Disclaimer: Doctor Who is property of the BBC. I do not own any of it, nor do I get paid for it.
A/N There was a rumour going around on Tumblr and imdb that Jenna Louise Coleman's character is Susan Tyler. That, of course, led to speculation that she could be the daughter of Rose and TenToo.
Add to that the Ponds' departure, weeping angels and the Doctor's new look and Moffat's reasons for it, this story was born. It originally started out as a humourous story but quickly turned into angst. Sorry.
I am aware that this is just based on a rumour but I'm so anxious for Series 7 that this is my way of dealing with the wait. Bear with me. :D
Hope you enjoy my little ficlet.
Happy Reading!
Susan Tyler
The Doctor's hands shook as he switched his old braces and tweed jacket for a grey waistcoat and a longer brown coat. He couldn't even look at his old clothes. They would always remind him of...no, he wasn't going to think about it.
Too late and as an image of the weeping angels rose in his mind, he slammed those gates shut and pressed his lips together to stop the harsh sobs from bursting out.
Leaving the wardrobe room, he returned to the painfully empty console room. "Where to now, old girl?" he whispered sadly.
As if on cue, the TARDIS took off at a breakneck speed, almost making him slam his face onto the console. He frantically twisted and turned the dials but nothing was working. "What?" he yelled as the TARDIS shook violently and then went completely still.
The old time rotor wheezed to a stop, and the bright orange and yellow lights in the console room dimmed to a coral green. The Doctor stood stock-still, still not sure what had happened. Before he could contemplate more on that, the time rotor groaned and then died.
"No, no, NO!" he yelled as he pressed buttons. "Don't you die on me now," he yelled. What the hell had happened? Why did the time rotor just die?
And just as those words floated into his mind, he realised. Oh, hell, he thought.
Cautiously, he walked to the TARDIS doors and opened them. A very familiar sight and smell greeted him. It was THE beach. The one beach that demanded as big of a 'the' as the Doctor himself. Almost hypnotically, he stepped out of the TARDIS and the sand crunched under his boots.
He suppressed a wince. He remembered his trainers doing that a long time ago. It was daytime on Bad Wolf Bay, probably around 2 in the afternoon. The air was slightly chilly and the tide would come in later. The beach was also, empty.
He sighed. What had he expected really? A sight of his old face and the woman he had loved so long ago? He hadn't even known how much time had passed in the universe. He, himself, had aged about 200 years since he was last here. And time moved faster in this universe.
"Why did you bring me here, old girl?" he murmured to himself as he stared at the sea.
"Oh, good," he heard an unfamiliar voice say and he jumped. No one had ever sneaked up on him like that. Nobody ever could.
But the girl who had spoken was looking at the TARDIS and she shrugged to herself before reaching for the chain around her neck. The Doctor watched in astonishment as she unlocked the TARDIS doors.
"What?" he said but the girl paid no attention to him and walked inside the console room. The Doctor followed her speechlessly.
"Bit different than what I expected," she shrugged to herself before dumping her rucksack on the glass floor near the console.
"Not to be rude but who are you?" he asked.
The girl stared at him like he was stupid. "Recharge the neutron receivers. We need to leave this universe before the gap closes," she said.
"You...universe...neutron...WHAT?" was all he managed.
She rolled her eyes. "Can we talk after we are sure that we are not going to rip a hole in the universe?" she demanded.
He looked taken aback at her tone but realised she was right. But how had she known about the neutron receivers? He wordlessly set them to recharge and she smiled slightly before pressing a few dials.
"NO!" he yelled but she ignored him and pulled the wibbly lever.
The TARDI rotor wheezed to life and the two of them were holding on to the console for dear life as the TARDIS pulled them back to the home universe. Exactly 2 minutes later, the TARDIS landed and the console was filled with its usual orange and yellow light.
"There," she said with a satisfied smirk. "That's all done," she said cheerfully.
The Doctor had gotten his bearings and his voice back. "Who are you? Why are you in my TARDIS? And just how do you know how to fly her?" he fired off, staring at her with distrust, astonishment and little bit of awe.
