A Parallel Time.
In crime and enmity they lie,
Who sin and tell us love can die,
Who say to us in slander's breath,
That love belongs to sin and death.
John Clare.
It's bitterly cold, and her thin hoody and scarf does little to stop the wind from driving into her skin. She hugs herself a little tighter and picks up her pace as she trudges across the snow-covered ground of the courtyard, desperate to reach Mickey's flat and eventual warmth. Her Mum puffs a little beside her, cut off mid-sentence as she tries to keep up. Ah, well; it's her Mum's fault that they're in this mess anyways. And she's not going to let her forget it.
"'S too late now, I've missed it," she grumbles, and then her voice raises in volume a little. "Midnight, Mickey's gonna be callin' me ev'ryfin'. This is your fault." The last comment is thrown through the driving snow at the woman walking next to her.
"No, it's not!" The reply is immediate and instantly on the defence. "It's Jimbo. 'e said he'd give us a lift an' then 'e said 'is axel broke, I can' 'elp it!"
She rolls her eyes skywards. Jimbo. As usual. "Don' live wiv 'im, Mum, he's useless!"
"Listen to you, with a mechanic!" She smiles slightly at that, her anger diminishing somewhat. That is a fair point, of course; trust her Mother to still be able to win an argument.
Said Mother is still talking, though it takes her a moment to re-focus her attention on the conversation, turning her head to look at her.
"Be fair, though...my time of life I'm no' gonna do much better."
They've reached the end of the courtyard now, the place where they will be parting ways. She places her hand on her Mum's shoulder – a small comfort, at best – and shakes her head slightly, toying with her Mum's hair.
"Don' be like tha'...y'never know, there could be someone ou' there..." Someone for both of them, she muses. Someone to, at least in part, fill the hole still left by the absence of a father, a husband. After all these years, it hadn't become any less conspicuous in their relationship.
Her Mum looks skyward, obviously thinking the same thoughts, before looking back at her. "Maybe...someday..." she answers. Then she shakes her head slightly, and her expression melts from one of sad contemplation to happiness again.
"'Appy New Year!" she announces, and they both share a laugh.
"Happy New Year!" she returns, and they hug tightly, as only mother and daughter can.
Almost as quickly, they part, and circle each other in an odd dance, she taking a step towards the door of the flat, her Mum spinning in the other direction, toward her friend Bev's place. "Don' stay ou' all night," she reprimands as she turns, waving a finger for emphasis.
"Try and stop me!" she hears as she walks away, and she smiles again. Try and stop her indeed. There's a funny irony in her going home whilst her Mother continues the party elsewhere...almost a role reversal.
As she walks, she pulls her arms tightly around herself again. The biting cold in the air is snatching the air from her lungs, leaving a dull ache just below her collar bones. Her crunching steps echo in the quiet that snow brings, almost a blanket to the sound of the estate. Up ahead, she can see a tree-covered area that has been spared by the snow; the ground dark underneath from the soggy autumn leaves that have been trodden into the pavement by a thousand pairs of shoes.
She barely notices that she's actually walking slightly in the wrong direction until she hears the smothered grunt from behind her. Spinning round and skidding slightly on the snow, she observes a tall, young-ish looking man standing hunched by the wall, one hand on the estate's generator door next to him, whilst the other is stuffed in the pocket of his suit. His lanky frame is shadowed by the broken streetlight to the left of them, but she can see wild, brown hair and a tan coat...and are they converse? Odd footwear for such weather, she thinks, taking half a step closer.
"Y'alright, mate?"
He starts, slightly, as though having believed himself to be invisible, and looks up quickly, revealing angular features contrasted by soft brown eyes that seem to hold a million sorrows.
"Yeah." He straightens slightly, but the single word sounds strained, as though painful to utter, and he keeps his head bowed, avoiding eye contact.
"Too much to drink?" It's a fair enough question, given the time of year, despite his appearance; she can't describe it, but there's something...off, about him, something different, something...strangely, something safe.
"Somethin' like that." And immediately she can tell that he means nothing like that at all.
"Maybe it's time you wen' home." Seems sensible, given that he doesn't appear to be with anyone – the street is deserted.
"Yeah." Again, the word doesn't sound right. Whilst his demeanour doesn't change, she can see him tense slightly, and a raw pain crosses his face, the only indication that the timing of her simple statement means something much, much bigger to him than she will ever realise.
Shivering slightly, she is reminded that she doesn't actually know this man; surely she should get on with the pleasantries and leave him be – this is London, after all. Despite this decision something she can't put her finger on niggles at the back of her mind. Something familiar.
"Anyway, 'appy new year!" she hears herself say, the feigned grin making her cheeks sting and her teeth hurt from the cold.
"And you." He's still not made eye contact.
She waits a beat, and then turns on her heel and steps lightly towards the flat door, the ensuing silence created by both the snow and their odd conversation slightly disconcerting.
The interruption makes her trip slightly as she turns back round. This time, he's looking right at her, an indefinable emotion in his eyes.
"What year is this?"
"Blimey, 'ow much 'ave you 'ad?" Because it's the only logical thing to say.
He tilts his head slightly, deflecting the question.
"Two thousand and five," she enunciates slowly. "January the first."
"Two thousand and five." It's a statement, not a question, so she just nods.
"Tell you what, I bet you're gonna have a really great year!" And despite the tight smile on his face, his voice is tear-laden, his eyes are shining.
"Yeah?" This is surely going beyond pleasantries – who exactly is he? She half turns, considering his words, before spinning back round with another grin plastered on almost as thickly as her make-up. The grin stays determinedly in place, even when she sees his tears glittering in the half-light shining on his eyes. For an almost imperceptible second, his skin takes on a golden glow, and she shivers, this time not from the cold.
