A/N: If you recognize it, I don't own it - that means the characters (from Doctor Who, of course) and the summary (which is from a song in The Princess Bride). I forget the inspiration for this piece but I don't think I've ever had so much fun writing a fanfic in my life.
This little monster wouldn't have been nearly as good as it is without my two amazing betas, LifelongObsessor and PhoenixWormwood137, to whom I am extremely grateful!
Like a Faerie Tale
"Please tell me a story, won't you? Please?"
"Now, I happen to know perfectly well that your mother told you a lovely bedtime story."
"But hers are never as good as yours are."
"Don't let her hear you say that." Chuckling, he seated himself on the clean blue-and-white bed and leaned back to think. "A bedtime story, hm?"
"Yes! One with – with adventure. And sad parts. And a prince."
"No princess?"
"You can put a princess too. But definitely put a prince, okay?"
"Definitely put a prince," the Doctor repeated indulgently. Strange how small children could wrap him around their fingers so easily, after years and years of fighting against anything vaguely domestic. "Well then. Let's see."
He drew out the process of thinking about his story until the child was squirming impatiently, then began.
"Once upon a time, there was a peasant woman, a widow, who lived alone …"
Once upon a time, there was a peasant woman, a widow, who lived alone in a little cottage on the edge of a village. The widow had only one possession she truly valued: a beautiful rose which grew in her garden. The rose was her pride and joy. She and her husband had planted it together and, after his death, she continued to tend it every day, to help it flourish. And it did flourish. It was beautiful, but after many years it stopped growing.
At first, the woman thought that the rose had grown as big and as beautiful as it could. She still tended it every day, taking care of it so that it stayed strong. But over time, she noticed that it was beginning to wither and fade, that it wasn't as beautiful as it used to be. It was almost as if the rose was pining for something, but the widow couldn't think of what.
("Roses are flowers. They don't want anything but water and sunshine."
"It's a faerie story. This one does."
"Where is the prince?"
"I'm getting to that." He reached out and tweaked the little nose gently. "Hush up and let me talk.")
One day, the woman awoke to find that her rose had withered away to nothing. She cried for it, cried over its black and shriveled petals, because the rose was the only thing she loved. Her tears fell off of the rose and, as they fell toward the ground, the woman thought she saw an infant reflected in them. When the tears splashed against the grass, a baby began to cry. And the widow looked and found a baby in the rose bush, red-faced and screaming. She took the baby out of the bush and loved the baby like she had loved her rose.
("Is that where all babies come from?"
"I don't know. Have you asked your mummy?"
"No. But in my class at school, Jimjim said that his mummy and daddy were looking for a baby or something."
"Tell you what, why don't you tell Jimjim that his mummy and daddy should look in the rose bushes for a baby, okay? Now, do you want me to finish the story any time tonight?"
"No. I want it to go on forever so I won't have to sleep."
"Cheeky brat.")
So the baby from the rose bush became the widow's daughter. The widow raised her little girl and loved her every day, and every day gave her everything she needed to grow up healthy and happy. The little girl's name was Rose, because she had been pulled out of the rose bush.
("Where's the prince? You promised."
"I'm getting to that part - now, hush.")
There was a law in the land that all little boys had to go and meet the king and queen and prince when they were ten years old, and all little girls had to go and meet the king and queen and prince at seven years old. So when Rose turned seven years old, she and her mother went up to the royal palace to meet the king and queen and prince. It was a long journey but they were happy to walk together. Rose had a brand new dress for the occasion, and her blonde hair was brushed and shiny, and her cheeks were bright pink from excitement.
And when the prince, who was older than her, saw her, he immediately fell in love.
(The Doctor waited for some interruption about the newly-introduced prince, but his audience sat rapt and attentive, so he continued.)
But the prince knew that Rose was very young. He decided that he would be nice to her and make a good impression, so that she would always think kindly of him. Then, when they both grew up, he would find her and marry her and she would be his queen.
