After
{ from a prompt about Tentoo having amnesia after being left on bad Wolf Bay sent to doctorroseprompts and tagging legendslikestardust too because I think they had a remember/memory/amnesia prompt quite a while back (if not, apologies and please ignore this) – Nonny, I am pretty sure that this is not at all what you wanted and for that, I am so sorry. It's just that this was the way the fic wanted to go. Also, this feels like more of a series interconnected scenes rather than a full on fic but I still think it works. I like it anyway. Not sure how anyone else will feel about it.}
It is almost funny, when Rose stops to think about it, how little time is actually needed for absolutely everything to fall apart.
It begins here. After, "That's me, when we first met." After, "He needs you, that's very me." After Donna's unasked for (and unwanted) addition of, "Don't you see what he's trying to give you?" After Rose grabbed him, her human Doctor, and finally, finally, gave in and let herself have what she had been dreaming about since, "Did I mention it also travels in time?"
After the TARDIS vanished, forever this time, no really, when they were otherwise occupied.
After, after, after.
Rose Tyler can plot her entire life in a series of afters. After her dad died. After Jimmy. After the Bad Wolf. After the Doctor. After Bad Wolf Bay, part two. Sometimes she will allow herself to imagine what it feels like to live in the present, thinks it might be nice but the idea never lingers long enough to take root and so it remains only an idle thought and before long she is off chasing what is sure to become her next after.
Rose understood when the TARDIS dematerialized on Bad Wolf Bay for the final time that she and the now part human Doctor would be starting over. She just didn't realize exactly what that would entail.
It happened quickly, although none of them, not even the Doctor, actually grasped the severity of the situation until the next morning. Jackie had contacted Pete to arrange a way back to London and then they had gone to dinner. They had all been subdued and their exhaustion was overwhelming so when the Doctor called Jackie by the wrong name Rose didn't think anything of it. That's the kind of thing that happens to everyone. Perfectly normal, nothing to see here.
After dinner they went to their room where they gratefully collapsed on the bed barely having the energy to take off their coats and kick off their shoes. They slept for fourteen hours. Rose, still half asleep, reached across the bed for the Doctor and abruptly sat up in a panic finding him missing. She brushed her hair off her face and tried to control her heart as she spotted him standing by the window.
"Doctor? You okay?"
He jumped a bit in surprise, "Oh, good. You're awake. This question is probably rude given the way I woke up wrapped around you this morning but who are you?"
Rose blinked, "What?"
"Your name? I'm sorry to say I don't know what it is."
"You don't know who I am?"
"Sorry. Should I? Well, I suppose I should given that I woke up in bed with you but I can't seem to remember it."
"Is this a Time Lord thing or is this one of your jokes that don't make any sense and that I don't really understand?"
"No, I don't think so. Also, I'm not exactly a Time Lord. I used to be but now the closest I can guess, just from taking stock of myself, you understand, as I have no way of running tests, is that I am a human Time Lord biological metacrisis. Really, very interesting. I've read about them of course but I always thought they were a myth." He paused and looked down at himself, as though he was double checking his initial findings, "Apparently they are not a myth and I have no idea how I became one."
Rose was still staring at him, "Um, right. What's the last thing you remember?"
The Doctor tilted his head, considering, "Romana. I remember getting the call from Romana."
Rose shook her head, "Yeah, I don't know who that is."
"Well, no. I suppose I wouldn't have mentioned her given that I still don't know who you are. Don't think I've forgotten that."
"Rose. My name is Rose Tyler and I'm not a stranger. We used to travel together."
The Doctor nods, "Well, that would explain how you're taking this so well and how you know I'm a Time Lord," he pauses for a moment, "Or I was a Time Lord, I suppose I should say. I know I've forgotten some things. There are too many gaps in my memory and when I looked in the mirror earlier, I saw I have a new face that I don't remember ever seeing before. Also, this is a different universe and I no longer have a TARDIS."
She laughs without humour, "Guess I shouldn't feel too bad then. If you can't even remember your own face don't know why you would remember mine." She stops for a minute, thinking through what he just said. "Wait. How do you know about the universe and the TARDIS?"
"Easy peasy. I am still part Time Lord, you know, and I can feel that my connection to the TARDIS is gone. Which means she must still be in the original universe. As for knowing that this is an alternate universe, I was looking out the window and saw two zeppelins go past. That made it rather obvious."
She nods in agreement. The zeppelins do kind of give it away after all. Before they can say anything else there is a knock at the door.
"Rose? Doctor? You two up yet?"
Rose throws off the covers and opens the door, "Hi, mum."
"Oh, sweetheart. Just wanted to tell you that your dad said the zeppelin should be here in a hour so we need to get ready to leave."
