A/N: Everything you will be reading in this story belongs to someone else, alas!
This story is a sequel to Walk a Mile in the Doctor's Sandshoes. The prequel will be referenced throughout the story, but it will not be imperative to have read it to follow this story. All that is strictly necessary to know here at the start is that this story plays with the idea of Rose Tyler being left behind in the Prime Universe in the place of the Doctor, who is trapped in Pete's World at the end of the battle at Canary Wharf.
Rose has been left to fend for herself and to fill the Doctor's role in his absence. She has discovered that she had unwittingly granted herself a few abilities when she looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, but more importantly, she has begun to discover just how heavy the weight the Doctor bears on his shoulder is – especially when part of that weight is the Master, who very nearly succeeded to take over all of time and space… until a Bad Wolf interfered.
I'm not writing in my first language, and the series haven't been popular enough to justify bothering a beta, so I'll ask that you please pardon my English.
Enjoy the ride!
Doctor Who – The Wandering Wolf
Prologue. Time Crash
As she leaned back against the TARDIS' console, Rose wished she could have said she were alone. Technically, she was, as long as one realized that was an incomplete sentence; Rose was alone with the sound of drums, beating in her head, dun-dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun, her fingers tapping alongside it, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, never-ending drums that echoed in her since one of the experiments of the Master had worked better than he'd intended it to, dun-dun-dun-dun, tap-tap-tap-tap-
"Enough!"
But the drums didn't relent; they never did. And Rose let herself slide down along the console, shaking and hugging herself. She trembled violently. It didn't matter that the Master had ultimately failed; there was no going back from what he'd done to her, how he'd transformed her, dun-dun-dun-dun, how he'd even grafted some of his and the Doctor's cells onto her in his attempt to transform her into a living, breathing receptacle for the Time Vortex, his ultimate instrument in his quest to gain mastery over all of time and space, and in so doing he'd altered her in ways she'd never have imagined possible, making her very different from the human she'd once been, and not just because her eyes were gleaming gold or the short hair that had regrown since her surgeries had gone entirely white.
Even though the TARDIS was currently unmoving relative to the Earth, Rose could experience how she really was rotating along with the planet at a speed of roughly a thousand miles per hour, tap-tap-tap-tap, how the planet was rotating around its sun at sixty-six thousand miles per hour, the sun rotating in its galaxy at nearly five hundred thousand miles per hour and the galaxy itself hurtling at a speed of over a million miles per hour – and that was just one of the simpler senses that had been awoken in her.
She could see timelines with much greater ease than before. Her connection with the TARDIS had become much stronger, a result of her telepathic abilities having greatly improved. Her already sharpened human senses had been drastically augmented. At times the sensory impulses were nearly overwhelming, and even when they weren't, nothing changed how you look at yourself more than suddenly being able to see every pore and little imperfection on skin like every image you saw of you was constantly under a powerful magnifying glass.
And of course, she could hear the drums, the drums, the never-ending drums echoing in her mutilated brain and resonating across all of time and space where the Time Vortex had regenerated the regions of Rose's brain which had been removed by the Master in his attempt to ensure he'd have a compliant instrument, a tamed Bad Wolf. And there was no running from the drums, the never-ending drums, only learning to live with them, dun-dun-dun-dun, or letting them destroy her, tap-tap-tap-tap, destroy her, like they had must have made the Master go insane before her.
Rose snapped back into action, in an attempt to run from the drums, and also with the faint hope there was some way the TARDIS could help her, somehow dampen the drums – but for that, she had to work on reconstructing the TARDIS first, without much experience doing it and the drums now interfering with the guidance the old girl could give her. So of course, she made a mistake a few seconds in, pulling the wrong lever at the worst possible time.
The TARDIS lurched violently, including a relative 360 degrees turn accompanied by the blaring of alarms and a dazzling mauve display. Rose scrambled frantically to undo what she'd just done, which seemed to at least stabilize the time ship.
"I'm so sorry, old girl, I didn't mean to" she breathed. And then she jumped with surprise when she heard someone else.
"What just happened?" a man's voice said. Rose lifted her head just in time to watch the blonde man bump into her, dressed in a cream and red-coloured cricket outfit, coat and hat, and-
"Is that a stick of celery on your lapel?" she blurted.
"Are those prisoner clothes?" the man replied sarcastically. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."
"You're the Doctor" Rose echoed plainly.
"Yes, I'm the Doctor."
"You're the Doctor."
"I'm the Doctor – are we seriously doing this?" The man frowned. "There's a stranger in my TARDIS, a TARDIS which, by the way, looks and feels totally wrong, somebody's screaming in my head, you look like you're half unfinished and the universe is going bang in five minutes, not the best time to meet the fans – how did you get in here anyway?"
