Disintegration 3/6?
Story: Disintegration
Author: WMR
Characters: Ten, Rose, Jackie Tyler, more to come
Rated: PG (may increase)
Spoilers: All the way to Age of Steel
Summary: “You know this is goodbye, right? No visits. I don’t do that. If you leave now, Rose, this is it.”
With very many thanks to my wonderful BR,
dark_aegis
Chapter 1: Selfish
Chapter 2: Letting Go
Chapter 3: Temptations
She didn’t regret not contacting him. Well, not much. Only sometimes. Like several times a day, though after a while she realised that maybe the regret was hitting her perhaps twice a day instead of six.
But, she told herself, of course she was always going to miss him. You don’t meet someone like the Doctor every day, and to have had the privilege of travelling the universe with him... well, it wasn’t an experience anyone could forget in a hurry.
She didn’t want to forget it. It really had been the very best time of her life. And, as she’d once told the Doctor, she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It just shouldn’t have ended so soon, but she only had herself to blame for that.
Even now, even as hard as readjusting had been, she had no regrets. If she could go back to the day when he asked her to come with him and told her the TARDIS also travelled in time, even knowing what she knew now she’d do exactly the same.
And things were getting better. Mostly. She was almost halfway to her A-levels now, and expecting to do pretty well. She wasn’t taking medication any more. She could talk about Mickey without becoming paralysed with grief and guilt. She even talked to Sarah about Jack, sharing some of their more humorous exploits and things he’d done that’d made her laugh.
She’d also rebuilt some of her friendships. Shareen had been sympathetic when she’d finally told her about the depression, and now they went out together most weeks and talked on the phone a few times a week. They weren’t as close as they used to be, but that was never going to be possible. Too much had happened. She’d done too many things she could never tell Shareen about.
And suddenly it was a year to the day since she’d left the Doctor.
***
“What you doin’ moping around the place with that long face on you?”
Her mum’s voice was sharp, and she glared at Rose.
True, she was probably moping. She’d been sitting on the sofa, doing nothing, simply staring into space, for a while.
“Nothing.” She spoke more sharply than she intended. But she really wasn’t in the mood for being criticised. Not today.
“God, sometimes I don’t know why you ever bothered to come home, Rose Tyler! ‘S not like you act like you want to be back ‘ere with us ordinary mortals. Should’ve stayed with the Doctor, since ‘e seems to be the only one who can do anything right far as you’re concerned.”
“That’s not fair!” Something inside her just snapped. “Do you have the faintest idea why I came home?”
Her mum shrugged. “Well, I dunno. You told me you’d just had enough of it. That it was time.”
“Yeah, right.” She jumped to her feet and started pacing. “An’ you believed that? I loved it, what we did. It was the best time of my life. An’ I gave it up for you. You, Mum. Cause you were alone, an’ I knew how worried you were about me, an’ suddenly Mickey was gone too. I came home so you wouldn’t worry any more!”
“What?” Her mum stared at her, her expression scornful. “Oh, come on, you don’t expect me to believe that, do you? You? You’ve always been selfish, Rose Tyler. Don’t expect me to believe that for once in your life you put someone else before yourself. Or before your precious Doctor!”
“That’s not true!” Tears were falling suddenly, hot tears of anger... and of pain. Grief.
A year today.
Exactly a year since she’d stood in the console room and told him she wanted to go home. Exactly a year since she’d said goodbye to him for ever. And here her mum was saying she should never have left.
She snatched up her purse and phone, stuffing them in her pocket, and stormed out of the flat.
***
“I dunno what to do, Mickey,” she whispered half an hour later, crouched down by the spot she’d designated as her memorial for him. “I miss him so much. Miss you, too. An’ the thing is I know I can go back. Least, he said I could. But... should I?”
Mickey didn’t answer. The only sound she heard was passing traffic.
“Thing is, I’ve no idea what he’d even be doing by now. Or who he’d be with. He’ll have someone else. I know that. Prob’ly picked someone up within a few weeks of me leaving. If not sooner. An’... I am still selfish, Mickey. I don’t want to share him. An’, anyway, maybe he doesn’t want me back now. Maybe he’s forgotten ‘bout me.”
She stood, gazing into the distance, seeing in front of her not the tower-blocks but a tall figure in brown pin-stripes. And, just behind him, another tall man in a black leather jacket.
“I could call him, yeah,” she said to the men who weren’t there. “But time-travel, yeah? How do I know when he’d get my call? Before I’ve even left? A week later? Two years? Twenty years? Or before he’s even met me in the first place? I can’t take that risk, can I?”
She couldn’t take the risk that he’d have changed his mind.
No. She wasn’t going to phone him. Not now.
The good thing about today was that she’d made it through the first year. It could only get better after this, surely. Because one thing she knew was that it couldn’t get any worse.
***
When she went back home again, her mum was waiting for her.
“C’mere, sweetheart.” She held out her arms.
