The TARDIS hummed gently, its center column bobbing up and down with every hum. Rose lost herself in the rhythm as she thought out her next move, painted fingernails tapping a tuneless beat on the railing she was leaning on. The TARDIS glowed a soft, warm light in an attempt to comfort her. It reminded her of another time, another place. She was always in the mood to reminisce these days…
She remembered the last time she had stood in the TARDIS like this. So much had happened since that fateful day on the cold beach of Bad Wolf's Bay.
It was then that the Doctor, the Time Lord Doctor, had given his human clone a piece of coral from his TARDIS. Rose had not known the implications until later, too busy thinking about this new Doctor. A replacement she had thought of at the time. Until, after weeks of dodging and awkwardness, she finally realised that this human Doctor was like her Time Lord Doctor and that this time they could live their lives together. Two wilting flowers instead of one.
When she had been trapped, alone, in this dimension, Rose had spent her time defending Earth. She had defeated aliens and monsters, saved the Earth and built up U.N.I.T. from the ground up. It had been rather easy after the Cybermen debacle. The Doctor had beamed at her, eyes lighting up with pride and love, a grin so bright it might have cracked his head in two. And then he had asked to work with them. With her. And it was like old times.
It was brilliant and fantastic and everything else it should have been. He, the Chief Science Officer, as he had always been and her, the shop girl from London, defending the Earth from one alien force after another. Nothing stood in their way. They couldn't travel to other planets but they still ran and fought and loved each other just as much. And Rose was happy just as they were.
Not that all of their adventures were of the world saving variety, they traveled the world too. They went to India and Japan and Chile and anywhere else the mood took them. Or sometimes they would just stay at home and have a lie-in, their arms around each other in the morning light that shined through the curtains. It was something that they could have never had travelling in the TARDIS and though this Doctor still missed his oldest companion, he wouldn't have traded this peace for the world.
It was only after the wedding, which was in and of itself quite the adventure, that the Doctor started introducing himself as Dr. John Tyler to strangers. Rose always laughed whenever he did so, it never got old. All in all, she thought he was taking the whole "being human" thing quite well, getting settled in and all that. He would remind her that it was she who proposed and that he had nothing to do with any of it. She would laugh at him, cheeky git that he was, and add "but you said 'yes'". Then he would take her hand in his and kiss it.
It was during a Christmas dinner where her mother had, without any subtlety whatsoever, asked them if they would give her grandkids any time soon that the Doctor remembered the TARDIS coral. At the mention of offspring he had jumped to his feet, hands flying to his head, and shouted that "OH!" that was so characteristic of him. Without giving anytime for the Tyler household to even begin to ask what was wrong, he stole up to their room mumbling and shouting all the while. They had all given each other looks of mild concern until the Doctor ran back down with an old scarf between his hands. He unfolded it to reveal the coral beneath and beamed at Rose as he waved it around in everyone's face.
"What?" she had asked laughing. The Doctor's happiness had always been contagious but rarely had she seen him so ready to burst from excitement. He was nearly trembling with uncontainable energy.
"This is a piece of the TARDIS. We can grow our own with it!"
The news was monumental. It had taken a moment to sink it but when it had, she jumped immediately into his arms, the coral cradled between them. They could go off to new worlds, they could go off to see the Universe again! Everything at that moment felt right.
The TARDIS would take years to grow and mature but they struggled through it together and the Doctor had taught her everything she needed to know about growing a TARDIS. It really felt like they were raising a child. And though her mother had once again asked them if they were going to have any human grandchildren they didn't really want any. When she was young, Rose had imagined herself with children but as she grew older she felt like it wasn't something she really wanted anymore. She certainly couldn't imagine herself saving the world in between football practice. She wanted stars and planets and adventures. It just didn't fit her anymore. They had each other, their work and a family and everything was perfect the way it was. She didn't want to change it one bit.
But it would. Because even if the Doctor was human, he was still the Doctor. With the same Time Lord mind, unyielding curiosity and unflinching optimism. He was still the same good man, a selfless man who would sacrifice himself for the safety of others and who would defend his favourite planet, his home away from home, with his last dying breath.
So he did.
