rose Tyler woke up.
* * * *
Three months, now. Three months since the TARDIS had brought her home. She woke up and got out of bed like she did every morning and every day was like walking through treacle.
She cleaned up in the kitchen as best as she could. Always so many dishes to wash. Her mum would always complain when Rose used to leave a mug or two in the sink, and she'd probably laugh if she saw what Rose was living with now. Mickey had never been a good housekeeper at best, but it seemed like he was getting worse with Rose to rely on.
Sometimes Rose thought she should just go home. Go back to living with her mum. She'd certainly asked her to often enough. But it just felt like it would be a step backward. Not like living here had been much of a step forward.
She sat down at the table, flipped open the paper, started looking for a job again. Mickey had told her over and over he didn't need her to -- he was making enough money to support both of them, doing web design for Geocomtex, and it was just barely enough. He said he'd take care of her now.
Rose didn't really want to be taken care of. But right now, Rose didn't really want much of anything.
She stared blankly in the direction of the newspaper, and wondered if she'd get dressed today. She tried not to remember the dream. She'd had it before, of course. The good dreams were the worst.
Some nights she'd dream that her TARDIS key was glowing -- he was coming back -- and she'd wake up and find she was really holding it, she'd gone to sleep holding it, and her hand was cramped around it, knuckles white. But she'd remember that the TARDIS was already here, and the Doctor wasn't coming back, and she'd drift back to uneasy sleep. Other nights she'd jerk awake and frantically search for her cell phone, remembering that it could call the future, she could reach the Doctor -- and then remembering that she could only call the TARDIS, and it was stuck here with her. Some nights she would at least dream that she'd been as brave as Jack, and had gotten to kiss the Doctor at least once.
Other nights the dreams were bad. Other nights neither one of them made it out alive. She'd dream they were back in the dungeon in Cardiff, zombies reaching through bars and pulling them apart, hot glowing blue breath in her face as their arms closed around her and dragged her down, and she'd wake up to find herself just tangled in blankets, held tight in Mickey's arms. He held her at night sometimes like he was drowning and she was a liferaft.
She got up, half-heartedly rinsed out a mug, and made herself coffee. The last thing she wanted was to go back to sleep.
What she really wanted was to wake up, wake up for real. Find out these past three months had been a dream.
If Mickey were here -- if she were dumb enough to tell him how she felt -- he knew what he'd say. The same thing he always said. The Doctor's gone, Rose. You've got to accept that. I'm here. I'll always be here.
That's just it, Mickey, she thought, taking her first bitter sip. I'll always be here, too.
* * * *
I'm here, Rose. I'm right here. I've always been with you. Always in this moment. Can you feel it yet? Are you listening? I'm waiting for you, Rose.
* * * *
"Tricia." Rose pulled her bathrobe tighter around herself. "This is -- a surprise."
Tricia just stared at her through the open doorway. Rose couldn't read her expression at all. "I'm just here to pick up the last of my things," she said. "Mickey didn't tell you I was coming?"
"No, he didn't." Rose realized with a guilty start that maybe he had. Maybe she just hadn't been listening. "Uhh, you'd better come in, then. I'm sorry, the place is a wreck right now, and I'm not dressed properly -- "
"It's all right. I won't be a moment," Tricia said, and stepped inside. "How have you been, Rose?" She said it very carefully, almost formally. Not like she wanted to know at all, but just like she knew it's what you were supposed to say.
"Oh, fine, really," Rose said, the same way. She stared at Tricia as she walked in like she owned the place. It felt so strange to see her -- she'd worked with this girl, seen her every day, but she seemed as alien right now as anything Rose had seen out in space. She seemed so different. Part of it was the weight she'd lost, but .... No, Rose realized. It's me that's different.
"There should be a cardboard box," Tricia said. "Mickey said it would be near the computer."
"Oh. Right," Rose said, going to look, moving aside newspapers and magazines that had piled up. "So, were you living here, then? When you two were going out?" Rose tried to make the question sound casual.
"No. Oh, no. No point, really. I spent some time, here, but -- no. I never moved in. No room." Her voice was so tight and perfect it sounded like it was going to break.
"Oh, right," Rose said again. "Umm. Well. Here we are, then." She pulled out of the stack a small cardboard box that had "Tricia" on it on a Post-It note in Mickey's handwriting. She handed it over.
Tricia opened it. She rummaged briefly through pictures, notes, hair clips, a little stuffed bear, silly things, simple things. "Right," Tricia said. "This is everything, then." She was standing very still. It took Rose a moment to notice the tear that was running down Tricia's cheek.
" ... Are you all right?"
"Oh. Yeah." Tricia laughed and wiped at the tears, and that only made them come harder. "It's just, you know, it's stupid, isn't it? It's just, it's such a small box. That's all."
"Small?"
"Yeah. Everything that was here, you know? Every little mark I made on his life, it all fits in here so neatly. Like it's nothing. This little box."
"Maybe it's bigger on the inside," Rose said quietly.
" ... What are you talking about?"
Rose looked up at her. "What? Oh, it's just -- maybe it's bigger than it looks. Inside. See?" She took it back for a moment, turned it over in her hands. "It looks like just a cardboard box, yeah? Like any ordinary cardboard box, but see, that's just a disguise. Inside -- it's not just this stuff. Inside are all the days the two of you ever had." She handed it back to Tricia. "If all you have left is this box -- if it means that much to you -- you should keep it. You should hang on to it tight."
Tricia took the box. Held it tight and looked at Rose through tear-bright eyes. "You're a strange girl, Rose," she said slowly. "But I think I see why he thought about you all the time."
"It can't have been all the time," Rose protested, "not if he had you here."
Tricia nodded, a strange small smile on her face. "It was, though," she said. "It's like I never really got to be with him at all. Like he left when you did. Even when he was right here with me, I knew his mind was somewhere else. It was wherever you were. There was one night -- " Tricia stopped, and sat down on the bed. "One night when we'd made plans for dinner, it was a nice restaurant and we had reservations and everything, and he just didn't show up. He didn't even call. I found out later he'd got on a train to Wales because he heard you were there. He heard a rumor and it was like I didn't exist."
"I'm sorry," Rose said, almost automatically.
Tricia shook her head. "It's all right. I got used to it. Just being near him -- he was so nice and so funny, he just -- it was enough, you know? Just being around." She was looking around the room, not looking at Rose at all. "But he'd talk to me about how you were off somewhere with the Doctor, how much he felt left behind, and I'd see how far away his eyes looked and I'd think, I know just how you feel."
She looked up at Rose, as if she'd suddenly remembered she was here. "Anyway. I didn't mean to dump all this on you. I just came for this box." She smiled and stood up. "You're lucky to have him, Rose. To have someone that devoted to you. I hope you know that."
"I do," Rose said, and she wasn't sure she did.
"Anyway. I'll leave you to your life."
And then Rose let her out, and all Rose could think was: This isn't my life.
This can't be my life.
* * * *
A couple of months after that and Rose was on her way home from work. It wasn't much, just a job in a fish-and-chips place, and she came home every night smelling of grease and fish, feeling it in her skin, her hair, but it was something, a little bit of pocket money, a little independence. Have a wonderful life, the Doctor had told her, and she was sure this wasn't what he'd meant. But she didn't know how to get to there from here. Or if she wanted to at all.
She stopped by again. It was a little out of her way, but not much. The TARDIS stood on its street corner, where it would stand forever. She was sure that by the year-two-stroke-apple-hundred-million, or whatever it was, it would still be here when the sun burned the planet apart. And then it would be here after that.
She rested her hand and her cheek against the surface that looked and felt like painted wood. Closed her eyes, listened, felt the vibrations. Let the TARDIS die, the Doctor had said. She couldn't imagine it. The TARDIS was still warm to the touch, felt so full of life and vitality. It just stood, waiting.
The key was on a chain around her neck. She slid it out from under her shirt. She wore it on her all the time now, ever since the time weeks back Mickey thought he'd be doing her a favor by hiding it from her. That was an argument like they'd never had before. She screamed like something wild, threw dirty dishes and shattered them against the wall. Hit him with small and useless fists until he relented and gave it back and both of them had cried for hours.
She slipped the key into the lock, opened the doors.
It was still here. All of it still here. She stepped inside, and the air felt stale and wrong, but the console glowed and thrummed with life. It looked just like she'd left it, like the Doctor and Jack would come strolling in any moment, chatting and laughing, and whisk her off to someplace like Raxi -- Raxicalico --
Rose sat down on the floor and cried. Why? she thought. Why wouldn't you open?
It's not your fault, Rose, Mickey had told her so many times. We tried. We did our best. The chains just weren't strong enough, that's all. We don't know what the TARDIS is made of, but it's something stronger than what we had. It was a good idea and we tried and that's all anybody could ask. We don't even know if it would have worked if we had gotten it open.
It would've, though. Rose knew. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew.
"Why?" Rose asked again, out loud this time, and she wasn't talking to the TARDIS anymore. She was talking to the man who wasn't standing there. "Why did you send me away? Wasn't I good enough? I was the best, you said. Why couldn't you trust me? Why did you leave?"
she knew the answer to that, too. The Doctor wanted her to be safe. But she was going to die here, too. Slowly and painfully, one day at a time, like everyone else. Everything has its time and everything dies. He couldn't save her forever. So why this?
After a while she stood, shakily, all tears and sniffles, and headed off to her old room in the TARDIS. She still had some things here, and she still spent the night here sometimes. If Mickey wondered where she went those nights -- he'd learned not to ask.
* * * *
I'm right here, Rose. You know how to find me. You know how to set me loose. You just have to do it. I'm here, Rose. Can't you see me? I'm burning so bright. Can't you find me, even in the dark? You're not looking, Rose. You have to look.
* * * *
Every day was just the same as the one before it. Until Rose came home one night and found Mickey and Shireen waiting for her with expectant smiles and a cake with a candle in it.
"Surprise!" they said together.
Rose stared. "What's all this, then? It's not my birthday." She was staring most at Shireen. They'd been the closest friends once, and Rose had barely seen her since --
"Don't you know what today is?" Mickey asked.
Rose shook her head and tried to smile. "Thursday?"
"Silly. It's your anniversary!"
"Anniversary? My anniversary of -- " She realized what he meant and it was like a punch to the stomach. She sat down heavily. "Oh, God, Mickey," she said.
Mickey was still all smiles. "You've been back for one year today. We just wanted to celebrate having you home. I got you a present! You always complain that I'm always on the computer, so I got you a laptop of your own from work. Your mum will be round later, once she -- "
"Mickey. Stop. Just stop."
