SET SOMEWHERE BEFORE THE TIME OF THE DOCTOR AND AFTER THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR. THE DOCTOR IS CREATING THE PLUG THAT WILL SEND CLARA HOME.
The Doctor stood up from his workbench. In one hand he held the plug that, in case of emergency, would send Clara home. He needed one more piece. Spinning around, he scanned his technology workroom. He waved his hands at different piles of wires and other pieces.
"No, no, couldn't be there, that's not it," the Doctor spoke aloud to himself. He headed for a wooden trunk. Lifting the heavy lid, he pulled various objects out and threw them over his shoulder into the already messy and cluttered room. Unsuccessful, he stuck his head into the trunk.
"There you are!" He announced to the empty room after a moment, his voice muffled. "And, oh I should do one of these! To let her know about the emergency protocols. But..."
The Doctor withdrew from the trunk, and frowned at a small silver disc in his hand. It was his recorded message to Rose, that he had set into the Tardis as his ninth regeneration. He remembered removing the automatic hologram message after he had regenerated into his tenth self, and tossing it into a trunk. This trunk, he now supposed.
The Doctor stood up, sadness settling over him. He shoved the disc fiercely into his pocket, trying to push the thought of his old lives away from him. He strode out of his workroom, snapping the final piece into the returning plug for Clara.
Back in the console room, he put the plug into an easy-to-reach spot, and turned absently to the controls to create an emergency hologram. A feeling of frustration swept over him as he fought to forget the memory of doing the same thing for Rose, all those years ago.
He took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and zapped the lever off of the
Tardis.
"Sorry, old girl," he murmured when sparks flew, running a hand down the side of the controls.
The Doctor leaned down to look at the space where the lever had been. A silver disc identical to the one in his pocket was fixed inside the control panel. He pointed his screwdriver at the Tardis, and in a flash of green the disc shot into the air. He caught it, spun around, and then compared the identical pieces of technology in his hand.
He wasn't sure what would happen if he inserted the disc with the message to Rose. The hologram would probably come up. He was curious if his current ears were better than his ninth incarnation's.
"I don't like repeats." The Doctor whirled away from controls. He moved a step, then turned back, scowling. "I hate not knowing more," he decided, touching his ears, but mainly curious about what would happen.
He dropped the disc into the empty slot.
Tendrils of golden light shot around the Tardis. The words 'bad wolf' formed in the air.
"I want you safe, my Doctor," Rose's voice echoed around the room, just like it had all those years ago when she overrode the emergency program and saved his life. The Doctor gaped in surprise.
In a second the Tardis lurched into action. He felt it spinning in a circle before it shot choppily into the time vortex. It barreled forward and the doctor held on as tight as he could. The Tardis shook and twisted as it flew.
When it finally came to a sudden halt he smashed backward into the stairs.
"What was that?!" the Doctor gasped. He shakily got to his feet and stumbled over to the scanner. The Tardis faced a brick wall. He headed away from the controls and tentatively opened the doors. He squeezed out of his ship and, squashed between Tardis and wall, inched into the courtyard.
His confused, breathless face turned pale and shocked.
"No," he breathed, looking around. He looked up at the sky. "Oh, no. No, no, no." He stood in the courtyard outside Rose's old apartment, parked next to the 'bad wolf' graffiti. And above him, gray blimps floated lazily overhead.
"Pete's world?" He rushed back into the Tardis.
"Oh, what was that? Bad wolf, bad wolf. Must be the disc, that's clearly the only explanation. When Rose was Bad Wolf and overrode the programs she must have completely overridden them forever. Yes, true, but that does not explain this." He waved an arm around himself, and continued talking even faster. "She brought herself to me, she gave the Tardis that command, from inside, she scattered 'Bad Wolf' everywhere, even in the Tardis. She must have reversed the the emergency protocol to bring us together...oh Rose Tyler. The power of the Time Vortex reversing my little program, and jumping worlds.
"Ah, that's a mess. And quite clever of me to figure so quickly..." The Doctor ran out of steam and slumped over the scanner. He stared intensely at the brick wall. Finally he turned, opened the wide blue doors of his ship, and squeezed back out into the open. He sat against the Tardis, elbows on his knees.
The apartment complex looked run down, much more so than in his world, unless the last several years had made a great impact. Half the windows had 'for rent' signs. He doubted there was any reason for Rose to live here. But if she did...
The Doctor stood up. If she was here he would see her. Excitement and nervousness bubbled in his stomach. If she wasn't - and squinting, he could see a 'for rent' sign on the balcony that had one been hers - he wouldn't have to face her.
He climbed the stairs slowly and quickly in odd intervals. Normally he would turn right around at the sight of something from his past, but he just wanted to see those rooms one more time, without having to make a horrible trip in his world to the place that had once been hers, and open to him, now inhabited by someone else.
He paused for a second before trying the door knob.
To his surprise, it was unlocked.
The rooms were just the same as the ones he had stood in so many times in his world, but here there was nothing belonging to Rose and Jackie, or anyone else. There wasn't a single item or piece of furniture anywhere.
Hesitantly, he turned into the room that had been Rose's.
A blond woman was turned away from the doorway, staring out the window. The Doctor felt suddenly as though his hearts were independent from his body, and had dropped quite quickly to the ground. He breathed in sharply, and she turned around.
Her hair was a longer than when he had last seen her, and she was perhaps five or six years older, but aside from that, she was exactly the same.
Rose.
His blood turned to absolute ice and then fire, and a sickening wave of nausea flung itself through his stomach like a tidal wave. A bolt of nostalgia and joy filled him over the brim. And then relief eased ever muscle in his body, like he had been tensed since the moment he last saw her. He stared, open mouthed, at his former companion.