When Rose was introduced to the king and queen, she curtsied like she had been taught. But her dress was longer than she expected; she tripped on the hem and ended up falling. The prince immediately rushed to help her. He took her hand to help her get up. He brushed some dust off of her pretty dress, smiling and telling her that everything was alright. He didn't want her to feel ashamed of herself for a mistake. And Rose, who had wanted to cry with embarrassment, smiled back at him – so brightly that the prince knew he would never see anything so pretty again.
After that, Rose went home with her mother. But she would always remember that the prince had been kind to her, and she wondered if she would ever see him again. She wondered if he would be as nice the next time they met.
(Here, he paused and immediately two pleading eyes were pinned on him. "What happened next?"
"Bedtime for little humans happened next."
"No! No, please, not yet! You have to tell me the end or I won't be able to sleep! Please tell me the end!"
The Doctor looked at the little hand clutching his sleeve and smiled, sitting down again.
"So what happened next?"
"Years passed, and Rose grew up.")
Years passed, and Rose grew up. Like the widow's flower before her, as she grew she became beautiful. She had clear, smooth skin and pink lips and golden hair, and her eyes were beautiful hazel. She worked in the tailor's shop because she and her mother had very little money, but even though the work was hard, she smiled every day and laughed and had fun. She didn't wear nice clothes, but she was beautiful without them.
And then, one day when she was nineteen, when she was working alone in the tailor's shop, a fire started. It spread so quickly that Rose didn't have a chance to escape; she was trapped inside. The smoke made it hard to see and hard to breathe, and the heat from the fire terrified her. She thought she would die in that fire, and never even be able to tell her mother goodbye.
Then she felt someone take her hand. It was the prince, but because the smoke was thick she couldn't see his face. She didn't know it was him. "Run!" he told her. He led her out of the fire, into the clear street. Their clothes were singed and covered in ashes, but neither of them was hurt. Rose saw his face, at last, and quickly let go of his hand. She was embarrassed that she had been clinging to the prince. But when she began to apologize, he took her hand again and smiled.
"It's alright. Let me walk you home." He did walk her home. Together they walked back to the little cottage where Rose lived with her mother, and the widow hugged her daughter, then hugged the prince, and gave them both some tea to drink.
(The Doctor paused, then confided, "It wasn't very nice tea. But he drank it anyway."
This confession was rewarded with giggles. He continued.)
Once the prince had finished his tea, he said, "I'm going on a long journey. It will be very dangerous, but I would love if you would come with me. Together, I think, we can get through any dangers."
Rose wanted to go. She loved adventures and braving dangers, and she remembered that the prince had been kind to her when she was young. But she smiled sadly and said, "My mother needs me here. I can't leave her."
Though it broke the prince's heart to hear her refuse, he nodded. "I understand," he said. The prince stayed to talk for a while, hoping that Rose would change her mind, but in the end he left to go on his journey, and Rose stayed behind with her mother.
A year passed, and the widow began to notice that Rose was not as beautiful as she had been. Like the rose in the bush, her daughter was pining and the longing of her heart was causing her to wither away. The widow was terribly afraid for her daughter, for she loved Rose more than she had ever loved the flower. She knew that to save her life, she must send Rose away.
"The prince is coming through town on his adventures," the widow said. Rose looked at her with dull brown eyes. She had dark circles under her eyes and her skin was pale and sickly. The widow said, "When he comes into town, go and meet him. And if he asks you to travel with him, do it."
These words changed Rose. With those words, she was no longer pining and within a few days, she was as beautiful as she had ever been. At once, she ran to the village to wait for the prince. She stayed all day and, when sunset came, turned and went home. The next day, she went back and stayed all day. Every night she went home, and every day she stayed in the village. It was a week before the prince appeared, riding on his white horse with no guards to keep him safe.
("What was his horse's name?"
"Arthur. The horse's name was Arthur."
"That's a silly name!"
"He's a silly prince! And the horse is named Arthur."
"Does the prince have a name?"
"Of course not. Faerie tale princes never have names."
"Prince Eric does. And Prince Philip."
"Then they're not proper faerie tale princes. This one doesn't have a name.")
