A Way through the Worlds, Part II: A Place to Belong
"I was a heavy heart to carry, my beloved was weighed down"
Rose Tyler had decided a long time ago that she wasn't going to hate beaches or Norway in general just because that was where she last saw the Doctor. But honestly, couldn't he have landed somewhere else?
"This is the parallel universe, right?" Rose asked, looking at the Doctor. She felt a funny feeling in her stomach.
"You're back home," the Doctor said. She had to squint against the sun to see him, but she knew that look on his face. The I-don't-like-this-but-I'm-gonna-have-to-do-it-anyway-because-of-[insert dire reason here] face. This isn't home, a tiny voice in her head protested silently.
"And the walls of the worlds are closing again, now that the Reality Bomb never happened," Donna said, smiling with her hands in her pockets. "It's dimentional retroclosure." She tilted her head to the side. "See, I really get that stuff now."
"No, but –" she wished her voice would stop wavering " –I spend all that time trying to find you. I'm not goin' back now!"
"But you've got to," the Doctor said gravely, walking up to her. "Because we saved the universe, but at a cost. And the cost is him," the Doctor went on, staring over her shoulder at the metacrisis. Rose didn't need to look behind her to tell that that's who it was. "He destroyed the Daleks; he committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own."
She stared up into his face, not understanding. What does that have to do with the fact that I have to stay here? To –to go back, when I'm not even sure I can, really –I never got to tell you–
"You made me," the metacrisis snapped.
"Exactly, you were born in battle. Full of blood and anger and revenge." The Doctor's gaze turned back to Rose. "Remind you of someone?"
Everything dies, the voice whispered in her head as Dalek ships disintegrated into golden dust. Her fingers tingled, and Rose swallowed. I have to tell him. She opened her mouth.
"That's me, when we first met," the Doctor said, and Rose blinked, extremely confused. "And you made me better. Now you can do the same for him."
That's your reason? She thought incredulously. "But he's not you," said, staring at him intently.
"He needs you. That's very me."
But don't you need me still? Rose thought. Or do you not anymore?
"But it's better than that, though," Donna said, smiling and nodding. "Don't you see what he's trying to give you? Tell her, go on!" she commanded the metacrisis Doctor.
Rose's eyes seemed to try to take in Donna smiling at her, the TARDIS standing bold and blue, and the Doctor gazing at her like he knew something she didn't all at once, in an attempt to preserve the image in her mind.
Does he know? Rose wondered. Has he guessed? How can he be trying to get me to stay if he knows?
She had a feeling that if she stopped looking at the Doctor, something horrible would happen. But an unseen force within her made her turn and face the metacrisis.
He took in a deep breath and began to explain. "I look like him, I think like him… same memories, same everything. Except I've only got one heart."
"Which means?" Rose asked, still confused.
"I'm half human," he said, and she couldn't explain the twist in her gut. "Only one life to live."
She was intrigued in spite of herself. "Really?" she said, staring at his chest.
"Yep. Regular human heartbeat. Go on," he said.
Rose hesitantly placed a hand over where his heart should be, and sure enough, felt the steady ka-thunk, ka-thunk of one heart instead of the ba-ba-ba-boom of a Time Lord double heartbeat. She had an idea now, of what they were all proposing. She couldn't deny that she pictured it, for a second –the way it would be to live a regular human life with the Doctor. And it had a certain appeal, but… Why do they assume that that's what I want?
She stared up into the metacrisis' face, but he wasn't looking at her.
The TARDIS dematerializing noise started up, and Rose's head whipped around. "No!" she yelled, beginning to run after it, but strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist and held tight. "Let go!" she wailed, flailing at the metacrisis, but as the TARDIS faded, she sobbed and sagged against him, burying her face in her hands.
She could hear him whispering, "I'm sorry, Rose, I'm sorry," over and over again as he held her, but she knew that wasn't going to make it all right.
Coward. Every time.
Jackie had called Pete –after threatening to slap the Metacrisis Doctor within an inch of his life –and Pete had arranged transport home on a zeppelin. Rose had taken a deep breath and called the waterworks to a halt. I'm stronger than this, she told herself. For three years I lived over here. I know I can live my life without the Doctor.
But I don't want to.
She sat at the window and stared at the changing landscape as the scene at Bad Wolf Bay played itself out over and over again in her head. She didn't feel like crying anymore –there was just a dead space in her chest, heavy like a stone.
She glanced over to see Jackie chatting amiably with the other passengers, occasionally shooting comforting glances her way. The Metacrisis Doctor sat a few seats over, staring avidly out at the landscape and at the passengers in the zeppelin.
Rose rubbed her face and took a deep breath before getting up and crossing to the seats in front of the human Doctor.
His eyebrows shot up as she sat down in front of him, but Rose spoke first. "I –understand, why he did all this, why you did, up to a point." She frowned. "But only if I start with the assumption that you and I had to be left here in this Universe. I want to know why."
"Well, he's right, sort of," the human Doctor said. "Maybe I am a loose cannon. But this universe needs a Doctor." He shrugged. "Can't have two doctors in the same Universe, can we? That'd really send it into fits," he reflected. "So, that's me."
"But what about me? Why'd he do that?" Rose pressed.
The human Doctor looked decidedly uncomfortable.
"I'm not mad at you," Rose said. "I'm not really angry at him, either, just –frustrated and… confused. I just want to know."
"Rose…" he said, and it felt so strange to hear her name on his lips. "He makes mistakes. I'm him; take my word for it." He looked at her kindly. "He's lost so much, and it causes him so much pain… he would rather have you safe over here than with him and always be fearing that he was going to lose you again, or watch you age while he only regenerated. He's not strong enough. Not for that."
"But that's not his decision to make!" Rose said strongly.
