Each of these alternate dimensions that I have written in here and will be in the next few chapters are works in progress of mine. They are nowhere near as detailed as they will be in their individual stories, as they are all Rose's observations of her alternate selves. If there is any confusion, please let me know. This is a gift!fic for Endelda. Sorry luv, the muse took me so many places!
It was like going through water.
She felt like she'd fallen off of waterskis and just been drug through the ocean a bit. The haziness of everything around her as it changed from something solid into static - even the air was fuzzy and almost painful; just like when your leg fell asleep, only it surrounded her now.
Void stuff.
The memory of the look on the Doctor's face as he'd stood there, in 3-D glasses, laughing and talking about it to her made her heart hurt.
But it was literally being ripped from one reality to the next.
It would explain the soreness of every single muscle and bone in her body during every jump of the Dimension Cannon. It wasn't even as hard on her as it was on the other agents who had been with her the first few times. They'd felt like their skin was being ripped off in shreds and burnt. Rose could definitely understand that, as she remembered only too well the feeling of looking into the Heart of the Tardis. The time vortex had gone through her eyes and it had been a pain unlike anything she'd ever felt in her life, a pain that she even hesitated to call pain, because it had been on another level completely.
Skin being ripped off and burnt, like hot lasers were doing it.
Such a hurt that she wasn't even certain there was a word to describe the sensation, her nerves had been so overwrought they'd gone from fire to ice and back again, her skin had felt cool and her blood molten hot…. and if she was honest, her body had never truly recovered, no matter what niceties the Doctor had performed on her mind to get her to forget. That'd made it worse - being in such a state and not knowing why, or if she was dying.
The more jumps she'd done, the more the Bad Wolf inside of her had tried to connect her to each reality.
Taste it, it cajoled. Experience what you are missing. See what you do not have.
Once she found her alternate self, she could see through her own eyes, feel what the other self was feeling, kind of like in a dream - all the while still feeling herself. The Wolf had said it was to prepare her for what was to come.
But sometimes it hurt.
Pleasure. Pain. Just words, the Wolf hissed in her ears.
She looked around now, confused as to how she'd ended up at her own high school of all places. Was she finally in the right universe?
She noticed different people she'd gone to school with were still there, looking like themselves, but a bit different in some cases; in others the differences were extreme. It was like some people had become polar opposites, but that wasn't altogether uncommon during those rough puberty years. Her nose scrunched at just the thought - puberty sucking seemed to be a universal concept at least.
Maybe she'd gone backward in time?
The sight of herself in a black leather biker jacket with tattoos -holy shite, were those knuckle tattoos real?! - with lips pursed in anger, and hands gesturing threateningly toward a young woman who strangely resembled Madame du Pompadour instantly clarified that last question.
This was definitely the wrong universe.
Although it did have possibilities, that part of her mind that was still salty over that whole mess chimed in.
Rose clicked on her device in her ear out of morbid curiosity and was able to hear this version of herself give this preppy modern version of the King's Mistress the business.
"I swear to fokken god, you speak to Campbell like tha' once more and I'm gonna - "
Campbell who? Nevermind.
"Try it, you disgusting chav! You just try! My father will sue!"
Rose rolled her eyes at that. That made two centuries that woman was obnoxious in.
The term chav was something that Rose hated, and would verbally square off with someone over being called. This version of herself let it roll off her shoulders, and just stared her down. It would have been wise for the girl to stop talking.
"Besides…. better off…. killed himself!"
She hadn't been paying attention, so busy wondering what sort of scenarios would lead to her being… that way…. that she didn't hear the rest of the response, but whatever Reinette had said about that guy had set the other Rose off, and she gasped as her consciousness was pulled into that body, and she got to watch both from afar and through her other self's own eyes as her fist connected with the other blonde's nose, the crack unmistakeable. The form had been excellent, wrist straight, thumb in the right spot, shoulder set just right so that it was powerful. The pain in her hand was nothing compared to the pleasure of that hit.
The gurgled shriek, followed by a collapse to the ground in tears, blood, and mucus was a sight that she guiltily enjoyed a bit too much. The young woman was lucky her nose didn't go further into her skull with a hit like that.
The shouts of "Fight, fight, fight, fight!" from the other kids were drowned out as she again disappeared when the device dinged that it was fully charged.
