Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who!
"No time to grieve for roses when forests are burning." -Juliusz Slowacki
At that moment, she had felt triumphant. At that moment, she had felt like the stars above her belonged to her, and that she could do everything that her heart desired.
At that moment she was gleaming brighter than any of the stars themselves.
There was a Dalek fleet. A hundred thousand Daleks surrounded the sky, and a hundred thousand more were surrounding her. She knew that she would never make it out alive. But that didn't bother her. It was the fact that the Doctor was standing in front of her, ready to vanish all of the Daleks with one single move, the Doctor would never make it out alive either.
She was Rose Tyler, and he was her Doctor. He, with his tousled brown hair and his mischievous brown eyes, would be lost forever.
And she couldn't bear it.
Rose knew the only reason that he was hesitating to press the button was because she was standing there as well. If he pressed it, she would be gone forever, too.
That was the price he had to pay. End the Daleks, a genocidal race whose primary intention is to eradicate every other being in the universe, or lose Rose, the woman who stood by him for as long as his new regeneration could remember, the woman he loved.
Rose was standing in a circular Dalek Warship. The Tardis was standing at the edge of the room, guarded by Daleks. The Daleks were blocking all exits, and both her and the Doctor were standing in the center. The Doctor was holding a miniature temporal magnetic shift, which would shift the antimatter beam the Daleks had stacked on the side of the room pointed to Earth to fire at the ship itself. That way, only the ship would get converted into antimatter, but the Earth would remain safe. Rose had a hard time comprehending the logic of this, but it didn't matter in the end, if the Doctor was going to die.
Her Doctor was pained, more pained than she had ever seen him before. He was rubbing his hands through his hair, and his fingers were shaking. The Daleks and him were at a stalemate- the Daleks couldn't kill the Doctor or Rose without guaranteeing death to themselves, and the Doctor couldn't run to the Tardis without getting exterminated at the spot.
Time was standing still. Hearts were pounding. Even the Daleks were mildly anticipated.
Finally, one of them couldn't take it much longer. Unusually for a Dalek, this one managed to shoot the Doctor at the exact center of his chest so inconspicuously that even the other Daleks did not seem to notice it. The Doctor was so surprised that he did not manage to press the button as intended, but keeled over so that the device rolled away from his grasp.
There was complete pandemonium.
Daleks were fighting with each other- the one that attacked the Doctor was declared defective and was killed, with a cry of "EXTERMINATE!" Rose turned to the Doctor and gasped. She clutched his body with one hand, and reached for the temporal magnetic shift device with the other.
"Rose Tyler," he breathed out quickly. His face was the ultimate mask of pain, and his eye were starting to water.
"No!" she screamed. "No! Please, no! This can't happen! No, no, no!"
But it was too late. "Go!" the Doctor cried. "Rose, you can't come near me. It's dangerous- go!"
"I'm not leaving you!" she screamed, clutching him tighter. The Daleks were beginning to notice the scene, but they didn't do anything, as Rose still held the device.
"Rose Tyler!" he said again, trying weakly to push her away. The Doctor's face and hands were glowing, and he sighed, and finally collapsed.
The Doctor exploded into a beam of light. The Daleks in front of him were vaporized into dust, while Rose was ricocheted to the back of the room, where she hit the wall and collapsed. She could dimly see what was going on.
There was a sort of yellow light surrounding her, and Rose felt warm, almost hot.
The Doctor stood up, and he was the same.
She could almost jump for joy! It was the same Doctor, her Doctor that stood there in front of her. Rose Tyler and the Doctor were definitely inseparable.
The Doctor wasn't smiling, though. He was staring at her in horror. That's when she realized that the yellow light was regeneration energy, and that it was coming from her, not the Doctor. When she cradled the Doctor in her arms, she must've absorbed that energy within her.
All the yellow light was transferring back to the Doctor, which must've been why his face wasn't changing.
