Disclaimer: I do not own any of the awesomeness that is the Doctor Who universe.
A/N: This is the first Doctor Who story that I've ever written, so I'm a bit nervous about posting this. I really like the idea that I have for this story, so I really want to make sure that I get it written out well. That being said, please, please let me know what you think of it and if you have any criticisms or suggestions for improvement! I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks, and I hope you enjoy the story!
Chapter 1 – Bad Wolf
A soft melody rang throughout Rose Marion Tyler's mind, seeming to touch her very soul. She walked through a peaceful field of wildflowers, filled with warmth from the two suns that hung high overhead in the bright, blue sky. As the young woman raised her face to the suns, basking in their glow, the music brought to mind times long past and the excitement of countless adventures yet to come. She could almost see the song on the wind, golden words floating around her body like moths around a flame. Rose reached out to run her fingers through the strands of gold in the air as she laughed with pure joy. Peace and calm filled her entire being, but a foreboding note lurked in the background of the music. Rose slowed her walk to a stop, a frown gracing her features as she concentrated on that note, trying to decipher the peril that it promised. If only she could focus harder, maybe she could hear what it said. Maybe she could see what storm was approaching and prevent the destruction that would come in its wake, maybe—
The buzzing of an alarm clock jarred Rose awake, and one of her arms flailed out from underneath the covers to stop the annoyance. With a groan, she buried her head underneath the warm blankets once more. The sound of soft laughter brought a scowl to her face, and she grumpily threw the blankets off of herself to glare at the adorable man lying next to her, propped up on one arm.
The man that she called her husband, also known as the Doctor, the Human-Time Lord Metacrisis, the Oncoming Storm, and many, many other names, gave her one of his irresistibly sexy smirks in an attempt to alleviate Rose's early-morning annoyance. He laid on top of the mussed blankets, already dressed in his trademark brown, pinstriped suit that he had insisted on replacing as soon as possible after being abandoned in Pete's World. Underneath the suit, he had on a simple, blue t-shirt, and the look was completed with a pair of well-worn blue trainers. Rose took a minute to admire him before roughly rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"You're beautiful when you first wake up," the Doctor crooned as he looked on fondly at the mess of golden hair tangled all around her face.
"You say that every morning," Rose grumbled, finding his propensity to be wide awake in the mornings quite annoying.
"And every morning it's true," the Doctor gently pushed her hair out of her face and kissed her with so much love and emotion that Rose felt as though her knees would have given out had she been standing.
"Good morning, Love," he said with a broad smile as he pulled away from the kiss.
"Morning," Rose replied, her hatred of mornings unable to diminish the big, tongue-in-teeth smile that she returned to him. It still amazed her that this wonderful man was all hers, and that she was his in return. It had been five years since being left at Bad Wolf Bay by the other Doctor. For three of those years, this Doctor and Rose had been happily married.
Rose reluctantly removed herself from the trappings of their bed to prepare for work. Once she was properly clad in black dress slacks, a dark pink top, and shoes that she could easily run in (a wise habit to maintain), the delicious smell of breakfast lured her into the kitchen. She leaned against the kitchen door frame, silently watching the Doctor as he cooked. He had adapted quite well to the domestic life. Surprisingly well, in fact. Sure, they still had adventures (and working for Torchwood, there were plenty of them), but there was always quiet little moments like this where Rose couldn't help but feel like the two of them had been so very gifted to have this second chance at life and love.
"Could you grab the bananas?" The Doctor asked, startling Rose out of her reverie.
"Always with the bananas," Rose teased with a smile as she grabbed two of them off of the counter and placed them on the kitchen table. The Doctor met her at the table with two plates of food.
The couple ate breakfast in peaceful silence, each simply taking comfort in the other's presence. This was a part of their normal morning routine (and what a thought, the two of them with a normal routine!), but neither would have changed it for the world. Rose pulled out her mobile as she ate, checking her electronic calendar to see what meetings she had planned for the day. The Doctor idly read a newspaper while she did so, although Rose failed to notice when he frowned at something within its pages and quickly glanced up at her with concern. He immediately covered up his reaction when Rose began to speak.
"Don't forget, Jake's invited us out tomorrow night," Rose commented, still intent on the phone in her hand.
