I Keep Repeating Myself

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After the Valeyard is defeated, out of spite, he destroys Pete's World. Rose Tyler wakes up, in her 9-year-old body and finds out she's been given a second chance to save the multiverse and a chance to be with her Doctor. That is, if she wants it. Not only that, another person was sent back in time to help out. Her mum, Jackie with a little help from Jack, is sent back with her. Post – Journey's End and Pre – Rose.

Warning! This isn't a friendly Tentoo fic. Tentoo evolves into the Valeyard, who is the dark, diabolical side of the Doctor's personality. Nor is this a 10th Doctor friendly fic, but it is pro-9th Doctor friendly. It is not a traditional re-do fic.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fifty-five years after Bad Wolf Bay

The rapid firing, of guns and grenades exploding, men and women shouting orders, screaming and crying were all around her. The sounds of flesh being sliced filled her ears and her mind went blank for just a second, when she felt sudden pressure hitting her chest. Too much. Too fast. Her reflexes moved so quickly, during that moment that she failed to recall what she had done nor the moves she'd used on him.

"Rose!"

The surviving people around her, were shouting a chorus of "No!" around her.

"Rose! Oh! My God! No!" her brother, Tony shouted.

She heard herself crash to the floor, a moment of intense pain blossomed in her chest as her heart came to a halt. As the darkness claimed her, Rose was vaguely aware of something wet dripping into her eye and down her face.

Rose woke up gasping in her bed. Opening her eyes, she could see the white ceiling and the pink walls of her old messy Powell Estates bedroom. The intense sunlight in her room hurt her eyes. As she gazed sleepily over to her alarm clock that read 11.10, she noticed her chest didn't feel quite right. She carefully, cupped her breasts and squeezed.

"I have no thrupney bits!" Rose squealed, leaping off of her mattress and running to her bedroom mirror.

Rose stood before her dresser mirror and gasped. She was wearing a mock turtleneck soft pink blouse with long sleeves, jeans and her pink converses. She was no longer an adult; she was in her ten, maybe eleven-year-old body and her chest was flat. With an audible groan, she recalled she had not needed to wear a bra until just after her twelfth birthday. Shareen had an overnight sleepover the month previous before it with her visiting cousins, Terry and Michelle during which they had compared their breast sizes within their little group. Rose felt self-conscious that she was built like a lolly stick. One of the cousins had snickered that all she needed was two small plasters for a bra.

"No! I don't want to live through puberty again! Oh! My God! My first menses! Rose shuddered. Her early ones had been so painful and her flows were heavy: countless nights and afternoons, after school of hot water bottles for her cramps, hot lemonade and hot baths with mineral salts, every day during the first year of it. The only bright side was her mum, who neither smothered her nor said anything negative during them and they would have those rare brief moments of true woman to woman sisterhood, between mother and daughter, before reverting back to the status quo of arguments and bickering.

"What the...?" she snapped. Here, she was returned back in time, back at the Powell Estates in her home universe, re-discovering her pre-pubescent body, worried about the size of her breasts and her future – or repeated – experience of early menarche.

"Rose? Are you okay?" Her mum asked uncertainly with a touch of fear in her voice, clearly in disbelief that she was seeing her own daughter in these surroundings – alive. Jackie slowly peaked, around the corner of her Rose's bedroom door.

"Mum?" Rose said with a slight tremble in her own, albeit childlike voice. There was something haunting in her mum's eyes. It came to them in the same moment, when their eyes connected with each other.

"The Valeyard." They whispered together. Suddenly, they were on Rose's pink and white duvet-covered bed, holding each other, sobbing loudly and not holding anything back for several minutes.

"Rose, what happened?"

"What was the last thing you remember?" Rose kept her eyes on her mum, deflecting her own answer.

"I saw you slice off that monster's head off with your sword. When you made that diagonal slice, it sounded just like slicing a melon in half one big move. Right graceful move, like something out of those kung fu movies..."

"Mum!" Rose couldn't help taking note of her squeaky child-like voice, then remembered her body was now a child's body.

"Yes. Right. Now... " Jackie shivered, taking a deep breath before continuing. Rose encouraged her with a nod . "He shot y-your ... your heart out with your own gun, as you sliced his head open."

Rose gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. "Go on..."

"Tony and I were holding ... crying over ... y-y-your ….and … and P-P-P- Pete's b-bod..." Jackie and Rose grabbed each other sobbing to comfort the other at the memory of Pete's death, who had died just minutes before Rose did, taking a bullet, to his head meant for his daughter.

Holding Rose's tiny hand for strength Jackie continued, "Then there was this awful shaking, it felt like the whole building was in a cocktail shaker. Everything moving all around the place, 'twas strange watching furniture moving around like it had a mind of its own, no one could move until it stopped. It was like the quiet of a storm. We turned to look out the glass windows, at the ruins of the city. It was ... was so strange, scary, the smoke and fire, you couldn't look away, even if you wanted to, like a horrible auto mobile accident..." Jackie stopped for a moment, her eyes haunted and distant, searching for the words to describe what happened next.

