Upon a Time

The TARDIS thinks in images. In symbols. In stories.

They have seeped into her, from every mind that has ever inhabited her. Dozens of minds, dozens of memories. And though the minds come from many places, one world predominates above them all, and its stories reach in deep. It is the human stories, not the sterile programming of her lost Time Lord builders, that tell her who she is.

She is...

...The hero's companion.

He is the white knight, riding in to slay the monsters; he is the adventurer, sailing endless seas; he is the wandering magician; he is the nameless stranger who drifts in to save a terrorized town. She is his faithful squire and his trusty steed; she is the ship he sails; she is his faithful familiar; she is the memory of the past that drives him on.

He is weary now and defeated, in the wake of everything he's lost in his quest. But when the hero falters beneath his load, it is the task of his friend to carry him. So she takes him to Earth. There are monsters to fight there, a princess in a tower to save.

These are the things that keep her hero alive.

...The fairy mound.

When mortals enter the ancient hills, the stories say, they find there lands of beauty and terror, of magic and monsters. And when they emerge after what has seemed to them a day, likely as not they will find that back in the human world a year has come and gone. But the Doctor's newest friend -- Rose, now there's a name for stories, all bound up with passion and pain, the sweet summertime innocence of Rose Red and Briar Rose's long expectant slumber -- Rose seems surprised. The time-ship doesn't understand this, doesn't understand the grief of Rose's mother or the anger of the man who loves her. The TARDIS can't imagine what it's like not to know time as a fluid, ebbing and flowing, circling back but never truly passing.

Still, it is only the Rose who exists in this tiny slice of time who shares their ignorance. The TARDIS, for whom "now" is merely one undistinguished cross-section of infinity, knows that somewhere, somewhen, there will be -- is -- a Rose who perceives as she does. Who understands.

That's also part of the story, that when the human emerge from the fairy hill, they always come back changed.

...The tree of knowledge.


Travel changes you, her Doctor says. Of course, it doesn't change her. Travel is what she is, and, except in the most trivial of ways, she is unchanging. Change is what she brings to others.

When you've seen your world, your life, from a perspective that transcends time, when you've learned the meaning of evil and good, how can you go back to your quiet garden and belong there? The humans see their version of that story as a tragedy, a loss of blissful innocence, a fall from grace. Perhaps it is. But all stories, the TARDIS knows, are double-edged. Even she has never been sure whether the Doctor left his own garden by choice or was expelled, but she knows he has not regretted it. Not even now, when the gates are closed forever.

The fruit she bears can lead to grief and suffering. It can lead to death. It's not for the greedy, or the fearful, or the petty. Ask Adam, more aptly named even than Rose. But, unlike that other mythic apple, the one that felled Snow White, she does not believe that what she offers is poison, and it leads, not to sleep, but to a new awakening.

She has always had a special love for those of her companions who understand both sides of this, and choose her, anyway.

...The bad wolf.

Through every fairy tale there runs a thread of fear: the fear of being eaten. Don't stray from the path, little girl, the fairy tale mothers say, or the big, bad wolf will catch you. Stay safe inside your snug little house of brick, and never heed his pleas to open up, or he'll devour you, take you into himself, make you part of him, and you might never emerge again.

But. But it is not only human stories that tell her who she is. In the centuries she has traveled with the Doctor, he has seeped into her, too. She has learned things from him, more, perhaps, than he will ever know. She has learned: never, ever give up. She has learned: save everyone you can, even the ones who try to send you away. She has learned: never trust power, your own as much as anyone else's... but, when it comes down to necessity, do what you know you have to do.

And so she huffs and she puffs and she blows across the cosmos, scattering words like breadcrumbs. She refuses to surrender to enchanted sleep, because she, too, has traveled and can never simply be quiet and still.

She becomes the wolf.

She eats the human girl up, she blows apart the Daleks as if they were made of straw. She becomes the predator, the monster, the thing that should not be. And the part of her that is Rose, the part of Rose that is her, is burning in the fire.

But this is the way the story has to go. The Doctor lives. Because the hero doesn't die, not this kind of hero. He vanishes and reappears, he changes his shape, but he never ceases to be. The Earth lives. Even Bluebeard's victims, hacked to pieces, are restored to life and wholeness at the end, and Earth has survived this story before. Jack lives, because courage and cleverness are better than the strength of a giant, any day.

And Rose? In the oldest versions of the tale, the wolf consumes Little Red. A cautionary tale: mind your mother, beware of strangers. But fairy tales don't keep unhappy endings. People always come along and change them.

This is also who they are. They are characters, they are stories, but they are also the ones who write. The Doctor picks up his pen, writes in a noble woodsman to set Red Riding Hood free, writes in a charming prince to break enchantment with a kiss.

This time, the ink he writes in is the blood of his current life, until it's drained him dry. She's sorry about that, but she knows this story, too. You hold tight to your beloved when he changes his shape, no matter what he becomes, and he'll always return to you. You can even save him from Hell.

And she has learned the stories well.