Imagine my distress when I found out that there were no Rose Tyler Earth Defense fanfictions easily searchable. Naturally that meant that this came and bit me on the nose, refusing to let go until I wrote it. I'm actually a fair bit into it, but this seemed like a good stopping place. So, here it is, Rose's adventures in the parallel world with Torchwood.

Disclaimer: Sadly no. If I did, Matt Smith would not be the next doctor, though I would still keep Karen, she's brill.

Rose Tyler: Earth Defense

(1/?)

When Pete brought her back to the parallel universe, Rose frantically beat on the wall that used to be a portal between his world and hers, screaming and crying like a mad woman, barely even registering what he said. She could hear a faint warmth rise on the other side, as if he were on the other side of a plastic wall and the heat of the Doctor's body was transferring through the thin barrier from a Universe away. She pressed herself into it, laying her cheek and hand along where his would be, imagining that it truly was the heat of him and the sound of her blood pumping in her ears was his heartbeat. Whatever heat clinging to the wall from the closing vortex finally faded, leaving her laying against a cold wall. The presence vanished and she turned to face her family, still leaning on the wall for support. Pete, the dad she'd never known, Jackie, her mum who loved her more than anything and Mickey. Mickey, who'd stayed by her no matter what she'd done or said to hurt him. She turned back to the wall, reaching out a hand to knock her knuckles against the wall lightly as if she were knocking on a door, asking politely to be let back in. When the insanely jocular voice of the man she loved didn't call out "Who's there?" in a sing song voice, she knew that this wasn't a joke it was real. He wasn't coming to get her, he couldn't come to get her, so she turned and walked away, straight into her mother's arms as they clasped her in.

"Shush." Her mother cooed, stroking her back as she began to shake, before letting her go. "It'll be all right, we'll work it out."

"What do I do now?" Rose asked, scrubbing at her cheeks with the rough fabric over her palm. Pete raised his hands with an awkward shrug of helplessness. Jackie rubbed her hands up and down Rose's arms before squeezing her hand. "I've got nothin' here. And oh god- he's not coming back."

"You could work for Torchwood," Mickey offered. He put an arm around her and she tucked her head into the curve of his neck, reminiscent of the way they used to be. "I've got room on my team, though I think they'd like you in with the squints and pushers."

"Any time you want to come work for us, you have a place." Pete confirmed, squeezing her shoulder and doing his best to be fatherly, but considering the fact that the most fatherly he'd ever had to be was to a small terrier, he didn't have much experience at it. Rose wiped under her eyes with her blue sweatshirt, leaving streaks of mascara behind. She touched her nose with the back of her wrist, sniffling. She looked up at Pete with a watery smile, pulling her hair out of her face with shaking hands to tuck the strands behind her ears. He continued to pat her shoulder awkwardly, before turning to the door way and raising a hand, indicating the door. "We can talk about that later at home."

"Right. Home." Rose parroted, still shell shocked and wide eyed. She seemed to deflate, leaning against Mickey, using him as a prop.

"I'll show you around." Mickey said, reaching a hand up to ruffle her hair lightly before putting the dislodged strands back behind her ear. He kissed her on the forehead before steering her towards the door to get her to leave. "It ain't so bad here, I promise."

"We'll take care of everything." Pete reassured as Jackie held Rose even tighter, trying to protect her baby from everything bad in the world as she'd been so unable to do in the past years.

"We'll build a proper life here, off the Estates." Jackie promised, finally letting Rose go to stand on her own. "We can have the life we always wanted, Pete is very rich you know."

"Yeah, I got that." Rose said sardonically. Even in the depths of her sorrow, she could still be amused by her mother's obsession with money and she had to fight down a grin. Mickey shared a look that he'd likely given her mother when she'd first met up with Pete and claimed that there had never been anyone else. "But travellin' with the Doctor is all I ever needed."

"Yeah, well that's not happenin', Rose." Mickey said, shrugging, leading her out to the van that he had appropriated the last time she saw him. He and Jackie exchanged a glance that proclaimed how close they'd gotten in the few years before he'd left. Waiting for Rose bonded them together in a way that still held even after time had passed. "Lets see 'bout getting you home."

"You still have the van?" Rose asked, bemused. She climbed into the front and her parents climbed into the back to snuggle outrageously. Rose carefully did not look into the rear view mirror as she didn't want to see anything traumatizing. Weirdly enough to see her mother with any of her new boyfriends, but to see her with her Dad was even worse because she knew that he wasn't really her dad, he only had the same face and same heart and that was good enough for Jackie, who missed her Pete with a fierce passion that Rose didn't even think was possible coming from someone so flighty. Rose would have to admit that she didn't give her mother enough credit because the people that she cared about, she cared about completely and selflessly, it was the rest of the world that got the shaft.