Damn. Even though she'd missed… this had been a good day.
She needed to buy new clothes in the next Universe she jumped to. Hers were fast becoming tatters.
Another jump. How many had there been, now? There were as many universes as possibilities in the world. Each decision made created a new one, it would seem.
She'd lost count of all of the places she'd been. Place after place breezed through her mind at a moment's notice.
A million sunrises, a million sunsets. She'd been gone for years, by her watch. Three of them spent in Pete's World, struggling to return - and five of them out here, travelling from place to place.
She was by the ocean in the middle of the night, from the way it looked. A brief scan of the buildings near her told her that she was in some sort of coastal town, a very small one. It was cloaked in darkness as if no one used electricity proper, but the loud hum of some of the generators in the area told a different story. The rain was coming down in sheets, making it so that the few white wide security lights in the area seemed to do even less than they were already. Judging by the larger cobblestone of the sidewalk she was on and the hanging nets of one of the local businesses, this place appeared to be a fishing village, although everything about it from the lighting to the rain made it the creepiest place she'd been in her recent history.
As she worked for Torchwood, that was really saying something.
She began to walk toward the docks, hoping that if she saw land and sea maybe she could begin to place herself, because while she appeared to be on Earth, there was a lot that could be told of alien terrain at a dock. She smiled softly, thinking how much like the Doctor she'd begun to sound. Each step she took made the patting noise of walking in puddles until she suddenly ran out of sidewalk with a squelch. Oh hell, her trainers had holes in the bottom and she could feel the nastiness soak her socks. She curled her lip at the sound, and looked down to double check that she hadn't stepped in a pile of something.
Nope, mild relief at it having only been grassy nole. Her sock still felt disgusting. Oh well, no way to fix it now.
Something about the place just felt really unsettling.
She stopped right at the entrance to the docks and the town, as it were, seeing a large wooden sign. Her curiosity got the best of her, the little bit of colored paint that was left from what appeared to be years of wear told her that there was a chance this city was abandoned, or perhaps the residents were so old that it was about to die off. She ran her utility flashlight over the sign, finding it thoroughly caked in mud that had been there so long there was grass and moss growing out of it. She stuck her flashlight in her mouth and used her fingers to pry the muck off, thankful for the rain at this point, even though she was quickly becoming soaked.
She'd just gotten most of the muck off when she heard a loud scream for help. It was a masculine, albeit shrill sort of sound. She pulled her flashlight out and held it up in a bit of a backfist, on alert and searching for the source of the sound before she decided what to do next. The sound didn't repeat, however, so she was forced to make her decision - she would go further into the town to investigate.
Like an idiot, she chided herself. Her and the Doctor had that in common.
She walked away, moving into the darkness of the town, hearing sounds of people moving about as she went down the alleyway. She kept as silent as she could in the rain, turning off her flashlight so she didn't call attention to herself. All of her nerves were on alert, and she followed her training, eyes scanning to see if she could match an actual body with the footsteps she heard.
As she crossed to another alleyway, she could make out the sound of someone praying, loudly - it wasn't too far away, and they appeared to be praying to God in a Catholic sort of way, which meant that Earth was looking far more likely.
"I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me," the accented voice called out, loudly. It alerted her to his presence in one of the side buildings, and she could finally see a bit of light - the flickers of a lantern.
She spent a few minutes doing some recog, as she was no longer in the habit of just charging in guns blazing. She couldn't afford to get stuck here for longer than necessary. She just needed to see the Doctor, to get back to him and explain. She hadn't… she needed to see him.
She tried to get closer, seeing a window nearby. "And I shall dwell, in the House of the Lord…. FOREVER!"
She was interrupted from her musing by the sound of wheels creaking on the cobblestone, and whatever had caused it went inside the building. She heard shouting, and when she found her moment, made it to a window to peek in.
She could see what looked like a hanging carcass of animal that'd been skinned in this farmhouse. It didn't surprise her, a lot of rural areas had habits of prepping their own meats in that way. Something about it seemed off, though - before she could fully metabolize what animal it was, she realized that someone was chained to a beam. The man was wearing glasses, blue jeans, and a white shirt. He seemed rather pissed.
It was the Doctor!
...Only, not.
She could tell, by now, when she was in the wrong universe.
The Wolf told her so.