Shireen's smile faltered. "Maybe I should go," she said, and no one answered her.
"Think about what you're saying," Rose said. "It's been one year that I've been trapped here. One whole year since I left the Doctor behind to die, and I didn't have a choice about it and it's the last thing in the world I want to celebrate!" Rose's eyes were wet, but she wouldn't let herself cry. "And you got me a cake? God. Mickey the Idiot."
"I should go," Shireen said, and went to get her bag.
Before she could leave, Rose left. Just stood up and walked to the door.
Mickey just stared at her departing back, and turned to look at the still-wrapped laptop. "D'you not want your present, then?" he said, in a quiet empty voice, as Rose closed the door behind her.
* * * *
She lived in the TARDIS after that. She had nowhere else to go, really, and this way she wouldn't have to worry about rent or about imposing on anyone else. And she wasn't going home, not after the things her mum had said about the Doctor.
This worked out all right for a couple more months. She had just left everything behind at Mickey's -- nothing there worth coming back for. She had enough clothing and other personal items in the TARDIS to make camping out there workable.
She lost her job at the fish-and-chip shop, after being late once too often -- her watch didn't run right in the TARDIS -- but she didn't care. She hated that job anyway, and with somewhere to live and food to eat from the TARDIS larders, money wasn't really an issue.
The only real issue was that it was so quiet and empty here. It felt like a mausoleum without the Doctor in it. She thought about maybe getting a cat.
One day, she'd been out -- Shireen bought her lunch, and they'd sat in Trafalgar Square and fed the pigeons and talked and laughed a while, which had been nice -- and she came back to the TARDIS as it was getting dark. The familiar glow of the lights from the signs and the windows was like a warm hearth to come back to.
And as she slid her key into the lock, the key started to glow.
Something's happening, was her immediate, excited thought. After all these months of nothing, something's happening.
When she saw just what was happening, she panicked.
The key was pulled out of her fingers. It glowed and melted and flowed into the lock and was gone.
"No." Just a stunned whisper. Then a scream. "NO!" She pounded and pounded on the door.
The light on top lit up, and for a moment she thought the TARDIS was fading, disappearing. But a beam shot from the light, resolved into a blue hazy image. The hologram of the Doctor, leaning casually against the side of the TARDIS.
"Emergency program number two," the voice she never thought she'd hear again said. "Hello, Rose."
Rose fell. She lost her balance and tried to catch herself and slid down the Police Box door, sat heavily down on the ground. Staring up as those eyes stared down at her.
"You're probably wondering what just happened. Well, it's simple. You're being evicted." The Doctor smiled. "I wanted to give you a chance first, time to sort out your things and all that. You lived here, too, after all. But I told you to let the TARDIS be, Rose. I programmed it so if it thought you were coming back too often -- and you have been, haven't you, naughty girl? Can't keep your fingers out of the cookie jar -- it was to take your key back."
The Doctor's image smiled at her sadly, hands thrust awkwardly in his pockets. "You probably hate me right now. I'm sorry for that. But I need you to move on, Rose. I need you to live your life. And you can't do that here. You've got to let go. You've got to let me go."
The hologram knelt down next to her. Rose didn't understand how it could do it, how a recording could know where she'd be. But it didn't matter. He was the Doctor. He was magic. It reached out a hand to place against her cheek and her hand shot up to touch it. It was like touching electric steam. "This is the last time I'll talk to you like this. So don't hold out for emergency program number three, if that's what you're thinking. I'm done. I had a good life, Rose, but never an ordinary one. I envy you right now, for everything you'll get to do. And I know you'll be fantastic. Of all the people I ever travelled with -- you were the best."
He faded. Rose curled into a little ball and sat there with her arms wrapped around her knees until it got too cold outside to stand it anymore, and then she pulled out her mobile, stared at it for a little while, and called Shireen.
* * * *
This won't stop you. This won't stop me. You know that, Rose -- you'd know if you looked in the mirror and called my name. Can you hear it? Can you hear the world calling my name? I'm getting closer. Moving so fast it's like you're standing still.
Stand still, Rose. Let me catch you.
* * * *
Despite all the months Rose had let their friendship lie dormant, Shireen took her in without complaint, let her stay, loaned her clothes, bought her what groceries she could, tried to help find her work.
Mickey came by once or twice, when he found out where she was staying. He never stayed long and he never said much. The last time, he brought over some boxes with her name on them in felt pen. Everything she'd left behind. She quietly unpacked it all after he left. It was more than Tricia had got. Down at the bottom of it all, in the largest box, was the laptop he'd bought her, still in its wrapping paper. She put it back untouched in the box, put it in the closet she was using.
She wasn't doing well. She was getting headaches. More and more often, out of nowhere, sometimes so bad she'd almost black out for a moment. Shireen begged her to go see a doctor. Rose shrugged it off, tried to ignore it and get on with her life.
Some nights the headaches kept coming so much she couldn't sleep.
And nights when she could sleep, well ....
The Dalek dreams were the worst. Sometimes they'd be in Van Statten's base. Sometimes in their ship, sometimes Satellite Five. Some nights it all blurred together into one long unescapable maze.
Tonight's dream was especially vivid. She was back on Satellite Five -- the dream had started out so good, she'd figured out how the TARDIS worked and went back to save the Doctor -- and everything had gone black and wrong.
There were just a few survivors left. "See you in hell," Jack told her, firing round after round of bullets and the Daleks just moved through them like they were raindrops. The awful sound of their weapons, firing over and over, people all around her turning to bodies hitting the floor.
The Daleks had her pinned down, surrounding her. "Jack!" she cried out. "Jack, help!"
Jack opened his mouth to answer her, and the last moment she saw him was as the Dalek gunfire lit him up from the inside, bones bright and glowing right through his skin, smoke curling up out of his open mouth for an answer.
She was the last one standing. "Doctor!" She was screaming it so loud it almost wasn't recognizable as a word. "Doctor!"
"HE. CANNOT. SAVE. YOU." The nearest Dalek reached out with its sucker arm, pushed her back against a wall. She could feel her ribs starting to give, feel the breath being pushed out of her. "YOU. CANNOT. SAVE. HIM. WHAT. USE. ARE. EMOTIONS? IF. YOU. CANNOT. SAVE. THE. MAN. YOU. LOVE?"
Every rational response was gone. She couldn't fight, she couldn't run, the only thing left was deep inside, buried down so deep, one last prayer, one last cry for help, her last breath before extermination when everything else had failed --
"DADDY!" Rose screamed.
And the Daleks were blown backward by the force of the word.
* * * *
"What's the matter, my Rosie? Can't sleep?"
Rose shook her head, looking up at her daddy smiling down at her from the glow of his desk lamp.
This never happened. Rose knew it. She could remember the world she was born into, the world where her father died alone; and she could remember the world she made, the world where she'd been there to share his last moments. And that was all. But somewhere, deep inside, she could remember the world she'd had for just a moment, the world where he never died at all. Her mind stirred, knowing this wasn't a dream, but a memory. It had never happened, but it was a memory all the same, just as real as anything.
"I'm scared," Rose told him. She looked up at him and he looked as big as the world. Rose was three, almost four, and she couldn't sleep at all that night.
"Well, now." He looked down at her, all ginger hair and easy smiles. "What are you scared of, Rosie?"
"The story."
"Your bedtime story?" She nodded, and he nodded back. He pushed the papers he was working on -- something important, something to do with the sun -- away and patted his lap. "Hop on up here, then," he said, and Rose did.
He looked at her, still nodding. "It was kind of a scary story, wasn't it? Are you scared the big bad wolf is going to come and blow our house down?"
Rose nodded, tears in her big eyes.
"It's okay, Rose. It's not going to happen." He put his arm around her. "It's just a story. You know what that means, don't you?"
She nodded. "It's not real."
"You're sure of that, right?"
Rose squirmed. "Kinda."
"That's okay. I know stories are scary anyway. But you know what else is true about stories?"
"What?"
"You can change them. If they're too scary, or you don't like the way they turn out, you can go back and tell them different. Did you know that?"
Rose shook her head.
"Well, you can. You can tell a better story next time. Maybe -- maybe instead of blowing their houses down, the big bad wolf comes by and has tea and biscuits with the little pigs, instead. Would that be better?"
Rose giggled, despite herself. "That would be silly."
"Sure, maybe. It's okay to tell silly stories, though, if it cheers you up when you're scared. Or maybe you could tell it so you're the big bad wolf this time."
Rose's eyes widened. "Why?"
"Well -- you remember that older girl who pushed you off the swings on the playground the other day?"
Rose nodded vigorously. "She was mean."
"Would you like to be able to go blow her house down, then?"
Rose giggled again, delighted and scandalized. "Yeah!"
"See? Sometimes, if you're scared, then you should be the scary one instead. You can't always let people push you down. You have to be the bad wolf sometimes. Sometimes -- sometimes you have to be strong, instead of kind, for just a little while. Do you understand?"
Rose nodded. Then said, "No."
He laughed. Her daddy laughing was the best sound in the world. "Well, maybe you will when you're older. Let's get you back to bed, and we'll tell a different story, and you can help me tell it, okay? Would you like that?"
Rose thought, and then nodded.
"Good. 'Cause it's really late and it's time for little girls to go to sleep."
Rose felt happy and dreamy already. Time for sleep.
But another voice was telling her something else. That it was time to wake up.
"Rose! Rose!"
She jerked awake, and Shireen was standing there shaking her. She was standing, too, and clutched tight in her hand was -- a felt pen?
She looked around. The windows were midnight dark. The place looked wrecked -- Shireen's glass coffee table tipped over and smashed, shelves knocked down.
For a moment, Rose didn't notice any of that.
All she could see, on every wall, every flat surface, in her own frantic scrawl, was two words.
Bad Wolf.
* * * *
Shireen insisted. Jackie had insisted, as well -- Rose was seeing a doctor, full stop. Jackie had asked around, gotten referrals, found someone to send Rose to.
And that was how she'd met Doctor Tom.
The moment Thomas Edmund walked into the room, you just knew everything was going to be fine. He had that effect on everyone, Rose later found out. He just had this quiet confidence, this direct gaze, a soft and casual smile.
He couldn't find what was wrong with her, but he made it seem like he'd expected that, and this was just one step toward finding the solution, nothing to worry about. He'd made some calls, done some research, sent her to specialists.
The specialists all said the same thing. There was nothing wrong with her. Rose kept getting headaches, her head like it was splitting open, like there was a whole world inside that had to come out. But no one could find a cause. She even had a cat scan, EKG, everything.
Post-traumatic, they said. Psychosomatic. All in your head. Like that made any difference.
