My Alternatives fic for the episode bad Wolf. Finally.


Companions

Rose was dead. Turned into a tiny pile of dust right in front of his disbelieving eyes. She hadn't stood a chance.

The stunned anger at the android and people running the game station refused to leave him. The grief was in the background, too far buried behind the anger to come to the forefront, but that was fine.

Rose was dead, and that made him very, very angry.

Lynda and Jack were with him though, and Jack understood his anger and made sure he didn't take it out on the new girl, the girl he had certainly already made up his mind about. He wanted her to travel with him and Jack and, when Rose had been alive, her too.

But it wouldn't have worked out with Rose around. He genuinely liked Lynda, but Rose had a jealous streak a mile wide. She got jealous whenever Jack got too close to him. He didn't want to imagine what her reaction towards sweet Lynda would have been.

But that doesn't matter now, because Rose is dead. Lynda is still here and willing to go with him.

Oh god, what was he going to tell Jackie about Rose?

Well, considering the TARDIS was gone, nothing he supposed. To Jackie they both would have just...disappeared. She'd never know what had happened.

And that thought made him feel guilty.

Still, he had Jack with him, and he knew Jack would help stop whatever was going on here at the game station. And of course, there was now Lynda.

He knew he would like Lynda with a Y from the first talk he had with her. She was nice, she was helpful and she was more than willing to try anything to survive, even if that trying led to her death. She was brave and caring.

She was everything he had wished Rose had been, but never was.

Another thing he felt guilty for. He had begun to replace Rose with someone else, before she had even died. Yet again, no one could really replace Rose in his heart. But he had been willing to try for his own sake.

In a way, it was good Rose and Lynda would never meet. Lynda would want to be friends, and was completely not interested in him in a sexual way, but Rose would never, ever let another woman anywhere near him.

He was only now truly beginning to see how lopsided his love for Rose truly was. She was not faithful to him, sleeping with others all she wanted. He in turn refused to sleep with her. She had his heart, but he would not share her body with others if he was not allowed the same luxury.

And he wasn't. He wouldn't have done so anyway.

On the off chance that Rose had somehow survived her turning into dust, he did what felt natural at the time in a way to get back at Rose for disrupting his plans when he had first met her. He took Lynda into a private room out of the way of all the business going on, and quickly had the best minute of this incarnation's life.

They had gone into one of the side rooms, he had pushed her gently against the wall, asked if it was alright and though they had no sexual interest in each other, they both decided what the hell. They could both be dead in minutes.

He came all too quickly, but it was a relief, such a relief, to finally get some kind of pleasure from someone. Anyone. If Lynda hadn't been here, he would have gone with Jack, who would have been all too happy with grieving sex as far as he knew.

He didn't cry afterwards, though he felt like he was going to. He'd save that for later, while holed up in his room trying to sleep. If he survived.

By the time he had found out that it was possible Rose was alive and well, he had stopped thinking of it as a sort of betrayal and begun thinking of it as a therapeutic nice way of letting out his feelings.

It was too bad that he would have to say goodbye to Lynda, because Rose had once again gotten into trouble and was waiting for him to save her.

He felt like he was letting the wrong woman go, for the wrong reasons, but he'd have to live with that decision.

Right now, he had to go save Rose from Daleks.