A/N: Hey all. To those looking for the next chapter of Storm of the Wolf, sorry for the wait! I'm working on that, but presentations and finals have caught up with me, and I have one more week before break, so it's going to be a little longer. That said, this thing popped into my head this morning and wouldn't leave me alone all day, so I wrote it this afternoon instead of studying. Enjoy!
The End of It All
This was it. The end of the War, the end of Trenzalore, the end of him. The end of the Doctor.
The Doctor stumbled as he headed back to his TARDIS. The wound he had received was proving fatal, and he was at the end of his lives – even the extra ones he's received from the Sisterhood of Karn.
He'd tried to end it. The War. The Doctor had arrived after it'd begun, and it was unstoppable in its advance. Refusing to accept his fate of dying in battle on Trenzalore, the Doctor tried once more to end it peacefully. He had been shot for his pains.
Finally, he'd made it to his TARDIS. Shaking, the Doctor snapped his fingers to open her doors. The TARDIS let him in with a mournful hum.
"End of the line, eh old girl?" the Doctor asked. She gave another sad chime as he collapsed into the captain's chair by the console. "We had a good run though didn't we? Two thousand years exploring the universe, that's enough for anyone." The Doctor closed his eyes, waiting for everything to fade away. He'd always been afraid of dying, even when he knew he'd regenerate. But now, he was tired. It was time to rest.
As he sat, the Doctor remembered. He thought of all his companions, from Susan to Clara, his last permanent resident. There had been others, in recent years, but they had been fleeting – staying with him only a little while before moving onto to something greater.
Last, the Doctor's thoughts turned to Rose. Rose Tyler. His pink and yellow human that was so much bigger on the inside. Even bigger than the TARDIS. A thousand years since he'd last seen her, on that bloody Bad Wolf Bay, and he still remembered her every detail. Her eyes, the way the tip of her tongue would peek out between her teeth briefly when she smiled just for him. She always came back for him, until he made sure she couldn't. The Doctor prayed that she'd been able to have the fantastic life he'd wanted her to.
The Doctor was pulled from his thoughts by the TARDIS making a hopeful sound. He slowly opened his eyes; it was getting harder to remain conscious, but he wanted to know why the TARDIS was all of sudden sounding almost joyful. She was chiming excitedly and whirring and flicking her lights. "What is it girl?" In answer, the TARDIS doors swung open, and in strode the last person the Doctor ever expected to see again.
Her eyes scanned the room, searching, until they landed on him, slumped in the jump seat. "Doctor?" she asked tremulously.
The Doctor was surprised that she knew him, but then, she'd always known. "Rose," he breathed.
Rose Tyler sprinted over to where he sat. "It's okay, I've got you. I missed you," she said, as she held his head in her hands. The Doctor looked up, not into the chocolate brown eyes he remembered, but brown with streaks of gold in them. He smiled, then.
"Long time no see," he got out. Rose chuckled weakly at the old joke.
"Yeah, well. Been a bit busy, you know?" she smiled. "Come on, we've got to get you to the Zero Room." She carefully lifted the Doctor to his feet, his arm over her shoulders as she carried most of his weight. The Doctor tried to stay quiet, but he groaned at the pain that shot through his abdomen as he stood. "I'm sorry," Rose apologized, "but it'll help." The Doctor nodded. "TARDIS, could you move it closer please?" Rose asked. A door obligingly appeared in the console room wall. "Thanks love." The TARDIS chimed sadly.
Rose laid the Doctor down in the white-walled Zero Room. Then, she knelt over his body, hands splayed on either side of the wound in his abdomen. "I can't take it away, this is a fixed point, but I can slow it down and take the pain, so we can talk. Will you let me?" she asked.
The Doctor looked at her, confused, but nodded dumbly. Rose concentrated, and the Doctor froze when she began to glow golden. Suddenly, the pain stopped, and he could breathe easier. Rose relaxed, and the golden glow began to fade, leaving her eyes last. She smiled down at him faintly as he stared in awe. "Rose, what -" She held up her hand to stop him.
"I create myself, Doctor," she said kindly. "I am the Bad Wolf. I always have been, and she never left."
The Doctor sat up slowly and leaned against a wall so he could look at Rose more clearly. "How long, Rose?" he asked seriously.
Rose sighed. "A thousand years of saving the universes, Doctor. A thousand years since I saw you last."
He gasped. "That's impossible."
Rose grinned that grin he'd missed so much. "When are you gonna stop using that word around me, Doctor?" she teased. "It's not in my vocabulary anymore."
"All that time," he started, "why didn't you find me?"