"It was like the way when you watch, explosions in one of those Japanese anime, Tony..." Jackie paused for a moment. "Ton ... ton ... and you loved to watch on the telly, of buildings and volcanoes blowing up high into the sky. Bright colourful lights expanding upwards and outwards, in growing, spreading columns of flying earth, building pieces, fire and lava coming up out of the ground. The sky turned red and orange, too."

"We ...we ... hugged each other. The second, we realized what was ha-ha-happening..." Jackie started to weep again and put Rose into a powerful bear hug.

"Mum! Mum!" Rose squeaked like a mouse in pain and trying to futility wiggle out of the merciless bear hug. "I'm only ten, maybe eleven years old now."

Jackie let her go and blew her nose on her blue, long sleeve mock turtleneck knit top she was wearing that day. Rose recoiled at the sight of it.

"Sorry, dear. Let me change my top and I'll make us a nice cuppa and we'll talk some more." She left the bedroom, struggling to control her weeping, leaving Rose to her own morbid thoughts.

Fifty-five years since the Doctor had trapped and abandoned her, on Pete's World. Fifty-five years of pain... of... No! No! Rose admonished herself. She would not go down the self-pity road, she refused to feel sorry for herself, for things, beyond her control. The people, who suffered and died because she would not let the... the Valeyard win, knowing it would be far worse for the world, for the universe if he'd been allowed to win.

The big question was who or what had brought her and her mum, not only back in time, but simultaneously across two universes?

"We did. My Wolf," the TARDIS replied.

Rose heard something crash and break in the kitchen.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Shite!" Jackie yelled.

Rose came running into the kitchen as fast as her short child-sized legs would let her. Her Torchwood training and conditioning had her tiny hands reaching for a gun that used to be at her side in another time and universe.

"Blimey." Jackie shouted with barely contained fear "Where did that voice come from?"

"That would be me, mother of my Wolf."

"Who! What? Who!" Jackie cried, moving around and waving her hands as if an invisible wasp were buzzing around her, itching to attack. "Am I losing it? God! I pray this isn't like the day when your cousin, Rachael lost the plot. They found her standing there at the foot of the stairs, naked as the day she was born at the tube station. She said, God told her to do it and to paint herself..."

"Mum!" Rose quickly assured her, as she moved them from the kitchen to their living room. "It's the voice of the TARDIS."

"You are correct my Bad Wolf." The TARDIS confirmed.

"You never spoke words directly to me before, today. It was all feelings, buzzes and sometimes images, when I was on ... er ... in ... you ... ugh!" Rose snapped. "You know what I mean."

The women could hear the TARDIS sadly chuckle in their minds. "True, I can say words, when it's necessary, to someone other than the Doctor. Regrettably, when I needed to do it the most I wasn't able to do it."

"Meaning?" Rose cautiously said, knowing she wouldn't like the answer. But she wanted to hear the TARDIS admit the truth.

"Bad Wolf Bay, when our Doctor abandoned you and the future Valeyard on Pete's World. When you heard me groan on the beach..."

"You!" Rose head snapped up, glaring into the open space of the flat sitting room, her eyes trying to focus. She was so rarely at a loss for words, she was so weary, angry and sad, not knowing why. So she directed her anger on the time ship.

"My Wolf!" the TARDIS said, in stern disapproval, so loud it hurt Rose and Jackie's minds. "I was protesting and begging My Thief, on your behalf, not to do it. Despite what he thought of himself, at the time, he did deserve to be happy, you were good for him, you kept him grounded, when to move ahead, when to hold back, keep himself in check," The TARDIS mournfully sighed. "He chose to ignore my plea's not to do it, but I was too weak, when I was dropped into Davros's Z-Neutrino energy vortex and crossing the Howling so soon to truly force the issue. I fought him, but he had the Doctor-Donna with him and between them. They forced me to leave you behind on Pete's World."

Rose said softly, after a moment of silence in the room, "Why was Donna so anxious to push me, into the Valeyard's arms that day on the beach?"

"Doctor-Donna didn't want to share the Doctor with you."

"Slag!" Jackie snarled. Rose had forgotten her mum was there and realised she had been uncharacteristically quiet during this time. Surprisingly, Jackie became silent, again, after her outburst, simply standing there intensely listening.

"Donna wasn't jealous of the Doctor's relationship with you. She never saw him as a lover nor a sexual partner. A brother, yes. Sometimes, even a son. She truly saw him as her best friend forever and like so many women she didn't want to share her best friend with anyone, especially another woman. She wanted to stay with him forever and go on adventure after adventure with him. So much like you in so many ways, my Rose."

"What happened to him ...her after ..." Rose choked. The Valeyard, had only known to a certain point what would happen with the Doctor-Donna, but Rose, suspecting more, begged the TARDIS to confirm her suspicions and put the ghost of Doctor-Donna to her final rest. "Please, I... I... need to know for sure."