Surprised, tears pricking at her eyes again, she went.
“I’m sorry, love. I should’ve remembered.” Her mum hugged her tightly. “ ‘S a year today, isn’t it?
“Yeah.” Oh, god, she’d needed this.
“An’ you miss ‘im. I should’ve seen that, love. You loved ‘im.”
“Yeah.” It was the first time she’d admitted that to her mum, though she’d told Sarah. “I do.” Love. Present tense. She still loved him. Would always love him.
“Oh, Rose.” Her mum stroked her hair. “I’m sorry you felt you needed to leave ‘im for me. An’ I am glad to have you back.”
That made her feel better. A bit, anyway.
***
It did get better. Slowly.
Gradually, she was turning back into the old Rose Tyler: outgoing, interested in things, talkative. She was very different from the Rose she’d used to be, but the new things about her became almost fused onto her old personality as it reawakened. As the depression finally lifted.
As she resolved, once and for all, that she wouldn’t let it, and missing the Doctor, rule her life.
Yes, she would always miss him. Yes, she loved him. But she was still Rose Tyler; the best, he’d once called her. Who’d always run into danger, not away from it, when she’d been with him. Who’d saved his life; maybe not as many times as he’d saved hers, but she had saved him.
If he’d seen her over the past year or so, he wouldn’t have recognised the person she’d become. If he’d met her for the first time over that same period, he’d never have invited her to travel with him. But that person wasn’t the real Rose Tyler.
Her ambition returned, along with the final stretch of her A-levels. When Sarah-Jane asked what she wanted to do once she had her qualifications, she actually had an answer.
“I’m not completely sure yet. But something interesting. Something that’ll let me use my brain. Finding things out, maybe. Dunno what that’d be, though.”
Sarah gave her a slow smile. “Actually, I might know of something that could interest you. How would you feel about working for a newspaper?”
“Doing what?” A newspaper? Sarah’s paper?
“Researching, eventually. To start with, just running around doing anything anyone wants you to do. But prove yourself at that and you’ll be given more interesting jobs.”
That sounded good. “I’m definitely interested. There’s a job?”
“There will be. Not at the magazine - it’s in the Sunday Times, so you wouldn’t be working directly with me. But that’s probably a good thing. Give me your CV and I’ll have a word with the section head for you, see if I can get you an interview.”
“Thank you!” She felt a wide smile spread over her face. And that was good. She hadn’t smiled like that in a very long time. But it was time. The past needed to be left where it belonged, and she had a future to build.
***
She got the job. Suddenly, she was Rose Tyler, junior researcher at the Sunday Times. The pay was crap and the hours were long, but it was better than minimum wage and the work was interesting.
She moved out of her mum’s flat, getting a bedsit closer to work. It was tiny and run-down, but it was hers. Sarah came to the Powell Estates with her car to help transport all her belongings, and her mum came over to help clean the new place. Howard came, too; seemed he was good at DIY and a few things needed fixing up. Several hours of hard work later, the bedsit was clean, functional and home. They celebrated over pizza at a local bistro.
And she got her A-levels, too. In history, physics and chemistry. Good grades; two As and a B. Good enough to get her into university - maybe not Oxford or Cambridge, but almost any other university she wanted. If getting a degree appealed. And it might, at some point. Sarah thought she should at least consider it.
Maybe. The main thing was that she knew she was capable of it. Whether or not she actually did it wasn’t important.
What mattered most was that she’d moved on. Got on with her life. Made a life for herself. She had a career, one that seemed to have prospects. She had a place of her own. She’d even been out on a couple of dates, though so far never twice with the same man. That would happen, though.
She’d never forget the Doctor. But she was learning to live without him, and that it was possible to be happy again.
***
And then it was 2012. The year they’d been in Utah. When they’d met the Dalek.
Some time this year, she knew exactly where the Doctor would be.
Not the Doctor she’d left, but still the Doctor. The Doctor she’d known first. The Doctor she’d loved first - and had been willing to die for. Who’d died for her, she was now very sure.
She’d never actually found out the exact date they’d been in Van Statten’s museum, though. Just that it’d been 2012. She’d said she’d be twenty-six. In reality, she was, of course, though only she knew that she was still twenty-five because of that missing year.
Just as well she’d never known the precise date. Otherwise she’d have been looking up flights to Salt Lake City. And that would be stupid. Insane.
But then she remembered something else.
On the nineteenth of May this year, the Doctor was in Manchester. In Adam Mitchell’s house. She knew the date, and the precise time, because she’d heard him as he’d set the co-ordinates. She didn’t know Adam’s address, but that wouldn’t be difficult. Not for a newsroom researcher, with all the resources of the Sunday Times at her disposal.
She could go there. Break into the house. Wait for the TARDIS to arrive. And see the Doctor again.
Several times, she looked up train times online. Twice, she went to the Trainline website, and even went through the process of booking a ticket. All the way, only to falter when it was time to send her credit card details to finish the purchase.
