Thank you in advance to , Chrissie's Transcripts Website an Web of Obsidian, for, well lots of stuff... inspiration... the website... giving me a cool FanFiction to read.
Hats off to you, Chrissie and Web!
-FedoraFan
Rose's life was good.
She was married to a certain "Dr. John Smith".
She worked at a better version of Torchwood than the Doctor and her had originally seen at Canary Wharf.
She had two parents, who were very wealthy.
She had a brother.
And maybe one day, a child of her own would come into her life. That wasn't today, as far as she knew. Today the Doctor and her sat in her office in Torchwood. It was a thirty square yard room. It had a desk which had a couch on one side for guests, and a bouncy exercise ball for her to sit on on the other side. Her particle gun hung on the wall, next to a fake Monet with a fist hole through it (thanks to the Doctor). The window sill was actually Dalekanium dalek armor (the part with the little circles sticking out). The floor was pink carpet and the ceiling had green paint and strawberry jam splatters on it. The words BAD WOLF were spray-painted in TARDIS blue against the wall. Around the room also sat various nicknacks she'd picked up over the years.
"I'll tell ya something about PB and J," the Doctor said in between bites off their lunch, "there's a great planet in the Cordofilian system, the species there practically lives off of it. Even though, technically: It's not real Peanut Butter, and technically: The jam is a bit carnivorous, and technically: the bread is nitrogen based. Plus it smells."
"So, you're saying," Rose said, "it's not really PB and J at all and this is a pointless fact?"
The Doctor grinned. "Yep."
Rose grinned back.
"So, my office is done!" The Doctor said, "it doesn't really work, but it's a perfect replica of our good old TARDIS."
"With the Y-beams?"
"Of course! Oh, and I added a hologram of Ood Sigma to stand there and stare at me."
"Ood Sigma was the one guy with the brain and the Warehouse 15, right?"
"Correctomundo." The Doctor sighed after that. "I was hoping I'd never say that again..."
"Hmm. It was a fat chance." Rose chuckled.
The two continued sitting on the couch with their feet up on her desk.
She looked over at him. Aging was actually a thing to him now that he was human. His hair was graying at the sides, just barely, and he just seemed a little less bouncy and hyperactive than he was back in the other dimension.
Rose hadn't changed too much. Her hair was a little longer, she'd gained some weight, but other than that, she was Rose Tyler: Secret Agent for Torchwood, the C.I.A. of Extra-Terrestrial Defense.
Rose got an E-mail on her laptop and she leaned forward to check on it. "There's a situation in Ireland. Something 'bout a polar bear."
"Tell 'em to call a zoo," the Doctor suggested.
"It has a hat-"
"Oh, well that changes everything!" The Doctor said sarcastically.
"-and tentacles!"
The Doctor grinned, his mindset almost visibly changing. "You should've opened with that! Well, '-and tentacles', well that would've sounded a bit odd, but well, never mind. What's it doing?"
"Attacking a Chinese restaurant in Dublin."
"They have Chinese restaurants in Dublin?"
"Apparently."
"Well, then... get the car," the Doctor beamed. "Let's go get the bear-squid!" He pulled out his sonic screwdriver he had built using Torchwood technology, and pointed it in the air. "FOR NARNIA!"
"And for Aslan!" Rose grinned.
The "car" was really a helicopter, but it was shaped like a BMW. They buckled up and flew away, headed for Dublin. When they arrived, they found the fedora-wearing bear-squid snoring soundlessly on top of a Chinese Restaurant. Nearby, a Sontaran squad stood. The leader walked over to them. "On a normal day, you would be incinerated. But today we must secure the Scrigg, to win the war against the Rootans. Fortunately, your planet has an overabundance of Scrigg. The Rootans will fall in the next thousand years!"
Rose looked quizzically at the Doctor. "What?"
"I have no idea." He turned back to the Sontaran Commander. "I'm the- er, Doctor John Smith."
The Commander nodded. "Commander Strax."
"Your just going to take the Scrigg peacefully?" the Doctor asked.
Commander Strax shook his head. "There are a few more Scrigg on this planet."
"How many?" "John" asked.
"Four-billion nine-hundred and sixty dozen." Commander Strax answered.
"A few?" The Doctor asked.
"Sixty dozen?" Rose questioned.
"Do not confuse me with your human numbers," the Sontaran answered. He turned to his men. "Teleport," he ordered, and all five dozen of them hit a button on their wrist, disappearing, and taking the Scrigg with them.
The Doctor glanced at Rose. "Okay, then... back to Torchwood?"
Rose shrugged. "I guess."
After work, Rose and the Doctor went home. Rose sat outside on the porch, drinking tea and thinking. Thinking about the Ninth Doctor she had originally fallen for. She thought about the real Doctor in the other reality.
"No, but I spent all that time trying to find you. I'm not going back now."
"But you've got to. Because we saved the universe, but at a cost. And the cost is him.Hedestroyed the Daleks. He committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own."
"You made me." The other Doctor complained.
"Exactly. You were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge. Remind you of someone? That's me, when we first met. And you made me better. Now you can do the same forhim." The Doctor said softly.
"But he's not you."
"He needs you. That's very me." The Doctor smiled.
"But it's better than that, though. Don't you see what he's trying to give you? Tell her. Go on." The woman named Donna Noble said with a grin that paralleled the Doctor's.
"I look like him and I think like him. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except I've only got one heart."