"My question to you" Rose snapped back. "And come off it – you are the Doctor?"
"Yes, I'm the Doctor, yes! Are we going to do this again?"
"As long as is necessary for you to stop saying you're the Doctor!"
"I am the Doctor!"
Rose's nostrils flared. "And he complains because we're going in circles."
"What does it matter to you? Isn't it every sensible human's dream to finally meet with me and get to spend time inside the TARDIS – inside my TARDIS, in fact" he said, his voice trailing, and then he glared at Rose. "My TARDIS! What did you do to my TARDIS? Did you hurt her that badly that she'd scream that way? And how could you do anything to my TARDIS anyway?"
"The Doctor's TARDIS, as it happens" Rose hissed.
"That's what I said!"
"You're not the Doctor!"
"Love the bit of variation" the man snarked.
"Love the portable snack, very practical" Rose snarked back. "And no, sorry, I know the Doctor, and as weird and out of place as he can appear in different regenerations, there's just no way he went and pulled off- he went and pulled off…" Rose's voice stalled as she properly looked at the man, who suddenly grinned.
"I know who you are" he said happily.
"You do?"
"I do."
"Who am I, then?"
"Not someone I have time to waste on" the man dismissed, grin fading as fast as it had showed up. "There is something very wrong with my TARDIS and I have to do something very, very quickly, and it would help," and the man's voice rose, "it really would help if there wasn't some skinny, screeching idiot rambling about how I can't be the Doctor when I'm standing right there in front of her!"
"You don't remember me" Rose said, and the man gave an exasperated sigh.
"Of course I don't remember you! Did you really think I would bother with every single one of you I come into contact with even if they happen to know more than one of me?"
"No, that's how I know you aren't my Doctor" Rose said, her voice shaking. "You don't remember me. He never would have forgotten me – he as good as sacrificed himself for me," and now Rose's voice was rising, "so quit it, stop it, stop pretending, stop claiming you know who I am and tell me why the hell you are on this TARDIS!"
"Why don't you start by telling me what you did to it?" the man said, whipping specs out of his pockets and putting them on. "And I'm not talking about the desktop theme, even if it looks horrid. It's worse than the leopard skin!"
Rose blinked. "Seriously? And I'm not just talking about the desktop themes – you're putting on brainy specs? That because they make you look cleverer?"
An alert blared, stopping the man from responding. "Oh, that's bad. Level five" he said, running to the monitors, Rose following and looking over his shoulder. "Indicates a temporal collision!"
"That doesn't sound really good" Rose noted clinically.
"Of course it isn't! It's like two TARDISes have merged, but there's definitely only one TARDIS present. And stop screaming, whoever you are!"
"Two TARDISes."
"You're a bit slow, aren't you?"
"I'm a stupid ape" Rose snarked. "And you're the Doctor."
The Doctor groaned. "Changed your mind again."
"The other Doctors I knew were friendlier" Rose said with a scowl.
"I'd have remembered meeting you before and-" The Doctor's eyes widened.
Rose rolled her eyes. "Here it comes…"
"But I've met you before!" the Doctor exclaimed himself. "1969, you appeared out of nowhere in front of a very unfriendly Time Lady that had made herself look like a stupid and shallow blonde human girl of no consequence-"
CLACK!
"You slapped me!"
"You deserved it!"
"This is a waste of time" the Doctor said with frustration. "I need to fix the consequences of your stupidity, not worry about your temper when I speak ill of your little sister, or girlfriend, or whatever your relation is. Look at what you've done! The TARDIS is about to blow a hole in the space time continuum the size of…" He turned the monitor towards Rose. "Well, actually, the exact size of Belgium. That's a bit undramatic, isn't it? Belgium? Not a very good reason to keep screaming in my head if that's you, old girl, although, to be fair, you're first in the line of fire."
Rose groaned. She picked up the sonic screwdriver that had appeared slotted on the console and held it out. "You wouldn't happen to need one of those?"
"Nah, I'm fine" the Doctor dismissed.
"Wonderful. Nothing like going hands free, is there? It's like 'hey, I'm the Doctor, I can save the universe with a kettle and a bit of string, and look at me, I'm wearing a vegetable!'"
The Doctor whipped off his glasses and got in Rose's face. "Who do you think you are, Miss I'm-so-stupid-I-almost-remade-the-TARDIS-into-a-paradox-machine?"
"That was the Master!" Rose yelled in the Doctor's face. "And it's not like you can blame me for not knowing how to fix the TARDIS properly, Mister-I-threw-her-manual-away-in-the-first-place-because-I'm-so-clever!"
The Doctor glared back. "Your version of the TARDIS is my TARDIS, in the future."
"Yes" Rose hissed.
"You killed me and stole my TARDIS."
"No!"
"You're just saying that!"