"Right, yeah," The Doctor replied distractedly as he quickly folded up the newspaper and sat on it to hide it from view.
"And Mum wants us to have a family dinner with her this weekend," Rose added, not noticing the strange behavior of her husband.
"Aww, do we have to, Rose?" the Doctor whined.
"Yes," she looked up at him with a smirk, "she's still mad about you telling Tony of the adventure with the Gelth. He hasn't gotten a decent night's sleep since, keeps saying they'll take over his body in his sleep."
"I told him you had to be dead first," the Doctor protested.
"Oh yeah, that helped," Rose rolled her eyes. "Avoiding my mum at this point will only earn you another slap."
"Fine," the Doctor sighed, rubbing his cheek as he remembered the now-all-too-familiar pain that came with an infamous Tyler slap. Mother-in-laws were difficult, he was learning, especially when your mother-in-law was Jackie Tyler. Three years of being officially part of the Tyler clan, and he had yet to learn how to keep Jackie Tyler happy with him. He doubted that he ever would.
"Oh!" Rose exclaimed suddenly as she caught sight of the time, "I better go, I'm gonna be late for work."
As she took a final bite of toast and gathered her things in a hurry, the Doctor stopped Rose just long enough for a proper goodbye kiss.
"I love you, my Rose," he replied with a smile as she pulled away from the kiss.
"I love you, too, my Doctor," she responded lovingly before bolting out of the door.
Mornings went by far too slowly when there were no end-of-the-world crises to occupy Rose's time at work. She was now head of the Department of Alien Encounters at Torchwood, but that brought very little excitement when she was forced to spend most of her time participating in bureaucratic drivel. Currently, she was listening via speakerphone to a boring conference call about performance measurements that she wasn't even vaguely interested in. Her fingers idly tapped out a pattern on the surface of the desk as she scanned through the hundred or so emails that she had received since the previous day.
Weather balloon, Confused human, Rift activity, Rose thought monotonously as she scanned through the emails one by one, looking for something that required her attention.
Being the head of a department, there were many projects under her control that she had to keep track of. Many of them weren't even brought to her attention until something bad happened. But much to Rose's frustration, nothing interesting seemed to be requiring her attention today. That is, until she noticed an email about a project that she had almost looked right over: the Bad Wolf project.
Bad Wolf? Rose's thoughts whirred about frantically. No, it can't be. That was resolved ages ago.
Bad Wolf was a message that struck a chord of both hope and dread in Rose. She couldn't remember the events at the Game Station after the Doctor had sent her away in his TARDIS, so many years ago and yet far in the future in a distant universe that she would never see again. She remembered seeing Bad Wolf written all over the Powell Estate and interpreting it as a message that she could be reunited with her Doctor. She remembered prying open the TARDIS and hearing the faint sound of music, but after that her memories felt as though they had been wiped clean with a blank, white wall put in their place. The Doctor had once explained that she had somehow brought about the destruction of the Daleks and that he had been hurt badly enough during the attack to cause his regeneration. Rose felt as though he had omitted some of the details, but she never pressed him for them.
Once, Rose had even used those two words herself as a message for Donna to tell the Doctor, her own little private joke to let him know that she was coming back to him. But to see the words now, when she was so happy living this life with her own version of the Doctor? It was unsettling, to say the least.
Rose quickly scanned the contents of the email, looking for the person in charge of the Bad Wolf project. Once she found the name and his office number, she all but ran out of her office and down the hall to find the person in question.
"Good morning, Ma'am," a startled man in his late twenties greeted Rose as she unceremoniously barged into his office.
Ordinarily, Rose would have admonished him for his use of "Ma'am", but as it was, she had more pressing matters on her mind.
"What's the Bad Wolf Project?" Rose demanded, her cheeks still flushed from her sprint down the hallway.
The young man stumbled over his words for a moment, confused and unsure, before answering, "It's just a basic surveillance project. A few months ago, we noticed that our monitoring equipment was receiving a strange signal from within the orbit of the Earth. We tested it thoroughly but we were unable to determine what was emitting the signal. Eventually, it was decided that it wasn't a threat, but we've been keeping tabs on it ever since just in case."
"How can you know that it isn't a threat?" Rose asked curiously.