"Okay. We'll meet you in the lobby in a bit." She closed the door and leaned her head against it.
"Are you all right?"
She turned, "I don't know. I mean, I knew things were going to be different for us and we'd have to find how we fit again but I didn't expect...," she trailed off.
"You didn't expect me to lose my memories of you."
She shook her head but didn't say anything.
"You know this isn't the first time I've lost my memory."
She looked up then, "Oh?"
"My eighth body was quite prone to memory loss. That's the body I expected to see in the mirror this morning, by the way. You wouldn't happen to know what regeneration this face belongs to would you?"
"No, not exactly but we can probably work it out."
"Should we go meet your mum? That is your mum, isn't she? I know we had dinner with her last night but I can't seem to remember her name."
"Jackie. Her name is Jackie and yes, we should get our stuff and go meet her."
An hour and a half later and they are sitting next to each other on the zeppelin back to London when the Doctor turns to Rose, "Will you tell me about us?"
Rose blinked, "Um...I'm not, I mean, where did you want me to start? We're kind of a long story. Anything specific?"
"How did we meet?"
She curls up in her seat and tells him a story about living plastic and a typical London shop and an even more typical London shop girl. She tells him about Mickey and the Nestene Consciousness and anti-plastic. About getting the bronze and swinging on a chain. She tells him about saying no when he first asked her to travel, with Mickey clinging to her pathetically, and how she knew the moment the words left her mouth that she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
Rose tells him of her overwhelming relief when only seconds later he came back and asked again. She tells him how she ran to him, to the universe, and never looked back. Never regretted a single moment.
She tells him how he saved her.
"It sounds more like you saved me," he says, quietly.
Rose shrugs, "I think we saved each other. It's the way its always been with us."
They are quiet for a minute before Rose says, "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Earlier you mentioned someone named Romana. Who was she?"
"Romana is a Time Lady and the president of Gallifrey. I suppose she is also something of a friend. I've told you about Gallifrey, right?"
"Um...not exactly. Just some offhand things here and there."
"Well, there was a war. The Time War. I had been avoiding it. Running. I refused to fight. But Romana finally convinced me that I needed to come back. That she needed my help."
"So you went back."
"Yes. Well, I say yes but that's around the time that things start getting fuzzy in my head. I remember thinking that I need to go back, that I can always run away again but then...," he stops for minute and Rose watched as his eyes closed and he rubbed his forehead. "There is nothing," he continued. "I can't find anything after that. The next truly clear memory that I have is waking up this morning with you next to me."
Rose's eyes are wide as she takes this in and she realizes that her mouth is open and she closes it with an audible click. He doesn't remember the Time War. She is going to have to be the one to tell him. Suddenly she feels like she's going to be sick and she hopes he won't ask right now. Hopes he'll ask something else. Hopes he'll go to sleep.
They're quiet for such a long time that she nearly does fall asleep. She's instantly alert though when she feels the Doctor shift beside her.
"Do you know what caused the metacrisis? How it happened? I've been trying to imagine how I regenerated into a separate body but there are so many variables, too many possibilities. I need to narrow it down."
Rose turns and meets his eyes, "I don't know the exact specifics. I wasn't there when it happened." She tells him what she does know which admittedly isn't very much. "From what I understand, you had your severed hand in a container under the TARDIS console."
He looked at her like he was about to interrupt but she continued, answering his unasked question, "No, I don't know why. Not even really sure how you got your hand back. I was there when your hand was cut off and you grew another one but honestly the whole thing has always been kind of creepy and weird and I'd really prefer to not think about it too much."
She watches him as she tells him what she does know. Part of her is hoping that the more blanks she can fill in, the more details she can offer, then maybe the rest of his memory will take care of itself.
There are stories she would rather not tell. Memories she would prefer to not have to relive. Rose does not want to have to be the one to tell him about the Time War. About being the last Time Lord. She hates that that responsibility might fall on her shoulders. She is also terrified of what his reaction to that information might be.
Mostly, she is afraid that something she says will make him run. Rose doesn't know if she has the energy to chase after him anymore. To find her way back to him once again. She is tired of feeling like the responsibility of holding them together is her job whilst he reaps the benefits and does none of the work. She knows how bitter that is but this is not what she signed up for and it is not what she was promised on that beach yesterday.
Was it really just yesterday?
Just this once she hopes he will stay. Hopes that he is willing to work with her in trying to hold them together because if he isn't, well, she doesn't want to think about having to say goodbye to him when they finally have a real chance of being together.
She is beginning to wonder if hope is something that is not meant for her to keep, if it is some fickle, fleeting thing that enjoys teasing her before being whisked away, something that will always leave her alone and heart-broken. Right now hope feels like it is a luxury that is beyond even the Vitex heiress' reach but Rose has always been stubborn and she isn't willing to let go of it. Not yet.