"When Donna became the Doctor-Donna, her human brain couldn't handle the vast knowledge of a Time Lord conscious; it was overloading her physically human mind. She knew, in order to survive, that the Doctor would have to erase her memories, of her entire time with him and the memory of ever meeting and travelling with him, or she would die from a brain haemorrhage. She was in denial until the very last moment." The TARDIS mentally sighed. The two women could feel the sentient ship's regret and sadness in it. "She begged him not to do it. She didn't want to go back to being an ordinary human again, to return to just being the best temp in Chiswick.

"After he erased her memories and locked away her Time Lord mind, he took her home to Sylvia and Wilf and left her behind with her family. It broke both his hearts, his running away and imprisoning you on Pete's World and losing Donna, all within the same hour of leaving you and the Meta-Crisis on the beach. His hearts were burnt to a cinder, an unnecessary, self-inflicted punishment because he felt he didn't deserve any happiness in his life, in any form, where it concerned you and the guilt over what he did to save his best friend's life.

In the end, his Tenth regeneration life ended alone, lonely, sadly pathetic and he was so very scared of dying, when it came time for him to regenerate, just as much as he was afraid to live and love."

Rose could feel empathy for Donna, despite what she and the Doctor had done, giving her 'blessings' to be with the Meta-Crisis, tricking and forcing her to stay on Pete's World. To lose all of those experiences, all her memories of the adventures forced back into an ordinary life was Hell like it had been for Sarah Jane. After tasting the wonders, of the universe and to be sentenced to the slow path, normal life on Earth was living death. She knew the pain all too well. Suddenly, the anger and resentment, Rose had against Donna was gone and she felt only sorrow and sympathy for a woman, who would neither remember her adventures with the Doctor, nor the brief moment, when she was the most important woman in the universe, the Doctor-Donna. She only had forgiveness and a piece of her past, was now simply, in the past

The pain her Doctor must have suffered, she wished she could have been there for him to ease his suffering the loss of his snappy ginger haired best mate.

"You prove yet, again why, he's unworthy of you," the TARDIS assured Rose. "He needs you as his Rock of Gibraltar to keep him in line, my Heart."

Rose's face and ears turned bright red with embarrassment; she should be pissed off to the hilt and stay that way for good. But she found that she was unable, especially after learning all of this. Yet she couldn't be his personal crutch; he needed to be responsible for himself and his actions on his own.

"Oi! He deserves love just as much as anyone one else in the universe." Rose called out to the TARDIS, before she started to rub her eyes with one hand.

Jackie took her other hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, her mum was misty-eyed as she looked her in the eyes. "Nothing to be ashamed of sweetheart. You have an infinite amount of compassion and a heart so big and great, you can love two universes with everything you have in it."

Rose gasped, her lips puckered like a fish trying to breathe on dry land and her eyes just as round. No! Did she hear her mum say, 'an infinite amount of compassion and a heart so big'?

"Are you my mummy?" The child-woman rasped. If Rose's hand was still adult sized, she would have unintentionally crushed her mum's hand, instead of giving it a just a firm tiny squeeze.

Jackie gave her daughter, a blushing grin. "Yes, And I'm proud of it." The TARDIS giggled in their mind and the pair could feel something like a mental 'hug' from the time ship.

"Right," the TARDIS stated, when they separated. "Girls, we have work to do, plans to make to save our favourite..." Jackie growled. "or our not so favourite, Time Lord and two universes."

"Not without some more answers," Jackie said firmly. "Rose, I can understand being given a second chance, but why me?"

Normally, Rose would have resented letting her mum take charge of the questioning; but though her body was still full of energy, her mind and emotions were exhausted. Despite the time travel factor, for Rose, she had endured forty hours of straight chaos, mental exhaustion and emotional fatigue. She could barely stand on her own. Though hypervigilant from travelling in time and space, Rose gave into her fatigue, flopping down on the nearby couch.

"Sit like a proper young lady," Jackie snapped. "You weren't raised in a barn."

Rose immediately stood up and properly sat down under her mum's glare. When she glanced up, she saw her mum give her a nod of approval before she refocused, on listening to her mum chatting with the TARDIS.

"Your daughter has been through, a great deal of emotional pain as well as the mental and physical abuse, by the Valeyard and leading the fight against him for several years. She needs time to recover, over the heartbreak, the pain, our Doctor and the Valeyard did to her psyche," the TARDIS explained. "Sorry, for talking to your mother, as if you're not here, my Wolf."

"No problem," Rose sighed and made a jaw popping yawn, recognizing how knackered she must be to let it slide so easily. When she saw her mum looking at her, it was clear in her eyes, in her posture, she was asking permission to continue on with her chat with the TARDIS without her daughter.

"Sorry. Go ahead without me. It's fine ... fi ... f-f-f-ine." Rose struggled against another yawn before succumbing. "Please, go on without me," she mumbled, weakly waving her hand in the air, before placing and adjusting a sofa pillow, under her head on the sofa arm, intending to just listen in on the conversation. Instead, she almost instantly fell asleep, making soft snoring noises and drooling on the soft cushy cushion, experiencing her first true deep dreamless sleep in decades.