Rose groaned. "God, you were a piece of work when you were this you."
"Excuse me from being slightly miffed after realizing I'm talking with my murderer in my future!"
"You're not dead in the future!" Rose shouted, "not that you didn't give it a good try, switching places with me because you thought I'd be the one to die. Thankfully you didn't, but you're stuck in a parallel universe, leaving me behind to deal with all the messes you normally handle, which includes trifles like the last of the Racnoss, illegal Judoon experiments, a mummy full of extra-terrestrial kit, a Plasmavore, a Dragon, New Earth quarantined after a deadly virus killed most of it, a man who turned himself into a life-leeching monster while trying to gain eternal youth, Carrionites, Weeping Angels, the end of the universe and of course, cherry on top, your old buddy the Master, who found nothing better than spend a year vivisecting me until I've become a part-human, part-Time Lord, part-who-knows-what-else-monster who can't stop hearing the damn drums!"
The tirade gave the Doctor pause. He looked at Rose seriously. "You're fighting the Master."
"Fought, past tense" Rose snapped. "We won, I think. At least she's neutralized for the foreseeable future. Got a few bits and pieces of him living inside me and I think they're slowly turning me insane. Who in their right mind likes the drums?"
The Doctor was spared having to answer that when another alarm blared. "Level ten, that's really bad."
"How bad?" Rose grated.
"Very. Two minutes to Belgium."
"And exactly how bad is Belgium?"
"Nothing much, just a black hole big enough to swallow the entire universe."
"So what do we do about it?"
"That's why it's bad, actually, I have no idea" the Doctor admitted. "End of the Universe with an extra bit of paradox thrown on top to make it irreversible, really, since you won't have known future me if the universe dies today."
"Can we focus and think of ways to counteract the creation of a black hole the size of Belgium?"
"You mean 'can I', don't you, I can see you're completely out of your depth here."
Rose groaned. "Is rudeness inseparable from getting your big Time Lord brain in its working state?"
"And what exactly do you expect me to do?" the Doctor burst out. "End of the universe, Belgium swallowing everything, ninety seconds left!"
Rose sighed exasperatedly. "This is a nightmare" she said, fingers starting to drum on the console.
"This is what happens when incompetents get their hands on a TARDIS" the Doctor countered. "Try to rebuild it, don't bother with the shields, my TARDIS' and your version of my TARDIS' timelines accidentally collide, huge implosion, black hole Belgium, end of the universe, and I can't properly concentrate because somebody that absolutely cannot be the TARDIS just won't stop screeching in my head!"
"How about concentrating on stopping an implosion the size of Belgium!" Rose snapped. "Like exploding another Belgium, for an example?"
"Like that makes any sense!" the Doctor snarled. "To cancel out an implosion you'd have to know the exact amount of energy to release in an equal explosion, and all we know is, is… Oh."
"Yeah, the exact size of Belgium."
The Doctor grinned. "That's actually brilliant."
A mournful tolling made itself known.
"What now?" Rose said with a scowl.
"Oh, nothing too terrible, just the Cloister Bell" the Doctor said as he broke into a flurry of activity around the console.
"What does the Cloister Bell mean?"
"End of the universe is imminent, but no big deal, I've got this covered." More switches and levers were pushed and pulled. "All I have to do is vent the thermal buffer, floor the helmic regulator, and fry the zeiton crystals. Hopefully that will also stop the screaming in my head."
"You keep mentioning that. Is something wrong with you?"
The Doctor didn't reply; he moved around a little bit more, and ended up pushing one last button, causing the time rotor to flash, shaking the TARDIS again for an instant. Then he smiled smugly. "There. All done. Still got the screams, but they didn't come from the-"
He stopped, looking at Rose with wide eyes. "It's you. You are the one screaming."
"I'm not" said Rose.
"You wouldn't realize it – part-Time Lord, and that's the part that's broadcasting its pain for anybody that can pick it up."
"Oh…" Rose swallowed. "And… do you hear the drums?"
The Doctor shook his head. "It's only you. And not the reason why you scream. Part-human, part-Time Lord, there's even a bit of the Time Vortex inside you – it's not possible. You shouldn't be alive."
"Lots of people tell me that" Rose groused, and a new alarm blared.
"That's the TARDISes separating" the Doctor informed her. "I'm sorry, I can't stay and help you with this. I won't even be able to remember it."
"Yeah, that's because you're not in your own time stream."
"And you're a human living my life when I'm gone."
"Yeah, I'll explain that another time we meet."
"And now you've even stopped the Master."
Rose gave him a mirthless smile. "I think another me did that; certainly wasn't this one."
The Doctor replied with a genuine smile. "I'll take back what I said the last time. I don't need to hope I hurry back any longer. This universe is in good hands. Yours."
