Author's Notes: Written for Then There's Us Challenge 85. AU of 'The End of the World'. In the spirit of the challenge, this was written from the perspective of not having watched beyond this episode, so with the exception of one reference, it ignores any pertinent canonical information we receive later in the series.
"Where are we?" Rose asked with a grin when the TARDIS ground to a halt.
The Doctor gestured wordlessly at the door in an invitation for her to find out for herself. She could hardly wait.
Rose bound towards the door and flung it open. Her expression fell into a look of consternation. "It's... what, Wales? Or it looks just like it, at least. Don't tell me lots of planets have a Wales."
"No, just Earth," the Doctor said as he stepped out of the TARDIS just a few seconds after her. "One per universe is more than enough, really."
"Yeah, well, it's all well and good to travel the distance in just seconds, but I could still have just got on a train if I'd ever wanted to find myself in the middle of the Welsh countryside." She pointed at the train tracks running just a little ways off in the distance to illustrate her point. "Which I've never really been interested in doin', by the way. Not exactly a prime holiday destination, Wales. When you said spaceship, I was expectin' we'd be able to visit somewhere a bit more... impressive."
"Oi!" the Doctor protested. "Show me any little human train to that could take you into the future."
"Right," Rose said, perking up slightly, "time travel! Still gettin' used to that idea. So how far have we gone? Everythin' still looks the same."
"Nothing's the same," the Doctor said darkly. "Everything is so, so different."
"So what year is it?" Rose pressed.
"2032."
Rose frowned. "But... what? That's only..." she did the math, "twenty-seven years away. I doubt all that much could change in that time. What, have corsets come back in as everyday underwear? Or has Britain gotten rid of the royal family or somethin'? 'Cause actually, I've been sort of expectin' both those things to happen sometime soon."
"The royals are dead," the Doctor said flatly. "Just like everyone else. You, Rose Tyler, are the only living human being on this planet."
Rose shook her head, confused. "What d'you mean? I thought you said this was Earth?"
"It is," the Doctor confirmed. "You humans, tinkering about with things that any sane species would leave well alone; you were always practically begging to be your own downfall. There was a contagion. It was supposed to be for scientific testing only, strictly controlled, all perfectly 'safe'. So of course it ended up being spread across every populated square inch of this entire planet. Over six billion people were reduced to zero in a matter of days. The people of Earth screamed out as one, and there was nothing anyone could do. Back in the day, a rescue might have gotten here in time. With the combined skills of the Time Lords – my people – a way might have been found to save the Earth. But with things as they are now, it was too late to do anything but declare a quarantine. The quarantine is still in effect, actually, even though the threat died with the last person who carried it."
Rose gaped at him. "What you on about? This isn't funny," she snapped.
"I'm not laughing," the Doctor agreed.
Rose turned in a circle, looking around the countryside. There was no sign of any human beings, but that wasn't so unusual considering they seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Well, sort of. The train tracks suggested they had to at least be on the way to somewhere. Somewhere where Rose could see for herself whether the Doctor was playing a cruel joke. There could be a town bustling with people just a few miles away, for all Rose could tell from here. She had to know.
"Where are you going?" the Doctor called after her as Rose found herself staggering down the train line, hoping the nearest town wasn't too far off.
Rose didn't dignify the question with a response. She didn't feel like he'd earned it. He'd captured her with the implied promise of the great magic of travel through time and space, and what he'd shown her instead was exactly how and when the entire human race would become extinct. After that, Rose didn't think he had the right to ask anything of her just now.
"No wandering off," the Doctor called after her. "The disease might be gone, but this planet's still not safe."
"Yeah, well, I've only got your word for that, don't I?" Rose called back.
"Exactly. Right here, right now, all you've gotis me."
It was a harsh truth, and it stopped Rose so abruptly that she nearly tripped over her own feet. Rose realised that she had no idea what kind of man the Doctor was – she'd just gone with him, no real questions asked – and yet now she had little choice but to continue on with him. She knew deep down that it was only a fool's hope that he was lying to her, and that meant that she really was alone here.
She really didn't fancy being left behind to become the only human on Earth on a more long-term basis, and he was her only way to avoid that fate. Not only did she need him to pilot her away from here, but (maybe even more importantly) he was also someone with a time travelling machine at his disposal. He could prevent this ever happening in the first place. He'd said it himself; the Time Lords could have changed this, and here he was.
"We're gonna change it," Rose announced, sensing him coming up behind her. She turned and glared at him, making it clear that she wasn't about to take 'no' for an answer.
