This is set just after the War Doctor says about Bad Wolf. It contains spoilers, obviously.
He's shocked, shocked beyond belief to hear the words he had thought were completely confined to his distant past: Bad Wolf. The phrase is haunting him again, just as it did in the weeks and months following the incident at Torchwood, and the Doctor's not entirely sure that he hasn't fallen into some form of semi-lucid hallucination and started dreaming of Rose again. It wouldn't be the first time, after all. But no, he takes a deep breath and counts as quickly as possible to ten before opening his eyes; the scene's the same, and he's definitely awake. Bad Wolf—Rose—is here, or she has been, unless he's going crazy again, which is always, always, always a possibility with someone like him.
"Sorry, did you just say Bad Wolf?" The Doctor's tenth incarnation asks, getting the words out as quickly as possible, confusion clouding everything for him. He so desperately wants to believe that she's here, to believe that she came back—she's come back for him, she's not trapped forever—but the logistics…they're impossible; it can't be her, it just can't be.
His previous incarnation, the one he regrets so dearly and yet appreciates so much, seems keen to move onto another topic, even as his eyes roam the room looking for something-anything —that could suggest Rose is here. If it's the Bad Wolf it's Rose because the one who opened the heart of the TARDIS has spread herself throughout the entirety of space and time, able to be anywhere and everywhere at once. There's just noone else who could compare to her.
"I'm asking you: did you say Bad Wolf?" He asks again, growing slightly frustrated as his younger self begins prattling on about how glad he is that they've managed to save their species and that he no longer hates himself for what he does. All he wants is an answer to his question, to know whether or not he can remove a name from the list of people whose lives he's destroyed (as he can never deny destroying every aspect of Rose Tyler's life; from the moment he fell in love with her, he knew irreparable damage had been caused).
The room seems to stop as his frustration grows, his older self staring at the girl he recognises but could swear he's never met before as though he's trying to say sorry for the commotion, his younger self confused at the pressing of the Bad Wolf matter.
"Yes…yes, I did," the War Doctor replies—as that's the only way he can distinguish between the three of them: the War Doctor, himself, and the enigma, the one who he knows nothing about—though he's not looking at his tenth self when he replies. He's staring into the corner of the room, a puzzled expression on his face. "But…she said that she isn't really the Bad Wolf, more of an—"
"An interface who can mimic whatever she wants—and in this case, the thing the Doctor needs—or wants—the most," a voice the Doctor recognises well, far too well, finishes the sentence, and all he can do is turn around as fast as he can to see if she's there.
And he's right; it's Rose, but it's not Rose at the same time. She's dressed differently, a strange mixture of half-ripped clothes, and her make-up seems a complete contrast to how she used to do it. And it's only then that he fully processes what she said, and only then do both his hearts come crashing down, all hope in them eradicated. The three of them deciding not to blow up Gallifrey—something he still barely understands, considering the reason his prior incarnation needed to be saved by the aforementioned Rose Tyler—made him think that maybe he's done something right in his life, gave him something to be hopeful for…but now he's not so sure. He might have saved the innocents, but he's also saved those who were becoming worse than the Daleks themselves, those who were creating weapons which had the potential of ripping the universe in two. The Moment destroying those Daleks…that wasn't—isn't—the only part of the Time War; it's something that has occurred simultaneously from the beginning and the end of the universe, something which threatens to tear a hole in the universe's fabric…and that's not something that can be solved from just making Gallifrey disappear.
(He's certain the doubts are coming from the harrowing disappointment that the woman who looks so much like his Rose isn't really his after all, but he's got another few hundred years to think about that. Now, he needs to occupy himself with Rose.)
"So you're an interface for what, this weapon thing?" he feels the need to clarify, taking a step closer to her because she looks so much like Rose that he's able to trick himself into thinking that it's actually her.
The girl—thing—shrugs and jumps off the box she was sat on, twirling around the room and laughing, things that don't make much sense to the Doctor considering the situation. "Yep, that's right," she answers. "I'm not really Rose Tyler—or even the Bad Wolf that you have so much history with—but the Moment knows what the Doctor wants and needs, and that's Rose Tyler's Bad Wolf. It always has been and always will be, something to do with the fact that she sprinkled herself through time and space."
Before he has a chance to speak, the future version of the Doctor butts in—and in his face is the same love and despair he feels, making the Doctor remember that his future self loves Rose just as much as he does, though he probably can bury it better. "But so did Clara, and she did it to save me—us, it's confusing with my past selves being here. Wouldn't it make more sense for me to need her?"
The interface—Rose—shrugs, her eyes turning the glowing golden way they did when she was the Bad Wolf, back when the heart of the TARDIS found itself a new home in its human host. "I'm an interface, Doctor; I read what you all need, what you all want, and it's this person I am. I can read everything about you from just looking at you; I know what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, and what traits continue into each life you lead. You think you're behaving differently when one of you is a Warlord and another's someone who fights so hard to forget everything that he's ever done, but really, you're just bringing out another personality trait that the original you had, reminding yourself of something you used to be but never quite got the opportunity to act upon. And everything I read about you with that one look, it all leads to this: Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf, two entities which are joined together—and they both are completely ingrained in your life."