The creaking sound had been a wheelchair, and a poorly maintained one at that. It was definitely old, a bit rusty, but that wasn't what got her. It was her in that wheelchair, in a beautiful purple gown with black lace on it that went down past her feet, and a black and purple lace veil on her head. The lace didn't look machine made, just at a glance - there were minor imperfections that told of handstitching. She closed her eyes for a moment, wanting to know. Her curiosity about all of her other selves would be the death of her, she was certain of it.
"You will live," her other self breathed out to the other version of the Doctor, "because you are mine."
Rose could feel what the woman felt. She was scared, she was enamored, she was… she was so many things. She felt her own lips mouthing the words as her other self said them.
"But you must stay with me."
"I will live?! Me?! What about Jeanne?!" he snapped, sounding all Oncoming Storm.
"Jeanne… the man?"
Rose couldn't stop mouthing the words, and now she could hear herself actually whispering them.
"No, Jeanne! My girlfriend, Jeanne!"
Rose felt a bit of jealousy, and he wasn't even her Doctor.
"...You cannot care for her…" the tremble of her lips made Rose touch a hand to her own. The tears in this woman's eyes as she pleaded with the man she loved reminded her of a beach and the worst day of her life save for the day the Doctor had regenerated, because of the knowledge that she had been the one who'd killed him. The actual feeling of her own heart breaking the same time as this woman's did hurt.
Feeling the emotions of her other selves always rattled her.
She spoke the words as the woman did, from her hiding space, so softly, but with the same amount of emotion.
"You do not dream of her! We will go soon to a beautiful place. You will forget your world and your friends. There will be no time, no end, no today, no yesterday, no tomorrow - only the forever and forever, and forever without end. It is your fate. It is your destiny."
Rose's eyes flicked with a golden light as she felt the Wolf inside of her praising her for these words. They were truth, but for who?
The sounds of shuffling just to her left made her realize that she was out in the open, and susceptible to discovery.
She had to leave.
She saw something moving down the street, one of the most shocking things she'd ever seen. She began to run, back down the alleyways that she came down, boots slapping the wet cobblestone. It was the same as earlier, although residents of the town were beginning to exit some doors. She let out a shriek as something grabbed her arm, and she fought against the grip, able to bash the arm against the side of a wall a few times before she was released.
So much for abandoned.
The wide white security light flickered and burnt out, just as something else grabbed at her leg. She didn't make a noise this time, instead she kept running, using all of the speed she'd gained from Torchwood training. It didn't get a grip on her. She just had to get far enough away to be able to use her machine and get the fuck out of here.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck!" she hissed as she was running, her machine beeping as it reached full charge to move again.
Her hair stuck to her face as she spat some of the rain, searching for someone, something. She whipped around, finally at the docks, and sucked at her teeth, seeing some shapes beginning to congregate.
A click of the device and she was off again, right next to the city sign, which she would never know had read Welcome to Gallifrey.
With each jump she felt less and less human, and her aging process had frozen. She'd found that out on New Neptune, when she'd taken an arrow to the kidney and ended up in a hospital. None of the nurses had found it shocking, and had cheerfully informed her of this fact. It was a nice fact to have, but she still had so many uncertainties - like if her lifespan had expanded or not. Was she going to die within a century, just a much prettier corpse?
Too much time to herself to think. It was kind of like a Last Man on Earth sort of thing, only she was surrounded by people most of the time - but had never been more alone.
Happy Anniversary, Doctor.
Did it matter for him? Had it been so long?
What if he had a new companion now, and loved her? What if he was married, and children? What if it'd been millenia for him, and he didn't remember her name?
The feeling of the Void ripping at her flesh no longer hurt. Desert, Swamp, Tropics, Metropolitan, and back to the Swamps. Earth, Uranus, Phylux 4, Neeli, Asix, and now she was… here.
Her black leggings had holes in the thighs now, so big that they were noticeable to other people. She always hesitated to get more clothing for herself until the stuff was falling apart, because well… she had to steal it every time, and she still felt like there should be some semblance of moral compass. Something, somewhere. Because she'd killed, she'd fought, she'd gotten true blood on her hands starting with the damn Daleks… no, no…. before even then. The first time she'd helped kill something… the Gelth?
...Did years of spiders count?
She didn't kill spiders or bugs anymore.