Rose waved to the prince and he waved back, bringing his horse to stop beside her. It had been a long year since he had seen Rose, and she was still as beautiful as he remembered. He had seen much in his travels so far, and he knew that she would have had fun on adventures with him.
"Do you want to travel with me?" he asked again.
And this time Rose said, "I would love to travel with you." They both smiled and they both thought that the other's smile was the best smile they had ever seen.
Rose got up on the horse's back and she and the prince set off together. First they stopped at the little cottage where Rose lived with her mother, and the widow hugged her daughter and waved her on her way.
They rode all day and by the time night came, they were in a town called… Diffcar.
("Diffcar?"
"Yes, Diffcar. It's like Cardiff. But not. Problem with that?"
"You're rubbish at names."
"I know I am. Hush.")
Diffcar turned out to be a bustling, busy town. Rose thought it looked like a very happy place, but as they moved through the streets, she noticed that no one was smiling. Business was conducted quickly and people did not stop to talk to their neighbors. No children were playing in the streets. And no one seemed interested in her and the prince, except for the occasional suspicious glance.
They checked into an inn.
That night they saw the ghosts.
("No! Ghosts scare me!"
"It's okay. It's not so scary."
The Doctor mentally revised the next part of the story to avoid terrifying his audience.)
The ghosts talked through a servant girl at the inn. Something had trapped the spirits of people who were dying, and they were scared. They kept reaching out to the living, trying to find someone to set them free.
They came to the prince and to Rose and the prince asked them how they could help, what they could do to break the traps.
"Go to the basement. Let the servant girl stand beneath the arch in the basement," the ghosts said.
"What will happen?" Rose wanted to know.
"We'll be free and we'll move on," said the ghosts.
The prince and Rose went with the servant girls to the arch in the basement, and when she went to stand beneath it, she knocked over a candle on the table. The candle landed on a barrel of lamp oil and burst into flame. Rose ran forward to grab the servant girl and drag her back, but the servant girl didn't want to be stopped. She wanted the ghosts to be free.
"Please, you'll die!" Rose begged her as the prince pulled her back, shouting at her to get out of the house, that he would go back for the servant girl. And Rose went. And the servant girl stood under the arch, and the ghosts were free.
It was a long time before the prince came out of the burning house, hardly able to walk straight. Some places, he was burnt and his skin was red. Other places, he was covered in ash and his skin was almost black. But his face had two clean lines from his tears.
"I couldn't save her," he said as Rose hugged him. "I couldn't get to her."
"It's not your fault," Rose said, but the prince didn't believe her.
("But it wasn't his fault!" Those attentive eyes were now wide and full of tears. "He tried his bestest, right?"
"Of course. But sometimes things feel like your fault when they aren't."
"Like when Karen tripped over Natalie's foot and Natalie said sorry even though Karen should'a looked where she was going?"
The Doctor considered this. "Yes," he eventually said, guessing that this was the expected answer. It was better than admitting he hadn't a clue. "Yes, exactly like that.")
The prince and Rose left Diffcar the next morning and began to go north.
Three days passed and they passed a town over which hung a dark, ominous cloud. Rose held tight to the prince as they passed.
"I have a bad feeling about that place," she said. "It scares me."
"It scares me too," the prince confessed, "but the whole reason for my journey is to conquer my fears and help the people in my kingdom."
Rose took a deep breath and nodded. Just knowing that the prince was scared made it much easier to face her fears, too.
They approached the town, but cautiously. As they got closer, they saw red crosses painted on almost every door. Unlike in Diffcar, there was hardly anyone in the streets. The people they could see either darted swiftly from doorway to doorway, or stumbled around aimlessly. The ones who stumbled had faces like masks, with dark blotches on their skin. Some had so many blotches that their faces looked grey, like they had rubbed soot into their skin. They had swelling around their mouths so that their faces looked like masks, altogether frightening and unreal.
The prince and Rose took Arthur up to the one person who was walking unafraid. She had two long braids and a round face.
"What's going on here?" the prince asked.