"I know," the Human Doctor said sadly.
"And you went along with it?" she asked.
"He made me promise," the human Doctor said. "He asked me to look after you, and I will do."
"So he just swanned off, thinking he knows what's best for everyone, not even botherin' to ask me," Rose said, feeling a bit of dread coil in her stomach.
"You mustn't be too hard on him," the human Doctor said. "He does make mistakes, and maybe this was one of them, but…Rose, he's still going to lose someone." The look on his face made her heart crumble.
"Donna?" Rose whispered, staring at him.
He nodded once.
"But –why?" Rose asked.
"A Time Lord consciousness in a human brain? The knowledge will kill her," he said. "He'll have to take it away. She won't be dead, but she won't remember him."
"So –he'll be alone? But he'll find someone, yeah? He always finds someone," Rose said, grasping at straws.
The Human Doctor stared at her sadly and said nothing.
The dread grew. "He's not going to, is he?" Rose asked softly, accent getting thicker as she got more emotional. "Because 'e doesn't want to get 'urt again. And you let 'im? You jus'… let 'im?"
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and she wanted to yell, wanted to scream at him to stop saying that, but the look on his face, one of immense heartbreak, stopped her. She couldn't, no matter how hurt she was.
In a way, she was relieved to go when Jackie called out, "Rose, come and have some supper! These zeppelins have great chips and sandwiches, but you don't really expect that, I mean you'd think their food would be like cafeteria food but actually…"
Her mum's words became a comforting hum in the background of her brain as she ate the chips (which actually were good) and thought.
The cracks in the universe are now healed, Rose thought to herself. So there's no way we could… no way I could get back. So I suppose I go back to working for Torchwood, defending the Earth. But my whole goal before was to discover some way to get back to the Doctor. So what do I do now?
Her brown eyes flickered over to the Metacrisis Doctor, who was chatting animatedly with Jackie, perfectly willing to talk about her husband and her two-year-old boy.
It's not… I mean, it's possible to be happy like this, Rose thought. Her parents were testimony to that. Jackie knew that Pete wasn't the Pete she had loved and married in her original universe, and Pete knew the same about Jackie. But they still fell in love all over again, and it was working. It really was.
Suppose I could, Rose thought to herself, watching the Metacrisis out of the corner of her eye. Suppose it could work out. It took me a while to adjust when I saw him regenerate the first time, but I did it, and I loved him all the more. I could… I could try…
But he's still out there; the original Doctor, and he's in pain, and he's hurting, and… I don't know how I could live my life knowing that.
She wished that choices could be more black and white.
Pete came to pick them up at the zeppelin docks, and Rose fell into his arms. They had formed a good relationship during the three years of being over here. Rose liked to think he had been practicing at being a dad so that when Tony was born he already had a good bit of experience. But he was a really good dad, and the strangeness of suddenly acquiring a daughter that was pretty much grown and a baby kind of at the same time hadn't fazed him as much as she had expected it to.
"Your mum filled me in," Pete whispered into her ear. "You okay?"
Rose pulled back from the hug and disguised the wobble in her chin with a quick nod. "Yeah," she said. "It's just… I dunno. I'm havin' to rethink everything now."
"You'll pull through," Pete said. "You're the strongest woman I know, next to your mother."
Rose had to laugh at that. "I think that's the first time you've called me a woman," she said.
"Well, enjoy it, because it may not happen very frequently. You'll always be my girl," Pete told her with a grin.
"Yeah," Rose said softly.
Pete gave Jackie a quick kiss and said, "Tony's with a babysitter. And I've got the car; we'll be home in no time."
"Oh, good!" Jackie said. "I could use a little piece and quiet, after all we've been through. Oh, Pete, this is –um," Jackie said, fishing for words. She addressed the metacrisis. "Well, what d'we call you? Doctor as well?"
"I call me the Doctor," he assured her. "That seems to work."
"Well, there you have it," Jackie said. "The Doctor."
"With a little dash of Donna thrown in," The Doctor said, grinning.
Pete shook his hand firmly and then led them to the car. During the ride, the human Doctor and Pete discussed history and recent improvements made in the parallel universe, and Jackie put her two cents in once in a while. Rose didn't know how tired she was until she fell asleep listening to them. Pete had to carry her to her room once they got home.
Sunlight streaming in through her bedroom window woke Rose up in the morning. She started to get out of bed, discounting the strange buzz in her ears and the funny vision problems. The smell of breakfast wafted upstairs from the kitchen, and it made her stomach rumble. It had been quite some time since the supper on the zeppelin. She got dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and ran a brush through her hair before heading towards the smell, letting her nose guide her.
"Morning," she said, walking into the kitchen. "What?"
Jackie was staring at her like she had seen a ghost, and only a quick save from Pete rescued her coffee cup from shattering on the floor. The human Doctor stared at her with shocked and fascinated eyes. Tony was the only one acting normal; he had upset his bowl again.
"Oh, Rose, I thought it had stopped!" her mother cried. "I thought you were going to get the Doctor to make it stop!"
"What is it?" Rose asked, frightened from the reactions she was getting.
"Rose, your eyes," Pete said grimly.
Rose whirled to stare at her reflection in the window glass. Her eyes were a molten yellow color, and they glowed.
AN: Wahoo! It's finally up! *does a happy dance* Just a note: this will become a crossover in the third or fourth chapter, but I've written it so that the reader hopefully won't need a whole lot of knowledge of the other show, which will be FRINGE. I'm SOOO EXCITED!
I'm still debating on whether or not I'll move this to the crossover section when the time comes, so if you want to keep track of this story, please alert it. And please review, as well.
I hope you forgive my attempt at getting Rose's accent to sound right. It sounds better in my head than it does on paper.
And can I say again, Please review! :D