Eventually they both fall asleep in the middle of some truly terrible animated film about what pets do when their owners are gone for the day and before they know it one of Pete's staff wakes them to say that they'll be landing in London in about an hour and would they like anything before the crew needs to prepare. After the crew member leaves them, Rose turns to the Doctor.
"I'm not sure how you want to handle London."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I don't know where you want to stay, where you want to live. Do you want to stay at my family's estate? It's huge. You could probably have your own wing. Do you want to stay in my flat? Do you want your own place? I don't know how to do any of this. Didn't plan for any of this. Don't know what's best or easiest."
The Doctor looks at her, "What was your original plan?"
Rose blinks, "My first plan, my original plan was to get back to our original universe, find you, and go back to living and travelling on the TARDIS."
"Then the metacrisis happened," he added, quietly.
"Yeah. When you, Time Lord you, brought us back to this universe and we were still on the beach, before you lost your memories, I thought you'd come back to my flat and we'd live together and get to know each other again. Or get used to each other again. Catch up on everything we had missed. I don't know sounds so stupid now but somehow go back to being us. That kind of thing. I hadn't really thought about it that far ahead." She shakes her head, muttering under her breath, "Can't believe I am still so stupid."
"And now you don't want that?"
Rose looks up in surprise, "Do you?"
He shrugged, "Technically, we do need to get to know each other all over again. Perhaps a bit more in-depth than you had thought and more than I must have thought too when I still had my memory but the process is the same."
Rose brushes imaginary dust off the armrest between them, trying to work up the courage to give voice to the question that has been running through her mind. "Did you know this could happen? Losing your memory? Did you know?"
The Doctor is quiet for a beat too long and Rose is certain that he isn't going to answer, "I must have suspected," he finally offers. "You mentioned my companion, Donna, I think you said was her name. She was human and her memories would have needed to be completely erased, every single memory she had of me, otherwise her mind would have burned and she would be dead."
Rose feels her stomach twist as she tastes bile in the back of her mouth. "Donna's gone, then?"
"Yes and no. She is simply back to being whoever she was before she met me. It's as though that time in her life just didn't happen. It's not the ideal way to say goodbye and certainly nothing that I ever would have wanted but if it meant forgetting me or death, well, there's really only one option."
Rose doesn't know what to say. She is angry on Donna's behalf and she wants to cry for everything the Doctor in the other universe has lost and she is still so furious at him for what he chose to do regarding this new Doctor and herself and, really, it's all just too much.
The Doctor, either not noticing her turmoil or choosing to ignore it, continues, "I must have known or at least strongly suspected that there was a very good chance that once my connection with the TARDIS was fully severed, that my memory could quite possibly go with it. Honestly, I'm surprised that I remember as much as I do. It feels as though it is merely the last few years that I've lost because I can still remember centuries of my life. I can even remember my childhood and academy days. Of course, this is all supposition, you understand. There is also a chance that my memory loss is due to something else entirely."
Rose snorts a laugh entirely devoid of humour, "Yeah, fantastic. You can remember everything up until the war and then everything that came after is a blank." She stops and takes a deep breath, "I'm sorry. I'm not angry with you. Really, I'm not. I know it's not your fault. I do. It's just...This isn't fair and I know how childish it is to say that but it isn't fair."
"I know and I am sorry, Rose. Even if it isn't exactly my fault."
Together they decide that it would be best if they both went back to Rose's flat. She knows her mum wants them at the mansion but neither she or the Doctor are up to being unofficially debriefed by Pete or dealing with Jackie's well-intentioned yet completely overbearing mothering. She hires a car to take them home and on the way she tells him a bit about Torchwood and her work there.
They get take away from the Asian fusion place not too far from Rose's flat and they sit on the living room floor as they eat and Rose tells him more about Torchwood. More in-depth than she could in the car.
"We might be able to get some help or answers there. Torchwood does have the most advanced earth technology and access to tons of research and data and alien tech."
"I won't lie to you and say that I like the sound of Torchwood but I must agree that it does seem like the best place to go for answers."
"You can probably run most of the tests yourself. Or I can help you if you need it. No one will force you to work with anyone you don't want to. We can even keep the results between us if it makes you feel better."
The Doctor had been intently staring at her as she spoke, "You don't fully trust them either. You work for them but you're wary."
She took a steadying breath, "I know that Pete, my dad, says that this Torchwood is different and really, after working with them for the past few years, I know they are..."
"And yet?"
"And yet, I don't think I will ever be able to let my guard down. Torchwood, in our original universe, was responsible for everything. For me being trapped here, for helping to escalate the war between the Daleks and the Cybermen, for us losing each other. I will never be able to completely trust them. No matter how much time passes."