Because what would he think if she turned up out of the blue there?
He’d called her the best that day. What would he think if she did that? She’d already caused a paradox once, and got him killed as a result. Okay, for him that wouldn’t have happened yet, but for her it had. She knew the consequences of having two of her in the one place. She knew the logistical nightmare it would cause him if she turned up and insisted that he take her with him, while he still had the younger her with him.
And what did she want him to do with her, anyway? Keep her with him? He couldn’t do that. Take her back to the later him? But she’d sworn she wouldn’t go back. It was too late. She’d made her decision, and she was sticking to it. For herself, but also for him. She knew that being without her was better for him.
Most of all, though, she didn’t want the Doctor, the one she’d known first, to know what a complete mess she’d made of everything simply through her own selfishness and idiocy. She didn’t want him to know that she wasn’t having the fantastic life he’d wanted her to have.
Oh, her life wasn’t bad. She didn’t hate it. Most days, she liked it. But it wasn’t the life she’d had with the Doctor. And she still missed that life. Missed it - and him - more than she could ever express.
On the nineteenth of May, she couldn’t sit still all day. Kept looking at her watch, or the nearest clock. Kept counting down the time until 5.25pm, which was when they’d materialised in Adam’s living-room.
Once the clock had ticked past 5.30, she walked out of the newsroom and into the nearest pub, and ordered a glass of wine. By the time she left a couple of hours later, she’d had four. She took the Tube home and cried herself to sleep.
On the twentieth of May, she started breathing normally again.
And then she made a decision. Something she should have done five years ago, and she’d only been pretending to do. She put the Doctor firmly in the past.
Her TARDIS key, still carried around wherever she went, went into the back of a drawer. Her super-mobile went into the same drawer, and she bought a new phone. Not jiggery-poked, this one couldn’t phone home from the end of the universe. It couldn’t call the TARDIS.
And the single photograph she had of herself with the Doctor, taken one day when she’d been fooling around with the new phone she’d got not long before they landed in the parallel universe - the one that had stayed with Mickey - came out of her wallet. She wrapped it in tissue-paper and put it in the back of the same drawer, with the other souvenirs of her TARDIS days.
It was time to move on.
***
“Be happy, Mum.” She wrapped her arms around her mother and hugged her tight.
“Thanks, love. I know ‘e’s not your dad, but Howard’s a good bloke.”
“He is,” she agreed. And he was. She really liked Howard. And, most important, he was good to her mum. He’d wanted to marry her, too, which was more than any of her other boyfriends over the years had ever suggested.
It had been a lovely wedding, too. It was a beautiful and sunny August day as they spilled out from the registry office into the high street and into the cars laid on to take them to the restaurant where Howard was taking them to dinner. Just a small group; besides the newly-weds, a couple of her mum’s close friends, Sarah-Jane and a man she resolutely denied was a boyfriend but whom Rose knew had stayed over at her friend’s house more than once, and Colin.
Colin, a newish reporter on the Sunday Times political staff, who’d asked her out several times over the past couple of months. She’d finally said yes on the twentieth of May. The day she’d finally said goodbye to the Doctor.
He was... nice. Sweet, really. Intelligent and funny, especially when it came to politics, current affairs and journalism. In other aspects, he just hadn’t a clue. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he’d react if she mentioned travelling to other planets, other galaxies, other times, even other universes. As for aliens, like so many other people now he’d convinced himself they didn’t exist. That bemused her - hadn’t seeing the Sycorax on television put it beyond doubt? - but, as she and Sarah-Jane had concluded, the Doctor was right. Humans could be pretty stupid.
She could almost hear her first Doctor say it. You’re happy to believe in something that doesn’t exist, but when it’s starin’ you in the face... Nope! Can’t see it!
She knew her mum was hoping that things would work out for her with Colin. So far, she hadn’t disillusioned her, but one day she was going to have to. The relationship wasn’t going anywhere. Hadn’t gone anywhere further than a few kisses. She just wasn’t interested in more; he didn’t interest her enough to want more. Sure, she liked him, but she was going to have to make it clear very soon that she wasn’t going to fall in love with him. And she didn’t want to sleep with him. Unless he’d worked that out for himself already, which was very possible.
Maybe some day she’d find someone she could fall in love with. Correction: someone else she could fall in love with.
***
“...and then he said he didn’t see why he should have to take the blame for the voters’ obvious stupidity in failing to elect his party, so he wasn’t going to resign.”
“He didn’t?” Rose burst out laughing. “You’re going to print that, right?”
Sarah grinned. “I’m sure I’ll get a phone call later from the party’s spin doctor giving me all the reasons why I shouldn’t.”
“And you’ll pretend to listen and print it anyway?”
“Depends what they’re willing to promise me not to.” Sarah drained her cappuccino.
“Want another?” Rose started looking around for a waiter.
