-=- Silver Down a Wishing Well -=-

'Open it.'

It was that voice again. The one that haunted me. The one that kept me trapped in my mind. I can't escape. I can't even remember who I was before the voice called me here. The voice that sounds so gentle and caring and trustworthy but is nothing of the sort.

It wants something from me.

'Open it.'

I don't want to give it what it wants but every moment I feel my resolve weaken. Sometimes I forget that the voice is my enemy. Sometimes I forget that this is just in my mind. Sometimes I forget that there is a whole world out there that the voice has stolen me from.

'Open it.'

Sometimes I remember how often I forget. But often, I forget to remember. Everything slips away into nothingness. White bleeds into red and red bleeds into white. Sometimes red fades into gold and dust and time and space and everything before that too fades into white.

'Open it.'

Sometimes I forget how gentle the voice can be. Sometimes I remember how much I hate it. Sometimes I think there is too much difference between forgetting and remembering now. And sometimes ... sometimes I don't think I'm really there anymore. Sometimes remember I'm just a ghost.

'Open it.'

Sometimes I forget the person I once was. Sometimes I remember time and space and gold and dust and travel. Sometimes I forget that person was never real.

'Open it.'

Sometimes I remember that the voice was never real either. Sometimes I forget the voice is me.

'Open it.'

Sometimes I just forget.

'Open it.'

I don't want to forget.

'Open it.'

But I already have.

'Open it.'

I finally remember

'Open it.'

I opened it long ago.

The story begins at a castle in Scotland but not a Scotland that you know. It's different, part of a whole different world where I shouldn't be, because I was never born there. I was never part of this universe. It's old and looks like something out of a fairytale. It has an old name, something in the old tongue of the place that I could never pronounce but the modern translation was clear enough.

Bad Wolf Castle.

Bad Wolf. That had always been the connection between me and The Doctor, even the human version that stayed with me. It seemed only right to get married there. My memories of the place seem so distant. The aisle was a path of fallen petals, garlands hung from walls that have seen the ages and have stood firm against it all. The place was as timeless as the man I was about to marry.

Mum – the infamous Jackie Tyler – had already given her warnings and blessings to the man I had not seen since the night before. She stood there all dolled up in her maid of honour clothes in one of the backrooms of the castle with me as I prepared for the ceremony.

She beamed down at me, brushing the few loose curls that had not been pinned back in an elaborate style. 'Rose,' she had said, 'my dear, sweet Rose. Look at you. You're all grown up. Where did all that time go?'

I smiled happily. Time was something I was familiar with after my travels with The Doctor. I had seen so many places, done so many things, and experienced things beyond your wildest dreams but never before had I been so scared and so happy.

I was getting married.

'I have something for you,' mum had said. 'I promised you that I'd have your something old for you. I know that you've got you new, blue, and borrowed from that Kathy girl but I wanted to do this for you.'

'It's fine mum. Go on then. What is it?'

'It's yours. You've had it since you were a baby. I think your great grandfather gave it to you when you were born. It's all a blur really. But I had it on me that day, you know the one.' I did know the one. The only day she referred to as 'that day' was when we were first trapped in the universe that was so similar yet different from our own.

'I thought that ... well I always knew that you'd find The Doctor again and I thought it'd be something to remember me by. Something to remind you who you are.' Mum went over to the side of the room and pulled something out of her bag she was keeping there.

'Here.' She passed it over to me. It was a beautiful thing, a silver fob watch with intricate patterns on the front. I can remember running my fingers over it and moving to opening it but stopping for a reason I could not explain back then.

'It's lovely, mum. Thank you.'

'Here,' she had said, taking the watch from me gently and pushing one of the layers of the white dress I was wearing and attaching it to my hip, before replacing the layer and smoothing it out. You wouldn't have been able to tell the fob watch was there if you hadn't known to begin with.

'There,' she had said with a sad, proud, happy smile. 'You're ready.'

It was only a few minutes later I had walked up that aisle, ready to start a new life with a man who had once claimed he didn't do domestic. Though, he claimed he could make an exception for me. I still had to fight him when the time to pay the mortgage of our joint house of six months came.

Those were the good times.

The aisle of petals, the walls of the old, sunlight illuminating the room through gaps in the ceiling. It's like a distant memory now. I can't remember the colours quite right and sometimes I wonder if the smile I saw on The Doctor's face was really as bright as I remembered it or if the love in his eyes really did drown out everything in the room like I thought it did or whether everything was just clouded by my happiness.

I can't remember exactly what happened but I remember felling like someone had shoved me firmly on the chest and the sound being emptied from the room. Though there must have been sound because the guests looked like they were screaming and the Doctor was standing over me, even thought I can't remember when I fell to the floor, and was calling my name.

I couldn't hear him but I could see my name on his lips. I didn't understand what was happening until I looked down.

I hadn't even realised that I reached to my chest until I saw my hand resting on it. Red bled into white, an uneven shape widening on my wedding dress. I vaguely recall uttering an astonished 'oh' of surprise. There were warm hands on my clammy cheeks and they wouldn't go away. They were lifting my face up to look into panicked brown eyes.

The pain came then. Looking back I wondered why I didn't feel it before that moment but it seemed that was when it all caught up to my brain. There was a scorching pain. It was so painful. It was with the pain the realisation that I had been shot came.

And the truth was that I was dying. White became red with my blood. It was on my hands, under my nails, and everywhere. I remember choking out the Doctor's name. He must have heard the fear in my voice because his forehead was on mine.

'I'm here. I'm here."

His lips met mine and the kiss tasted of blood and tears. It's only years later that I realise that neither are mine.

Everything blurs from there but I can remember movement by my hip. I remember that confused me because I was wounded in my chest.

Then there was an impossible warmth as cold metal met my fingers.

'Open it, Rose,' a voice begged. A scared, tired voice.

I was so far away at that point. I could barely make out what was happening.

'Open it.'

Familiar hands covered my own and guided them over the warm, cold metal until they found a clasp. I had felt the sudden need to protest against the action. There was only emptiness inside. It should never be opened. If it opened then I would be lost.

I was too weak though and the shaking hands over mine guided me into opening the clasp. Like white had faded into red, red faded into gold. Gold that was dust. Dust that was time and space and forever.

Gold then faded into white and in that moment Rose Tyler ceased to exist and the gold that is time and space and forever pulls me to the Tardis I have the strongest link to, a Tardis in a different dimension when the walls are weakening between the two worlds.

But the thing is. It wasn't The Doctor who found me first. It was someone very different and yet, like the two worlds I have lived in, they were more similar than you'd like to believe.

Thank you for reading.

For those who are interested I have a challenge fiction relating to this on my profile, probably would explain a bit more what was happening there. This was originally going to be a full length story but after sitting around on my laptop for a year I decided to chop the end off and put it up as a oneshot.