Rose looked down. "The universe was more important Doctor. It needed you."
He shook his head. "It wasn't to me," he said adamantly. "I needed you. I would have come straight for you, had I known you were in this universe."
"And that's exactly why I had to stay away," Rose said gently. "As the Bad Wolf, I can see all that ever could be, and I could not come to you until the time was right. Until right now, when you needed me most." She raised her hand to the Doctor's cheek, and he leaned into it. "But I was always with you, my Doctor, watching over you. Amy and Rory were fantastic, you know. New York was their playground. They even adopted a child." A tear leaked from the Doctor's eye at the mention of two of his dearest companions. Rose wiped it away with her thumb. "And Clara...I'm still not sure I've got her entirely figured out, and I can see all of time and space."
The Doctor chuckled. "I called her the Impossible Girl."
Rose grinned. "It fits her." She grew serious. "But every one of your lives, Doctor, I was there. I saw you steal the TARDIS, I watched over you while you were in exile, I protected Ace from Fenric after she left you."
Rose continued, more gently. "I was with you during the Time War, I put myself into the Moment, so I could make you see a path other than destruction." The Doctor stared at her, in awe of everything she'd done for him, but Rose hadn't finished. "I watched Susan live her life brilliantly with David, Sarah Jane and her son Luke, Tegan, Ace, Martha and Mickey, Donna, Jack...everyone. I saw how you make people better, Doctor. Even when they run, they take you with them."
"I turn them into soldiers," the Doctor whispered, remembering the Crucible.
"You show them how big the universe is," Rose corrected, "and that even though we're so tiny, we are a part of it, and it is worth defending. Davros couldn't understand that, Doctor. But I do. I see you. The universe owes you so much, but you ask for nothing in return, never asking to be thanked."
A shudder ripped through the Doctor. "It's almost time," he whispered. "I'm sorry I can't stay."
Tears were in Rose's eyes, but she shook her head stubbornly. "You don't have to worry about that, my Doctor. I'm coming with you."
The Doctor stared at her in shock. "Rose, you can't!" he exclaimed. "The universe needs you. Someone has to protect it, and I can't let you do this. I need you to be alive," he finished.
Rose smiled. "Doctor I told you. It is defended. The moment has been prepared for. Let me show you?" she asked, holding her hands by his temples, her eyes flashing gold. The Doctor slowly nodded permission, and sighed in content as he felt her mind connect with his.
That contentment vanished when Rose showed him a certain blonde woman. "Jenny?" he gasped. "She's alive?"
He saw Rose's smile in his mind. "With parents like hers, a simple gun couldn't keep her down for long."
"Parents?" the Doctor asked.
"You didn't think she got all that love for adventure from you, did you?" Rose teased. "She's been running ever since. Too much like us, I should imagine. But believe me when I tell you, the universe is in excellent hands. It's time you and I sleep. Jenny knows to come here and take the TARDIS after we're gone. That way the old girl won't get lonely."
The Doctor shook his head. "No, my grave is here. I come here, in my Eleventh body. My time stream. It's too complicated to unravel that."
Rose's eyes narrowed and flashed in anger, as she began to glow, and her voice took on the strange echo he'd heard only once before. "The Great Intelligence cannot stand against the Bad Wolf. They are less than pests to the Goddess of Time. I healed the scar of your time stream, fixed it, so it is unchangeable. They can never interfere. The Fall of the Eleventh will still occur, as it must, but they cannot truly undo your life, the universe will not allow it, and neither will I." The Doctor nodded slowly, and the glow faded again as Rose calmed.
"I love you," the Doctor whispered fervently. "I always did."
"I know," Rose smiled. "Quite right, too." The Doctor chuckled weakly. "You were always my Doctor," she continued, "and you always had my heart. From 'Run'."
A shudder went through the Doctor again. "Are you sure, Rose?" he asked one last time.
Rose smiled and leaned forward to kiss him gently. He returned it lovingly. "I've lived a long time. And I made a choice, Doctor – such a long time ago, now, and I'm never going to leave you." The Doctor nodded, finally accepting her decision.
"Are you ready, Doctor?" she asked.
"Allons-y Rose Tyler."
Somewhere, a wolf howled, and the universe mourned as its two greatest protectors took the reward that was so long overdue.
A young woman appeared on Trenzalore, after the battle had ended, and stared at the innocuous looking blue police box in front of her. She removed a simple key from around her neck that, for over a thousand years, had been worn by a woman who made herself into a goddess for the man she loved and lost.
"Thank you," she whispered to them, tears in her eyes. She felt the TARDIS chime in her head, and could have sworn she heard a wolf howl in answer.