“Don’t have time, I’m afraid. I have to be at the Prime Minister’s office in forty-five minutes and it’ll take me half an hour or so to get there.”
“On a Sunday?”
“She said it was the only time she had available.” Sarah shrugged lightly. “One doesn’t argue with the Prime Minister.”
“True. And, yeah, this is your Following in Thatcher’s Footsteps interview, isn’t it? Harriet’s gonna love that.” She grinned. “Why not Blair, anyway? He won three terms too.”
“True.” Sarah pushed back her chair. “But I was thinking of the anatomical similarity, rather than the political persuasion.” She grinned too. “Not that I’m sure Harriet would be any more flattered by a Blair comparison. She was never one of his acolytes.”
“Yeah, she told us she was just a lowly backbencher when we first met her.” All those years ago, trapped in Downing Street being chased by Slitheen. “Obviously Blair never thought she was good enough.” But Harriet had survived the Slitheen and Blair hadn’t.
“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten that you know her. Shall I give her your regards?”
She smiled ruefully. “Best not. Last time I saw her... well, let’s just say the Doctor didn’t exactly manage to win friends and influence people. Remember the health scare?”
“What, back in her first term?” Sarah hesitated, about to leave, one hand on the back of her chair.
“Yeah. That was the Doctor. She gave the order to blow the Sycorax ship out of the sky. He called it genocide and started the rumour about her health.”
Sarah shook her head. “Sounds like the Doctor, all right. I think I won’t mention it, though.”
“Not if you want to get your interview, I wouldn’t.” Strange how the Doctor seemed to crop up in conversation out of the blue. But she’d actually managed to mention him today and not feel the usual emptiness inside. Maybe she’d finally succeeded in relegating him to the past. Maybe from now on she could think of him with fondness, but no more.
“Anyway, I must go.” With a quick hug, Sarah hurried away. Rose watched her leave, her table on the pavement outside the café allowing her to follow her friend all the way to the nearby Tube station.
She didn’t have to be anywhere yet. Catching a waiter’s eye, she ordered another cappuccino.
So, the Doctor had been right - well, right the first time. Harriet Jones had made it to her three terms, and the media were still referring to the past decade as Britain’s golden age. It was so weird, seeing events unfold as he’d told her they would. It felt as if she’d, ordinary Rose Tyler, had a hand in shaping the history of her country. Though, actually, she supposed she had, really. She’d been the one to suggest they all take cover in that cupboard, and the Doctor’d told her later that had saved their lives.
She’d saved the life of Harriet Jones, future - now present - Prime Minister. Something to be proud of, even if no-one would ever believe her and it’d never make the history books.
She sipped her coffee, sitting back in her chair and beginning to read the newspaper she’d brought with her. Today’s Sunday Times - not a paper she’d ever have read all those years ago, and still today it wasn’t her favourite read, but mainly for its political slant now rather than its serious nature. It had been a slow news week, and that was reflected in the paper, she noted. But then, it was July, traditionally a slower time of year for hard news.
July 2013. Over six years since... but she wasn’t thinking about that.
She flipped a page, then noticed the byline of a reporter she’d done a lot of research for in the past couple of weeks. This was the story she’d been helping him with. A grin on her face, she began reading, looking for evidence of her participation. The grin grew wider as she spotted pieces of information she’d come up with, including a couple of facts the company concerned had been very anxious to conceal.
She was good. Very good, in fact. She’d already been promoted twice since joining the Sunday Times. Just recently, too, her boss had hinted that she should apply for the journalist training programme. Sarah was encouraging her to do that, too, but she hadn’t decided yet. She’d enjoyed these years working for the paper, but wasn’t convinced that it was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
There was all this knowledge she had. All this experience. All the stuff she knew about the universe. About time. About aliens. There had to be a way she could use that, and she was keeping an eye out for opportunities. Okay, most of the country was convinced that aliens didn’t exist, but there were still people who knew they did. And those people had to be doing something about it. She wanted in on that if she...
She shivered suddenly. She was getting the oddest feeling. As if someone was watching her. Not just a casual glance, but staring intently at her.
About to look around, she hesitated. Then, her actions apparently casual, she reached into her handbag for her make-up mirror. Pretending to examine her nose, she used it to look around and scan the area behind her.
What she saw made her freeze. It couldn’t be. No. She was imagining things. It was just someone with a similar build. Similar style of dress. That was all.
But...
She couldn’t breathe. What if...?
It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. And she’d prove it.
She stood up and turned around, looking at the spot across the road where she’d seen the man in her mirror.
He was there, leaning against a bus shelter. Dark hair, leather jacket, just as she remembered. And his gaze was focused directly on her - though, as she turned, he tried to duck out of sight. But he was too slow for her.
She couldn’t breathe. It was him. How, she had no idea. But it was.
A choke in her voice, she cried, “Doctor!” And, knocking her chair over in her haste, she ran out into the road, towards him.