Rose opened the door with the sonic screwdriver her husband had given her for her birthday two years ago. She had seen the for rent sign go up on the clone of her old apartment two weeks ago and had finally gathered the courage to visit the lookalike of her former home.
She ended up in her room, staring out the window. She felt a pang for her old friends. Given the choice, she doubted she would go back, but she did miss Mickey and Shareen so much...
She heard a breath behind her, started, and whipped around.
"Is this your place? I'm sorry, I just..." She trailed off. The man was looking at her with such intensity she couldn't continue. He was around the same age as her, possibly a couple years younger. He had floppy brown hair and was dressed in an old fashioned kind of way, with a bow tie. He looked a little out of place. In fact like he might be a touch out of place anywhere, probably mostly due to his costume-like get up. He reminded her almost of...
The way he was looking at her was so strange, there was such a mix of emotions oscillating across his face.
"Sorry, I-I'm sorry," he began, and swallowed. "I'm just looking around..." He trailed off.
"Are you alright?" Rose stepped towards him worriedly.
"Yes," he replied, a smile beginning to form on his lips. "I'm alright. I'd definitely say so. Me, alright!" He laughed. There was now such a jubilant expression on his boyish face that her instinctual step backwards never happened. His face faded back to serious. She'd seen the same heart broken expression on the face of a different man.
"Rose Tyler," the Doctor whispered, staring across the room at the face that haunted his dreams for centuries. She looked back at him, eyes wide with disbelief.
"You...you can't be. You can't be him," she managed, her voice laced with shock.
"Do you remember the first time you said that to me? When I changed in front of you," the Doctor spoke slowly, as if choosing every word carefully. "And do you remember what I told you?" His face was tilted to the ground but his eyes were locked upwards onto hers. A faint half smile lifted the corner of his mouth. "I said that the very first word I said to you," he began again, the smile becoming more distinct, "was 'run'."
They stood in a bubble of silence, the distant notice of the outside muffled as if from another world. Moments passed. Rose's boot hit the ground as she stepped toward him, and the bubble popped. She took a second step, and then a third, and then she stood right in front of him. She pressed her hands to his chest, and the double pounding resonated through her palms.
The Doctor wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight to him. After a long moment, she held him at arm's length.
"How?"
"When you were, well-" the Doctor waved his hands around, "all...Bad Wolf," he made another elaborate hand gesture and Rose couldn't help the wide smile that spread across her face, "you got into the Tardis, and she sent me here when I, well, when I..."
Rose raised an eyebrow.
"When you...?"
"I put a thing, a message, you know, the emergency protocol, into the Tardis, the one that was for you all those years ago. I just...wanted to see what would happen."
A teasing expression appeared on Rose's beaming face.
"Shut up." He would have sounded cross if he weren't speaking through the grin that began stretching across his lips.
"I can't believe it! Doctor!" She wrapped her arms around his neck. The Doctor scooped her up in another tight hug and swung her back and forth.
Finally, grinning ear to ear, he put her down and kissed the top of her head.
He looked down into her eyes.
"Are you happy?"
"Yes. I am. He's you. Or the you you used to be. Maybe a little more impatient. More...human. But I couldn't ask for more."
The Doctor nodded, a familiar sad smile on his lips. He hugged her tightly and rested his temple against her soft hair. The tear she hadn't seen that had fallen with the 'I love you' she never heard dropped into her hair.
"And you? How 'bout you?" Rose returned.
"I'm facing things I would never have thought I would have to. I've had some good times, and bad. You know. Same old life," he spoke softly and closed his eyes, breathing her in, only to look back in to her face a moment later, still in utter disbelief of the moment.
She stayed wrapped tightly in his arms for what could have been seconds, minutes, or hours. The doctor wasn't aware of time passing, he only knew that Rose was finally there beside him.
Eventually, she moved out of his embrace and he caught her hand. He didn't let go, and she didn't pull away.
"Doctor," Rose said softly.
"I've been told I'm not good at endings." he annunciated slowly and quietly, eyes on their interlocked hands.
"This isn't an ending," she began after a moment. "It's a...sequel. The ending was years ago."
He looked up, into her eyes again.
"Rose. My Rose Tyler." He smiled painfully. She returned the look and squeezed his hand.
"Rose!" The Doctor started at hearing his former self's voice echo from outside the building. "Are you here? I bet you are! We need to get to your mum's for dinner! Jake took the baby over. We need to hurry, Jackie'll have a fit!"
Rose grinned, the eleventh Doctor's hand slipping thoughtlessly out of hers as she headed on to the balcony. Her Doctor looked up at her, every tooth visible in the smile that stretched across his face when he saw her. His white button down shirt was tucked into brown slacks, and the tiny toddler with spiky blond hair balanced on his hip fiddled with his black tie.
The love that only burned brighter the longer she knew him flared in her chest.
"I'll be down in a minute sweetheart!"
"Mum!" The tiny boy looked up from his father's tie to his mother.
"I'll be right there, love!" Rose called over the balcony.
She turned back to the bow tie clad Doctor, and pressed her palms to either side of his face.
"Bye then, doctor."
She pulled him down to press a kiss to his forehead. Then, giving him a small, sad smile of farewell, she turned towards the front door of the apartment. The Doctor hurried after her. She opened the door, and stood in the archway, looking back at him.
"Goodbye," he whispered. "Remember me when you run," he added, clearing his throat.
Rose smiled widely at him. "I will. And, whatever is going on now, you'll get out just fine, like always.
"I believe in ya, Doctor."
I would love reviews and criticism please. It's my first fanfiction so please don't be an asshole