Disclaimer: I own some Doctor Who merchandise, but I have no claim of ownership to the copyrights of the franchise. This is a "what if" fic, which means the whole purpose of it is to rework the story based on specific changes. As such, I consider it PV (Parallel 'Verse) because it has a foundation of canon to a certain point before branching off in some way, though I have tried to keep as much canon as possible. Chapter 3, however, is completely canon-compliant.
This was a crisis situation if there ever was one: some terrible, dark creatures had materialized all over, snapping people up left and right. It was everything the Doctor could do to gather as many people as he could into the church.
After my dad found out who I really was, we talked for a few minutes. It hurt my heart when he started asking about what he was like in the future. There was no way I was going to tell him that, for me, in my past, he had died that day… but that meant I had no answers to give him. As awful as it is for me to think it, I can't help wishing that my mom's hateful interruption had come about twenty seconds sooner. If it had, she would've saved me from the awkward silence during that time.
Returning to the sanctuary, I recognized the Doctor's voice saying, "Now, Rose, you're not gonna bring about the end of the world, are you?" He was talking to me – not me me, but the baby me. "Are you?" he pressed as I walked up beside him.
When I had asked him earlier if this was my fault, he'd stared at me for a moment and then walked away without a word. That in itself was practically a 'yes,' but now? Well, now he had confirmed it for certain.
He glanced up at me as I approached, then looked back at my younger self. "Jackie gave her to me to look after. How times change," he mused.
"I'd better be careful; I think I've just imprinted myself on Mickey like a mother chicken," I informed him with a chuckle. This playful banter was certainly better than the coldness I had been expecting from him. I leaned forward and started to reach into the baby carrier to greet my younger self.
"No!" he said sternly, grabbing my wrist and forcing it back toward me. At that moment the monsters outside began screeching in earnest. "Don't touch the baby. You're both the same person; that's a paradox and we don't want a paradox happening, not with these things outside. Anything new – any disturbance in time – makes them stronger. A paradox might let them in."
"I can't do anything right, can I?" I muttered rhetorically.
"Since you asked? No. So… DON'T. TOUCH. THE BABY."
"I'm not stupid–"
"You could've fooled me!"
That was beyond harsh. I turned away indignantly, then crossed my arms and glared at him – using his own tactics against him, mocking him – as I fumed, "I may be nothing but a stupid ape–"
"Rose," he interrupted sternly.
"No, really, it's true, 'cause compared to you that's all I am! That's all any humans are, right? Just stupid, bumbling, idiotic apes!"
"Rose." His voice was hushed this time – kinder, it seemed – but I was on a roll, and I wasn't gonna stop now; he had spoken quietly enough that I could pretend not to have heard him, so that's what I did.
"But let me tell you something, Time Lord," I enthused scathingly, emphasizing the name of his race with air quotes like it was a title he didn't deserve. "I think you care more about us stupid apes than you let on. Why else would you stick around here so long? Why else would you take the time to even talk to any of us? Why else would you cater to the whims of a teenage girl?"
"'Why else' indeed," he muttered, leaving me gobsmacked. He stared at my baby self for a while before looking back at me. "Alright… I'm sorry." After a pause he admitted, "Between you and me: I haven't got a plan. No idea. No way out."
"You'll think of something," I assured him, my anger and frustration draining away as I realized: he was scared too.
"The entire earth's being sterilized. This and other places like it are all that's left of the human race. We might hold out for a while, but nothing can stop those creatures. They'll get through in the end. The walls aren't that old, and there's nothing I can do to stop…. There used to be laws stopping this kind of thing from happening; my people would've stopped this… but–"
"How?" I wondered aloud.
"What?"
Apparently I'd caught him off guard. "Your people, how would they have solved this?" I clarified. The Doctor shifted uncomfortably. "What would they do?" I pressed insistently, but still he remained silent. "They'd reverse what I'd done, right?" I guessed. "They'd change it back. No questions asked, no chance of appeal, they'd just put things back the way they were and be done with it. Tha's righ', innit?"
With an imperceptible shake of his head, the Doctor turned away and muttered, "No."
"Oh yeah?" I called his bluff. "What part of it isn't right? You tellin' me they would find some other way other than just killin' 'im outright? Would they give me a chance to negotiate a compromise? Or is it that they wouldn't just leave as soon as it was over? They would arrest me, right? For messin' with the past? Would they throw me in some outer space prison? Is there any sort of, I dunno, universal community service or somethin'?" Then a morbid thought struck me. "…Could I be facin' the death penalty?"
He looked at me then, not giving any indication that my presumption was wrong. "Come here," he said, putting an arm around my shoulder and holding me to his side. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and whispered into my hair, "It doesn't matter."
I pulled back to look incredulously at him – of course it mattered! It mattered to me – but then it dawned on me. "Oh my God…" I whispered as I backed away from him with my hand over my mouth in horror. "It would be the death penalty, wouldn't it? The only reason I'm not dead is because–"
The Doctor closed the distance between us in two strides and held me at arm's length, bracing his hands on my shoulders as he leaned down so we were face-to-face. "That would never happen. I wouldn't let that happen, and I will find another way out of this, Rose, I will. You just have to trust me. I'll find a way."
I stared into his eyes, glancing back and forth between them to pinpoint how much of what he said was just empty words. He stared right back, his gaze holding steady until my eyes became itchily dry and I was forced to blink. I nodded once and he straightened up, smiling reassuringly before turning around and starting to pace.
"Maybe…" My voice cracked, so I cleared my throat before continuing, "Maybe talking it out would help? It worked before, remember, in Downing Street? When we figured out the Slitheen were from Raxa… Raxacor… whatever, right? You had us go through everything we knew about them so we could–"
"I already know what they are and where they came from."