She'd become so much like the Doctor in many ways, had matured more since being away. It wasn't something she'd enjoyed, but who really enjoyed growing up? She could see the point where death became necessary and did her best to avoid it. But if it came down to it…. she'd do what she had to. She was just thankful for the Torchwood training that had helped her turn it into a skill. Muscle memory to fight. Joining Torchwood had been her own idea, and her father had been delighted that she wanted to partake in the family business, and had used it at every opportunity to try to connect deeper with her. She'd actually become quite fond of him.
She looked around, having landed in what appeared to be an upper class office setting. Somebody important worked here, for certain. There were awards and photos of important politicians, some that she recognized, and some that she did not know at all. One of the photos said President Freya Gardner, 2013-2013. Obviously out of office. Probably for good reason.
The next was a photo of a man who looked a lot like the Doctor, only... blonde hair, snappish suit, looking for all the world like a man who was dark and in control. That half smile on his face for his photo was something else. Underneath his photo it said President Aiden Hoynes, 2013 - present.
Obviously he was currently in power. Interesting.
Well, she appeared to be there afterhours, from the look of the darkness outside and the silence in the office. She saw one of the doors, a heavy wooden one, said President Hoynes on it, and so she opened it slowly, lest he still be inside.
It was an impressive desk, to be sure. Perfect interior decorating, and she felt very intimidated by everything. Walking over to his desk, she saw photos of the Doc- Aiden, with two children. There was another framed photo on his desk of himself and a bunch of work colleagues at what appeared to be a Christmas party - there were a lot of people in the picture, but the version of herself there, standing next to Aiden with a huge smile, another man on the other side of her and a fellow coworker making bunny ears behind her, showed that she was somehow a part of this.
Because of course she was. Universes where the Doctor was with someone else always felt wrong to her, but she was biased toward that opinion.
There was a door connected to his office directly, and the sound of heavy breathing near it made her pause.
She could feel herself in there, and the firehot shock of arousal going through her body made her bite her lip. Fuck, this was a new one. She'd felt every single emotion come off of her other selves, but never that.
Moving closer, she could see the door was open just enough to peep through. Aiden stood above her at a desk, she was laying on her side on top of it.
"Is this what you want?" the sinful way he said it made a shiver go through her.
Not my Doctor, not my Doctor.
She hadn't felt desire in what felt like centuries.
A soft, kittenish moan from her other self's lips, and she could see the girl was in a business casual outfit that showed her as a PA.
Naughty President Hoynes, shagging your PA? There's a scandal for you.
"Answer me," he purred, and when she looked closer, she could see that he had unzipped himself completely. His cock was just barely out of reach of her, and her softly parted lips seemed to want it and nothing else, judging by the look on her face, and the way she was struggling to get closer to him.
"Yes sir," she whimpered. "I want it so badly."
She moved her head up, trying to sneak a taste, and he gripped his fingers in her hair, yanking her head back. She hissed a bit, and he looked down at her, reproving, but that dark smile on his face told that he enjoyed her eagerness to please him.
"Bad girl," the words made Rose herself embarrassingly wet, and as much as she knew she should look away… she just couldn't. "I shouldn't give you any at all…"
The soft whine in her throat as she stared at him, arching a bit more into his grip on her, which had loosened, the hands that she just now noticed were cuffed behind her back -. Rose wanted to participate in all of it. She'd often kept those kinds of fantasies between her and the Doctor in the very back of her own mind and felt ashamed of them afterward, but seeing this happening right in front of her… it was temptation beyond belief.
She should go.
"Anything that pleases you," the PA responded, and that made Aiden darken further.
"Open," was the only word out of his mouth, and the way he looked at her, she seemed to know exactly what he wanted.
The sound she responded with was eager, and she opened her lips and took him in. He slowly moved until she had him fully inside, lips pressed against the skin past the base of him. Rose could almost feel it, and what she saw next made her eyes widen with shock. It had been one of her biggest fantasies, and here she was, about to watch her alternate self get it.
That bitch.
Aiden kept his grip on Rose's hair good and tight, and began to move her head back and forth on him, his breath shallowing as he did so. He seemed to know that she needed it slower as first, taking him all the way down her throat and working it in so that she wouldn't gag on him - at least not just yet. There was a secret part of Rose that wanted to, and she silently cheered this man on, worrying her thumbnail. He began to speed up with the way he was working her back and forth on him, and Rose was keeping up beautifully, as though she'd had plenty of practice with him.