"It's not if the drums turn me insane" Rose replied with a scowl.
"You'll hold on" the Doctor said confidently as he began to fade. "You just can't stay on your own, that will drive you crazy. Find someone, Rose Tyler. Find someone."
The Doctor vanished, leaving Rose alone with the sound of drums, and absolutely no intention of finding someone right now. This was April 1969, shortly after Missy had originally activated the Paradox Machine, and Rose had a large number of things to consider, starting with identifying what events in the past had been changed as a result of the paradoxical timeline that had been discarded – but that would keep until a bit later, continuing the work on repairing the TARDIS would keep until a bit later. Right now, there was only one thing Rose wanted to do, one thing she wanted to try to distract her mind from the constant pounding of the drums. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't. If nothing else, Rose could always try to run.
"... yeah. I think I fancy jogging. I'll just go change... and I'll run."
Fortunately, the TARDIS' transformation by the Master hadn't resulted in deleting the rooms important to Rose, which definitely included the wardrobe. One of the racks carried all the clothes the Doctor had used to wear in his earlier incarnations, and the young woman was relieved to find that one hadn't been touched by the Master.
That rack also carried a blue pinstriped suit, familiar in cut, yet never worn in that colour by the Doctor, not that Rose could remember. She went to the suit, and ran the back of her hand slowly on the fabric, trying her best to shush part of her brain that was arguing against cooing at clothing.
"You're also waiting for him to get back, aren't you?"
Rose gently pushed the suit aside, giving herself better access to an article of clothing that was familiar to her as well, and well worn, as far as Rose remembered: her first Doctor's black leather jacket. The young woman hung the jacket off, and brought the inside lining to her face, trying to catch any remaining scent from its owner... and breaking into a hacking fit of coughing.
"How did you pick up such a stinking smell?" she ended up choking out, with an accusatory glare at the piece of clothing she now held at a distance. Then she sighed. "I'm talking to clothes. Not a very good sign. Don't think I remember hearing the Doctor talk to clothes. Do clothes like drums? Drums aren't made of cloth, not unless there's something terribly messed up with the maker's culture. Then again, you're skin and not bones, aren't you?..."
Rose shook the jacket gingerly. And a banana fell off.
The young woman groaned. "Oh, now, that's just unfair. I'm not even sure I can even digest a banana right now, not after-" She blinked. "Oh, right, bigger-on-the-inside pockets. Which I don't have anymore. You're hired, jacket!"
Black pants, a black long-sleeved shirt and black running shoes in her size soon joined the jacket, Rose insisting for herself all the while that resemblance with the style of her first Doctor was entirely fortuitous.
Rose dressed up, and hung her prisoner clothes on an empty rack. Then she ran.
Rose didn't pay much attention to the looks she'd attracted while she was running at random through the rain-soaked London, letting the layout of streets and the flow of circulation dictate the course she followed, until she ended up in a lane in Shoreditch, drenched and too exhausted to keep forging on, leaning against a grimy wall opposite a junk yard – which may or may not have served as a hiding place for a couple in their thirties who slunk out of it thirty-one point sixty-one seconds after the wheezing Rose's back had hit the wall.
"Ian, look!" the woman said to her companion, who crossed the lane in a few quick, long strides.
"Are you alright?" the man asked with clear concern, and Rose looked up at him.
"'m fine, go 'way" she wheezed, the last thing she wanted right now being company. Of course, the bloody man had to narrow his eyes in some kind of recognition and-
"You're not human, are you?" he said calmly and very matter-of-factly.
Rose groaned. "Lemme guess, eyes're wron' colour."
The man exchanged a look with his companion, who had now also made it across and seemed to share her companion's concerns.
"She looks exhausted, the poor thing" she said.
"'m exhausted" Rose mumbled. "Good exhausted. Still hearin' the damn drums, jus' don' care right now. Go 'way."
"No, I don't think we shall" the man called Ian said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Barbara, would you mind nipping over to a phone box and give UNIT a quick-"
"NO!" Rose cried out loudly, before she realized her concerns were unfounded. "Right" she mumbled. "April 1969, Doctor isn' dead."
"The Doctor is in danger?" Ian said with evident alarm, and Rose noticed the conclusion the man had jumped to, far too quickly. She let out a sigh.
"'ready saved 'im. Y'know the Doctor."
"We know the Doctor" Barbara replied. "Does he know you?"
"Long story."
"You can tell us about it once we've got you out of the rain" Ian said, "you're going to catch your death out there."
"'ready caught me" Rose mumbled, but neither Ian nor Barbara pried, and the pair supported the young woman on the way to their flat…
A/N: Wanted to write Ian and Barbara in nearly since the start. Here we go! And don't be surprised if you see adventures entirely out of order… ^^