Author's note: I'm probably way late to the Oppy party but I'm sad about her being up there all on her own, and I couldn't manage to get this done any earlier. So, if anyone still cares, hope you'll have fun!
"Bad Wolf ready for the next jump."
Rose looked straight ahead, her head held high, the dimension cannon secure in her grip. She couldn't see the glances Mickey exchanged with her mum at the term, but she could imagine them well enough. She'd told them she had dubbed the cannon Bad Wolf for convenience reasons (dimension cannon was a mouthful if you said it several time per hour, sometimes per sentence), but while that wasn't a lie, it wasn't quite the truth either. Bad Wolf was what she called the device whenever she talked about it in the presence of her family.
It was also what she had begun referring herself to as when she ended up in a populated place and someone asked for her identity.
I am the Bad Wolf.
Sometimes, she clung to the phrase like a mantra. I am the Bad Wolf. The Bad Wolf was what had led her back to the Doctor the first time. I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. She had led herself back when he first thought he could leave her behind for her own good, and she would get herself back this time as well. The phrase served as a reminder, as an identity, as a source of hope whenever she came close to giving up.
And if she wondered, on occasion, what else?, when she stared into the mirror and a stranger stared back, when she saw tiny flecks of gold in her eyes that she didn't remember seeing before, when she looked at places and people and strange skies on foreign planets and felt a pull, a knowledge just beyond her reach that both tempted and scared her, well, none of that mattered. The Bad Wolf would find her way back home, and for now, nothing else was important.
"See you later," she heard herself say, almost flippantly. If by some miracle she landed in the right place, at the right time (and she would, one day she would, and why shouldn't it be right now), she'd use the cannon to send a signal telling the others to follow. If not, she'd use the 30 minutes the device took to recharge to figure out where she was, and if anything would compel her to stay longer. (The longest she'd stayed away had been just under two weeks, helping a mining crew on Yusxon save half their party that had gotten into an accident. No invasions, no evil plans, but it had taken a long time and she hadn't been able to get all of them to safety, and Jackie had been worried sick. Since then, she tried to keep her trips shorter.)
A flash of light that no one saw but her, and with a tearing sensation, the white walls vanished, to be replaced after an indeterminable length of time by – a desert.
Rose glanced at the readings the little screen on her sleeve dutifully displayed. They hadn't yet been able to figure out how to make sure the cannon would only transport its user to inhabitable places, so she wore a space suit of sorts for every jump – clumsy, but it had saved her life more than once, and she could take it off after ensuring it was safe. Still, they'd definitely have to work on that some more.
The readings were clear, if discouraging. Low gravity, low temperature despite the desert-like appearance, and a thin, unbreathable atmosphere. Rose's heart sank. She wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of life having evolved here in some way, but the chances were slim. Still, it was an alien world, and she had half an hour to kill.
Dust swirled softly with every step she took. Small stones and rocks scattered before her heavy boots. Rose bent down to lift one of them off the ground and threw it as far as she could into the empty landscape. The planet might be cold and hostile and consist of nothing but reddish plains and hills and craters as far as she could see, but there was something about throwing things about in low gravity and barely-there atmosphere that never lost its fascination. The small rock sailed through the tawny sky as though time had slowed down just enough to be unsettling, and Rose watched it until it disappeared behind a dune, ridiculously proud of having thrown it so far.
The Doctor would love this. She smiled a little, trying to keep the sadness at bay for a bit longer. They'd once had a cherry stone spitting contest on a moon with not even half of Earth's gravity.
Lost in thought, Rose kept walking upwards until she reached the top of the dune that had hidden her rock from sight, and stopped short.
Dread settled in her stomach at the sight before her, her body going rigid, instantly on her guard again. Maybe not quite as uninhabited after all, then. In the middle of the patchy landscape stood a – machine, a robot, perhaps a vehicle? It had tyres – the tracks were as visible behind it as her own footsteps were behind her, though whoever was responsible for the steering seemed to have had little idea of where they were going. There wasn't any room for passengers as far as she could tell though, so whatever it was for, it most likely wasn't made for getting from A to B.
It didn't look dangerous, and it didn't move when she hesitantly stepped closer. Rose relaxed a little, although she kept her guard up. Her heart skipped a beat when the ground slipped a little beneath her step, already envisioning herself falling and tumbling down the dune amidst a cloud of reddish sand while the thing came to life and did whatever nasty thing it might be programmed to do.
Rose caught her balance, and the thing did nothing at all, completely disregarding her rapid heartbeat and apprehension. Perhaps it was switched off, or in stand-by mode or something. Or broken. Now that she was closer, the layer of sand, or dust, coating the entire contraption became apparent. Whoever hat sent it seemed to have left it like this for quite some time. Rose looked at the machine with a strange, heavy feeling in her heart. Given up on you, have they.
It reminded her of a dog left out in the cold. A weird, mechanical dog, made out of something like Lego with pieces that weren't actually supposed to be used for building a dog, or maybe the builder wasn't altogether informed on what a dog looked like. There were structures reminiscent of dragon wings on the sides – solar panels, if she considered it analytically, but the first impression suggested wings – and the "head" wasn't unlike a hammer shark's, but more knobbly. Instead of a tail, there was a kind of antenna sticking up from its "back".
Rose had the faint impulse to pet it.
Finally standing next to it, she found it just a tad too large for the comparison to an Earth dog to hold up. She had to crane her neck if she wanted to look at the sensors in its face.
The sun was small but bright in the sky and made her squint as she studied the lonely robot. Six wheels, antenna on the back, a camera sticking out at the front, unidentifiable sensors covering the head. No visible weapons, as far as she could tell. Solar panels all over, and all of them covered in dust… if those were the only source of power, maybe the battery had simply run out. Rose bit the inside of her cheek and ran a clumsy, glove-covered hand over the edge of a wing.