Doctor Tom called her every once in a while, to see how she was doing. And when he started to stop by Shireen's apartment to see how she was doing, once she was no longer his patient, she realized his interest was more than just professional. She was flattered -- she was more than flattered, she was a little light-headed each time he turned those eyes toward her, to be honest -- but it was all too soon. There was still so much she had to work out.
For one thing, she still hadn't figured out how she was getting back into the TARDIS.
* * * *
"Mickey, I need your help."
He stood in his doorway, not letting her in. "Rose." His voice was carefully flat. "It's been a long time."
"More than a year," she agreed. "I'm sorry, I should have come by sooner, but -- "
"But there was nothing you needed until now, is that it?"
Rose's face fell. "Are we going to be like that, then?"
Mickey shrugged. "What do you need, Rose? Don't tell me -- something to do with the Doctor, right?"
She took a deep breath. "I don't have my TARDIS key anymore," she said. "I need to get back in."
Mickey just stared for a long moment. His eyes were like ice. "Why?
She looked lost. "I just do."
Mickey sighed. "So what do you want me to do about it?"
"I've been trying to find out something, anything, about the Doctor, but I can't find anything. I mean, not anywhere. I've been trying all the search engines, and I can't find him. I can't even find Clive's site. Or Clive, come to that."
Mickey just said, "I think you'd better come inside."
She did. The place was clean. There was framed art on one of the walls, not just posters. Rose thought it looked like someone else lived here now, maybe Tricia, maybe someone else -- but she didn't think she had the right to ask.
Mickey's desk was just as much of a mess as always, which was somehow comforting. He rummaged in the stacks for a minute. "Here," he said, handing her an unlabelled CD-ROM.
"This has information about the Doctor?"
"This is from the Doctor," Mickey corrected. "That's why you can't find anything."
Rose frowned. "I don't get it."
"It's a virus. He told me to run it. It wiped out everything about him on the Internet. And good riddance."
"What -- I don't -- " Rose closed her eyes, shook her head. "You did this?"
"Rose, he asked me to. It was his idea. If you're mad at anyone, blame him for once."
Rose was about to launch into recriminations, into their old arguments and patterns, and just took a deep breath instead. Tried to let it go. "Okay. Okay. So. Do you have any leads for me? Do you remember any of what you found out?"
"Sorry."
"There's got to be something." Rose's head was pounding. "What about -- what about that military lot? D'you remember them? The ones you said he worked for?"
"UNIT," Mickey said reluctantly. "What about them?"
"Can you get in touch with them? Maybe they know how to get into the TARDIS. They might even know how to open the console, Mickey! It's a time machine. Maybe it's not too late! I might still be able to save him!"
He didn't say anything for a long time. When he did, he said, "You're never going to be able to let this go, are you?"
She shook her head quickly. "Not until I've tried everything."
"I'll call them."
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. He stood there stiffly and let her.
"Just so you're clear on one thing, yeah?" Mickey said.
"What's that?"
"This is it, Rose, I swear to God. No more favors, no more good dependable Mickey, all right? I never want to hear his name again, I don't want to see you again."
" .... D'you mean that?"
"I loved you, Rose. I loved you for the longest time. That's why I'm doing this. But I cannot take any more. I don't want you showing up at my door in another year, or another five, or another ten. I just want my own life. All right?"
"All right," Rose said. "I mean, yeah, of course, that's fine." She didn't feel fine. She felt like her head was going to burst. She felt adrift. "You will call them?"
"I'll call them."
* * * *
You don't need him, Rose. You don't need anyone. You don't even need the Doctor.
You only need me.
* * * *
She kept waiting for Mickey to call. Waiting to hear that he'd gotten in touch with UNIT, what he'd told them, what they said.
She passed by the TARDIS every day, stopping to touch it like petting a cat. "I'll be coming home soon," she kept telling it. "I'll find a way back in, and then we'll go save him, just you and me. He'll be okay. I'll be home soon."
Then one day, she couldn't get near the TARDIS at all.
The street was blocked off with sawhorses and CAUTION tape. And by men with guns. There were military vehicles parked behind the cordoned-off area, and there was a huge olive-green lorry with a crane on it. Men were wrapping chains around the TARDIS.
Rose did the mad thing. She rushed the barrier.
One of the men caught her and held her.
"You've got to let me through! You can't! You can't take it!"
"Miss, if you'd just calm down a moment -- "
"You can't take it! It's mine! You can't have it!"
Rose stood and screamed helplessly at the military men -- "It's mine! You give it back!" -- as they loaded it onto the lorry, and quietly drove away.
* * * *
Rose called Mickey very late at night, after the pubs and bars had closed.
"Why did you do it?" she asked. "Why did you let them take it?"
"Rose, it was what they wanted to do, all right? It's not like I had a choice. Besides, it's for the best."
"How can you say that?" she wailed.
"Maybe now you can let go. You need to move on, Rose."
"That's what he said. But what if I don't want to? Don't I get to decide? Can't I live the life I want? If I want to wait for him to come back -- can't I -- "
"Give me the phone." The voice on the other end was muffled and quiet, but firm, and Rose could hear it quite plainly. Some female voice she didn't know. "Rose Tyler?" the voice asked.
"Who the hell is this?"
"Don't call this number any more."
"What -- gives you the right to -- "
"Don't call this number any more, or I shall be forced to call the police."
The voice hung up.
Rose stared at her mobile in disbelief. "The police? Why not just call the fuckin' army?"
After a long moment, she deleted Mickey's number from her phone.
She thought about it a minute more, and deleted the TARDIS' number, as well.
I might regret that when I'm sober, she thought. Then again, I might not.
* * * *
She didn't get out of bed for three days. Shireen didn't ask what happened -- just brought her tea and soup. Rose figured she'd talked to Mickey.
On the fourth day, she got out of bed and stood up, went and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked -- well, she looked like someone who had stretched out a hangover for three days.
I can't believe this is my life, she thought, not for the first time.
Her dream from all those months ago suddenly came back to her.
If I don't like the story, I can change it. I can tell another one.
Her headache suddenly cleared. It was like a bright sunbeam through a cloudbreak.
She stared at her reflection for a long moment.
Then she went to the closet, dug out the biggest of Mickey's boxes, and reached down past her clothes to the laptop. She pulled it out and tore off the wrapping paper, left it forgotten on the floor.
She plugged it in, sat down, and turned it on.
And started to write.
* * * *
She'd figured out how to work the TARDIS, just at the last moment -- remembered how she'd seen the Doctor work the controls, which dials he spun, how to prime the hand-pump. She'd made the TARDIS turn around and take her back, to Satellite Five and the Doctor and Jack, and she'd helped the Doctor finish building his Delta Wave thing and he'd never meant to send her away, not at all, it was just an accident and he was so happy to see her, he spun her around in a huge grinning hug. The Delta Wave wiped out the Daleks and everyone was safe and everything came out just fine. They flew off into time and space and kept having adventure after adventure.
She dreamed her adventures sometimes, and wrote those down. Dreamed about invasions at Christmas and fighting the Cybermen. She was starting to forget what the Doctor had looked like, and sometimes in her dreams he looked totally different, and she cried a little when she woke up and realized that. But she kept writing down the dreams.
Then she went back and wrote it all down, over and over, as best as she could, refining it. It took her months. She found a job, in the meantime -- front desk at a hotel, nothing exciting, but to her, this was her real job, right now. Occupational therapy. Writing down how a 900-year old alien had saved a London shop girl and taken her on the trip of a lifetime. Changing things a little here and there, making it come out the way it should have, not the way it did.
Doctor Tom kept coming by. She showed him what she was working on, and he was fascinated. He loved reading it all. Eventually, she told him it was all true, mostly, and he somehow believed her.
He was the one, in the end, to suggest that she really change things -- change some names here and there, the Wanderer instead of the Doctor, a made-up name instead of her own -- and try to get it published. He knew some people who knew some people, and he felt sure he could get a literary agent to look at it.
It was something to work toward. Long nights going over manuscript pages together gave way slowly and dreamily to wine and long kisses good night and flowers for Rose. For his Rose.
It took years, but Rose wrote it all down, and let someone else love her. The headaches started to fade, a little.
* * * *
Her mother didn't approve. Oh, she approved of Doctor Tom -- she had teased Rose so much about falling for another Doctor, which Rose didn't appreciate. It was the writing.
"It's not healthy, Rose," Jackie said, which sounded funny coming from the voice she was slowly ruining with cigarettes. "This isn't moving on. This is just dwelling on the past. It's not good for you, love. You're wasting your life on memories and dreams. You're just like your father."
"Maybe I am," Rose would say calmly.
Jackie changed her tune a little when Rose managed to get The Wanderer published. It was only a small press that published it, and most bookstores didn't have it, but still, it was something real you could hold in your hand. And it was a little money coming in, which made it respectable in Jackie's eyes.
She'd quit the job at the hotel, once she started writing the sequel, once she started living with Doctor Tom. He never made a big deal about Taking Care of Her the way Mickey had -- it just quietly happened, with his usual grace and confidence, his simple way of making it clear that everything was going to be all right.
And on her wedding day, when she stood at the altar with him --
That was the day she finally gave up her last, small spark of hope that the Doctor was going to come back for her. Somehow find his way, despite certain death and no TARDIS. When no one spoke up to object to this union, she was sure.
She settled in to her life, like a hand in a glove. She had her house and her garden and her Doctor Tom, and she was as happy and content as she could manage. They had three cats and a turtle and never children.
* * * *
He came home late one night from the hospital and found her out on the back porch, staring up at the sky through the telescope he'd bought her for her fortieth birthday.
"What are you looking at?" he asked, and she looked up at him. He looked dead-tired, but happy as always to see her.
She pointed. "That third star from the left in Cassiopeia. See it?"
He nodded, leaned down to the eye-piece and squinted. "I see it."
"The people there had faces like puppy dogs. They were so sweet. I had the best steak there, you wouldn't believe. Melted like butter in my mouth."
He stood up and grinned. "Sounds good."
"I wish I could take you there."
"Write about it, then. You've taken me everywhere you've gone."
"Mmm." She kissed him on the cheek. "Nice to have a fan."
"You've got more than one, it looks like. You didn't get the mail today?"
She shook her head. "I was writing."
"You've got more mail." He waved the envelope at her, and she took it.
She didn't know it, but she'd been waiting years for this letter.
* * * *
"Thanks for agreeing to meet with me, Ms. Edmund," her visitor said. "I know you haven't granted many interviews."
"Not many people have asked, actually," Rose said. "My books are hardly bestsellers."