***
tbc
Author: WMR
Characters: Ten, Rose, Jackie Tyler, more to come
Rated: PG (may increase)
Spoilers: All the way to Age of Steel
Summary: “You know this is goodbye, right? No visits. I don’t do that. If you leave now, Rose, this is it.”
With very many thanks to my wonderful BR,
dark_aegis
Chapter 1: Selfish
Chapter 2: Letting Go
Chapter 3: Temptations
She didn’t regret not contacting him. Well, not much. Only sometimes. Like several times a day, though after a while she realised that maybe the regret was hitting her perhaps twice a day instead of six.
But, she told herself, of course she was always going to miss him. You don’t meet someone like the Doctor every day, and to have had the privilege of travelling the universe with him... well, it wasn’t an experience anyone could forget in a hurry.
She didn’t want to forget it. It really had been the very best time of her life. And, as she’d once told the Doctor, she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It just shouldn’t have ended so soon, but she only had herself to blame for that.
Even now, even as hard as readjusting had been, she had no regrets. If she could go back to the day when he asked her to come with him and told her the TARDIS also travelled in time, even knowing what she knew now she’d do exactly the same.
And things were getting better. Mostly. She was almost halfway to her A-levels now, and expecting to do pretty well. She wasn’t taking medication any more. She could talk about Mickey without becoming paralysed with grief and guilt. She even talked to Sarah about Jack, sharing some of their more humorous exploits and things he’d done that’d made her laugh.
She’d also rebuilt some of her friendships. Shareen had been sympathetic when she’d finally told her about the depression, and now they went out together most weeks and talked on the phone a few times a week. They weren’t as close as they used to be, but that was never going to be possible. Too much had happened. She’d done too many things she could never tell Shareen about.
And suddenly it was a year to the day since she’d left the Doctor.
***
“What you doin’ moping around the place with that long face on you?”
Her mum’s voice was sharp, and she glared at Rose.
True, she was probably moping. She’d been sitting on the sofa, doing nothing, simply staring into space, for a while.
“Nothing.” She spoke more sharply than she intended. But she really wasn’t in the mood for being criticised. Not today.
“God, sometimes I don’t know why you ever bothered to come home, Rose Tyler! ‘S not like you act like you want to be back ‘ere with us ordinary mortals. Should’ve stayed with the Doctor, since ‘e seems to be the only one who can do anything right far as you’re concerned.”
“That’s not fair!” Something inside her just snapped. “Do you have the faintest idea why I came home?”
Her mum shrugged. “Well, I dunno. You told me you’d just had enough of it. That it was time.”
“Yeah, right.” She jumped to her feet and started pacing. “An’ you believed that? I loved it, what we did. It was the best time of my life. An’ I gave it up for you. You, Mum. Cause you were alone, an’ I knew how worried you were about me, an’ suddenly Mickey was gone too. I came home so you wouldn’t worry any more!”
“What?” Her mum stared at her, her expression scornful. “Oh, come on, you don’t expect me to believe that, do you? You? You’ve always been selfish, Rose Tyler. Don’t expect me to believe that for once in your life you put someone else before yourself. Or before your precious Doctor!”
“That’s not true!” Tears were falling suddenly, hot tears of anger... and of pain. Grief.
A year today.
Exactly a year since she’d stood in the console room and told him she wanted to go home. Exactly a year since she’d said goodbye to him for ever. And here her mum was saying she should never have left.
She snatched up her purse and phone, stuffing them in her pocket, and stormed out of the flat.
***
“I dunno what to do, Mickey,” she whispered half an hour later, crouched down by the spot she’d designated as her memorial for him. “I miss him so much. Miss you, too. An’ the thing is I know I can go back. Least, he said I could. But... should I?”
Mickey didn’t answer. The only sound she heard was passing traffic.
“Thing is, I’ve no idea what he’d even be doing by now. Or who he’d be with. He’ll have someone else. I know that. Prob’ly picked someone up within a few weeks of me leaving. If not sooner. An’... I am still selfish, Mickey. I don’t want to share him. An’, anyway, maybe he doesn’t want me back now. Maybe he’s forgotten ‘bout me.”
She stood, gazing into the distance, seeing in front of her not the tower-blocks but a tall figure in brown pin-stripes. And, just behind him, another tall man in a black leather jacket.
“I could call him, yeah,” she said to the men who weren’t there. “But time-travel, yeah? How do I know when he’d get my call? Before I’ve even left? A week later? Two years? Twenty years? Or before he’s even met me in the first place? I can’t take that risk, can I?”
She couldn’t take the risk that he’d have changed his mind.
No. She wasn’t going to phone him. Not now.
The good thing about today was that she’d made it through the first year. It could only get better after this, surely. Because one thing she knew was that it couldn’t get any worse.
***
When she went back home again, her mum was waiting for her.
“C’mere, sweetheart.” She held out her arms.