"Time travel can't fix everything," the Doctor said, his expression disturbingly stony. "Some things can't be taken back. I should know. My planet was wiped out as well. My entire race is gone, except me. Last of the Time Lords. And just look at how far-reaching the consequences of that are."
Even amidst her anger at him for springing this on her, Rose felt a moment of compassion for him. She looked out at this empty planet and understood the pain of being the last one alive in a way she never could have before. And she could feel his survivor's guilt, not just for outliving his people, but for the fact that their loss meant he'd outlived this world as well.
But that distant sadness for him, and for a race of people she'd never known, was quickly overwhelmed by the seemingly far more immediate threat to her own people. "You didn't bring me here just to rub it in," she said. "I don't know you all that well, but I think I've pieced enough together to know that can't be the only reason. Because this is in my lifetime, Doctor. It happens to me. I was probably out there, and my Mum, and my friends. You've told me exactly when and how we'll probably all die, and I can't believe that you'd have done that if there wasn't anythin' you could do to stop it."
"No," the Doctor said. "Not this time. Once it happened, it became fixed. Without the rest of the Time Lords to help, there's nothing I can do. But Rose, this is only one universe. There are countless realities, and humans will live on out there among so many different sets of stars. You're the ultimate survivors, almost as much as cockroaches."
"Gee, thanks. And what, is that supposed to be some kind of consolation?" Rose asked. "Well it's not workin'. I know some of those people who died here. I might even have been one of them, if I even lived this long."
"No," the Doctor said. "You couldn't have been. At least not this version of you. This isn't yourfuture. We're in a parallel universe to ours."
"So this isn't my planet?" Rose asked. She felt a wave of relief, but it was hardly all-encompassing. This was still Earth, her planet, even if it wasn't precisely hers. And there were still so many people who were all dead. How could he just accept that it couldn't be changed, when he had the ability to go back in time?
"It's not," the Doctor said. "But it could easily be. And if you're going to travel with me then you need to understand that it wouldn't make a difference if this was your world, if its time was truly up. Changing something so integral like that could mean the end of the universe, instead of just one planet."
"So you can never change anythin'?" Rose asked, aghast. "You just have to watch it play out, knowin' what's gonna happen? That's..." She shuddered.
"It's not always that way," the Doctor admitted. "Most times I can intervene. But there are times when there's no other way forward. Only a Time Lord can tell which is which. And that means only me."
"But this other universe... aren't there Time Lords here as well?" Rose asked hopefully. "Surely they can't have died out everywhere. You could go ask them to help us save the Earth."
"They never existed here, or in any universe other than ours. There was only one Gallifrey, and it's gone."
Rose realised that perhaps that was what this was about after all. Maybe he wanted to prove to himself that even if one disaster could wipe all of his people out of existence, the same wasn't equally true for hers. She was the last of her kind here, sure, but back home there were people waiting for her.
She thought of running back to them; of getting away from this unpredictable stranger who could just as easily drop her off in a black hole as anything. But there had been a reason she'd been drawn to him in the first place. Even if he was the kind of man who showed her death and destruction to prove a point (and honestly, was he so alien that he didn't understand there were much better ways to do that?), she couldn't shake the feeling that there was much more to him, or at least that he wanted there to be. Her Mum had always told her that men never changed, no matter how much you tried, and there was no point hanging onto them with the hope that they would. Rose thought it had to make a difference that the Doctor wanted to, though, and she doubted he could do it alone. Why else would he have wanted her, as much a stranger to him as he was to her, to come along enough to ask her twice?
She heard herself asking, "In our universe, how long does the Earth last?"
"The planet itself is still around in the year five billion. The human race? Even I don't know, and I know quite a lot. As long as the universe exists, there always seem to be some of you floating around somewhere. You'll probably outlive the stars themselves, somehow, if I know you lot."
Rose nodded slowly, mostly to herself. Then she made her decision.
"Show me that future."
He grinned at her as if she'd passed some kind of test. She didn't tell him that he had yet to do the same.
She let him take her hand, focusing on the way that that, at least, had already become familiar to her, even if the man himself was still an enigma. His hand in hers felt right in a way that nothing else in her nineteen years so far had. She couldn't just ignore that.
She wanted him to prove her right about him. She wanted to have found someone to show her the stars, not just the dark gaps in between.
If she found out that he wasn't that man after all, Rose told herself that she wouldn't hesitate again. She'd make him take her straight back home.
But something told her that she'd regret it for the rest of her life if she didn't at least give him the chance.
~FIN~