"Very worthwhile, though."
"Nice of you to say so, Miss -- I'm so sorry, I've forgotten your name again."
"Smith. Sarah Jane Smith."
Rose frowned. "I've heard that somewhere before."
"I used to be a reporter for the Look Again newsfeed? You might have read some of my articles?"
"Hmmm. Maybe."
"It was a while ago," Sarah Jane admitted. "Now I just write book reviews, mostly. Keeps me out of trouble." She winked. "Although I have something to admit to you."
"Oh? What's that?"
"I'm here more out of a -- personal interest, than a professional interest," she said. "I read your books, and certain details seemed -- familiar to me."
" .... In what way?"
"I think perhaps we have a mutual friend," Sarah Jane said.
For one moment, Rose thought her heart was going to stop.
"Tell me," Sarah Jane said, pulling something out of her pocket, "does -- this -- look familiar to you?"
She handed it over. Rose took it and examined it. It was a small, flat piece of metal, shaped almost like an ankh, almost like a tiny spade. One side had a crazy-quilt pattern to it, the other had what looked like a constellation.
"No," Rose admitted, "what is it?"
"Oh," Sarah Jane said, and that was all she said. Her disappointment seemed to fill the room.
Rose kept staring at it. Her head was suddenly pounding. The old headaches, back worse than ever --
(That's it. Keep going. You're so close.)
The metal in her hand pulsing like a heartbeat, glowing with inner light. Sarah Jane stared in fascination. "It's never done that," Sarah Jane breathed.
Rose had felt this once before -- more than half a lifetime ago, but --
"This is a TARDIS key, isn't it?" she said slowly. "Did the Doctor give this to you?"
Sarah Jane stared at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed with delight. The two women suddenly embraced and started laughing, laughing with the sheer joy of not being alone in the world.
* * * *
Sarah Jane left the key with her. Rose hadn't wanted to ask, and in the end Sarah Jane offered. Rose could tell how reluctant she was to let go of it, but she had insisted Rose take it when she told her what had really happened to the Doctor.
Rose told her Doctor Tom all about the visit, of course, showed him the key. He seemed just as excited as she was. She still had no idea where the TARDIS was, of course, no way to get to it, no plan even if she could, but still, to have this tangible link back on a chain around her neck -- it felt electric.
She had trouble getting to sleep that night. And when she did sleep, she dreamed of the Doctor.
But it wasn't a pleasant dream.
* * * *
She was back in St. Christopher's. The church where her father had died. Everyone was in black, everyone was mourning.
It wasn't her father's funeral.
Huge shadows moved across stained glass. Bat-winged shapes -- shapes she knew.
She knew most of the people inside the church. Family. Jackie, of course. Shireen and what few other friends she had. People she'd met while travelling. Charles Dickens was there, and the Face of Boe. Margaret Slitheen, cradling her own egg in her arms, alpha and omega.
At up at the altar --
"We are gathered here today to lay to rest the body of Rose Tyler."
The Doctor looked strangely comfortable with a priest's collar under his leather jacket. The body in the casket was unquestionably hers, just the way she'd looked at nineteen.
"I come here not to praise her, but to bury her," the Doctor said. "She was given the greatest chance of all. Life. And she wasted it."
That's not fair, Rose tried to say, but she had no voice. She was dead, after all.
"Rose could have done anything. She could have seen the world. Climbed Everest. Fed the hungry. Comforted the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable. Instead, she chose this."
He slapped the casket, and she looked down at it. At the blue wood and the lights and the words. Police Public Call Box, it read.
"Rose Tyler decided to climb into this coffin and stay there. Spent too much of her present on her past. Have a fantastic life, I told her. And for what?"
The body in the coffin was aging. It got older, year by year, as Rose watched. The shadows outside whirled by faster and faster. Somewhere a wolf was howling.
"I trusted Rose. She thought I sent her away because I didn't trust her, but I did. I trusted she'd do more than this. I thought she was my best friend, but it turns out she was just a stupid ape like the rest of them. Go on, then, bury her. I'm fed up with her."
He turned and walked away.
Doctor! She wanted to cry out. She screamed in silence with dead lungs. They were lowering her into the ground, everyone tossing a handful of dirt in. Doctor! What do I do?
The coffin fell and fell deeper and deeper, and hit the bottom of the grave --
And Rose woke up.
And she knew what she should have done. Understood, in the chill of the night air, how she had misunderstood her life.
She was never supposed to spin fairy tales. That wasn't the story she was supposed to change.
Her life was the story she was supposed to change.
Doctor Tom's sleeping hand reached toward her side of the bed. She reached out her own hand, squeezed his gently, and ran down the hall.
* * * *
She activated the net terminal, slid the eyescreen on, and accessed the Internet. Found the nodesite for UNIT, tried to access the secure server.
"Authorization required beyond this point. Please provide password."
"Password is -- " She tried to remember what the Doctor had told Mickey, more than half a lifetime ago. Surely it wouldn't still work? "Password is buffalo."
She waited. "I'm sorry, that password is incorrect," the nodesite told her. "Please provide password."
Her mind raced. Her finger hovered over the disconnect icon. This was ridiculous. How could she get in? She was just -- just a stupid ape. Waking up out of a dream and thinking she could --
Wait.
She knew. She knew what it had to be.
"Password is Bad Wolf."
She waited. Surely they were logging these attempts, surely they'd track her down, arrest her for --
"Access is granted," the nodesite said. "Welcome, Rose Tyler."
Rose let out a harsh, tiny breath, somewhere between a disbelieving laugh and a sigh of relief.
"Select menu item."
Her eyes raced through the submenus. "Keyword search. Index one is Doctor. Index two is TARDIS. Cross reference and display results as map."
"One moment, please."
There.
"Displaying results. Select menu item."
"Print results, clear log, and disconnect."
"Done. Thank you."
She ripped off the eyescreen and grabbed the map from the printer. Not far from here -- just an hour or two if she drove fast. She needed clothes, her keys, she needed to wake up Thomas --
She turned and he was standing in the doorway.
Her heart jumped. "I -- I was coming to tell you -- "
He smiled. It was his best everything-is-going-to-be-all-right smile. "You have to leave."
"I -- yeah." She swallowed hard. "God, Tom, I don't -- How can I -- "
"Shhhh. Come here." He put his arms around her, and she put hers around him and held him tight. "It's okay."
" -- But I don't know if I'm coming back."
"I know." He brushed her hair out of her eyes. "I've known this day would come for years, Rose Edmund. You've always had one eye for me, and one eye on the stars, and I love you. So much. And I've always loved that about you."
He squeezed her so tight she thought she would stop breathing, he kissed her fiercely, and then he let her go.
"If you've got to go, go," he told her. "Save the Doctor. Save the world. Kiss him for me, just once, and thank him for all the stories, all right?"
"Tom, I -- "
He put a finger to her lips. "Rose." He held the door open for her. "Fly."
* * * *
The secret to infiltrating anywhere, the Doctor had told her more than once, is to walk in like you own the place. She didn't have his sonic screwdriver to get past the razor wire, but wire cutters did just as well.
If she was caught, she could be arrested, maybe shot --
She didn't care. Something was happening. No -- she was doing something.
There wasn't much security surrounding the TARDIS. That surprised Rose at first, until she realized -- why guard an indestructible box no one can open?
There were people here at the base, even this late at night, but Rose never saw any of them. She waited in shadows and stilled her breathing and waited for footsteps to pass, and never got caught.
She found the room the maps indicated. Held her breath and opened the door.
And there it stood, waiting and patient.
She slid the key from around her neck, tried to slide it into the keyhole -- stared in fascination as the keyhole changed shape to take the new key. Please work. Please let me in.
The door opened. Rose stepped into the TARDIS, home at last.
She closed the door quietly behind her, and turned her attention to the console.
Now what? What was her plan?
She didn't have a plan. The Doctor never had a plan and it didn't matter.
She walked over to the console, stared at the panel that she and Jackie and Mickey had broken chains trying to open, a lifetime ago. Worlds ago.
She was stronger than chains. "Open."
There was a moment's silence. "I know you can hear me," Rose said. "The Doctor told me you were alive. Told me you were telepathic. Read my mind. Listen. Open."
She stared at it. Felt like it was staring back. "Open. You'll do as you're told. Open."
She wanted to pound on it, wanted to scream, wanted to tear the place apart. She held it all in and focused it outward like a laser. "Open. You will open. I've waited all my life for this and you're not going to stop me. Open up."
Sometimes, Rose thought, sometimes you have to be strong, instead of kind, for just a little while.
"Open."
There was a shift, a change in the air.
"Open!"
And the panel started to move.
"OPEN NOW!"
It did.
Light poured out. Filled Rose's eyes and filled her mind. And the time rotor, then the TARDIS itself, started to move.
She wasn't alone.
She looked across the console --
There she was. It was her, it was Rose, the way she used to be. She used to be so young and so beautiful. She was shining, this other, younger self. Shining like an angel.
" .... Are you me?"
You know who I am.
"You are me. And you're -- "
You know who I am. You know who you are. Say it.
"You're ... the Bad Wolf."
Yes. We are. We always have been. We'll always be here in this moment.
"What are you doing here -- ?"
The same as you. Going to save Doctor. To save Jack. Everyone.
"How?"
I opened the console. Mickey helped you. The chain held. It didn't break.
" -- But that's not what happened."
What did Daddy tell you?
"If ... if I don't like the story .... "
Then change it. Do you want to change the story, Rose? Do you want to be you or do you want to be me?
"I want to save -- "
Who?
"Everyone."
Take my hand.
"What will happen -- to me? To my life? Everything that happened since that day?"
Gone. When you're the Bad Wolf, you can blow out all your yesterdays like a candle. Are you willing?
" -- Will it hurt?"
This is life, Rose. Everything hurts. But we can hurt the Daleks, Rose. We can blow their house down. Take my hand. We'll tell a different story, and you can help me tell it, okay? Would you like that?
Rose nodded.
She took hold of the Bad Wolf's hand. And let go of everything else.
_________
Cross-posted to dwfiction, new_who, sortofyeah, and time_and_chips
Author: icebluenothing
Rating: PG for brief language
Length: 9,200 words. This one’s kind of long, folks.
Spoilers: Spoilers for pretty much the entire season through the final episode, Parting of the Ways. (Seriously, if you haven’t seen that episode, this won’t make any sense at all.)