He was keeping it shallow as he sped up, and Rose wanted to touch herself, but held back. She could deal with that later, she was in no position to do so safely.
She struggled to hear as he spoke, using sinful words, both praising her and calling her words that in any other situation would spark offense and anger, but it made the PA moan around his cock, and the sound he made in return showed how much he enjoyed that. He got a better grip on her hair, which had loosened, and, after a moment to let her get ready, he began to make her take him all the way.
He seemed to have a perfect count of just how long she could take a throatfucking before she needed a quick breath. Rose counted it as ten thrusts before she breathed, and then again, and again. Her mascara was running, she was making the gagging noises, but she seemed even eager to return to it while intaking precious air.
"Harder," he growled, and she seemed to increase suction, because the sound that came from her being pulled off of him was louder.
He yanked her forward onto him all the way and held her there a moment later, groaning as his eyes rolled back into his head, making it obvious he was cumming.
Jesus fuck, she could almost taste it.
He slowly pulled her off of him, and she stared up at him with a look that could only be described as raw. Her makeup was a mess, and some of his cum was dripping off of her lip, she hadn't quite managed to swallow all of him.
He stroked her face, and rolled her over onto her cuffed arms on the desk, and when he moved, his back turned to Rose left everything important obscured. Rose cursed in her mind, but decided to use it as a good reason to leave.
She still loved him with every breath she took. He was the first thing she thought of in the morning, and the last thing she thought of before she finally gave into exhaustion.
Rose stood in another new place - this was another seaside town, only this one was bright, and full of life.
Full of cars, all honking and kind of swearing. Jesus.
There was no way that a small town like this merited a traffic jam of this magnitude.
She began to walk between the cars, no one really noticing her, of course. She'd learned, by now, to just walk like she belonged. Her clothing was different, again. She'd seemed to have fallen on quite a few desert planets during her jumps, and thus her leather had been beyond inappropriate - although her body temperature was now regulated so that she didn't sweat or even feel the difference anymore.
She wore a heavy dust colored trenchcoat over a brown button-down cotton blouse that she left mostly open save for the last three buttons, with a white tank top beneath it. She'd become fond of layers, they made her think of her Doctor. A pair of short utility shorts that matched her coat were decorated with a belt, and she had on thick brown thigh highs that connected to the shorts, finishing it off with her thigh-holsters and pair of beat up combat boots.
She kept walking, keeping her perception filter on. People were starting to come out of their cars, and she doubted they'd react well to someone with machetes on their back, especially because she hadn't cleaned them since her last fight. Her hands had never been altogether clean as a kid growing up in the Estates but what she'd done since the Doctor and Torchwood had trumped all of that. S.T.A.R.S meant that she had had no choice but to be better, faster, and stronger. Wait, what? What the hell was S.T.A.R.S.? She'd meant her Torchwood training. Hmm, her other self must be nearby, fogging her thoughts.
Torchwood training had been a godsend, even though she'd been so scared that if she joined up, it would all remind her of what she'd lost and she'd absolutely crumble under the pressure. But it'd turned out for the best. That was the only way to prepare for jumping as much as she had. She'd never known just how much she would go through, somehow, she'd foolishly believed that it'd take one hop and there she'd be. Somehow it was feeling more and more hopeless. She felt trapped going between dimensions.
She could see a woman who struck her, the Wolf hissing in her ear that this woman, this woman, she was important.
Rose felt a tremor of dread take over her body.
Something…. something horrid had happened here.
She began to run, taking off well before the woman did, and her body went straight past her, making her stop as she was leaning into a car to ask a question of the driver. The woman looked up as though she'd felt a ghost, amazing Rose at how little humans noticed. She had once noticed so little, too, and that blew her mind.
She kept running to the very end of the traffic jam - a police barricade, they were on a beach. Beaches never turned out well for Rose, they always seemed to bring bad news of one kind or another.
She could see a version of the Doctor, as she should have guessed by now. Some universes didn't feature him at all, but about one in every ten seemed to have him - at least, she appeared to land by some version of him. He was scruffy in this one, all brown, and in a suit. The Wolf told her to move carefully, as he noticed more than he should.
His heart, the Wolf hissed, cannot take knowledge of what truly is. What he must find now will do enough of a number on it.