"Where ya been, mate? There's a plague here. Don't touch the ones with blotches. Whatever you do, you mustn't touch 'em."
("Why is your voice so funny?"
"I'm trying to sound like a girl. And you can wipe that grin off your face, I know, I'm rubbish at it."
"No… you're really good. You sound just like a girl!"
The Doctor glared at the guileless face, trying to decide whether or not he should take that as an insult. When the grin returned, he reached out and tousled the child's fine hair into a mess. "Oi! I do not sound like a girl!")
"What happens if they touch us?" the prince asked, looking down the street. A little boy with a completely grey face was standing on the corner, just looking over at them with large, empty eyes. He didn't move, just watched, and the girl with braids looked at him and then quickly looked away again.
"He'll make you like them."
"But that's horrible!" Rose said, looking at the little boy. "You should be helping them, not ignoring them and locking them up!"
"There's nothing else we can do." The girl with braids turned and left, walking away from the little boy on the corner.
"We're going to help them," Rose said to the prince. The prince nodded, turned his horse, and rode out of town. They were going to look for a cure.
They searched for months and found nothing. They had other adventures – there were werewolves and demons, witches, and foreigners plotting to throw the whole world into war – but they never stopped looking for that cure. And when they finally found it, they immediately rode back to the sick village to give it to the people.
The village was even worse when they returned. There were crosses on almost every door and there were not as many people darting from doorway to doorway. But there were many more people stumbling around, with their faces grey, their mouths swollen, and their eyes wide and empty. The little boy they had seen was still standing on the corner, as if he hadn't moved in all the time they'd been gone. Rose snatched one of the bottles of medicine and leapt down from Arthur's back. She ran to the little boy and gave him the bottle.
"Drink it," she said, "it will make you better."
The little boy looked at the bottle, then looked at her. He drank the medicine and the blotches on his face immediately began to clear up. The prince laughed aloud and picked up the little boy, spinning him around and around happily. Then they began to give out the medicine to everyone until no one was sick anymore. When they found the girl with the round face and braids – she only had a few small blotches, as if she was just beginning to get sick – she said nothing to them but ran and hugged the little boy as if she would never, ever let him go.
The prince and Rose held hands and watched them, smiling. And when sunset came, they stayed the night with the girl with braids and her little brother. And when morning came, they got back on Arthur's back and rode away. There were still other adventures waiting for them.
(The Doctor paused again and was surprised when his thoughts weren't immediately interrupted. He cast a suspicious glance over at his audience.
"I still can't sleep until you finish."
"It's a long story. Are you sure you don't want to leave it there for tonight? The next part is sad."
"That's okay. I'm not afraid. Please, won't you tell it to me until the end?"
The Doctor acquiesced. "The prince and Rose kept travelling...")
The prince and Rose kept on travelling until they had been together for almost two years. Every day they loved each other more than they had the day before, and neither of them could imagine what might have happened if they hadn't begun to travel together.
("And don't you pull that face. It's a faerie story. There's always people in love in faerie stories.")
Then one day, as they were riding on a hill close to the capitol city, they heard the sound of marching. The prince and Rose looked down and saw a massive army marching toward the capitol city, and the palace.
"Those aren't royal soldiers," the prince said, pointing to the flag they carried. "We have to go and warn my mother and father!" Arthur seemed to understand, because he turned and ran faster than he had ever run before. They didn't follow the path, which was long and would have taken days to take them to the palace, but ran through the woods and fields and jumped over streams and sometimes bushes, too. Sometimes, they saw the army. From far away, it looked like a big block of silver. Closer up, they could see that every soldier was covered head to toe in armor. They all held their hands at their sides and marched in perfect unison so that the ground shook as they walked.
("How many were there?"
Despite the earlier bravado, the Doctor noted, all of the room's stuffed animals seemed suddenly to have migrated to the bed.
"A hundred," he replied gravely, and was rewarded with eyes widened to almost comic size. To a five-year-old, he supposed, anything more than twenty seemed like a terrifyingly large number.)
