Title: Who I am
Author: Sheela
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: Guess what? The BBC owns Doctor Who and I'm just trying to get the voices in my head to shut up for a few minutes at least!
Feedback: Makes me extremely happy! Please review or send an email to MorgaineTheFairygmx.de
Thanks: As always to my lovely beta readers Acid and Helen
Summary: Add on to the 'The turn of the Earth'-scene in "Rose". The Doctor is a true Time Lord after all and if so inclined he can make a person see who he really is.
Rose stopped in the middle of the street, trying very hard (and unfortunately failing miserably) to understand everything that was going on. Her head was swimming with confusing images, experiences, thoughts, theories and explanations from this stranger. Walking shop window dummies, explosions, moving arms, tracing signals, living plastic – it was all a great mystery – or an incredible pile of bullshit. Rose wasn't quite sure which.
However, this "Doctor" seemed to genuinely believe every word he'd told her, which made him the biggest mystery of all. Rose just had to know, had to ask.
"Really though, Doctor, tell me: Who are you?"
He stopped and turned around to face her, giving her an amused smile. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he spoke:
"Do you know like we were saying about the Earth revolving?" he started, slowly walking back towards her, all the while looking at the ground. "It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world is turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cause everything looks like it's standing still." He paused and looked directly at her. His blue eyes pierced through her, shining with something that Rose couldn't even begin to describe. "I can feel it." The Doctor told her. His voice was flat, stating a cold fact, not some wild fantasy.
He took her hand into his and Rose felt as if an electric jolt had run through her body at the contact. Something was happening; she felt so strange. The man's eyes were burning into hers, burning away her skin, burning her entire being.
"The turn of the Earth." his voice ran in her ears, coming from far away. Everything felt so far away now, as if Rose was watching herself from a distance.
"The ground beneath our feet is spinning at near a thousand miles an hour…"
Spinning, yes! Suddenly Rose could feel them spinning. They were moving so fast, so very fast. She felt the power of the acceleration tug at her guts, pulling her through space even though her feet were still firmly planted on the ground. They were spinning further and further outwards. Rose felt it, and then she saw it. Before her own eyes she saw the Earth from a distance; a beautiful ball of blue and green, spinning around its own axis.
"… and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour – and I can feel it."
Rose felt it too; felt her body whipping round the burning sun, so fast and unable to stop. She saw the Earth grow more and more distant, saw it rush around the Sun in its orbit. As Rose watched, with her own point of view moving even further outward, more planets came into focus, all of them hurtling round the sun on their individual orbits. Rose was spinning with and around them on an ever growing spiral, at a speed that was making her dizzy. She left the solar system, passed stars and planets and other things that no human had even dreamed of seeing and still she kept moving further away. It was taking her breath away, literally.
Oh God, it was too much! There was so much out here, so much speed, so much power, so much space – and Rose could feel all of it! She wanted to cry, wanted to weep or sob or scream, but she couldn't. Her detached body just wouldn't obey.
Apart from the universe unfolding before her eyes, Rose was only aware of one thing: the Doctor's cool hand firmly holding hers, thereby focusing and guiding her – keeping her sane. His voice filled her and commanded her.
"We're falling through space, you and me…"
Almost instantly Rose wasn't gliding weightlessly through the universe anymore – instead she was falling! Falling through this vast blackness, falling past suns and planets, falling at an ever increasing, inhuman speed. The Earth came back into focus. It was a tiny dot of blue at first, but growing bigger and bigger as she rapidly fell towards it. Trapped inside her mind Rose panicked – at this speed the impact would kill her instantly – but her distant body wouldn't budge an inch.
"… clinging to the skin of this tiny little world…"
Rose was clinging, clinging with all her might, but not to her world. This world was what was going to crush her in a heartbeat. Rose was clinging to the one thing that was real around her: the Doctor's hand in hers; the feel of his skin, the cool and slight roughness that held her safely even as she was falling towards her death.
"… and if we let go…"
Everything stopped abruptly. The spinning, the Universe, the Sun, and the Earth that was going to kill her were all gone in an instant. Rose found herself back in her body, gasping for breath and stumbling, feeling like she'd been punched in the gut.
The Doctor's hand was gone from hers and he was staring into her eyes again.
"That's who I am. Now forget me, Rose Tyler," he told her. He picked up the plastic arm and waved it in front of her face. "Go home." With that the Doctor turned around and walked away with something akin to regret on his face.
Rose was left to watch him go before she turned and started to walk home, obeying his order on auto pilot. Her body felt hollow and numb, moving mechanically.
Her mind, however, was reeling. What had just happened? What had she witnessed here? How was something like that even possible? How had the Doctor made her see all this? Who was this strange, powerful lunatic? And finally – why the bloody hell was she walking away from him and the answers to her questions?
Cursing herself Rose turned around and ran back to the corner where she'd left the Doctor. He was gone. So was the strange blue box that he'd been walking towards.
How? Where had he gone so quickly? These were more questions that Rose would have to find answers to, and she would find them. She was determined.
"Forget me, Rose Tyler," the Doctor had said.
Forget him? Now? Never!