She followed him as he walked over to a body, and she covered her mouth.
No matter how used to death she became, she still could never get over the unnecessary death of a child. This was murder, she could feel it in every vein.
She closed her eyes, and the Wolf showed her the monster who had done it. She could see it playing before her eyes like a sick film reel, making her sicker with the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to help these people. There was nothing she could do. A glance up at the female cop and she could see a reel of the man's life with his wife and children. Her stomach lurched as the detail of the man's relationship with the boy became all too clear, images burned into her mind that made her insides upset.
She barely swallowed it back to keep herself from being discovered, looking up in time to see the mother scream.
She could see a woman with longer brown hair running out there - it was her, her alternate self, and she grabbed the mother by the arms and yanked her back into a tight embrace, head buried into shoulder as the mother screamed, "No, no not my baby, no! Danny! Oh god! Those are his trainers!"
Her other self was trembling with emotion and she could feel it. At first there'd been interest in the hot new cop in town, with a few jokes about DI Hotty, but once the body had been uncovered and they'd realized it was Danny… her heart was in so much pain. She could feel it. She closed her eyes and could see the boy riding his bike with Tony and Tom past her storefront, with her waving and laughing as they made funny faces against the glass.
"C'mon Beth," her other self said. Same accent, not Scottish like the rest. "You don't want to see him like this…"
"Taylor, he's my boy!" she sobbed, inconsoleable and unable to see reason, at this point.
Had she mispronounced Tyler? Well, she'd just suffered a helluva blow, Rose wouldn't be talking right either.
She closed her eyes against all of the pain, the emotion, the loss, and the images of violence burnt behind her corneas, and she hoped against hope that there was some way that monster would be punished, brutally punished.
As she made an emergency jump, taxing her body's energy harshly, she finally gave in to vomiting the instant she landed elsewhere, retching until her stomach was empty. Her body was running out of steam, and her making quick jumps the instant she found herself and the Doctor in various forms was going to kill her.
She was in a metropolitan area, of sorts, but God, everything was so gorgeous and clean, as though no one littered, or anything got dirty ever. Everyone seemed mostly congenial, smiling and happy to see each other. Rose had been to worlds like that, but something about this world had a strange power to it, as though there was something controlling that. Looking about, she could see signs for businesses with Circular Gallifreyan translations underneath the English.
Shit.
This was either a good thing or a bad one, and she was thinking it might be the latter. Time Lords were hyper controlling, logical creatures who would logic the emotion right out of humans if they could.
The area appeared to be mostly upper class, and she kept her perception filter on. She was grateful that she'd switched from the leather pants she'd become fond of to the thicker leggings and boots, it made it easier to move swiftly and not be heard. Her leather jacket reminded her of her first Doctor, so she kept it close, ignoring her mum's comment rattling in the back of her head about her turning into him. It was the madness of being so alone for so long - you literally lived in your own head. You owed nobody anything, you just walked and wandered… fuck, she was becoming him. She was always in and out of that argument with herself. Stupid. But when she saw an outfit in front of a storefront, without anyone attending it at all, she grabbed the red and black thing off the table quickly, shoving them into her backpack and running.
No alarms. No nothing.
Nobody even looked up, instead seeming to be so overly focused on their customers that she couldn't believe it. She almost wanted to wave it in their face. Perception filter or not, the outfit she'd taken on impulse looked expensive, and nobody batting an eye bothered her.
Stopping at a crosswalk, she blinked in surprise.
There was no light system at all, to tell the cars when to stop and go, the system appeared to be in the cars themselves, alerting the drivers of when they could go. When the drivers had to stop, clear walls pulled up, protecting the pedestrians in the crosswalks and preventing cars from going while pedestrians walked. Then, once they'd crossed, only a small part of the walls lowered - enough for the cars that could legally turn to do so only in the lanes they could legally do so in.
Traffic was moving at such an organized pace, and nobody appeared angry.
That was definitely odd.
"Mithras Christ, I've lost my homework application!" a little boy called out, and was quickly reprimanded.
"Precision of language, Miguel! Under-twelves are disallowed such blasphemous speech patterns!"
Yep. Time Lords had taken over here.
Strange men walked on the other side of the street, wearing outfits that made them look like a version of a SWAT team, but they also had higher up collars, and skullcaps. Their outfits were almost… Gallifreyan.