As they got closer to the castle the prince looked over his shoulder at Rose. "You can go back home if you want. It'll be dangerous. You might get hurt."
"So might you," said Rose. "I'm not going to leave you alone." The prince was pleased; he had been scared that she would leave and he wouldn't see her again. But he was scared, too, because Rose wouldn't be safe during the battle.
Rose pointed to the big gate at the front of the walls. "We can't open the gate!" she said. "We'd never get it closed again before they get to it!"
"I know another way in," the prince replied. He steered Arthur around to the back of the palace wall. There, hidden behind some bushes, was a smaller gate, just big enough for the two of them and Arthur to get through. Rose got off Arthur's back and stayed behind to lock the gate and make sure it was hidden. The prince rushed ahead to sound the alarm, knowing that she would catch up with him when she had finished.
The head of the guards came to meet him.
"We know," he said when the prince told him about the army. "They're rebels and we've known about them for a long time. But we didn't know that there were so many of them, and we didn't know they had armor and weapons. But the soldiers in the castle can hold them off until the rest of our army gets here."
("Are you trying to be a big strong guard now? Your voice went all deep."
"Er, yes, rather. How did I do?"
"Your girl voice is better."
"Oi! Do you want me to finish the story or not?"
"Yes! I'll be good, I'll be good!")
The prince left Arthur in the stable and went up to the top of the castle wall. The soldiers gave him armor and he put it on. But when they tried to give him a sword, he didn't take it. The prince liked to solve things with words, not with weapons.
("How is he going to fight the dragon without a sword?"
"There isn't a dragon, that's how.")
The rebel army reached the castle gate and began battering against it, trying to get it open. The royal archers all around the prince shot arrows at the rebels. Sometimes, an arrow would slip in past the armor and one of the rebels would fall dead. Mostly, the armor blocked them and the arrows just bounced to the ground. The prince mourned every person who died, but he couldn't do anything about it. He knew that, but it didn't make him feel any better.
The one-sided battle went on for almost an hour, and then the rebels forced the gate open and marched onto the grounds of the palace.
The royal soldiers retreated and ran over the drawbridge, pulling the prince with them. They began to pull it up. "Stop!" the prince shouted, running back toward the drawbridge. "There's a girl out there! Rose is still out there!" But it was too late; the drawbridge was up, trapping the army on the other side of the moat.
The prince ran up to the second floor so he could see if Rose was trapped out there, too. After looking for a long time, he saw her. The rebels had captured her and brought her to the gate.
"Prince!" they shouted. "We have your princess! Come out of the castle or we'll kill her!"
The prince wanted to go, but the king and queen had come to see him, and they held him back. The royal soldiers stood in front of the drawbridge to keep him from putting it down again.
"Come on, prince!" the rebels shouted. "What good are you if you won't even save the girl you love?"
The prince broke away from his parents and tried to lower the drawbridge, but the royal soldiers grabbed him and stopped them. They held him still for a long time, until the rest of the royal soldiers, who lived outside of the palace, got there. Then they put the drawbridge down and together, the royal soldiers began to win against the rebels. But as soon as the drawbridge was down, the prince ran to the stables and got Arthur, then went to look for Rose.
"Prince!" he heard Rose shout. He rode toward her voice and found a small group of rebels lifting her onto a horse. Her hands and feet were tied with rope so that she couldn't escape, but she was still fighting against them. And she was screaming at them, too. "Take me back! Take me back! I promised not to leave him!"
When they saw him, the rebels got on their horses and rode away. The prince chased them, but Arthur was getting tired. The rebels couldn't go fast enough to get away, but the prince couldn't catch up. He followed them for an entire day, until they came to a giant castle on the very edge of the kingdom. The outside of the castle was made of black stone and it had walls a thousand feet high. The gate was made of solid rock, too, and when the gate closed behind the rebels, the prince couldn't even tell exactly where it was.
And it was guarded by a dragon.
("You said there was no dragon!"
"I changed my mind. There's a dragon in every good faerie tale."
"Is the prince going to kill the dragon now?"