"The signal doesn't seem to match any of the alien technology that we've seen before, and there hasn't been any changes in the signal since we first discovered it. The project consists of actively monitoring the signal for any changes, but there's not much we can do besides that."
"Okay," Rose nervously ran a hand through her golden-blonde hair as she processed the information. A strange signal in space, that could be dangerous. But a strange signal that hadn't registered as dangerous alien tech and that hadn't changed in months? That was much less likely to be dangerous. "Where'd you get the project name?"
"Bad Wolf? It was just some name from a children's bedtime story. We thought it sounded nice."
"Yeah, okay." Rose tried to calm her shaking hands and wildly beating heart. Just a coincidence, then. "Let me know right away if there's any changes, yeah?"
"Of course, Ma'am," the man replied obediently.
"And stop it with the Ma'am, it's just Rose."
"Yes, Ma'am. Er, Agent Tyler," The young man peered at Rose nervously from behind his thick glasses.
Good enough, Rose thought as she turned around left the lab, trying her best to shrug off the feeling of unease that had crept up on her.
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, and Rose buried herself with paperwork in an attempt to forget about the morning's events. It became apparent that she had forgotten to eat lunch when her secretary brought in a plate of food and the day's newspaper.
"Oh right, thanks," Rose replied gratefully as her secretary left the office.
Rose took a break from her work to read the newspaper while she ate her lunch. A headline on the second page of the paper caused her to freeze with a chunk of sandwich halfway to her lips.
The Big Bad Wolf Returns?
Rumors have been running rampant about a possible return of the popular TV show, The Big Bad Wolf. While we have not confirmed these rumors, it is possible that...
After years of not seeing even a hint of 'Bad Wolf', those two words that meant so much had now appeared twice within one day. Rose was quickly becoming frightened. Bad Wolf had been a message, leading her back to the Doctor. But she had her Doctor now, waiting for her back at their home doing whatever it was that he did during the day while she was away at work. So what could Bad Wolf mean this time? Was her Doctor in trouble, or would he soon be in trouble? Was it telling her to hurry home to him? Or was it something else, something to do with the original Doctor, the one that she tried so hard not to think about anymore, sealed off in her old universe and living a fantastic life without her?
Okay, Rose thought with rising panic, Not the Bad Wolf returning, not the original Doctor returning, just some TV show with a stupid name. And a Torchwood project with no apparent threat.
Rose shook her head to clear her thoughts. She was being silly. Here she was, head of the Department of Alien Encounters at Torchwood, happily married to a version of the Doctor, safe and sound on this alternate Earth with her family. There was nothing to worry about but her paranoid self picking out ordinary words from ordinary life.
Then, Rose noticed the wrapper on the sandwich that her secretary had brought her: Bad Wolf Subs.
Okay, that's it, she thought as she hurriedly pulled out her mobile and dialed the Doctor's personal phone.
He didn't answer. She rang him five times, but still, he never answered.
With a racing heart and mind, Rose scooped up the sandwich along with her jacket, keys, and purse and ran out of her office, offering some vague excuse to her secretary as to why she needed to leave before hurtling out of Torchwood, driving home as fast as she dared.
Rose didn't even bother closing the front door as she ran in to their house, calling out loudly for the Doctor. He had to be here somewhere. He couldn't be in trouble. If there had been trouble, he would have let her know. Trouble always found them, but they always greeted it head on, with excitement, together. She popped her head into their bedroom, the bathroom, the study with its piles of books haphazardly strewn across the floor. No sign of the Doctor. Finally, Rose allowed herself a moment to pause and consider the situation. That was when she heard a loud racket coming from out back.
It took mere seconds before Rose had flung open the back door, running full out into the garage in back of the house that the Doctor loved to tinker in. There, she found his long, slender legs—not in mortal peril, as she had previously thought—but sticking out from underneath his newest project, a classic car of some sort or another. Loud music blasted from a radio, and she heard a dull thud followed by swearing in a language that she vaguely recognized as Gallifreyan. The Doctor's hand suddenly shot out from underneath the car, blindly patting the ground in search for a particular tool. Rose knelt down and grasped his hand with hers, holding on to it like a lifeline to reassure herself that everything was okay.
"Oh!" The Doctor exclaimed with surprise at the unexpected touch, causing his head to automatically rise up and slam into the bottom of the car above him. More swearing ensued and Rose allowed herself a small laugh.