Peacekeepers, the Wolf hissed. Do not let them see you. It is illegal for humans to use the technology you are using without permission, and your other self cannot be questioned for what we are doing.
She nodded at that, and began to walk off, cutting through an alleyway so as not to be seen.
She broke into a run once she was far enough away, and didn't stop running until many blocks later, when the Wolf alerted her that she was mostly in the clear.
What she saw was a beautiful school, one that had high spires and appeared to be a fairy castle. Something about the steps looked a bit tricky, as though they were made of pure marble. She didn't know why she'd noticed that, but it felt important. Rose was jealous, she wanted to attend herself, and she fucking hated school. St. Omega's was what the sign had said, and it made her head tilt a bit. Since when the hell was Omega a saint? She could list all of the saints that she could think of - Thomas, Francis, Christopher, Llgbth of Neurith, Eljiwon Fra Friy, but Omega was a new name on that list.
She stopped when she saw a familiar looking version of the Doctor - he looked just like that toolbox from Las Vegas, only the way he carried himself now was not at all sexual, yet clearly dominant and in control. He looked like a man all too sure of himself. He looked like a hunter should look.
He looked like an asshole annoyed beyond measure over a notification that dinged on his phone.
"What is it, Theta?" a man walking beside him asked, one eyebrow raised.
This man had curly hair, and was dressed impeccably well. He looked the complete opposite of the Doctor, like he'd just walked out of an Armani photospread.
"The sodding gremlin sent me a friend request on Snapchat." Theta hissed, making mean eyes at a small….
….Holy shit, it was a dragon.
A dragon using a smart phone.
A much better phone than she had, she noted bitterly.
"I'm adding you," Theta announced to the dragon, "But only because you and I both know we need to play nice."
The dragon cast a glance just down the sidewalk, and Rose could see herself walking with an older, even more elegant man than the curly haired one. His silver hair and neatly trimmed beard didn't at all take away from how good looking he was. He had one hand gently on her other self's back as he guided her, hand moving in strange gestures as he spoke.
She could see herself stop and look at him pleadingly, before moving her hands in similar gestures, making facial expressions to match.
Oh! Signing! She was signing!
The dragon turned his head to look back at Theta and nodded, affirmatively.
The leatherclad version of the Doctor's phone pinged with a new Snapchat alert. With a press of a button, he went from annoyed, but workwithable, to fury.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" he snarled, launching himself at the dragon who sent a fangy smirk at him before becoming a picture of innocence when her other self ran over to pick him up.
The curly haired man held him back, and snapped, "Theta, compose yourself! Have you lost all means of decorum in public spaces?"
"He sent me a photo! A photo of him rubbing his ass on my cheek while I fucking slept!"
Her other self covered her own mouth, trying not to laugh.
She made signs at the curly haired man, who nodded.
"Theta, enough of this. Arkytior wants slap tjips. Matches… that is unhygienic."
She was grinning from ear to ear, watching this, when something felt off.
A glance to the left showed the Peacekeepers were walking her way. Fuck, they'd seen her, and were moving directly for her.
This jump was going to hurt a lot, and probably give her a nosebleed.
Down the alleyway she went until she could click her machine and go.
She opened her eyes and was greeted by dank and dark cement hallways that reminded her of some sort of zombie fighting game. The first sound she heard was screaming.
This place was sounding just awesome, she thought bitterly.
She looked at the walls, noticing that it was padded. She was in a… cell? A padded cell!
The walls were somewhat bloody, acrid smells of multiple fights in this one room. The Wolf inside of her was unsettled, but she didn't warn her of anything. Rose removed her trusty flashlight and clicked it on, looking around. The sounds of pipes clicking and rattling above her sent her view upward, seeing the rusted things dripping water. There was no way this was up to code. Moving the light along the cement wall above the ending of the padding, she could see bolts and metal bits sticking out of the wall, in ways you'd expect from a building that'd been gutted and abandoned long ago - not a building currently housing people.
She could hear heavy breathing, and, moving her flashlight down, she could see the person inhabiting the room and knew in an instant that this creature was herself. Her hair was twist dreading in a few places from a lack of care, bloodstained and gritty to the point of not truly being a solid color anymore. Wearing a strange pair of hospital scrubs that reminded one of long john pajamas, the bloodstains turned black and slashmarks were enough to curl Rose's lip. Her arm had gauze bandages from her wrist to the crook of her elbow that was dark with blood, as though someone had neglected to change it for a long time.