"He doesn't have a sword, remember?"
"You're ruining the story! He needs to go get a sword! Make him go get a sword!"
"It sounds like you've got the whole story figured out – how 'bout you tell me the rest?"
Immediately, horror replaced the indignation. "No! You have to tell it, or it's not real!")
The prince rode around and around the castle, trying to find any way in – a secret door, or a place where he could climb over the wall – but there wasn't any way in.
It was a long time before the prince realized that there was no way for him to get into the castle, or for Rose to get out. But he did not give up trying to send her a message. He wrote on a piece of paper how sorry he was that she was trapped, because he had been careless and left her alone. He did not write that he loved her, or that he had planned to marry her and make her queen when he became king. Those things made him cry when he tried to write them because he missed Rose so much.
When the prince was finished writing, he got a bow and arrow and tied the message onto the arrow. He hid and waited until the dragon went to the other side of the castle. Then he stood up and shot the arrow over the wall. But the arrow didn't go high enough and fell back to earth at his feet. The prince tried again and again, and eventually the arrow went high enough to go over the wall.
The prince wanted to stay there and keep looking for a way to get to Rose, but it had been three months since she was taken into the castle. He knew that it was time for him to keep travelling. So he left and vowed never to return, because the castle made him remember that he had lost Rose.
("That's sad."
"I did warn you. And you asked for a story with sad parts, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember. Is that the end?"
"No. Do you still want me to tell the rest?" At the eager nodding from his audience, the Doctor continued, "The prince travelled for another two years and made friends with many people…")
The prince travelled for another two years and made friends with many people. There were even other people who travelled with him, but none of them compared to Rose. At the end of two years, when he was almost ready to stop adventuring and return home, he heard people planning to overthrow his father and mother, the king and queen, and take over the kingdom for themselves.
Immediately, the prince began to ride back to the palace. He would warn his mother and father now, and then the plan to take over the kingdom would never succeed. It was three long days of riding before he got back to the palace. The guards at the gate opened it for him and he rode through. He hardly even paused to put Arthur in the stables before running into the palace, and then into the throne room to see his parents.
He threw the doors open and stopped short, his eyes wide as he tried to take in what he was seeing. His mother and father were there, of course, but so was Rose. She smiled when she saw him, and he ran and hugged her tightly.
"I missed you so much," the prince said.
"I missed you more," Rose replied. "I found your message. I couldn't keep it, though. When they found it, they took it away. I think they burned it."
"I don't care," the prince said. "It doesn't matter anymore. How did you escape?"
"I was just telling the king and queen about that." Rose curtsied a little to the king and queen, and then told her story. She told them how the rebels had kept her locked up for the first few months, in case she tried to escape. Then, only a few days after they had started letting her out, she found the arrow the prince had shot over the castle wall. She had tried to escape a few times, but the walls were too high to climb, even with a rope, and the dragon always came to chase her back to the castle.
She had given up on that after a while and, once the rebels trusted that she wouldn't try to go back to the prince, they began to trust her more. They taught her how to use a sword, and how to shoot with a bow. The prince looked at her sadly when she told him this, because he had never wanted Rose to have to fight. Once she knew how to duel, the rebels had decided to include her in their plans. Now, while she didn't have very much power among them, they had agreed to let her be part of the spy group scouting out the palace before they attacked it.
"There's only one other spy," Rose said, finishing her story. "He's the prince's twin brother and I think he's going to try and make you believe he's the prince."
("The prince has a twin!"
"Didn't I just tell you that?"
"Yeah! Does he have a name?"
The Doctor paused to think about it, decided there was no reason he shouldn't have a name, and said, "Yes, he does. Go on and pick his name. I haven't thought of one yet."
The child made a show of thinking long and hard, and then brightened up and spoke with obvious delight. "Fred!"
"Fred? Really? Prince Fred?" A firm nod was the only response he got, so the Doctor sighed. Fred it was.)
"I don't have a twin brother," the prince said.
"Yes you do," said the queen. "He died when you were very little. We thought he died, anyway." The king and queen looked at each other sadly, remembering the son they had lost.