THE CANDLE THAT BURNS BRIGHTEST
Everything had turned out just fine. Just the way she'd known it would. She'd figured out how to work the TARDIS, just at the last moment -- remembered how she'd seen the Doctor work the controls, which dials he spun, how to prime the hand-pump, found some clearly-labelled Fast Return switch. Something. But she'd made the TARDIS turn around and take her back, to Satellite Five and the Doctor and Jack, and she'd helped the Doctor finish building his Delta Wave thing and he'd never meant to send her away, not at all, it was just an accident and he was so happy to see her, he spun her around in a huge grinning hug. The Delta Wave wiped out the Daleks and everyone was safe and everything came out just fine. Just like she knew it would.
And then Rose Tyler woke up.
* * * *
Three months, now. Three months since the TARDIS had brought her home. She woke up and got out of bed like she did every morning and every day was like walking through treacle.
She cleaned up in the kitchen as best as she could. Always so many dishes to wash. Her mum would always complain when Rose used to leave a mug or two in the sink, and she'd probably laugh if she saw what Rose was living with now. Mickey had never been a good housekeeper at best, but it seemed like he was getting worse with Rose to rely on.
Sometimes Rose thought she should just go home. Go back to living with her mum. She'd certainly asked her to often enough. But it just felt like it would be a step backward. Not like living here had been much of a step forward.
She sat down at the table, flipped open the paper, started looking for a job again. Mickey had told her over and over he didn't need her to -- he was making enough money to support both of them, doing web design for Geocomtex, and it was just barely enough. He said he'd take care of her now.
Rose didn't really want to be taken care of. But right now, Rose didn't really want much of anything.
She stared blankly in the direction of the newspaper, and wondered if she'd get dressed today. She tried not to remember the dream. She'd had it before, of course. The good dreams were the worst.
Some nights she'd dream that her TARDIS key was glowing -- he was coming back -- and she'd wake up and find she was really holding it, she'd gone to sleep holding it, and her hand was cramped around it, knuckles white. But she'd remember that the TARDIS was already here, and the Doctor wasn't coming back, and she'd drift back to uneasy sleep. Other nights she'd jerk awake and frantically search for her cell phone, remembering that it could call the future, she could reach the Doctor -- and then remembering that she could only call the TARDIS, and it was stuck here with her. Some nights she would at least dream that she'd been as brave as Jack, and had gotten to kiss the Doctor at least once.
Other nights the dreams were bad. Other nights neither one of them made it out alive. She'd dream they were back in the dungeon in Cardiff, zombies reaching through bars and pulling them apart, hot glowing blue breath in her face as their arms closed around her and dragged her down, and she'd wake up to find herself just tangled in blankets, held tight in Mickey's arms. He held her at night sometimes like he was drowning and she was a liferaft.
She got up, half-heartedly rinsed out a mug, and made herself coffee. The last thing she wanted was to go back to sleep.
What she really wanted was to wake up, wake up for real. Find out these past three months had been a dream.
If Mickey were here -- if she were dumb enough to tell him how she felt -- he knew what he'd say. The same thing he always said. The Doctor's gone, Rose. You've got to accept that. I'm here. I'll always be here.
That's just it, Mickey, she thought, taking her first bitter sip. I'll always be here, too.
* * * *
I'm here, Rose. I'm right here. I've always been with you. Always in this moment. Can you feel it yet? Are you listening? I'm waiting for you, Rose.
* * * *
"Tricia." Rose pulled her bathrobe tighter around herself. "This is -- a surprise."
Tricia just stared at her through the open doorway. Rose couldn't read her expression at all. "I'm just here to pick up the last of my things," she said. "Mickey didn't tell you I was coming?"
"No, he didn't." Rose realized with a guilty start that maybe he had. Maybe she just hadn't been listening. "Uhh, you'd better come in, then. I'm sorry, the place is a wreck right now, and I'm not dressed properly -- "
"It's all right. I won't be a moment," Tricia said, and stepped inside. "How have you been, Rose?" She said it very carefully, almost formally. Not like she wanted to know at all, but just like she knew it's what you were supposed to say.
"Oh, fine, really," Rose said, the same way. She stared at Tricia as she walked in like she owned the place. It felt so strange to see her -- she'd worked with this girl, seen her every day, but she seemed as alien right now as anything Rose had seen out in space. She seemed so different. Part of it was the weight she'd lost, but .... No, Rose realized. It's me that's different.
"There should be a cardboard box," Tricia said. "Mickey said it would be near the computer."
"Oh. Right," Rose said, going to look, moving aside newspapers and magazines that had piled up. "So, were you living here, then? When you two were going out?" Rose tried to make the question sound casual.
"No. Oh, no. No point, really. I spent some time, here, but -- no. I never moved in. No room." Her voice was so tight and perfect it sounded like it was going to break.
"Oh, right," Rose said again. "Umm. Well. Here we are, then." She pulled out of the stack a small cardboard box that had "Tricia" on it on a Post-It note in Mickey's handwriting. She handed it over.
Tricia opened it. She rummaged briefly through pictures, notes, hair clips, a little stuffed bear, silly things, simple things. "Right," Tricia said. "This is everything, then." She was standing very still. It took Rose a moment to notice the tear that was running down Tricia's cheek.
" ... Are you all right?"
"Oh. Yeah." Tricia laughed and wiped at the tears, and that only made them come harder. "It's just, you know, it's stupid, isn't it? It's just, it's such a small box. That's all."
"Small?"
"Yeah. Everything that was here, you know? Every little mark I made on his life, it all fits in here so neatly. Like it's nothing. This little box."
"Maybe it's bigger on the inside," Rose said quietly.
" ... What are you talking about?"
Rose looked up at her. "What? Oh, it's just -- maybe it's bigger than it looks. Inside. See?" She took it back for a moment, turned it over in her hands. "It looks like just a cardboard box, yeah? Like any ordinary cardboard box, but see, that's just a disguise. Inside -- it's not just this stuff. Inside are all the days the two of you ever had." She handed it back to Tricia. "If all you have left is this box -- if it means that much to you -- you should keep it. You should hang on to it tight."
Tricia took the box. Held it tight and looked at Rose through tear-bright eyes. "You're a strange girl, Rose," she said slowly. "But I think I see why he thought about you all the time."
"It can't have been all the time," Rose protested, "not if he had you here."
Tricia nodded, a strange small smile on her face. "It was, though," she said. "It's like I never really got to be with him at all. Like he left when you did. Even when he was right here with me, I knew his mind was somewhere else. It was wherever you were. There was one night -- " Tricia stopped, and sat down on the bed. "One night when we'd made plans for dinner, it was a nice restaurant and we had reservations and everything, and he just didn't show up. He didn't even call. I found out later he'd got on a train to Wales because he heard you were there. He heard a rumor and it was like I didn't exist."
"I'm sorry," Rose said, almost automatically.
Tricia shook her head. "It's all right. I got used to it. Just being near him -- he was so nice and so funny, he just -- it was enough, you know? Just being around." She was looking around the room, not looking at Rose at all. "But he'd talk to me about how you were off somewhere with the Doctor, how much he felt left behind, and I'd see how far away his eyes looked and I'd think, I know just how you feel."
She looked up at Rose, as if she'd suddenly remembered she was here. "Anyway. I didn't mean to dump all this on you. I just came for this box." She smiled and stood up. "You're lucky to have him, Rose. To have someone that devoted to you. I hope you know that."
"I do," Rose said, and she wasn't sure she did.
"Anyway. I'll leave you to your life."
And then Rose let her out, and all Rose could think was: This isn't my life.
This can't be my life.
* * * *
A couple of months after that and Rose was on her way home from work. It wasn't much, just a job in a fish-and-chips place, and she came home every night smelling of grease and fish, feeling it in her skin, her hair, but it was something, a little bit of pocket money, a little independence. Have a wonderful life, the Doctor had told her, and she was sure this wasn't what he'd meant. But she didn't know how to get to there from here. Or if she wanted to at all.
She stopped by again. It was a little out of her way, but not much. The TARDIS stood on its street corner, where it would stand forever. She was sure that by the year-two-stroke-apple-hundred-million, or whatever it was, it would still be here when the sun burned the planet apart. And then it would be here after that.
She rested her hand and her cheek against the surface that looked and felt like painted wood. Closed her eyes, listened, felt the vibrations. Let the TARDIS die, the Doctor had said. She couldn't imagine it. The TARDIS was still warm to the touch, felt so full of life and vitality. It just stood, waiting.
The key was on a chain around her neck. She slid it out from under her shirt. She wore it on her all the time now, ever since the time weeks back Mickey thought he'd be doing her a favor by hiding it from her. That was an argument like they'd never had before. She screamed like something wild, threw dirty dishes and shattered them against the wall. Hit him with small and useless fists until he relented and gave it back and both of them had cried for hours.
She slipped the key into the lock, opened the doors.
It was still here. All of it still here. She stepped inside, and the air felt stale and wrong, but the console glowed and thrummed with life. It looked just like she'd left it, like the Doctor and Jack would come strolling in any moment, chatting and laughing, and whisk her off to someplace like Raxi -- Raxicalico --
Rose sat down on the floor and cried. Why? she thought. Why wouldn't you open?
It's not your fault, Rose, Mickey had told her so many times. We tried. We did our best. The chains just weren't strong enough, that's all. We don't know what the TARDIS is made of, but it's something stronger than what we had. It was a good idea and we tried and that's all anybody could ask. We don't even know if it would have worked if we had gotten it open.
It would've, though. Rose knew. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew.
"Why?" Rose asked again, out loud this time, and she wasn't talking to the TARDIS anymore. She was talking to the man who wasn't standing there. "Why did you send me away? Wasn't I good enough? I was the best, you said. Why couldn't you trust me? Why did you leave?"
she knew the answer to that, too. The Doctor wanted her to be safe. But she was going to die here, too. Slowly and painfully, one day at a time, like everyone else. Everything has its time and everything dies. He couldn't save her forever. So why this?
After a while she stood, shakily, all tears and sniffles, and headed off to her old room in the TARDIS. She still had some things here, and she still spent the night here sometimes. If Mickey wondered where she went those nights -- he'd learned not to ask.
* * * *
I'm right here, Rose. You know how to find me. You know how to set me loose. You just have to do it. I'm here, Rose. Can't you see me? I'm burning so bright. Can't you find me, even in the dark? You're not looking, Rose. You have to look.
* * * *
Every day was just the same as the one before it. Until Rose came home one night and found Mickey and Shireen waiting for her with expectant smiles and a cake with a candle in it.
"Surprise!" they said together.
Rose stared. "What's all this, then? It's not my birthday." She was staring most at Shireen. They'd been the closest friends once, and Rose had barely seen her since --
"Don't you know what today is?" Mickey asked.