Surprised, tears pricking at her eyes again, she went.
“I’m sorry, love. I should’ve remembered.” Her mum hugged her tightly. “ ‘S a year today, isn’t it?
“Yeah.” Oh, god, she’d needed this.
“An’ you miss ‘im. I should’ve seen that, love. You loved ‘im.”
“Yeah.” It was the first time she’d admitted that to her mum, though she’d told Sarah. “I do.” Love. Present tense. She still loved him. Would always love him.
“Oh, Rose.” Her mum stroked her hair. “I’m sorry you felt you needed to leave ‘im for me. An’ I am glad to have you back.”
That made her feel better. A bit, anyway.
***
It did get better. Slowly.
Gradually, she was turning back into the old Rose Tyler: outgoing, interested in things, talkative. She was very different from the Rose she’d used to be, but the new things about her became almost fused onto her old personality as it reawakened. As the depression finally lifted.
As she resolved, once and for all, that she wouldn’t let it, and missing the Doctor, rule her life.
Yes, she would always miss him. Yes, she loved him. But she was still Rose Tyler; the best, he’d once called her. Who’d always run into danger, not away from it, when she’d been with him. Who’d saved his life; maybe not as many times as he’d saved hers, but she had saved him.
If he’d seen her over the past year or so, he wouldn’t have recognised the person she’d become. If he’d met her for the first time over that same period, he’d never have invited her to travel with him. But that person wasn’t the real Rose Tyler.
Her ambition returned, along with the final stretch of her A-levels. When Sarah-Jane asked what she wanted to do once she had her qualifications, she actually had an answer.
“I’m not completely sure yet. But something interesting. Something that’ll let me use my brain. Finding things out, maybe. Dunno what that’d be, though.”
Sarah gave her a slow smile. “Actually, I might know of something that could interest you. How would you feel about working for a newspaper?”
“Doing what?” A newspaper? Sarah’s paper?
“Researching, eventually. To start with, just running around doing anything anyone wants you to do. But prove yourself at that and you’ll be given more interesting jobs.”
That sounded good. “I’m definitely interested. There’s a job?”
“There will be. Not at the magazine - it’s in the Sunday Times, so you wouldn’t be working directly with me. But that’s probably a good thing. Give me your CV and I’ll have a word with the section head for you, see if I can get you an interview.”
“Thank you!” She felt a wide smile spread over her face. And that was good. She hadn’t smiled like that in a very long time. But it was time. The past needed to be left where it belonged, and she had a future to build.
***
She got the job. Suddenly, she was Rose Tyler, junior researcher at the Sunday Times. The pay was crap and the hours were long, but it was better than minimum wage and the work was interesting.
She moved out of her mum’s flat, getting a bedsit closer to work. It was tiny and run-down, but it was hers. Sarah came to the Powell Estates with her car to help transport all her belongings, and her mum came over to help clean the new place. Howard came, too; seemed he was good at DIY and a few things needed fixing up. Several hours of hard work later, the bedsit was clean, functional and home. They celebrated over pizza at a local bistro.
And she got her A-levels, too. In history, physics and chemistry. Good grades; two As and a B. Good enough to get her into university - maybe not Oxford or Cambridge, but almost any other university she wanted. If getting a degree appealed. And it might, at some point. Sarah thought she should at least consider it.
Maybe. The main thing was that she knew she was capable of it. Whether or not she actually did it wasn’t important.
What mattered most was that she’d moved on. Got on with her life. Made a life for herself. She had a career, one that seemed to have prospects. She had a place of her own. She’d even been out on a couple of dates, though so far never twice with the same man. That would happen, though.
She’d never forget the Doctor. But she was learning to live without him, and that it was possible to be happy again.
***
And then it was 2012. The year they’d been in Utah. When they’d met the Dalek.
Some time this year, she knew exactly where the Doctor would be.
Not the Doctor she’d left, but still the Doctor. The Doctor she’d known first. The Doctor she’d loved first - and had been willing to die for. Who’d died for her, she was now very sure.
She’d never actually found out the exact date they’d been in Van Statten’s museum, though. Just that it’d been 2012. She’d said she’d be twenty-six. In reality, she was, of course, though only she knew that she was still twenty-five because of that missing year.
Just as well she’d never known the precise date. Otherwise she’d have been looking up flights to Salt Lake City. And that would be stupid. Insane.
But then she remembered something else.
On the nineteenth of May this year, the Doctor was in Manchester. In Adam Mitchell’s house. She knew the date, and the precise time, because she’d heard him as he’d set the co-ordinates. She didn’t know Adam’s address, but that wouldn’t be difficult. Not for a newsroom researcher, with all the resources of the Sunday Times at her disposal.
She could go there. Break into the house. Wait for the TARDIS to arrive. And see the Doctor again.
Several times, she looked up train times online. Twice, she went to the Trainline website, and even went through the process of booking a ticket. All the way, only to falter when it was time to send her credit card details to finish the purchase.
