"And all the storms that we had been
They're paled and past
In the presence of the world at hand"
Thursday: A Darker Forest
The Doctor's head aches. He is slammed against the console of the new TARDIS, thrashed about as she jerks back and forth in the Time Vortex. This is their first trip together, since she reached adolescence. It took three years for her to grow enough to travel in the console he had built, and even that was only thanks to the accelerator he developed from the Torchwood archives.
Rose is clinging to one of the beams of the console room, arms and legs wrapped around it desperately. The Doctor is swearing inwardly - this would be a lot less troublesome if he were not half-human. His sense of temporal continuity is all but blind, and his extemporaneous compass is approximately half as accurate as it had once been (and it had never been very accurate). Gritting his teeth, he grabs hold of the emergency decelerator to force a landing in whatever decade is safest.
"Don't worry - I'll just force an emergency landing and see what has her so upset - she could just be a bit travel sick - it is her first time after all -" and the decelerator breaks off in his hand. Rose shoots him a desperate look just before she hits the TARDIS floor, having lost her grip on the support beam. His determination is renewed until suddenly the console room is washed in crimson light from the console, freezing the Doctor's heart and body. The ship stops its violent tremors and the stink of struck matches fills the air.
Rose picks herself up from the floor, pulling herself out of disarray. She runs to him, pressing nearer to him, seeking his comfort as much as his answers. This is what they have become - she nests herself in his wisdom and he holds her like a holy dove. Now, though, he backs away. Hurt and confused, she tries again, but the Doctor holds her at arm's length.
"Rose." He utters her name as a short warning - and she stops, looking down at herself. She is washed in the bloodied light of the console but more - she is streaked with gold, spilling from her skin, gleaming in her eyes. Fear rises in her throat and she steadies herself against one of the support beams. The gutting strike of the cloister bell jars her and she starts, shuddering in a ripple of amber light.
"Doctor?" She tries again for his consolation, but he is running to the controls, scanning to find out where he landed. She watches his hands flashing over the panels - a choreography she cannot follow, an art in its complexity. He freezes, then slams his fist into the console once - then again, again, and again. She repeats her query, more timid this time. He is furious - no, she has seen him furious. He is terrified.
"I was afraid of this, Rose. I searched the history of your alternate universe as thoroughly as I could - I didn't think it would be a problem, but I couldn't be sure - it's hard to test for something that just isn't there - so I thought, well, what's the worst that can happen, surely the emergency controls won't fail if there's an emergency - because I didn't find anything, not a single word - but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work - not unless -"
"Doctor." Rose repeats his name again, a command this time, sharp and reverberating in the quiet metal room. His gaze jerks to her.
"There are no Time Lords in your universe."
At first, the statement hangs as nonsense in her ears - as though he had just told her that gravity was a purple mouse in charge of putting things back down after they'd been put in the air. Then a weight settles in her stomach with a foul taste, like rotting.
"I tried to check for everything, I really did - I calibrated her to a new energy source - but she feels it the same as I do - there's a homing instinct, we both feel it - and this is just - it's not home, you feel it the same as we do." He pauses for air and to gather his words into a sentence Rose can parse. "She's recalibrating herself. To your old universe."
Rose nods slowly. The old universe. Her old universe. With the old Doctor.
With her old Doctor.