Rose shook her head and tried to smile. "Thursday?"
"Silly. It's your anniversary!"
"Anniversary? My anniversary of -- " She realized what he meant and it was like a punch to the stomach. She sat down heavily. "Oh, God, Mickey," she said.
Mickey was still all smiles. "You've been back for one year today. We just wanted to celebrate having you home. I got you a present! You always complain that I'm always on the computer, so I got you a laptop of your own from work. Your mum will be round later, once she -- "
"Mickey. Stop. Just stop."
Shireen's smile faltered. "Maybe I should go," she said, and no one answered her.
"Think about what you're saying," Rose said. "It's been one year that I've been trapped here. One whole year since I left the Doctor behind to die, and I didn't have a choice about it and it's the last thing in the world I want to celebrate!" Rose's eyes were wet, but she wouldn't let herself cry. "And you got me a cake? God. Mickey the Idiot."
"I should go," Shireen said, and went to get her bag.
Before she could leave, Rose left. Just stood up and walked to the door.
Mickey just stared at her departing back, and turned to look at the still-wrapped laptop. "D'you not want your present, then?" he said, in a quiet empty voice, as Rose closed the door behind her.
* * * *
She lived in the TARDIS after that. She had nowhere else to go, really, and this way she wouldn't have to worry about rent or about imposing on anyone else. And she wasn't going home, not after the things her mum had said about the Doctor.
This worked out all right for a couple more months. She had just left everything behind at Mickey's -- nothing there worth coming back for. She had enough clothing and other personal items in the TARDIS to make camping out there workable.
She lost her job at the fish-and-chip shop, after being late once too often -- her watch didn't run right in the TARDIS -- but she didn't care. She hated that job anyway, and with somewhere to live and food to eat from the TARDIS larders, money wasn't really an issue.
The only real issue was that it was so quiet and empty here. It felt like a mausoleum without the Doctor in it. She thought about maybe getting a cat.
One day, she'd been out -- Shireen bought her lunch, and they'd sat in Trafalgar Square and fed the pigeons and talked and laughed a while, which had been nice -- and she came back to the TARDIS as it was getting dark. The familiar glow of the lights from the signs and the windows was like a warm hearth to come back to.
And as she slid her key into the lock, the key started to glow.
Something's happening, was her immediate, excited thought. After all these months of nothing, something's happening.
When she saw just what was happening, she panicked.
The key was pulled out of her fingers. It glowed and melted and flowed into the lock and was gone.
"No." Just a stunned whisper. Then a scream. "NO!" She pounded and pounded on the door.
The light on top lit up, and for a moment she thought the TARDIS was fading, disappearing. But a beam shot from the light, resolved into a blue hazy image. The hologram of the Doctor, leaning casually against the side of the TARDIS.
"Emergency program number two," the voice she never thought she'd hear again said. "Hello, Rose."
Rose fell. She lost her balance and tried to catch herself and slid down the Police Box door, sat heavily down on the ground. Staring up as those eyes stared down at her.
"You're probably wondering what just happened. Well, it's simple. You're being evicted." The Doctor smiled. "I wanted to give you a chance first, time to sort out your things and all that. You lived here, too, after all. But I told you to let the TARDIS be, Rose. I programmed it so if it thought you were coming back too often -- and you have been, haven't you, naughty girl? Can't keep your fingers out of the cookie jar -- it was to take your key back."
The Doctor's image smiled at her sadly, hands thrust awkwardly in his pockets. "You probably hate me right now. I'm sorry for that. But I need you to move on, Rose. I need you to live your life. And you can't do that here. You've got to let go. You've got to let me go."
The hologram knelt down next to her. Rose didn't understand how it could do it, how a recording could know where she'd be. But it didn't matter. He was the Doctor. He was magic. It reached out a hand to place against her cheek and her hand shot up to touch it. It was like touching electric steam. "This is the last time I'll talk to you like this. So don't hold out for emergency program number three, if that's what you're thinking. I'm done. I had a good life, Rose, but never an ordinary one. I envy you right now, for everything you'll get to do. And I know you'll be fantastic. Of all the people I ever travelled with -- you were the best."
He faded. Rose curled into a little ball and sat there with her arms wrapped around her knees until it got too cold outside to stand it anymore, and then she pulled out her mobile, stared at it for a little while, and called Shireen.
* * * *
This won't stop you. This won't stop me. You know that, Rose -- you'd know if you looked in the mirror and called my name. Can you hear it? Can you hear the world calling my name? I'm getting closer. Moving so fast it's like you're standing still.
Stand still, Rose. Let me catch you.
* * * *
Despite all the months Rose had let their friendship lie dormant, Shireen took her in without complaint, let her stay, loaned her clothes, bought her what groceries she could, tried to help find her work.
Mickey came by once or twice, when he found out where she was staying. He never stayed long and he never said much. The last time, he brought over some boxes with her name on them in felt pen. Everything she'd left behind. She quietly unpacked it all after he left. It was more than Tricia had got. Down at the bottom of it all, in the largest box, was the laptop he'd bought her, still in its wrapping paper. She put it back untouched in the box, put it in the closet she was using.
She wasn't doing well. She was getting headaches. More and more often, out of nowhere, sometimes so bad she'd almost black out for a moment. Shireen begged her to go see a doctor. Rose shrugged it off, tried to ignore it and get on with her life.
Some nights the headaches kept coming so much she couldn't sleep.
And nights when she could sleep, well ....
The Dalek dreams were the worst. Sometimes they'd be in Van Statten's base. Sometimes in their ship, sometimes Satellite Five. Some nights it all blurred together into one long unescapable maze.
Tonight's dream was especially vivid. She was back on Satellite Five -- the dream had started out so good, she'd figured out how the TARDIS worked and went back to save the Doctor -- and everything had gone black and wrong.
There were just a few survivors left. "See you in hell," Jack told her, firing round after round of bullets and the Daleks just moved through them like they were raindrops. The awful sound of their weapons, firing over and over, people all around her turning to bodies hitting the floor.
The Daleks had her pinned down, surrounding her. "Jack!" she cried out. "Jack, help!"
Jack opened his mouth to answer her, and the last moment she saw him was as the Dalek gunfire lit him up from the inside, bones bright and glowing right through his skin, smoke curling up out of his open mouth for an answer.
She was the last one standing. "Doctor!" She was screaming it so loud it almost wasn't recognizable as a word. "Doctor!"
"HE. CANNOT. SAVE. YOU." The nearest Dalek reached out with its sucker arm, pushed her back against a wall. She could feel her ribs starting to give, feel the breath being pushed out of her. "YOU. CANNOT. SAVE. HIM. WHAT. USE. ARE. EMOTIONS? IF. YOU. CANNOT. SAVE. THE. MAN. YOU. LOVE?"
Every rational response was gone. She couldn't fight, she couldn't run, the only thing left was deep inside, buried down so deep, one last prayer, one last cry for help, her last breath before extermination when everything else had failed --
"DADDY!" Rose screamed.
And the Daleks were blown backward by the force of the word.
* * * *
"What's the matter, my Rosie? Can't sleep?"
Rose shook her head, looking up at her daddy smiling down at her from the glow of his desk lamp.
This never happened. Rose knew it. She could remember the world she was born into, the world where her father died alone; and she could remember the world she made, the world where she'd been there to share his last moments. And that was all. But somewhere, deep inside, she could remember the world she'd had for just a moment, the world where he never died at all. Her mind stirred, knowing this wasn't a dream, but a memory. It had never happened, but it was a memory all the same, just as real as anything.
"I'm scared," Rose told him. She looked up at him and he looked as big as the world. Rose was three, almost four, and she couldn't sleep at all that night.
"Well, now." He looked down at her, all ginger hair and easy smiles. "What are you scared of, Rosie?"
"The story."
"Your bedtime story?" She nodded, and he nodded back. He pushed the papers he was working on -- something important, something to do with the sun -- away and patted his lap. "Hop on up here, then," he said, and Rose did.
He looked at her, still nodding. "It was kind of a scary story, wasn't it? Are you scared the big bad wolf is going to come and blow our house down?"
Rose nodded, tears in her big eyes.
"It's okay, Rose. It's not going to happen." He put his arm around her. "It's just a story. You know what that means, don't you?"
She nodded. "It's not real."
"You're sure of that, right?"
Rose squirmed. "Kinda."
"That's okay. I know stories are scary anyway. But you know what else is true about stories?"
"What?"
"You can change them. If they're too scary, or you don't like the way they turn out, you can go back and tell them different. Did you know that?"
Rose shook her head.
"Well, you can. You can tell a better story next time. Maybe -- maybe instead of blowing their houses down, the big bad wolf comes by and has tea and biscuits with the little pigs, instead. Would that be better?"
Rose giggled, despite herself. "That would be silly."
"Sure, maybe. It's okay to tell silly stories, though, if it cheers you up when you're scared. Or maybe you could tell it so you're the big bad wolf this time."
Rose's eyes widened. "Why?"
"Well -- you remember that older girl who pushed you off the swings on the playground the other day?"
Rose nodded vigorously. "She was mean."
"Would you like to be able to go blow her house down, then?"
Rose giggled again, delighted and scandalized. "Yeah!"
"See? Sometimes, if you're scared, then you should be the scary one instead. You can't always let people push you down. You have to be the bad wolf sometimes. Sometimes -- sometimes you have to be strong, instead of kind, for just a little while. Do you understand?"
Rose nodded. Then said, "No."
He laughed. Her daddy laughing was the best sound in the world. "Well, maybe you will when you're older. Let's get you back to bed, and we'll tell a different story, and you can help me tell it, okay? Would you like that?"
Rose thought, and then nodded.
"Good. 'Cause it's really late and it's time for little girls to go to sleep."
Rose felt happy and dreamy already. Time for sleep.
But another voice was telling her something else. That it was time to wake up.
"Rose! Rose!"
She jerked awake, and Shireen was standing there shaking her. She was standing, too, and clutched tight in her hand was -- a felt pen?
She looked around. The windows were midnight dark. The place looked wrecked -- Shireen's glass coffee table tipped over and smashed, shelves knocked down.
For a moment, Rose didn't notice any of that.
All she could see, on every wall, every flat surface, in her own frantic scrawl, was two words.
Bad Wolf.
* * * *
Shireen insisted. Jackie had insisted, as well -- Rose was seeing a doctor, full stop. Jackie had asked around, gotten referrals, found someone to send Rose to.
And that was how she'd met Doctor Tom.
The moment Thomas Edmund walked into the room, you just knew everything was going to be fine. He had that effect on everyone, Rose later found out. He just had this quiet confidence, this direct gaze, a soft and casual smile.
