Author's Note: Not too much to say on this one, I just hadn't found a story like this so I decided to write it myself. Happy Halloween! :D
He kept in stride with his heartbeat, clinging to the rhythm while his mind spiraled far beyond itself. It would come back to roost eventually, unlike—his throat cemented.
Beat, step, beat, step, breathe.
A few more strides and the wall's glare no longer bored into the back of his neck. All it took was turning the corner.
*
The footsteps that tapped on Torchwood's tiling rang out on the TARDIS' grating. As he approached the console, he spun gently and gazed wide-eyed at the warm bronze walls. The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan. Why'd it ever let him in then?
"Won't be asking too much of you today, though," he whispered hoarsely. "We'll go somewhere quiet, and while I inevitably keep busy fighting for my life, you can rest by some nice trees."
The central column heaved up and down, grumbling. He sighed and collapsed backwards into the couch, swinging his feet up onto several buttons that the TARDIS knew better than to engage.
"Oh, you're right. Probably'd manage to get a splinter—"
And there was his mind. Welcome back.
"Splinters!" he yelled, springing up and launching himself into a frenetic assault of the console.
The nest of wires and switches and dials sparked and fumed, the computer's half-moon language darted across the screen, and the column pumped furiously.
"We managed to close the breach, sure, but the splinters are still there, healing over as the power drains from the center out—"
The computer emitted an unceremonious ding, alerting him to the screen's single sigil.
"…to the farthest branches." He swallowed. "The farthest branch, actually, farthest twig."
He briefly pressed his hands into his eyes before leaning in towards the screen. A distressing stroke curling away down the symbol's right curve told him that he only had a couple hours to find that last gap in reality and,
"Bleed through," he said, patting the computer absently. "That'll be the dicey part. Once I'm through it'll be a breeze to find…Rose."
His hearts plummeted. Falling out of touch with the mind leads to other disconnections, all repaired when the mind returns. Repairs shouldn't break things further.
"Just two hours," he muttered, struggling to ignore the thousand memories ringing in his ears. A new fervor shook his veins, akin to rage. "I need to find and get to a power source big enough, massive enough, to send me and you through the gap. I need to harness that power. I need to travel through the Void. And the gap is CLOSING."
His hand flew through his hair.
"Not only that, it's closing faster on her side! A minute's delay and I might be able to go out of my reality but not into hers. In fact—"
Without so much has glancing at the computer, he shoved his hands into his pockets and let his head fall back.
"It's already too small on her side."
The TARDIS quieted to a halt.
"I could project an image of myself," he ventured, wandering in circles, "which would take less power, so that saves time. But by then the gap will only be smaller, and closing quickly, and even the power of a supernova dwindles away eventually."
Beat, step, breathe.
"But better a ghost in Norway than…Norway?"
A third check of the sigil confirmed that the final fracture indeed led to Pete's Norway.
"Rose doesn't live in Norway!" he cried, slinging his arms into the air. "I can't—I can't…."
He careened around to the other side of the console, yanking a lever on the way, but it was a charade. He stared helplessly up at the main column, eyebrows knit, mouth agape.
"She can't hear me. I have no way of…why would she think to go to Norway?" There was no rhythm, no pattern. "I'm never gonna see her again. I am never going to see her again."
His face fell, and he twisted 'round, sliding his back along the edge of the console as he crumpled to the grating; powerless, he unlatched his mind and let the memories flood in.
"Rose."
*
By the time he arrived in Norway, counting his lucky stars (and they were not few), they only had two minutes together. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that he could've really come through, touch and all, if he hadn't been too late, too far away. Telling her would've been a waste of precious time, he would assure himself later. And anyways, it was what it was.
The last memory of her fell into place.