"Is he really working for them or is he on our side, like you?"
"He's really working for them." Rose's face fell. "I didn't dare try and convince him otherwise, in case he told them I had tried."
Behind them, the doors burst open. "Mother! Father! I came to warn you! There – oh." The prince whirled around when he heard his own voice, and ended up looking into his own face. The man standing in the door really was his twin! They looked exactly alike! When his twin realized that the prince was already there, he turned and ran.
"Fred, wait!" Rose shouted. She and the prince ran after him, chasing him through the long, dark corridors of the palace. They ran for a long, long time. Fred didn't know the corridors of the palace very well like the prince did, but he knew where he was going to turn next. It was hard to catch him. Finally, he turned into a hallway with no way out. When the prince and Rose caught up to him, he didn't have anywhere else to run.
"Traitor!" he shouted at Rose. "You said you were one of us!"
"Why are you trying to overthrow your own family?" Rose demanded. "Your own mother and father and brother!"
"Because they threw me out, that's why!" he said angrily.
"No we didn't," said the prince. "Mother and Father thought you had died. We wouldn't throw you out."
Fred drew his sword. "I challenge you to a duel! Whoever wins the duel is telling the truth!" he declared, pointing the sword at the prince. The prince knew he couldn't refuse. He gently pushed Rose away, so that she wouldn't get hurt in the duel, and took down a sword that was hanging on the wall. He drew it and looked reluctantly at his twin.
"I don't want to fight you," he said.
"Then you're a coward and I deserve to have the throne."
"Fine," the prince said, realizing that his twin would not accept the truth another way. "We'll duel on the count of three."
Rose counted to three for them, and they began to duel. At first, it seemed they were evenly matched. The prince blocked every attack Fred made, and Fred seemed to be able to predict the prince's every move. The ring of metal against metal was the only sound for a long time as they fought. Once, the prince slipped past Fred's defenses and almost managed to cut him, but Fred dodged at the last minute. Then he retaliated, shoving the prince to the ground and getting his sword ready to kill the prince.
"No!" Rose threw herself in the way and Fred struck her, instead of the prince. The prince sat up. Fred dropped the sword and backed away, horrified. Secretly, he was in love with Rose and he couldn't believe that he had hurt her.
"Why would you do that?" the prince demanded of his twin.
"I didn't mean to," the twin said. Then he turned and ran – but this time, he was running because he was ashamed of himself, not because he was afraid.
("Is Rose going to die?" This time, the question was whispered in fear. The Doctor raised an eyebrow and laid a comforting hand on the child's small, shaking shoulder.
"Would I tell you a story where the best character dies?"
"No, you wouldn't. But it's scary."
"Yes, it is," the Doctor agreed, sighing. "Very scary. And very sad.")
"You have to find him," Rose told the prince, though she was hurt badly and didn't want the prince to leave her. "You have to find him before the rebels get here, or else they'll make him kill you. He's not a bad person."
"He hurt you," the prince protested. He was angry – angry at Fred for hurting Rose, at Rose for getting in the way, and at himself for not protecting her well enough. He didn't remember ever being so angry before in his life.
"That doesn't matter. He's your brother," Rose said. "I'll be okay."
The prince didn't want to leave her, but she insisted – so he went. Fred was not hiding very far away, and the prince found him in an empty bedroom after looking for only a few minutes.
"I didn't mean to hurt her," Fred told the prince. He was crying. The prince sat down on the bed with his twin. "I didn't want to hurt you, either, but it's the only way."
The prince didn't think this was true. "Fighting is never the only way," he said.
"You should kill me for killing her."
"I wanted to, for a minute," the prince admitted. "But you're my brother, and you're sorry." Then he looked out the window and saw an army approaching. They didn't look the same as the rebel army which had originally taken Rose. They didn't have any armor, but they had many more weapons. They even had fireworks, lots and lots of fireworks, so that they could blow up the palace.
"I don't want the throne anymore," Fred said, looking at the army. "And I think I know how to stop them."