She rolled her eyes again. "My name's Susan Tyler. I am in your TARDIS because she came to pick me up from the parallel universe. And I know how to fly her was because I got lessons from my father," she answered.
The Doctor gaped at her. Susan. Tyler. Oh, he realised. He collapsed into the jumpseat as he stared at her. Now, he could see it.
Brown hair and dimples like his past self, eyes and attitude of her mother. She was their daughter. Rose and his metacrisis.
She seemed to be making herself quite at home as she dropped that bombshell on the Doctor. He cleared his throat. "What about Rose and uh..." he trailed off.
She looked up at him and he saw a terrible sadness in them that nearly broke his hearts. "Dad passed away two years ago. Mum died three months ago," she said. "The last thing she begged me to do was find you."
The Doctor closed his eyes in pain as he let that news wash over him. Rose was dead. She was gone. No more Rose Tyler. The pink and yellow human girl. The Bad Wolf. Had she been happy? Did she have a nice life with him? Did she miss him?
"She missed you. They both did," Susan said, as if she knew what he was thinking. "They were together for nearly 200 years." He looked up in surprise at that and Susan gave a small chuckle at his expression. "They both aged slowly. A human Time Lord metacrisis and the Bad Wolf. Stuff of legends, they always said."
The Doctor gave a reluctant smile at that. "And what about you?" he asked.
Susan sighed. "I was born three years after they got married," she answered. At his yet another surprised look, she laughed. "I look good for being nearly 180, don't I?" she asked.
"I don't understand," the Doctor said even as he had a niggling suspicion at the back of his mind.
"Do you have your stethoscope?" she asked him.
The Doctor's eyes widened and flashed back to Donna Noble asking him the same thing when faced with...No, not going to think about Jenny now. It was already painful enough. He shut down his thoughts and pulled out the stethoscope from his coat.
Susan encouraged him to go ahead. Sighing to himself, he listened to Susan's heartbeat. Two strong hearts beat back a familiar rhythm. He nodded slightly to himself as he put away the stethoscope, his suspicion now confirmed.
"Look, I'm not expecting you to look after me or something," Susan said, evidently misinterpreting his aghast look as rejection. "I was just trying to fulfil my mum's last wish."
The Doctor looked up at her, his emerald eyes full of ancient sadness. Susan was stunned into silence as she was inexplicably reminded of the look in her father's eyes. He would sometimes stare off into distance, thinking about his past and the sadness wouldn't go away until he lay eyes on her mother again. Except the Doctor didn't have her mum with him. The TARDIS was empty. He had no one.
"Don't be sad," she whispered, feeling like a little girl. When she had been younger, she would climb into her Dad's lap and hug him for a long time when he got sad like this. Then her mother would come in, take a look at the two of them and with her own brand of happiness, she would bring the cheer back into their little family.
The Doctor choked back a sob at the lost expression on her face and gathered her into a hug. Susan hugged him back just as tightly.
This wasn't her Daddy. He wasn't the one who had been there with her mother as she went through a thirteen month pregnancy with a Time Lord baby. He wasn't the one who delivered her into this world. He wasn't the one who held her during the night when she cried. He wasn't the one who had taught her how to fly the TARDIS. He wasn't the one who had loved his little girl with his one human heart.
He wasn't her Dad, but for the first time in two years, Susan felt like she was being hugged by her Father.
Things weren't okay, but they would be. The Doctor and Susan weren't actually father-daughter but they would be. Time cannot heal all wounds but it can soften the blows of wounds to come.
The Doctor pulled away from the hug and smiled at Susan. "Susan Tyler. Allons-y!"
A/N And there it is. Kinda sad but ends with hope. Just the way I like it. I may not be a huge Rose/TenToo fan but I honestly enjoyed writing this.
So, what did you all think? Do you think this is what everyone was thinking when they heard the rumour?
I would greatly appreciate any feedback you can give me.
Cheers x