He couldn't find what was wrong with her, but he made it seem like he'd expected that, and this was just one step toward finding the solution, nothing to worry about. He'd made some calls, done some research, sent her to specialists.
The specialists all said the same thing. There was nothing wrong with her. Rose kept getting headaches, her head like it was splitting open, like there was a whole world inside that had to come out. But no one could find a cause. She even had a cat scan, EKG, everything.
Post-traumatic, they said. Psychosomatic. All in your head. Like that made any difference.
Doctor Tom called her every once in a while, to see how she was doing. And when he started to stop by Shireen's apartment to see how she was doing, once she was no longer his patient, she realized his interest was more than just professional. She was flattered -- she was more than flattered, she was a little light-headed each time he turned those eyes toward her, to be honest -- but it was all too soon. There was still so much she had to work out.
For one thing, she still hadn't figured out how she was getting back into the TARDIS.
* * * *
"Mickey, I need your help."
He stood in his doorway, not letting her in. "Rose." His voice was carefully flat. "It's been a long time."
"More than a year," she agreed. "I'm sorry, I should have come by sooner, but -- "
"But there was nothing you needed until now, is that it?"
Rose's face fell. "Are we going to be like that, then?"
Mickey shrugged. "What do you need, Rose? Don't tell me -- something to do with the Doctor, right?"
She took a deep breath. "I don't have my TARDIS key anymore," she said. "I need to get back in."
Mickey just stared for a long moment. His eyes were like ice. "Why?
She looked lost. "I just do."
Mickey sighed. "So what do you want me to do about it?"
"I've been trying to find out something, anything, about the Doctor, but I can't find anything. I mean, not anywhere. I've been trying all the search engines, and I can't find him. I can't even find Clive's site. Or Clive, come to that."
Mickey just said, "I think you'd better come inside."
She did. The place was clean. There was framed art on one of the walls, not just posters. Rose thought it looked like someone else lived here now, maybe Tricia, maybe someone else -- but she didn't think she had the right to ask.
Mickey's desk was just as much of a mess as always, which was somehow comforting. He rummaged in the stacks for a minute. "Here," he said, handing her an unlabelled CD-ROM.
"This has information about the Doctor?"
"This is from the Doctor," Mickey corrected. "That's why you can't find anything."
Rose frowned. "I don't get it."
"It's a virus. He told me to run it. It wiped out everything about him on the Internet. And good riddance."
"What -- I don't -- " Rose closed her eyes, shook her head. "You did this?"
"Rose, he asked me to. It was his idea. If you're mad at anyone, blame him for once."
Rose was about to launch into recriminations, into their old arguments and patterns, and just took a deep breath instead. Tried to let it go. "Okay. Okay. So. Do you have any leads for me? Do you remember any of what you found out?"
"Sorry."
"There's got to be something." Rose's head was pounding. "What about -- what about that military lot? D'you remember them? The ones you said he worked for?"
"UNIT," Mickey said reluctantly. "What about them?"
"Can you get in touch with them? Maybe they know how to get into the TARDIS. They might even know how to open the console, Mickey! It's a time machine. Maybe it's not too late! I might still be able to save him!"
He didn't say anything for a long time. When he did, he said, "You're never going to be able to let this go, are you?"
She shook her head quickly. "Not until I've tried everything."
"I'll call them."
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. He stood there stiffly and let her.
"Just so you're clear on one thing, yeah?" Mickey said.
"What's that?"
"This is it, Rose, I swear to God. No more favors, no more good dependable Mickey, all right? I never want to hear his name again, I don't want to see you again."
" .... D'you mean that?"
"I loved you, Rose. I loved you for the longest time. That's why I'm doing this. But I cannot take any more. I don't want you showing up at my door in another year, or another five, or another ten. I just want my own life. All right?"
"All right," Rose said. "I mean, yeah, of course, that's fine." She didn't feel fine. She felt like her head was going to burst. She felt adrift. "You will call them?"
"I'll call them."
* * * *
You don't need him, Rose. You don't need anyone. You don't even need the Doctor.
You only need me.
* * * *
She kept waiting for Mickey to call. Waiting to hear that he'd gotten in touch with UNIT, what he'd told them, what they said.
She passed by the TARDIS every day, stopping to touch it like petting a cat. "I'll be coming home soon," she kept telling it. "I'll find a way back in, and then we'll go save him, just you and me. He'll be okay. I'll be home soon."
Then one day, she couldn't get near the TARDIS at all.
The street was blocked off with sawhorses and CAUTION tape. And by men with guns. There were military vehicles parked behind the cordoned-off area, and there was a huge olive-green lorry with a crane on it. Men were wrapping chains around the TARDIS.
Rose did the mad thing. She rushed the barrier.
One of the men caught her and held her.
"You've got to let me through! You can't! You can't take it!"
"Miss, if you'd just calm down a moment -- "
"You can't take it! It's mine! You can't have it!"
Rose stood and screamed helplessly at the military men -- "It's mine! You give it back!" -- as they loaded it onto the lorry, and quietly drove away.
* * * *
Rose called Mickey very late at night, after the pubs and bars had closed.
"Why did you do it?" she asked. "Why did you let them take it?"
"Rose, it was what they wanted to do, all right? It's not like I had a choice. Besides, it's for the best."
"How can you say that?" she wailed.
"Maybe now you can let go. You need to move on, Rose."
"That's what he said. But what if I don't want to? Don't I get to decide? Can't I live the life I want? If I want to wait for him to come back -- can't I -- "
"Give me the phone." The voice on the other end was muffled and quiet, but firm, and Rose could hear it quite plainly. Some female voice she didn't know. "Rose Tyler?" the voice asked.
"Who the hell is this?"
"Don't call this number any more."
"What -- gives you the right to -- "
"Don't call this number any more, or I shall be forced to call the police."
The voice hung up.
Rose stared at her mobile in disbelief. "The police? Why not just call the fuckin' army?"
After a long moment, she deleted Mickey's number from her phone.
She thought about it a minute more, and deleted the TARDIS' number, as well.
I might regret that when I'm sober, she thought. Then again, I might not.
* * * *
She didn't get out of bed for three days. Shireen didn't ask what happened -- just brought her tea and soup. Rose figured she'd talked to Mickey.
On the fourth day, she got out of bed and stood up, went and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked -- well, she looked like someone who had stretched out a hangover for three days.
I can't believe this is my life, she thought, not for the first time.
Her dream from all those months ago suddenly came back to her.
If I don't like the story, I can change it. I can tell another one.
Her headache suddenly cleared. It was like a bright sunbeam through a cloudbreak.
She stared at her reflection for a long moment.
Then she went to the closet, dug out the biggest of Mickey's boxes, and reached down past her clothes to the laptop. She pulled it out and tore off the wrapping paper, left it forgotten on the floor.
She plugged it in, sat down, and turned it on.
And started to write.
* * * *
She'd figured out how to work the TARDIS, just at the last moment -- remembered how she'd seen the Doctor work the controls, which dials he spun, how to prime the hand-pump. She'd made the TARDIS turn around and take her back, to Satellite Five and the Doctor and Jack, and she'd helped the Doctor finish building his Delta Wave thing and he'd never meant to send her away, not at all, it was just an accident and he was so happy to see her, he spun her around in a huge grinning hug. The Delta Wave wiped out the Daleks and everyone was safe and everything came out just fine. They flew off into time and space and kept having adventure after adventure.
She dreamed her adventures sometimes, and wrote those down. Dreamed about invasions at Christmas and fighting the Cybermen. She was starting to forget what the Doctor had looked like, and sometimes in her dreams he looked totally different, and she cried a little when she woke up and realized that. But she kept writing down the dreams.
Then she went back and wrote it all down, over and over, as best as she could, refining it. It took her months. She found a job, in the meantime -- front desk at a hotel, nothing exciting, but to her, this was her real job, right now. Occupational therapy. Writing down how a 900-year old alien had saved a London shop girl and taken her on the trip of a lifetime. Changing things a little here and there, making it come out the way it should have, not the way it did.
Doctor Tom kept coming by. She showed him what she was working on, and he was fascinated. He loved reading it all. Eventually, she told him it was all true, mostly, and he somehow believed her.
He was the one, in the end, to suggest that she really change things -- change some names here and there, the Wanderer instead of the Doctor, a made-up name instead of her own -- and try to get it published. He knew some people who knew some people, and he felt sure he could get a literary agent to look at it.
It was something to work toward. Long nights going over manuscript pages together gave way slowly and dreamily to wine and long kisses good night and flowers for Rose. For his Rose.
It took years, but Rose wrote it all down, and let someone else love her. The headaches started to fade, a little.
* * * *
Her mother didn't approve. Oh, she approved of Doctor Tom -- she had teased Rose so much about falling for another Doctor, which Rose didn't appreciate. It was the writing.
"It's not healthy, Rose," Jackie said, which sounded funny coming from the voice she was slowly ruining with cigarettes. "This isn't moving on. This is just dwelling on the past. It's not good for you, love. You're wasting your life on memories and dreams. You're just like your father."
"Maybe I am," Rose would say calmly.
Jackie changed her tune a little when Rose managed to get The Wanderer published. It was only a small press that published it, and most bookstores didn't have it, but still, it was something real you could hold in your hand. And it was a little money coming in, which made it respectable in Jackie's eyes.
She'd quit the job at the hotel, once she started writing the sequel, once she started living with Doctor Tom. He never made a big deal about Taking Care of Her the way Mickey had -- it just quietly happened, with his usual grace and confidence, his simple way of making it clear that everything was going to be all right.
And on her wedding day, when she stood at the altar with him --
That was the day she finally gave up her last, small spark of hope that the Doctor was going to come back for her. Somehow find his way, despite certain death and no TARDIS. When no one spoke up to object to this union, she was sure.
She settled in to her life, like a hand in a glove. She had her house and her garden and her Doctor Tom, and she was as happy and content as she could manage. They had three cats and a turtle and never children.
* * * *
He came home late one night from the hospital and found her out on the back porch, staring up at the sky through the telescope he'd bought her for her fortieth birthday.
"What are you looking at?" he asked, and she looked up at him. He looked dead-tired, but happy as always to see her.
She pointed. "That third star from the left in Cassiopeia. See it?"
He nodded, leaned down to the eye-piece and squinted. "I see it."
"The people there had faces like puppy dogs. They were so sweet. I had the best steak there, you wouldn't believe. Melted like butter in my mouth."
He stood up and grinned. "Sounds good."
"I wish I could take you there."
"Write about it, then. You've taken me everywhere you've gone."
