Summary: Spoilers for The Impossible Planet. There are two things strong enough to take on the Beast. But will saving the universe one more time cost the Doctor and Rose their lives? Some TenRose, Bad Wolf story suggestion by my friend
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all characters therein belong to the BBC, not me. Nor do I make any money for the writing of this fanfiction, so please, no lawsuits.
A/N: Give it a read and tell me if you think it's worth continuing even if this Saturday's episode completely obliterates it.
Rose Tyler didn't save people. She helped the Doctor, did as he said, and trusted in him explicitly. On her own she just felt like a lost sheep, unable to help herself, let alone all the people in the universe who needed helping.
But the Bad Wolf. Now that was a different story.
The Bad Wolf was always brave, always hid. It was darkness, and it was light.
And right then, it was needed. Rose needed it. The Doctor needed it. Because only the Wolf could speak to the Beast. Only the Wolf could speak and survive.
The Bad Wolf was needed, and the Bad Wolf would come.
She slipped to the floor, cold metal digging into her back. She didn't want to die. Especially not cowering. What would the Doctor do? He'd die fighting, that was what.
But Rose had never been very good at being the Doctor. She had tried once, and nearly doomed the earth. She'd been laughed at.
Roseā¦
There was a faint call in the back of her mind, and she managed to wrench her eyes away from the corridor filling ever so slowly with Ood. Red eyes gleamed as they came closer and she tried to make herself smaller. She didn't want to die.
You don't have to, Rose.
The voice was disturbingly familiar, though from where she couldn't think. But it was in her head, and it sounded strong and wild. Strong enough not to die like she was going to. Whatever it was, it would fight. The Doctor would have fought. But not Rose.
Let me fight for you, Rose Tyler. Let me fight for you and your Doctor.
Yes. Her Doctor. She couldn't die. He'd blame himself, like he blamed himself for Reinette. Another knife between the ribs.
I can fight, Rose. Let me fight.
Yes. Let the Wolf fight the Beast.
He faced the rather imposing figure and gulped. He wasn't often afraid. It took a lot of something rather hard to place to make him afraid. Age perhaps. Time.
The Doctor knew, better than anyone, that Time was Power. And the Beast standing before him had a lot of Time. So much Time that even the Time Lords had chopped up his existence to simple coincidental myth. Where the Gallifreyan had nine centuries, nine quick spans of a human generation. The Beast was beyond generations, beyond ages, beyond eons. The Beast just was.
Or that was what he said. When faced with that sort of very impressive introduction, the Doctor had a number of possible reactions all floating about in his head. He could cower in fear, like the thing probably expected him to do, but he'd never been very suited to cowering. After all, that might get his space suit dusty, and he'd promised Rose he'd bring it back in one piece.
No, he decided, not cowering. A good show of hopelessly ignorant bravado then? Right on the mark!
"Bollocks." The Doctor said flippantly, his hands perched defiantly on his hips. "If you're a God. Or Anti-God, or whatever it is you're claiming to be, then why would you need them?" He gestured vaguely to the human woman to his left. He didn't know what she was doing inside that rigid spacesuit, but he had a suspicion she was wetting herself.
"They are the first to be vessels of my will. More will follow."
"If." The Doctor grinned and pointed a finger in the air as a gesture of revelation. "You can get off this planet. That's what the black hole was for then, am I right? A prison to keep you stuck in between the universes forever. Where even all your Time has nowhere to go unless it wants to get sucked into nothingness."
The Beast took a menacing step forward, and the Doctor guessed he'd hit a nerve. Comforting to know the thing had nerves though. That meant it felt pain, and things that felt pain were generally easier to kill or intimidate. He was hoping for the former as the latter was looking neigh impossible. Then again, this was an impossible planet.
"I am awake. I shall rise from my prison. The legions of the Beast rise to make war on God."
"Oh, puh-lease." The Doctor said in his best imitation of an incredulous school girl. A great, fiery dark claw snapped idly at the Beast's side, and something between a hiss and a growl seeped past its fangs.
"Insolent Timeling! I will send your race back into the slime for such insult."
The Doctor's laugh at this was mirthless and hollow. "Afraid I beat you to it then. They long since died. Bit behind on the news, are we?"
The Beast looked about to reply(The Doctor had picked out a pattern to facial expressions that only made everything it said that much more hilarious), but it stopped. The massive, horned head swiveled up toward the direction of the base. Something that sounded suspiciously like a howl echoed down the shaft that lead to the planet's center.
A soft whistle like something moving through air echoed after and the lifeless body of an Ood crashed on top of the lift that had brought the Doctor down the shaft. Two more followed shortly.
The sound of machinery followednot longafter, though what came down looked more strung-together than his TARDIS console. A maintenance lift?
He froze the next second as he recognized, with chilling familiarity, the figure standing on that lift. Rose.
How?
The first thought crashed on him as he stared in utter and complete disbeliefwas thatthe living, breathing(without a space suit?) girl who he knew couldn't possibly be standing there. But she was.
Or was she?
"You are the Beast." The voice is strong and wild and echoes before and after the words that are spoken. It isn't a question, but a challenge. The Doctor shudders. Now he is afraid. Afraid of the Wolf, of the Beast, and of the Impossible Planet.
He is afraid of Rose. For Rose. Because she doesn't have thirteen lives, and he has already given up one for her.
But there's nothing he can do. He's not even sure a given life will save her this time. It's up to her to save herself.