"How?" the prince asked.
Fred explained his plan. If he tied the prince up and pretended that he had already killed the king and queen, he could convince the rebels that they didn't need weapons anymore. Then, once they were unarmed, the royal soldiers would round up the rebels and they would be exiled.
"What about Rose?" the prince asked. He met Fred's eyes and knew that his twin loved Rose just as much as he did, and that he would never forgive himself if she died. But he also knew that they didn't have time to help her if they were to stop the rebels in time. He nodded once, though it broke his heart to leave Rose alone. "I understand."
("I don't want to hear the next part. Skip to after the bad men are gone."
"What makes you so sure that Fred's plan will work?"
"Does Fred's plan work?"
"Yes," admitted the Doctor, "Fred's plan works."
"Then skip to after the bad men are gone. I want to hear how they save Rose."
"If you're sure.")
Fred and the prince rushed back inside the castle as soon as they could. They went straight to the corridor where Rose was still lying. She was very pale now, and she wasn't breathing very well.
"We can't save her," the prince whispered. Rose didn't even have the energy to look over at him. The prince was crying. He had thought it was terrible when he lost Rose before, but at least then he had known she was alive. Now, he was going to lose her again, for good.
"No," Fred disagreed. "We can still save her. But – "
"But what?" The prince looked up at him, trying not to hope.
"But only if we take her back to the rebel's castle. They have very good medicine. But… when we were leaving, they broke the machinery that opens the gate. The next time it closes, it will never open again."
The prince just stared at him, not sure of what to say.
Fred continued, "There's no way to keep the gate open, either. It automatically closes when someone opens the front door of the castle. You go with her. You'll be trapped together, and you'll be able to get married. I'll stay here. We're twins. No one would know the difference."
"No," said the prince quietly. "You need to go with her. You know the castle better than I do, so you know how to find the medicine. I would take too long, and she would die. And since you worked with the rebels, you would be exiled anyway. If you go with her, at least you'll have each other."
Fred nodded. "Maybe there's a way to fix the door," he said, but they both knew there wasn't.
They rode their horses to the rebel castle together. The prince held Rose close all the way, knowing that he would never hold her again. She was too weak to stay awake, and fainted when they were only halfway there. Once they reached the castle, they put Rose on Fred's horse and Fred galloped past the gate as fast as he could, knowing that Rose didn't have much time left.
The prince stood there with Arthur a long time after the gate had closed. Then he turned his horse and went home.
(The Doctor paused. "Are you crying?"
"No!" There was a short, uncertain silence, then a sniff. "Yes."
"It's okay to cry. The prince was crying the whole time."
"What happened next?"
"Life went on.")
Life went on. The prince never stopped loving Rose, but he knew that locking her away again had been the only choice.
Sometimes, he would go to the old castle and find an arrow on the ground in front of the gate with a message tied to it. That was how he knew that Rose had lived, and that she and Fred had fallen in love with each other. It made him feel a little better to know that neither of them was alone any longer.
He eventually fell in love with another girl and they got married, and they became the king and queen when his father and mother died of old age. He was a great king. He was very wise and all of the people in the kingdom respected him.
And everyone lived… happily ever after.
There was a long silence after the final words had died away. The Doctor eventually broke it by adding, "The end."
There was a thoughtful sigh from his audience. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. This time, I am definitely sure. It is definitely way past bedtime for little human girls."
"Alright." She settled down in her blankets. He stood up and crossed to the door, but paused when she spoke up again. "Uncle Doctor? Did the prince ever regret it? Sending her away with Fred, I mean?"
The Doctor smiled sadly over at her, a hundred years of grief reflected in his ancient eyes. "Every day, for the rest of his life."
She nodded solemnly and pulled the blankets up to her chin. "Good night, Uncle Doctor."
"Good night, Rosie. Sweet dreams."
He turned off the lights and closed the door behind him.
A/N: Whether you review or not is, as always, entirely up to you - but please do not spoil the fic for future readers by reviewing with specific details. Thank you in advance. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!