"Mmm." She kissed him on the cheek. "Nice to have a fan."
"You've got more than one, it looks like. You didn't get the mail today?"
She shook her head. "I was writing."
"You've got more mail." He waved the envelope at her, and she took it.
She didn't know it, but she'd been waiting years for this letter.
* * * *
"Thanks for agreeing to meet with me, Ms. Edmund," her visitor said. "I know you haven't granted many interviews."
"Not many people have asked, actually," Rose said. "My books are hardly bestsellers."
"Very worthwhile, though."
"Nice of you to say so, Miss -- I'm so sorry, I've forgotten your name again."
"Smith. Sarah Jane Smith."
Rose frowned. "I've heard that somewhere before."
"I used to be a reporter for the Look Again newsfeed? You might have read some of my articles?"
"Hmmm. Maybe."
"It was a while ago," Sarah Jane admitted. "Now I just write book reviews, mostly. Keeps me out of trouble." She winked. "Although I have something to admit to you."
"Oh? What's that?"
"I'm here more out of a -- personal interest, than a professional interest," she said. "I read your books, and certain details seemed -- familiar to me."
" .... In what way?"
"I think perhaps we have a mutual friend," Sarah Jane said.
For one moment, Rose thought her heart was going to stop.
"Tell me," Sarah Jane said, pulling something out of her pocket, "does -- this -- look familiar to you?"
She handed it over. Rose took it and examined it. It was a small, flat piece of metal, shaped almost like an ankh, almost like a tiny spade. One side had a crazy-quilt pattern to it, the other had what looked like a constellation.
"No," Rose admitted, "what is it?"
"Oh," Sarah Jane said, and that was all she said. Her disappointment seemed to fill the room.
Rose kept staring at it. Her head was suddenly pounding. The old headaches, back worse than ever --
(That's it. Keep going. You're so close.)
The metal in her hand pulsing like a heartbeat, glowing with inner light. Sarah Jane stared in fascination. "It's never done that," Sarah Jane breathed.
Rose had felt this once before -- more than half a lifetime ago, but --
"This is a TARDIS key, isn't it?" she said slowly. "Did the Doctor give this to you?"
Sarah Jane stared at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed with delight. The two women suddenly embraced and started laughing, laughing with the sheer joy of not being alone in the world.
* * * *
Sarah Jane left the key with her. Rose hadn't wanted to ask, and in the end Sarah Jane offered. Rose could tell how reluctant she was to let go of it, but she had insisted Rose take it when she told her what had really happened to the Doctor.
Rose told her Doctor Tom all about the visit, of course, showed him the key. He seemed just as excited as she was. She still had no idea where the TARDIS was, of course, no way to get to it, no plan even if she could, but still, to have this tangible link back on a chain around her neck -- it felt electric.
She had trouble getting to sleep that night. And when she did sleep, she dreamed of the Doctor.
But it wasn't a pleasant dream.
* * * *
She was back in St. Christopher's. The church where her father had died. Everyone was in black, everyone was mourning.
It wasn't her father's funeral.
Huge shadows moved across stained glass. Bat-winged shapes -- shapes she knew.
She knew most of the people inside the church. Family. Jackie, of course. Shireen and what few other friends she had. People she'd met while travelling. Charles Dickens was there, and the Face of Boe. Margaret Slitheen, cradling her own egg in her arms, alpha and omega.
At up at the altar --
"We are gathered here today to lay to rest the body of Rose Tyler."
The Doctor looked strangely comfortable with a priest's collar under his leather jacket. The body in the casket was unquestionably hers, just the way she'd looked at nineteen.
"I come here not to praise her, but to bury her," the Doctor said. "She was given the greatest chance of all. Life. And she wasted it."
That's not fair, Rose tried to say, but she had no voice. She was dead, after all.
"Rose could have done anything. She could have seen the world. Climbed Everest. Fed the hungry. Comforted the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable. Instead, she chose this."
He slapped the casket, and she looked down at it. At the blue wood and the lights and the words. Police Public Call Box, it read.
"Rose Tyler decided to climb into this coffin and stay there. Spent too much of her present on her past. Have a fantastic life, I told her. And for what?"
The body in the coffin was aging. It got older, year by year, as Rose watched. The shadows outside whirled by faster and faster. Somewhere a wolf was howling.
"I trusted Rose. She thought I sent her away because I didn't trust her, but I did. I trusted she'd do more than this. I thought she was my best friend, but it turns out she was just a stupid ape like the rest of them. Go on, then, bury her. I'm fed up with her."
He turned and walked away.
Doctor! She wanted to cry out. She screamed in silence with dead lungs. They were lowering her into the ground, everyone tossing a handful of dirt in. Doctor! What do I do?
The coffin fell and fell deeper and deeper, and hit the bottom of the grave --
And Rose woke up.
And she knew what she should have done. Understood, in the chill of the night air, how she had misunderstood her life.
She was never supposed to spin fairy tales. That wasn't the story she was supposed to change.
Her life was the story she was supposed to change.
Doctor Tom's sleeping hand reached toward her side of the bed. She reached out her own hand, squeezed his gently, and ran down the hall.
* * * *
She activated the net terminal, slid the eyescreen on, and accessed the Internet. Found the nodesite for UNIT, tried to access the secure server.
"Authorization required beyond this point. Please provide password."
"Password is -- " She tried to remember what the Doctor had told Mickey, more than half a lifetime ago. Surely it wouldn't still work? "Password is buffalo."
She waited. "I'm sorry, that password is incorrect," the nodesite told her. "Please provide password."
Her mind raced. Her finger hovered over the disconnect icon. This was ridiculous. How could she get in? She was just -- just a stupid ape. Waking up out of a dream and thinking she could --
Wait.
She knew. She knew what it had to be.
"Password is Bad Wolf."
She waited. Surely they were logging these attempts, surely they'd track her down, arrest her for --
"Access is granted," the nodesite said. "Welcome, Rose Tyler."
Rose let out a harsh, tiny breath, somewhere between a disbelieving laugh and a sigh of relief.
"Select menu item."
Her eyes raced through the submenus. "Keyword search. Index one is Doctor. Index two is TARDIS. Cross reference and display results as map."
"One moment, please."
There.
"Displaying results. Select menu item."
"Print results, clear log, and disconnect."
"Done. Thank you."
She ripped off the eyescreen and grabbed the map from the printer. Not far from here -- just an hour or two if she drove fast. She needed clothes, her keys, she needed to wake up Thomas --
She turned and he was standing in the doorway.
Her heart jumped. "I -- I was coming to tell you -- "
He smiled. It was his best everything-is-going-to-be-all-right smile. "You have to leave."
"I -- yeah." She swallowed hard. "God, Tom, I don't -- How can I -- "
"Shhhh. Come here." He put his arms around her, and she put hers around him and held him tight. "It's okay."
" -- But I don't know if I'm coming back."
"I know." He brushed her hair out of her eyes. "I've known this day would come for years, Rose Edmund. You've always had one eye for me, and one eye on the stars, and I love you. So much. And I've always loved that about you."
He squeezed her so tight she thought she would stop breathing, he kissed her fiercely, and then he let her go.
"If you've got to go, go," he told her. "Save the Doctor. Save the world. Kiss him for me, just once, and thank him for all the stories, all right?"
"Tom, I -- "
He put a finger to her lips. "Rose." He held the door open for her. "Fly."
* * * *
The secret to infiltrating anywhere, the Doctor had told her more than once, is to walk in like you own the place. She didn't have his sonic screwdriver to get past the razor wire, but wire cutters did just as well.
If she was caught, she could be arrested, maybe shot --
She didn't care. Something was happening. No -- she was doing something.
There wasn't much security surrounding the TARDIS. That surprised Rose at first, until she realized -- why guard an indestructible box no one can open?
There were people here at the base, even this late at night, but Rose never saw any of them. She waited in shadows and stilled her breathing and waited for footsteps to pass, and never got caught.
She found the room the maps indicated. Held her breath and opened the door.
And there it stood, waiting and patient.
She slid the key from around her neck, tried to slide it into the keyhole -- stared in fascination as the keyhole changed shape to take the new key. Please work. Please let me in.
The door opened. Rose stepped into the TARDIS, home at last.
She closed the door quietly behind her, and turned her attention to the console.
Now what? What was her plan?
She didn't have a plan. The Doctor never had a plan and it didn't matter.
She walked over to the console, stared at the panel that she and Jackie and Mickey had broken chains trying to open, a lifetime ago. Worlds ago.
She was stronger than chains. "Open."
There was a moment's silence. "I know you can hear me," Rose said. "The Doctor told me you were alive. Told me you were telepathic. Read my mind. Listen. Open."
She stared at it. Felt like it was staring back. "Open. You'll do as you're told. Open."
She wanted to pound on it, wanted to scream, wanted to tear the place apart. She held it all in and focused it outward like a laser. "Open. You will open. I've waited all my life for this and you're not going to stop me. Open up."
Sometimes, Rose thought, sometimes you have to be strong, instead of kind, for just a little while.
"Open."
There was a shift, a change in the air.
"Open!"
And the panel started to move.
"OPEN NOW!"
It did.
Light poured out. Filled Rose's eyes and filled her mind. And the time rotor, then the TARDIS itself, started to move.
She wasn't alone.
She looked across the console --
There she was. It was her, it was Rose, the way she used to be. She used to be so young and so beautiful. She was shining, this other, younger self. Shining like an angel.
" .... Are you me?"
You know who I am.
"You are me. And you're -- "
You know who I am. You know who you are. Say it.
"You're ... the Bad Wolf."
Yes. We are. We always have been. We'll always be here in this moment.
"What are you doing here -- ?"
The same as you. Going to save Doctor. To save Jack. Everyone.
"How?"
I opened the console. Mickey helped you. The chain held. It didn't break.
" -- But that's not what happened."
What did Daddy tell you?
"If ... if I don't like the story .... "
Then change it. Do you want to change the story, Rose? Do you want to be you or do you want to be me?
"I want to save -- "
Who?
"Everyone."
Take my hand.
"What will happen -- to me? To my life? Everything that happened since that day?"
Gone. When you're the Bad Wolf, you can blow out all your yesterdays like a candle. Are you willing?
" -- Will it hurt?"
This is life, Rose. Everything hurts. But we can hurt the Daleks, Rose. We can blow their house down. Take my hand. We'll tell a different story, and you can help me tell it, okay? Would you like that?
Rose nodded.
She took hold of the Bad Wolf's hand. And let go of everything else.
_________
Cross-posted to dwfiction, new_who, sortofyeah, and time_and_chips