"Itsa good van." Mickey protested. "I liberated France with this van. I have a good record saving the world with cars. Saved you at the school with that little crap piece I stole from the garage and saved the Universe with a big yellow truck."

"True." Rose gave a gurgling little laugh, tearing up again at the reminder of her adventures. "You and autos. Saving the world time and again."

"Right." Mickey said, glancing over at her. "Now its me, Jake, Selina, Johnson, you and this ruddy old van together."

"Selina? Johnson?" Rose inquired. These names were unfamiliar, and she was curious whom Mickey had found as allies. Jake, of course, was Ricky's friend from before he died that had teamed up with Mickey to go right the wrongs of the parallel world. It had been good to see him again more as familiar face if nothing else.

"Selina's this randy little bint who is ace with tech, and Johnson's the best crack shot in the world, he'd give your Jack a run on the pins." Mickey said, proud of his team. They had become like family as the Cybermen had gotten out of control. They depended on each other for everything, and there were days that they were snuggled together under an overhang, trying desperately to stay alive and watch each other's back. Those had been awkward as he tried to keep Selina's hands out of his pants. "Speaking of randy bints, how's Jack?"

"Dunno. Last I saw, he was in the year 3000." Rose looked out the window, taking in the dirigibles flying by in stark contrast to the bright blue sky. She leaned against the cold glass, grateful for the cool to soothe her roughened cheeks. "He wouldn't talk about Jack."

They were silent for the rest of the ride home, Rose turning on the radio to drown out the smacking and murmuring noises from her parents in the back seat as they made out like teenagers in their parents car. Thank god the pop songs were the same mindless drivel on this side of the universe, or else she actually would pay attention to the lyrics and would be distracted from her thoughts. She was stuck here, that much was obvious, she might as well make the best of it.

It was a relatively short ride to the mansion from the new Torchwood headquarters and Mickey cranked the van to what was probably far too high of speeds for a rolling metal box that it was, and he maneuvered with the van like he'd been doing nothing but driving it for months on end. Considering that time passed faster on this side of the barrier, that was probably true. She would have to ask him how long it had been later. She clambered out of the van, hopping down the three foot drop to open the door for her mother and Pete, sliding it open with a rasp. Pete went ahead to open the door and Mickey tucked an arm around each of the girls, to lead them to the house as Rose's mum was staring at the architecture of the mansion slack jawed in amazement.

"Welcome," He nodded his head to Rose's. "Back, to the Tyler mansion."

"Blimey." Jackie whispered, "You really meant very."

"C'mon, Jacks." Pete grinned at her with a cocky smile. "It's not so different than the Estates. Got a roof, and walls and some rooms."

"Some rooms!" Jackie said, allowing herself to be pulled out of Mickey's grasp by her returned from the dead husband. "It's bigger than Downing street!"

"All right the pool is new." Pete admitted, enjoying the look on Jackie's face, a mixture of shock, awe and avaricious enjoyment.

"A pool!" Jackie exclaimed, clutching at his arm. "That's right posh."

The two of them wandered off, probably to show Jackie around as they snuggled, and Mickey held out his arm like a gentleman to escort her into the place she would now call home. It was then, when she stepped into the house that echoed with screams of silence that not even her boisterous mother could fill that she came to a realization. If Rose Tyler had learned one single true thing in her time with the Doctor, it was the fact that you shouldn't follow the man with the really great hair, you were just going to get your heart broken. Only slightly less importantly, she had learned that if you didn't take a stand, no one else would and you'd have lost the battle before it even begun. It was upon the realization of this second fact that made Rose come to the conclusion that this world, so strangely similar to her own on the macrocosmic scale yet so drastically different in the details, still needed a hero to stand between Earth and all the aliens out there that would decide that Earth was the perfect place for them to in any way harm.

This world had no Doctor, no man who was like a god of the cosmos, righting wrongs with the flip of a hand, with six little words that could bring down the government, a bluff and a crazy, possibly insane smile perched under wildly unpredictable hair in need of a good ruffle. Who would stand in the way of any oncoming tragedy to guard the six billion inhabitants that blithely carried on their everyday lives, completely ignorant of the dangers that hurtled across the galaxy towards them. They had to settle for the next best thing, Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth.

Reviews are love! As a side note, this was actually green lit to be a series by Russell T Davies and the networks, but on more careful consideration, Davies decided it was a bit silly and a "spinnoff too far". Sad. I would have muchly enjoyed having seen Rose romping around with Mickey and being awesome.