Because what would he think if she turned up out of the blue there?
He’d called her the best that day. What would he think if she did that? She’d already caused a paradox once, and got him killed as a result. Okay, for him that wouldn’t have happened yet, but for her it had. She knew the consequences of having two of her in the one place. She knew the logistical nightmare it would cause him if she turned up and insisted that he take her with him, while he still had the younger her with him.
And what did she want him to do with her, anyway? Keep her with him? He couldn’t do that. Take her back to the later him? But she’d sworn she wouldn’t go back. It was too late. She’d made her decision, and she was sticking to it. For herself, but also for him. She knew that being without her was better for him.
Most of all, though, she didn’t want the Doctor, the one she’d known first, to know what a complete mess she’d made of everything simply through her own selfishness and idiocy. She didn’t want him to know that she wasn’t having the fantastic life he’d wanted her to have.
Oh, her life wasn’t bad. She didn’t hate it. Most days, she liked it. But it wasn’t the life she’d had with the Doctor. And she still missed that life. Missed it - and him - more than she could ever express.
On the nineteenth of May, she couldn’t sit still all day. Kept looking at her watch, or the nearest clock. Kept counting down the time until 5.25pm, which was when they’d materialised in Adam’s living-room.
Once the clock had ticked past 5.30, she walked out of the newsroom and into the nearest pub, and ordered a glass of wine. By the time she left a couple of hours later, she’d had four. She took the Tube home and cried herself to sleep.
On the twentieth of May, she started breathing normally again.
And then she made a decision. Something she should have done five years ago, and she’d only been pretending to do. She put the Doctor firmly in the past.
Her TARDIS key, still carried around wherever she went, went into the back of a drawer. Her super-mobile went into the same drawer, and she bought a new phone. Not jiggery-poked, this one couldn’t phone home from the end of the universe. It couldn’t call the TARDIS.
And the single photograph she had of herself with the Doctor, taken one day when she’d been fooling around with the new phone she’d got not long before they landed in the parallel universe - the one that had stayed with Mickey - came out of her wallet. She wrapped it in tissue-paper and put it in the back of the same drawer, with the other souvenirs of her TARDIS days.
It was time to move on.
***
“Be happy, Mum.” She wrapped her arms around her mother and hugged her tight.
“Thanks, love. I know ‘e’s not your dad, but Howard’s a good bloke.”
“He is,” she agreed. And he was. She really liked Howard. And, most important, he was good to her mum. He’d wanted to marry her, too, which was more than any of her other boyfriends over the years had ever suggested.
It had been a lovely wedding, too. It was a beautiful and sunny August day as they spilled out from the registry office into the high street and into the cars laid on to take them to the restaurant where Howard was taking them to dinner. Just a small group; besides the newly-weds, a couple of her mum’s close friends, Sarah-Jane and a man she resolutely denied was a boyfriend but whom Rose knew had stayed over at her friend’s house more than once, and Colin.
Colin, a newish reporter on the Sunday Times political staff, who’d asked her out several times over the past couple of months. She’d finally said yes on the twentieth of May. The day she’d finally said goodbye to the Doctor.
He was... nice. Sweet, really. Intelligent and funny, especially when it came to politics, current affairs and journalism. In other aspects, he just hadn’t a clue. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he’d react if she mentioned travelling to other planets, other galaxies, other times, even other universes. As for aliens, like so many other people now he’d convinced himself they didn’t exist. That bemused her - hadn’t seeing the Sycorax on television put it beyond doubt? - but, as she and Sarah-Jane had concluded, the Doctor was right. Humans could be pretty stupid.
She could almost hear her first Doctor say it. You’re happy to believe in something that doesn’t exist, but when it’s starin’ you in the face... Nope! Can’t see it!
She knew her mum was hoping that things would work out for her with Colin. So far, she hadn’t disillusioned her, but one day she was going to have to. The relationship wasn’t going anywhere. Hadn’t gone anywhere further than a few kisses. She just wasn’t interested in more; he didn’t interest her enough to want more. Sure, she liked him, but she was going to have to make it clear very soon that she wasn’t going to fall in love with him. And she didn’t want to sleep with him. Unless he’d worked that out for himself already, which was very possible.
Maybe some day she’d find someone she could fall in love with. Correction: someone else she could fall in love with.
***
“...and then he said he didn’t see why he should have to take the blame for the voters’ obvious stupidity in failing to elect his party, so he wasn’t going to resign.”
“He didn’t?” Rose burst out laughing. “You’re going to print that, right?”
Sarah grinned. “I’m sure I’ll get a phone call later from the party’s spin doctor giving me all the reasons why I shouldn’t.”
“And you’ll pretend to listen and print it anyway?”
“Depends what they’re willing to promise me not to.” Sarah drained her cappuccino.
“Want another?” Rose started looking around for a waiter.