Lacerations, contusions, it was hard to tell where the wounds ended and the girl began. Her nails were uneven, ripping in the cuticles as though she routinely clawed and scratched at something as though her life depended on it. Moving the flashlight along her neck, seeing bruising that was shaped like someone's fingers. She'd been tortured by someone for a long time, which brought more evidence to her thought that this was no hospital at all. She wasn't a patient. She was a prisoner, here, and if she wasn't careful…. she would end up one just like herself.
She noticed that her other self in this dimension was staring straight at her. Her perception filter was on, but she was staring right at her, plain as day.
Not so crazy.
A glance to the corner nearest the girl showed a transparent person, a man, with floppy brown hair, deep green eyes, and a jawline for days. He was in a bowtie and a fitted vest with a button down under it, and boy did he look worried. He looked frightened for her other self, and he looked strangely frightened for her. He was trying to speak to her, but he couldn't quite manage it.
What was he saying?
She tried to read his lips.
Lick? Lock? Look. Look beehive….
Look behind you.
A chill went up her spine, and just as she moved to turn she felt a body near her back.
"Rose Tyler… I've been waiting positively centuries…" the voice breathed, before a crack upside her head sent the whole world into black.
"You think it's still out there?" Donna's voice was so concerned as she looked him in the face. She wanted to know, but she didn't. What he'd told her…
His silence was her reply.
She tried not to give into her emotion, and instead held firm.
"You have to tell them, this lot."
They need to be warned.
"Yeah," he murmured. "They can build a Leisure Palace somewhere else. Let this planet keep on turning. Round an X-tonic star. In silence."
She gave him her most gentle smile. "Can't imagine you, without a voice."
Something about the phrase felt off, like it was a little jinx or a curse crackling in the air. Maybe it was just that it was too soon to talk about how he'd felt.
"Molto bene," he responded with a smile.
"Molto bene!" Donna attempted.
"No…. don't… don't do that…" he flinched, moving to get up when they heard the sound of something hitting the roof with a loud thud.
Donna jolted up, and looked at the glass ceiling, her eyes widening with shock.
"Oh God, is that-"
The tinny sounds the glass made as it began to splinter and spiderweb alerted them to the fact that it wouldn't hold for long.
"...A body…." the Doctor finished, his voice going lower as he hoped it wasn't Sky. "Something else is coming down too…"
"I can see it, it's… shiny?"
The metal flashlight hit the glass ceiling and it broke completely, becoming a monsoon of glass that rained into the pool, along with the body and the flashlight. The color of the pool was pinkening a little bit, telling of blood. The body didn't move, just sinking lower and lower, not even a muscle moving to help itself.
"Oh god, d'you think-"
But the Doctor was already jumping into the water, swimming to the young woman and lifting the body up to get air. He'd grabbed her in such a way that her back was to his front, hoping to hear breathing but not getting a sound. With a curse, he swam sideways as best he could, but the waves caused by the crash and all of the shards of glass everywhere did not make it easy. Some of the blood in that water was his own, and the cleaner in the water stung like hell as it entered his wounds. He made it to the side of the pool, and Donna reached down, helping him pull the woman from the waves.
Laying her down, the Doctor saw who it was an instantly froze. Despite the bruising and lacerations on her face, he instantly knew who it was. He'd spent years memorizing that face.
"...R….Rose?!"
He stared for a few minutes, never believing he'd see her face again. Going through all of his memories, he made double sure that he'd never been here with her. But with the outfit she was wearing and the state of her, he highly doubted it. She was in what appeared to be thicker long john pajamas, her hair was matting from lack of care, and she had parts of it buzzed down at the sides of her head.
He moved to perform CPR when he noticed a black thing sticking out from between her lips. It had stayed in, because her lips on either side of it were stitched shut.
Oh Rassilon, no.
He pushed his own bad feelings in his gut down, knowing he needed to get to work to get her breathing again. The obvious signs of torture could wait. He used his sonic to cut the thread and pulled her jaw down, carefully, to remove the black thing - a mouthguard. As soon as he did he switched the settings on it, helping him to perform CPR and expel the water from her lungs.
Please don't take her. Anything, take me. Don't take her.