The Doctor extracted his hand from hers and slid out from underneath the car to sit up and look at Rose inquisitively. He was covered in grease, with a red mark on his forehead from where he must have hit it on the underneath of the car. His hair stuck up at all angles, and Rose drank in the sight of him like she was dying of thirst and he was a giant pail of water.
When the Doctor noticed the look of terror on Rose's face, he immediately enveloped her in a tight embrace. She returned it, clinging to him as he ran his fingers soothingly through her hair.
"Hey, it's okay. It's all right," the Doctor comforted Rose, trying to calm her down. He hadn't seen her this panicked in a very long time. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
"I'm okay, everyone's okay," Rose rambled. "But there was this project, and then the newspaper, and the sandwich, and then you weren't answering your phone, and then I couldn't find you, and-"
The Doctor cut off her frantic babbling by capturing her lips with his in a manner that made her briefly forget that she had anything at all on her mind except for the feel of his lips on hers and the warmth of his breath caressing her face.
"I'm sorry, I'm just being stupid," Rose said with a sigh after they had broken apart from their kiss.
"You are never stupid, Rose Tyler. You are the most brilliant person that I know. Besides me, of course. I'm a genius," The Doctor shot her a cheeky grin. "So tell me, what is it? Something to do with a project and the newspaper? And—oh, this morning's newspaper. So you saw that, too?"
"Yeah."
"And it has something to do with a project—at Torchwood, I assume?—and a sandwich...still trying to figure that last one out."
Rose pulled the half-eaten sandwich out of her purse and handed it to him.
"Well, ham and cheese, nothing wrong with that. Although mustard? Really, Rose? Mustard?" The Doctor gave her an admonishing look.
"That's not the point, Doctor. Look at the wrapper," Rose pointed at it.
Bad Wolf Subs, it read.
"Oh, right," the Doctor answered distractedly as a dreadful thought started to form within his mind. Not entirely wanting to know the answer, he asked, "So, the project then?"
"The Bad Wolf project. It's monitoring an unknown signal in Earth's orbit that's been there for at least a few months now. Supposedly, it's harmless. Hasn't changed at all. But with the name, and the other occurrences today, I'm thinking it's not such a good sign."
"Bad Wolf was never a bad sign," The Doctor replied as he sorted through his thoughts. "It's just, you know, usually followed by an attempted end-of-the-universe apocalypse. But that's never what the words were for."
"I know. They signaled that I could find my way back to you. But you're already here. And the words have only appeared once before, so who knows, maybe it does just warn of world-ending events. Or you know, it could be a coincidence, yeah?"
"Nothing's a coincidence, Rose. And the words appeared another time, too. When you came back to me with the dimension cannon."
"Yeah, but that doesn't count. I'm the one that told Donna to say it."
"Er, I may have left out a bit more of that story," the Doctor looked around sheepishly.
Rose put her hands on her hips as she gave him a stern look, waiting for him to continue.
After a moment's hesitation, he explained, "After Donna told me what you said—you see, we were on some alien planet, in the market with signs and normal stuff and all that the TARDIS hadn't quite felt like translating—then, everything changed to read Bad Wolf. Signs, posters, even the TARDIS."
"The TARDIS?" Rose gasped in shock.
"Yes, the TARDIS. As in, the Police Call Box Sign, the instructions on the front door, everything just repeating the words 'Bad Wolf' over and over again. It shouldn't have been possible. Only you, my Rose, could accomplish so many impossible things in one day."
"But I didn't do that," she argued, not quite believing him. "I only told Donna to say the words to you."
The Doctor suppressed the noise of disagreement that fought to rip from his chest. She must have done it, she just didn't know that she had. Couldn't know, for fear of her mind burning and universes ending and the enormous amounts of guilt that would undoubtedly come with unlocking those memories. She must have done so back at the Game Station, scattering the words both backwards and forwards in their relative times, seeing both their separation and their eventual reunion. He had wished many times before that the Bad Wolf could have warned him somehow, given him some signal to keep them away from the events that occurred at Canary Wharf.
"Right, well there's no point in sitting here worrying," The Doctor said as he rubbed the back of his head nervously. "I want to take a look at this Bad Wolf project."