"Which means?" Rose asked.
"I'm part human. Specifically, the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want."
Rose beamed. "You'll grow old at the same time as me?"
"Together," the Doctor smiled.
Rose smiled and another memory reached the surface.
A man shop dummy turned to face her.
"Yeah, you got me. Very funny."
Then more began moving. "Right, I've got the joke. Who's idea was this? Is it Derek's? Is it? Derek, is this you?" They chased her into a wall. One rose it's arm to strike. A hand grabbed hers.
"Run!" A man in a leather jacket said almost cheerfully.
After they ran into a service lift and the man ripped off a dummy's arm, Rose turned to face him. "You pulled his arm off."
"Yep. Plastic."
"Very clever. Nice trick! Who were they then, students? Is this a student thing or what?"
"Why would they be students?"
"I don't know."
"Well, you said it. Why students?"
"'Cos to get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students." Rose reasoned. He smiled at her.
"That makes sense. Well done."
"Thanks," she said, pleased for some reason that this stranger thought she was smart.
"They're not students," the man said darkly.
"Whoever they are, when Wilson finds them, he's going to call the police." Rose said.
"Who's Wilson?"
"Chief electrician."
The man didn't even pause. "Wilson's dead."
A little while later, back behind the shop, the man with the leather jacket spoke to her.
" -Now you go home," the man said. "Go on. Go and have your lovely beans on toast. Don't tell anyone about this, because if you do, you'll get them killed."
He slammed the back door behind him. He popped back in. "I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?"
"Rose."
"Nice to meet you Rose!" He pulled back out the bomb he'd showed her earlier and spoke in a manic kind of voice. "Run for your life!"
Rose laughed at the cheeriness of that man.
She remembered how he had stood off against dozens of gas mask zombies in World War II.
"Go to your room!" The monsters continued forward. "Go to your room. I mean it. I'm very, very angry with you. I am very, very cross. Go to your room!" The creatures hung their heads in shame, and went back to bed. "I'm really glad that worked! Those would have been terrible last words!" Rose rolled her eyes and grinned.
Then he died.
"Doctor, tell me what's going on." Rose said, suddenly very scared.
" I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex, and no one's meant to do that. Every cell in my body's dying." The Doctor said, obviously in pain.
"Can't you do something?"
"Yeah, I'm doing it now. Time Lords have this little trick, it's sort of a way of cheating death. Except it means I'm going to change, and I'm not going to see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go..."
"Don't say that!" She screamed.
"Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I?" And with that, his body burst into golden light, and then he was gone. Her amazing Doctor was gone. Replaced with some skinny man with brown hair and a sharp chin.
"Hello. Okay. Ooo, new teeth. That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right. Barcelona." The new man said. And then she knew. It was him. It was the Doctor. Her Doctor. He was alive, but different, very, very different. But at the end of the day...
Rose didn't care.
That new Doctor. That great new Doctor.
"...Some really great hair."
She remembered when the Doctor was supposed to take her to 1979.
"1979. Hell of a year. China invades Vietnam. The Muppet Movie. Love that film. Margaret Thatcher. Urgh. Skylab falls to Earth, with a little help from me. Nearly took off my thumb-" the Doctor complained.
They stepped out and at least a dozen guns were pointed at them. They didn't notice. "And I like my thumb," the Doctor continued, "I'm very attached to-"
Every gun was cocked. "My thumb. 1879, same difference."
Rose remembered when he woke up on the Sycorax ship.
"Who exactly are you?" The Sycorax leader demanded.
"Well," the Doctor said with a puzzled face, "that's the question?"
"I demand to know who you are!"
"I don't know! See, there's the thing. I'm the Doctor, but beyond that, I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy?" At that last word he made a clicking sound at Rose and winked. "Right old misery?" He continued. "Life and soul? Right handed? Left handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob. And how am I going to react when I see this, a great big threatening button. A great big threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right? Let me guess. It's some sort of control matrix, hmm? Hold on, what's feeding it?" The Doctor bent down and opened the pillar under the button. "And what've we got here? Blood?" He took some and licked it, making Rose gag. "Yeah, definitely blood. Human blood. A Positive, with just a dash of iron. Ah, but that means blood control. Blood control! Oh, I haven't seen blood control for years. You're controlling all the A Positives. Which leaves us with a great big stinking problem. Because I really don't know who I am. I don't know when to stop. So if I see a great big threatening button which should never, ever, ever be pressed, then I just want to do this." And with that, he slammed his hand down on it.
Rose and Harriet reacted at the same time. "NO!"
Then the Doctor came out onto the patio.
"Thinking of me?" He asked charmingly.
Rose just smiled. "But of course."
"So, what was your "rose" today?" The Doctor asked.
"Excuse me?" She asked.
"I read it on the internet. At the end of everyday, you say what your good thing was: your rose. Then your bad thing: a thorn. For example: My rose was Rose and my thorn was Mr. Thorn's stack of paperwork he dropped in my office." They both smiled at the irony of the statement.
Rose smiled. "Rose: the Scrigg's hat was cool. Fedoras are cool. My thorn: that today has to end." The Doctor glanced distantly at the stars.
"Yes," he said distantly. "Fedoras are cool. Feels right somehow..."
The Doctor smiled and put his right arm around Rose's waist. They looked out at the moon and the stars and a million million planets.
They knew they'd been to most of them.