“Don’t have time, I’m afraid. I have to be at the Prime Minister’s office in forty-five minutes and it’ll take me half an hour or so to get there.”
“On a Sunday?”
“She said it was the only time she had available.” Sarah shrugged lightly. “One doesn’t argue with the Prime Minister.”
“True. And, yeah, this is your Following in Thatcher’s Footsteps interview, isn’t it? Harriet’s gonna love that.” She grinned. “Why not Blair, anyway? He won three terms too.”
“True.” Sarah pushed back her chair. “But I was thinking of the anatomical similarity, rather than the political persuasion.” She grinned too. “Not that I’m sure Harriet would be any more flattered by a Blair comparison. She was never one of his acolytes.”
“Yeah, she told us she was just a lowly backbencher when we first met her.” All those years ago, trapped in Downing Street being chased by Slitheen. “Obviously Blair never thought she was good enough.” But Harriet had survived the Slitheen and Blair hadn’t.
“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten that you know her. Shall I give her your regards?”
She smiled ruefully. “Best not. Last time I saw her... well, let’s just say the Doctor didn’t exactly manage to win friends and influence people. Remember the health scare?”
“What, back in her first term?” Sarah hesitated, about to leave, one hand on the back of her chair.
“Yeah. That was the Doctor. She gave the order to blow the Sycorax ship out of the sky. He called it genocide and started the rumour about her health.”
Sarah shook her head. “Sounds like the Doctor, all right. I think I won’t mention it, though.”
“Not if you want to get your interview, I wouldn’t.” Strange how the Doctor seemed to crop up in conversation out of the blue. But she’d actually managed to mention him today and not feel the usual emptiness inside. Maybe she’d finally succeeded in relegating him to the past. Maybe from now on she could think of him with fondness, but no more.
“Anyway, I must go.” With a quick hug, Sarah hurried away. Rose watched her leave, her table on the pavement outside the café allowing her to follow her friend all the way to the nearby Tube station.
She didn’t have to be anywhere yet. Catching a waiter’s eye, she ordered another cappuccino.
So, the Doctor had been right - well, right the first time. Harriet Jones had made it to her three terms, and the media were still referring to the past decade as Britain’s golden age. It was so weird, seeing events unfold as he’d told her they would. It felt as if she’d, ordinary Rose Tyler, had a hand in shaping the history of her country. Though, actually, she supposed she had, really. She’d been the one to suggest they all take cover in that cupboard, and the Doctor’d told her later that had saved their lives.
She’d saved the life of Harriet Jones, future - now present - Prime Minister. Something to be proud of, even if no-one would ever believe her and it’d never make the history books.
She sipped her coffee, sitting back in her chair and beginning to read the newspaper she’d brought with her. Today’s Sunday Times - not a paper she’d ever have read all those years ago, and still today it wasn’t her favourite read, but mainly for its political slant now rather than its serious nature. It had been a slow news week, and that was reflected in the paper, she noted. But then, it was July, traditionally a slower time of year for hard news.
July 2013. Over six years since... but she wasn’t thinking about that.
She flipped a page, then noticed the byline of a reporter she’d done a lot of research for in the past couple of weeks. This was the story she’d been helping him with. A grin on her face, she began reading, looking for evidence of her participation. The grin grew wider as she spotted pieces of information she’d come up with, including a couple of facts the company concerned had been very anxious to conceal.
She was good. Very good, in fact. She’d already been promoted twice since joining the Sunday Times. Just recently, too, her boss had hinted that she should apply for the journalist training programme. Sarah was encouraging her to do that, too, but she hadn’t decided yet. She’d enjoyed these years working for the paper, but wasn’t convinced that it was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
There was all this knowledge she had. All this experience. All the stuff she knew about the universe. About time. About aliens. There had to be a way she could use that, and she was keeping an eye out for opportunities. Okay, most of the country was convinced that aliens didn’t exist, but there were still people who knew they did. And those people had to be doing something about it. She wanted in on that if she...
She shivered suddenly. She was getting the oddest feeling. As if someone was watching her. Not just a casual glance, but staring intently at her.
About to look around, she hesitated. Then, her actions apparently casual, she reached into her handbag for her make-up mirror. Pretending to examine her nose, she used it to look around and scan the area behind her.
What she saw made her freeze. It couldn’t be. No. She was imagining things. It was just someone with a similar build. Similar style of dress. That was all.
But...
She couldn’t breathe. What if...?
It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. And she’d prove it.
She stood up and turned around, looking at the spot across the road where she’d seen the man in her mirror.
He was there, leaning against a bus shelter. Dark hair, leather jacket, just as she remembered. And his gaze was focused directly on her - though, as she turned, he tried to duck out of sight. But he was too slow for her.
She couldn’t breathe. It was him. How, she had no idea. But it was.
A choke in her voice, she cried, “Doctor!” And, knocking her chair over in her haste, she ran out into the road, towards him.
***
tbc