He's breaking apart because as he watches the interface talk about him, about Rose, he sees a light in her eyes that's nothing if not Rose Tyler. He sees laughter and joy—and misery too, but he tries to ignore that—and everything that she used to be; her memories shine through, and he's certain that the interface can read Rose Tyler too. She doesn't need to be here for the interface to understand that she loves the Doctor more than anything—and perhaps this is the real reason why she chose to become Rose Tyler. It's all well and good when someone's who the Doctor loves, but when that someone loves the Doctor back…it can make for a very important bargaining chip.
"You can feel her, can't you?" He steps forward again, towards the interface who has stopped twirling and dancing now; she's simply looking deep into his soul, feeding his belief that she's Rose Tyler. You're being lied to; she isn't Rose, she's just someone who's using your love to try and manipulate you. "You know what she's feeling, what she's doing, how she's coping. You wouldn't know her memories otherwise. You're aware of everything she's ever done and everything she's going to do—just from knowing her name."
The interface neither confirms nor denies this for a long, long moment, just continues looking into his eyes, until she whispers, "maybe you're right; maybe I am able to feel everything Rose Tyler feels. Or maybe I am Rose Tyler. Maybe you've been lied to; maybe the only reason you think you love her is because she's a weapon—and that's the reason you had to lose her. To be a healer, to be the Doctor, you had to let her go into another world."
"She's not the monster!" He bursts out with this, anger clouding everything just as confusion once had, because if there's one thing Rose Tyler never was, it's a monster. "She's good, you know that, you're just messing with me, trying to make me think I'm going crazy." One look at his future self makes him think maybe that happening isn't too far away. "You're just trying to drive me over the edge, make me think that I can relinquish the guilt for one person in this world I've damaged—but I can't."
A smile plays on the interface's lips, and all the signs of Rose disappear from her eyes as they become solidly black, the depths of the universe visible through a never ending hole. "You're right, of course, I'd expect nothing less from the Doctor, after all. She's not here, she never has been; I can feel everything she has ever felt and is ever going to feel—and a lot of that contains you."
The guilt resurfaces within him, because even as he watches someone who looks like his Rose—someone who is his Rose, at least inside—he knows that he's responsible for causing her all the pain in her future. If she'd stayed inside the TARDIS, if she hadn't helped him, she could still be here in his universe.
It feels like it's just him and the interface now, even though he's aware that his past is looking curiously at the current situation and his future self knows just how he's feeling, it's just his past and more detached from his present. There's even the new companion watching him, probably deducing just how her Doctor became the way he did.
"Does the memory of what happened at Torchwood haunt her until she dies?" He can't help but ask the interface this; he needs to know if he's managed to taint her entire life, because if he has…all his happiness is for nought.
A smile plays on the interface's lips just as a flash of colour peeks back into her eyes—it's just for a moment, but she's Rose again, Rose Tyler, the Defender of Earth he left on that Norwegian beach years ago. She's Rose, the one left never knowing how he felt about her, always agonising over whether her feelings were unrequited—and she's full of every emotion he regretted she would be.
"Don't be so sure of everything you read in someone's eyes, Doctor—especially someone who isn't even here," the interface says, disappearing and reappearing before his eyes so that she's closer to him than even before. Seconds pass faster than ever before, but he's pretty sure that she presses her lips to his—Rose's lips, not the interface's, of that he's almost certain—and then whispers, "she'll wake up with that on her mind, mark my words."
"Does she move on, find happiness, find her life again?" It's impossible for him to stop asking questions, even though he's certain he won't want to know the answer; if she didn't, he'll hate himself for destroying her future, and if she does, he'll feel a selfish streak of anger that she moved on from him.
"As I said, Doctor, don't be so sure of what you think you know," the interface replies, a wicked grin on her lips as she dances away from him and to his future self. "This one knows all about what happens to Rose Tyler…or does he? That'd be telling you your own future, and that's something you Time Lords aren't mean to know, remember?"
His eleventh self clears his throat and, with startling maturity for someone who tries so hard to forget all responsibility, states, "it seems your job is completed, interface. Torturing my past self is just for your benefit, after all. Thank you, interface—or Bad Wolf—for your efforts, but we shan't be needing your Moment, it seems."
Before he even has a chance to say goodbye—because she might not be Rose but she looks like Rose and that's all that matters to him right now—she's gone, and it's a scene reminiscent of the beach. He doesn't get to tell her everything, doesn't even get to tell an interface that he loves Rose—hell, he doesn't even get to say goodbye.
It's as he walks back into his TARDIS and the memory of the expression of pure, unadulterated agony on his future self's face when he said the words Bad Wolf that he hates himself for pressing the issue of Bad Wolf.
(He's the most happy of the three of them to lose his memories of the event as he flies off back to the forty third constellation in the age of the New Iron Kingdom, because he doesn't have to remember how much he destroyed Rose Tyler's life, even in a different universe.)
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