The Daleks were scurrying around, trying to kill the both of them, but the yellow ball of energy surrounding them protected them for the moment. Half of the Daleks were gone, but reinforcements were pulling in.
Rose still held on to the device. With one hand, she was pulling apart the wiring without realizing it. The Doctor wasn't focused on that, though. He was too focused on her.
"Take me to the Tardis." Rose could hardly recognize her voice- it had gone so airy, but it filled in all the spaces, like music. There was a politician on T.V. that spoke like that- her mum called it the "sodapop" voice. Rose didn't understand why she had said those words either. It was just the fact that it seemed the right thing to say.
The Doctor, without a word, scooped her up, and walked toward the Tardis. They were still encircled by the ball of regeneration energy, which protected them from outside attacks. The Tardis doors flung open, and it seemed to drag the pair inside.
Once Rose and the Doctor were inside the door, the Tardis shut its doors. The last of the regeneration energy surrounded them was sucked by the Tardis, and Rose felt considerably less warm.
"Press the button." Rose bellowed. It was in the same voice, the sodapop voice, that forced itself out of her, in those exact words. The Doctor took the temporal magnetic shift device from her hand, and stared at it.
"The beam is about to be fired." said sodapop Rose. "Press it, and it will all end."
The Doctor stared at her with those big brown eyes. "Rose. Rose, listen to me. There is a fleet of Daleks above me, about to fire a bomb that will kill the population of the human race, and you think a temporal magnetic shift device would be able to stop it?" He paced around the console, rubbing his hand in his hair. "It was a ruse, a gag, so to speak. It was to buy us time. Until something magnificent was to happen, which did happen. In a manner of speaking."
"Press the button, my Doctor, and all will be well. The energy will fade from my brain as soon as you press it, and settle behind my soul. Sitting in my head for too long-"
"would blow your brain apart." finished the Doctor. He clutched the device even tighter. The Doctor stood there for a while, before making a final decision.
"Well." he said, smiling. "Allons-y!" And with that, he jammed his fist on the button.
Rose stretched her eyes open, and saw that the Doctor wasn't enveloped in yellow anymore, and that the pounding was gone from her head.
The Doctor was staring at her in shock. "How did you do that?" he asked breathlessly. "That's impossible- that doesn't exist! How did you possibly manage to do that?"
"I don't know. I was just... I was in the Tardis- no, before that I was in the Dalek ship, and then there was yellow. And my head was hurting." She winced, and pressed her hand to her head. "It's still hurting, actually."
The Doctor was still staring at her.
"Can I go home?" she asked. Seeing his expression, she said quickly, "Not permanently, obvious, I just want to pop in for a visit, see my mum again."
The Doctor shook his head and sighed. "...Yeah, I guess. Yes." He turned to the Tardis console. "Setting coordinates to the Powell Estate, London, Earth." he pressed some buttons and then abruptly turned to Rose. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Fine," she replied.
"Your head a bit fuzzy? Tingling behind the ears? An itch where there shouldn't be one- I've had plenty of those before a regeneration, they're not quite-"
"I'm alright, Doctor. My head was a bit weird before, but now I'm alright, honestly."
Rose walked over to the console, and examined the levers and buttons on it. "What date did you set our visit to?" she asked.
The Doctor frowned. "December 17th, five weeks after your last visit, why?"
Rose smiled and shook her head. "It's jus' that, you set it to five years, not five weeks." She pulled some levers, and typed something on the keyboard. The Tardis shuddered.
The Doctor ran up to her, in a state of frenzy. "Rose." he gasped. "What are you doing?"
"You were wrong, Doctor!" she teased.
"But that's impossible-" he said, staring at the console. "I'm never wrong!"
"Ooh, someone's gotten cocky!"
The Doctor pressed some more buttons and slumped forward. "I was wrong." The Doctor was absolutely astonished, as if had never admitted that fact in his entire life. "But how did you know? Rose, those controls were in Gallifreyan. I'm the only person in the universe that could've possibly knew what they said."