"Okay. So…?"
"They're called Reapers. And they're from the Void."
"What's the Void?"
"It's nothing; literally nothing. It's not a part of this universe – not a part of any universe. And those things out there don't belong here; they simply shouldn't be here."
I bit my lip. "You mean like my dad."
That made him stop. He just stood there, staring at me, for a long time. I'm certain he was struggling not to say 'yeah.' He probably felt now like I did when I couldn't tell my dad anything about himself.
After a while the silence became too much for me, so I continued, "They're not supposed to be here, just like my dad's not supposed to be here. I made this happen. Because I stopped that car from hitting him, the world can't go on, can't exist… not while he's here. And that's why those Reaper things are out there."
He shook his head. "Rose…"
"You were wrong, they didn't come here to 'sterilize the wound,' our world went to them. This world's been sucked into the Void because it shouldn't exist; it had to disappear in order to keep the universe in balance." All of a sudden, he raised his eyebrows as though he'd had an epiphany. It was almost like how he looked when he realized the London Eye was the transmitter for those living plastic things that we encountered on our first adventure together. Gosh, that seemed like such a long time ago now.
"Rose–"
"I'm right, aren't I?"
"Yes, Rose, yes, you are right. And you know what else? You're a genius."
I blinked. "What?"
"You're a genius! Fantastic, absolutely fantastic! Hah-ha!"
"So… you figured it out?"
"Of course."
"Then, you're gonna have ta explain it to me, since I haven't got a clue what part of what I said was a good thing."
"You were right about this universe getting sucked into the Void, and the reason for that is your actions changing the past in a major way. With me so far?"
"Yeah, 'cause earlier you said that an ordinary man was like… the most important thing in creation or somethin', right?"
"That's right. So, the presence of just one more ordinary man living in this world has spawned a parallel; the timeline that we're in now skewed off and diverged away from the one we started in, ultimately coalescing into its own separate existence."
"Alright, so… what you're saying is that our universe has been split in two?"
"Right."
"How is that possible?"
"It's like this: Any decision can potentially have serious repercussions on the future, whether it's something big – like the difference between a person being killed or surviving an accident – or something as seemingly insignificant as deciding to turn left instead of right."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"Really."
"You're telling me that a parallel universe could be created if someone went back in time and the only difference they caused was making a right-hand turn instead of a left?"
"It's plausible."
"Unbelievable."
He smiled, chuckling, as he continued, "Now, where was I? Ah, right, the Reapers. The Reapers aren't here because of Pete, they're here because of us; since we're still here, this world is attempting to converge with our original timeline because that's where we belong. So, all we have to do to get back home is go back home!" I looked at him blankly. I thought I was starting to understand, but that last statement confused me again.
"If that's the case," someone said, and I jumped. It was my dad. "If it's not because of me, then why is that car circling around outside?" I hadn't seen him standing there, and I wondered how much he had heard. Too much, it seemed. "That car that should've killed me… it keeps appearing driving toward the intersection, turning into this street, and then vanishing, only to appear again a few seconds later where it started, like it's trapped in a loop or something."
"A time loop." The Doctor nodded. "It is. It's telling us what the alternative is: if Rose and I don't leave this universe, it will continue to be consumed by the Reapers unless and until you get hit by that car…"
"And I die."
"That's right," the Doctor replied solemnly, and my dad gulped.
"But that's not gonna happen!" I exclaimed. "We're gonna go – the Doctor and I – we're gonna leave and it will all be alright, and you'll be alive, and I can see you when I get back to the future."
"No you won't." I looked up sharply at the Doctor when he said this, opening my mouth to protest… until my dad agreed with him.
"He's right, Love."
"What?"
"We can't just leave this time period, Rose," the Doctor explained. "The Reapers are everywhere and everywhen here."
"It's like he said: you have to leave this universe. You have to return to the one you came from. The one where I'm dead."
"That's not fair! I saved you! You're alive!"
"That's right, Love, I am alive. You've given me a second chance at life, but that's not all; you've also given my little girl a chance to know her father." He gestured to the baby. "I know that's a chance that you never had, but this Rose – this… parallel Rose?" he looked uncertainly at the Doctor, who nodded, before turning back to me. "She deserves to grow up knowing me, doesn't she?" He reached forward and stroked my cheek, at which point I realized I was crying. I choked back a sob and nodded. He really was the greatest dad in the world – in any and every world, even if his time was cut short in my one – and I would never forget him.
After that, the Doctor pulled the TARDIS key out of his pocket. It was glowing (and apparently very hot since he dropped it as soon as it was in his hand), which he excitedly explained meant that it was still connected to the TARDIS even though the ship wasn't inside the phone box anymore. Holding the key in the folds of his jacket, he used his sonic screwdriver to power it up with a cell phone battery and then positioned the key at the exact height of the lock on the TARDIS door.
The keyhole of the TARDIS then began to materialize around the key where it was suspended in midair, followed by the rest of the ship. It still had the appearance of a phone box, though the walls remained shimmery and semi-transparent even after the key stopped glowing and turned itself in the lock.
When the Doctor pushed the door open and stood aside for me to go in, I hesitated on the threshold, turning around to look at my dad one last time. He smiled sadly at me and nodded. He was holding my younger self – except that wasn't me anymore, was it? It was a different Rose Tyler… A Rose Tyler that would have a father. A Rose Tyler that would never meet the Doctor. A Rose Tyler that was waving her tiny little fingers at me and babbling, "Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-bye." A Rose Tyler who had a very good life ahead of her.