He died saving the world, as if he would go out any other way. And at his funeral, after he had been lowered into the ground below a marker with his true name written in Gallifreyan (he had only told her his true name once while they were in bed and slightly drunk and so, so in love all those years ago), she told a speech through her tears about how brave he was and how all of Earth owed him thanks. Flowers were laid next his resting place and she had buried her face in her mother's shoulder and wept.
She had mourned but she had continued to fight on, refusing to let Earth fall after all their hard work. Ten years later, the Earth would have the technology and experience to defend itself without a time traveler's knowledge. It was also that year that she buried her mother, and her father a few months after.
Rose had nothing left but the young TARDIS, finally grown and ready to take off.
The TARDIS had known that her father died and, at the time, it had seemed to die too, growing shriveled and grey. As Rose fought on through her grief so did the TARDIS and together they overcame it, but now they were alone together and neither knew what to do. It seemed pointless to go off to see the Universe without the Doctor in tow.
Rose and the young TARDIS had grown quite close to each other so when the TARDIS's light began to glow brightly Rose knew that the TARDIS had reached a conclusion.
"What is it?" she asked to the center console which housed her little TARDIS's heart.
It began to sing a song. One so familiar and distant that it took Rose a few moments to realise from where she remembered it.
That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.
Of course. The Bad Wolf.
The TARDIS, this young TARDIS, still remembered the memories from her mother TARDIS and she remembered the Bad Wolf. Rose, though her memory at the time had been fuzzy, had eventually remembered all she had done as the entity. A pulse of light, the beat of a heart, and they thought as one and agreed on one course of action.
Rose grinned, the first time in months, maybe years, and ran to the console. "Yes!" she told her young TARDIS.
With a heave, the console lifted to reveal the Time Vortex beneath and Rose looked into it once more, for the last time, and the golden energy filled her up.
The Bad Wolf had returned.
The Bad Wolf knew her body would burn up within a moment but she was Bad Wolf, Time itself, and she would not dissolve until she was done.
It was child's play to tear a hole between this universe and the next, with a swipe of her hand the crack appeared and the TARDIS tumbled through it. Once in it, Bad Wolf, much like the TARDIS itself felt all of this universe's time simultaneously. Every moment. Every second. And the Bad Wolf saw what the Doctor had done before her, and with her, and after her. So much pain and so much death followed him. She would give him hope and life, she decided, not only to him but to all his companions.
She would go on to each of his companions and help them. She gave them a good life before the Doctor's arrival or a good one after he'd left them. She guided Susan to safety during the Time War, protecting her as best she could. She gave a dying Donna a Time Lady's body to go adventuring with her granddaughter, the DoctorDonna would live once more to meet the Doctor yet again. She would guide Mickey and Martha towards each other, she still felt fondness for her old lover, no matter how shaky their relationship had been. And beautiful Martha would take care of him. She knew because it always would have been. She spread all the love she could to the Children of Time until finally, turning her omniscient gaze to her Doctor.
She moved, if already-having-been-there counted as moving, to her final destination but the young TARDIS stopped her. A request to her mother. From one daughter to another. Bad Wolf agreed and let the TARDIS materialise itself to an adventuring Jenny and her new companion. She presented herself as a gift from her parents. They would meet with the Doctor again.
Now Bad Wolf was alone but she knew her purpose. She broke the Time Locks on the War with ease and hid herself in time and space. She created a housing for herself now that her body had burned up but her mind would be frozen in this moment. The Moment. She forgot herself for the time being. Her memories should only reveal themselves after the Time War had ended. But her mission would stay with her. Protect the Doctor and his people. Protect and help him.
She knew that the next time they met she would not remember him and she would be unrecognizable to him (not that he knew her yet either) but she would help him and that would be okay. Once he had found his home again he would come back to The Moment and call on her to thank her for saving his planet and people. Then she would remember and emerge as The Bad Wolf in all her glory and fire, looking up to him from a snow covered Gallifrey and grin and say:
"I told you I would be with you forever."
She was Time itself and she was Bad Wolf and The Moment but more importantly she was Rose Tyler, shop girl from London. And the Doctor would know that she loved him with all her heart and that when Rose Tyler makes a promise, she keeps it.
No matter how long it takes her.