"What do you think, old girl? Could we get you to work again?"
No response from the non-functional robot dog. It probably didn't have auditory sensors. And the atmosphere was hardly suitable to carry her voice beyond her helmet's transparent face plate. And, oh yes, doggie wasn't functional. What a wonderful basis for a conversation.
Rose wasn't deterred and circled around her companion once more. "If we're lucky, you just need a little energy boost to get going again. If I manage to clear the panels..."
She thought about it. It wouldn't be too complicated. Most likely they didn't need to be 100% free of dust to do their job, and with a bit of stretching she could reach everything well enough, despite the suit inconveniencing her and, together with the low gravity, making her movements uncomfortably clumsy. She could clean off the solar panel wings, maybe stand on the tyres to get to some spots on the back, then wait for a bit until the robot had recovered enough power and would start moving again. Perhaps that really was all it took, and she could see it in action, find out what its programming was, what it had been sent out for. Perhaps it would return to some sort of home base – how fast would it be? If she could follow it, figure out more about where she was, get some information…
Rose's shoulders slumped. She wasn't stupid. Even if cleaning the panels was enough to make it work, she had no idea what it was programmed to do, or who had programmed it and what their intentions were. It might look like a strange dog to her but so did a lot of alien things and creatures that were as far from dogs as they could possibly be. No matter how many worlds Rose visited, her mind would never stop looking for familiar patterns and structures and applying that familiarity no matter how imagined. Just because she couldn't discern any weapons didn't mean there weren't any. Just because it reminded her of a lost dog didn't mean it wouldn't try to harm her the moment it was able to. And just because she was lonely didn't mean she had to project her own damn feelings on the first dead robot she came across.
"Sorry, girl," she murmured. With a sigh, she sat down on the front left tyre and patted the metal rod it was attached to. "Guess I'll let you sleep, then."
The sun hung low in the sky before her. If she turned her head a little, she could see the faint outline of a crescent moon, thin and barely visible against the red sky. Without looking at her wristband, Rose knew that her thirty minutes must have passed, but she made no move to get up. She had oxygen for a time span much longer than this, and even though the bit of metal she leaned against wasn't that pleasant in her back, it felt a little bit like… home.
Rose snorted a little. "Look at me getting sentimental over an oversized robodog." She looked up at it flipped at her tyre seat with a finger. "You don't even actually look like a dog. Or like Lego. I'm probably farther from home than ever and you're not even comfortable." She squinted at the small, yellow sun, and tried and failed to think of nothing.
"I'm going to find my way back, you know," she told the lifeless robot as she watched the sun's descent towards the horizon. If she stayed a bit longer she could see what the planet looked like at night. "Even if it takes me a lifetime. For all I know, I might even have more than one." She paused. "I never said that out loud before. And you can't even hear me. Do your sensors still do anything at all? Some leftover energy maybe?"
No response. Not that she had expected one.
Rose's hand absently stroked the rim of her tyre. The thought of leaving her robot companion behind almost made her feel sorry for it. All on its own on a seemingly empty planet… "Your owners will come looking for you, I s'pose," she said unthinkingly. Like she was trying to comfort an actual dog that had been left behind. "They probably miss you. I mean, who leaves their cute robot thingy standing around like so much space rubbish? You'll find your way home some day. We both will, yeah? And until then..."
Pushing herself up with one hand on the wheel, Rose got to her feet. She had to leave. There was nothing for her to do here, and Jackie was probably worried already. Mickey, too, and the others, though they tended to be less vocal about it most of the time. Still, she couldn't go without leaving something behind. It'd be wrong. She had told the robot she had hope that it would return home, and she would make sure it had a reminder. What did it matter that it was stupid, that the robot had no way of even knowing she had been present, that it would confuse people if they ever did come for their abandoned machine.
Rose stood on the tyre she had used as a seat and held on to the panel with the left as she drew careful lines into the dust with her index finger, thick and unwieldy in the suit's glove.
She would make her way back, whatever it took. Until then, all this was an opportunity. An opportunity to see every universe in all their strange beauty, to compare and learn more about their inhabitants, to gather data that she could present to the Doctor once she found him. The stars were going out, and she would return home and they would solve the problem together, as they always had.
Rose Tyler didn't see the way her eyes sparked golden in the light of the setting sun as she turned away and took up her dimension cannon. She disappeared in a short flash of energy that tickled a nearly dead sensor that belonged to a robot who couldn't feel her signature on its panelled wings, and couldn't understand the meaning of it.
It still dutifully displayed the message when, only a few months later, a strange blue box arrived as much out of nowhere as its first visitor had and opened up to reveal a figure in a too big orange space suit. The figure froze in its tracks when it came close enough to read the large, careful letters.
The Doctor stood motionless for a long time before she approached the old rover. "Hello there, old girl," she murmured hoarsely. "Seems you have quite the story to tell, hm?"
End Notes: Rose could, of course, in theory recognise Oppy for one of her Earth's Mars rovers. I decided she doesn't for the following reasons: She doesn't know she's on Mars and honestly it doesn't even cross her mind that that's where she is (she's seen so damn many planets, with and without the Doctor, why would Mars still be the first planet to cross her mind), and before she met the Doctor, I don't think she ever cared much about space, at least not in the real life science way (loving the stars because they are pretty and make one dream doesn't mean one knows what a Mars rover looks like), and with the Doctor there were so incredibly many worlds and times and galaxies far away that she just somehow never thought to explore her own solar system more, not when she could go so much farther than that. So yeah, this was Rose meeting Oppy after her death. I hope the Doctor gets her home. (I also like to imagine an AU in which Rose is, in fact, with Thirteen here. She's just still in the TARDIS. Idk.)