Rose stopped laughing and stared at the Doctor, now alarmed. "I dunno." she said. "I just knew that I had to press those buttons. Like I just knew how to."
She fell down and clutched her head. "My head! Doctor, my head!"
The Doctor was standing on the side, his hearts pounding. He knew what was happening. He didn't understand before, but now he knew. He took a shaky breath. "Rose," he said deeply. "I am so, so sorry."
Rose had heard those words thousands of times. He had said them to thousands of other people who had lost someone dear to them. She hated those words- a shaky cry and a frightened gasp always followed them. But never in her life did she suspect those words to be directed to her.
"Doctor?" she asked.
"Rose, oh, Rose." he said heavily. He stared at her longingly, the last trace of a smile fading from his lips. "Do you know what a Meta-Crisis is?"
"No." she said, barely paying attention. She was too focused on the banging in her head.
"It's when a human and Time Lord converge together in one body. When you took my regeneration energy in, you must have took too much. That's how you set the controls to the device, that's how you could control the Tardis, and that's how you know how to read Gallifreyan. And it's my fault," he said hollowly. "I delayed too long when pressing the button. Otherwise, you would've been saved." the Doctor shook his head and kicked the Tardis console.
"But you can get it out, right?" Rose asked, in a state of panic. "You can get it out?"
"There are two ways I could do that." he whispered. "I could amplify the pain ten times so it could explode your brain."
"Well," Rose winced, now pressing both hands to her head. "I'd rather not do that. What's the second option?"
The Doctor never looked as solemn as he did in that moment. His eyes were heavy, lidded with ghosts from his past, and his arms were held loosely by his sides. He looked so lonely, and he was staring at Rose like it was the last time he would ever see her.
"I'd have to make you forget." he said, simply. "Forget about everything. Your adventures, the Tardis... even me."
Rose took her hands off her head, and stared at her in shock. "You can't! I'd be nothing without you. You can't. I'd rather die."
"You don't mean that." he said.
"I mean every word I say!" she shouted furiously. "You can't! I'd be working in a shop all day to pass the time, all alone and miserable. And I can't forget about you... because, because... I can't!" Rose yelled, tears streaming from her eyes. "You can't make me!"
He walked forward, and took her hands into his. She stared at him furtively.
"Your head." he said quietly. "It's still hurting, isn't it?"
Rose shook her head, but he could see the hurt in her eyes. "I can't forget about you, Doctor." she murmured.
"You will." he said, softly. "You'll live a life without me, and you'll be magnificent." He tried to smile, but the smile slid off his face as quickly as it came.
"I can't forget about you because, l love you, Doctor!" she cried out.
The Doctor froze. In front of him was his Rose, beautiful as can be, saying those very same words he had dreamed she would say to him. He beamed a radiant smile back at her, and leaned forward.
Their lips met, and they kissed, in a collision of frenzy and power. Her lips tasted like cinnamon and hot chocolate, and, as he pressed her, he found himself wanting more time to spend with her. The Doctor wanted more time to talk and laugh with her, to run around having adventures together. He had so many places he wanted to take her, so much he wanted to say to her. So he poured everything into that kiss- all the times that they had together, and all the times that they should've had together. That kiss was the final adventure he had with her, and it was a pity that it ended up being so short.
And with that final thought, he broke apart from her. The Doctor placed both hands on Rose's cheeks, which were growing hotter by the minute.
"Goodbye, Rose Tyler." he whispered. And with that, he let his perfect Rose wither and die.
Rose crumpled to the ground, in a blissful sleep, and the Doctor was left alone once more.
Hi everyone! So I know I should be updating Clara Takes Manhattan, but I had a really good idea for this story that just popped into my head. I like where this is going so far, do you?
Next chapter update will be shorter, but I'll definitely update Clara Takes Manhattan first!
Reviews much appreciated! Every review makes me write faster!