"See ya." And with that she turns, and is running for the door. It's not that she doesn't want to be out there anymore; but a strange, niggling feeling in the back of her mind is telling her to end the conversation, that he needs her to leave him, not the other way round. Almost as though the latter has happened too many times before. As she pulls open the door, she throws one last glance over her shoulder. He hasn't moved, not at all.
Enclosing herself in the warmth of the staircase, she catches a flash of blue out of the corner of her eye, from something sitting in the corner of the courtyard. She tries to glimpse the object, but her position on the staircase shields her view. It can't be anything important, she thinks. If it had been, after all, she would have noticed it as she walked across with her mother.
In the morning, she will wonder why a set of dragging footsteps, interspersed with a patch of disturbed snow, leads to the empty place where the object used to be.
It takes her a few seconds to realise that she's awake, and when she makes this discovery she bolts upright, the duvet pooling on her lap. Her breathing is harsh in the stillness of the night, the room claustrophobic despite its size. With a small shudder, she slots her legs out of the crease her body has made in the mattress and stands, albeit shakily. She reaches for the dressing gown that's slung over the bedpost, shrugs it on and pads into her slippers before moving silently to the glass door that leads onto the balcony.
It's raining steadily outside, the world taking on a distorted, pixelated look, as though she is observing reality through a computer screen. If she is honest with herself, she's not sure if this description isn't partly true. She's not sure what constitutes her reality, anymore. Certainly, this Universe is real, as was the one before that. Which of them remains more real to her, however, is an entirely different matter.
Her view of London is obscured by the mist that coagulates in the streets, muffling the world below. Almost hiding it, so that she doesn't have to consider this dilemma, except that the curls of fog that cling to the corners of buildings and the dull whine of the occasional car in the silence are startlingly real, hanging on to her subconscious and making it hard for her to ignore, even with eyes closed. She is leaning against the glass of the door, her forehead and one hand pressed against the coolness, anchoring her to present as her mind drifts to the other Universe.
All too soon he is standing behind her, one hand resting on her upper arm, the other curled protectively around her stomach, drawing her to him. She leans backwards, but still keeps her hand on the glass. She opens her eyes, but doesn't turn; she can see his haunted face, pale in the light from the streetlamps below that reflect off the raindrops on the window.
Something's wrong, she knows. And he knows, too. And he knows that she knows something about it, which is why he woke as she left the bed, and is here now.
"Rose," he says, and she says "Doctor," simultaneously. The worry in his eyes deepens; she doesn't call him that often, she prefers his alias of John Smith, treating him as a different person.
She feels him stroke her arm gently, soothing motions up and down, up and down, encouraging her to speak first.
"Had a dream...a memory." She clarifies the last bit, then hastily explains. "A dream of a memory. Not one tha' you'll have,'s after you, for the Doctor. Bu' not for me..." she trails off, unsure of her words. He draws her closer, chin resting on her shoulder. "Tell me," he asks, voice soft yet commanding. And she does.
When she has finished her stuttered explanation, tears are coursing silently down her cheeks, and left unshed in his. She turns in his arms then, staring up into his oh-so-familiar face. "Why now?" she asks, simultaneously knowing and dreading what the answer could be, but needing to know nonetheless.
He lowers his gaze to her hand, now resting lightly against his chest. He is unique, now. Not a clone, but the one and only. Should this knowledge give him more self-worth, more freedom? Or a deep sadness? He's unsure at present, but he can feel her shaking slightly in his arms, and he looks up at her tearstained face with a heavy heart, braced against the tense lines of her body.
"The TARDIS stopped you remembering before now," he stalls. "To prevent the paradox that would have happened that Christmas, with the Sycorax. When you took the time vortex, she saw the future, and blocked that memory to protect the Universe. But now..." He trails off, but she's still looking at him expectantly. The silence, for an indeterminable length of time, is deafening. He swallows, once.
"He's...regenerated." The word comes out as a bitter whoosh of air, as though he is trying to expel its meaning from his body. "He's gone," he continues quietly. She shudders, once, and then clutches him to her, her paper-thin body curling into his embrace as she sobs.
"It was him," she murmurs wetly against his shoulder. "He was changing then...all on his own...he wanted to see me one last time...brand new eyes..."
He holds her, wishing he knew more of the situation in that other Universe, that other time, but at the same time understanding that he is better off not knowing. The residual energy of the meta-crisis means that he had known what had happened to Donna when they were left on the beach. He had said this much to Rose at the time, and they had mourned her loss. In a similar way, he had woken during the night with a profound emptiness and ghost of a once-deep pain in his head, and he had known it had happened. He had been contemplating how to tell Rose when he had felt her shift beside him, and found her at the window.
She tenses against him suddenly, as though struck by a sudden fear. She doesn't look at him, choosing to keep her head resting against his shoulder. Her voice is small and cracks slightly when she speaks.
"Wi-will he forget me?"
He is momentarily stunned by the question, until he realises it is the comfort of the answer, rather than the answer itself, that she needs. He drops a kiss into her hair. "Oh, Rose," he whispers, drawing her closer in the moment. "He won't forget, he'll never forget. It's still him, you know that. He couldn't forget, not you, not in a million regenerations. He loved you too much."
She peeps up at him then, glassy eyed, and for a moment she looks insanely childish. "Then," she asks shakily, "Why didn't he say so, on the beach?"
He isn't sure whether or not he should feel slightly hurt, that she's still pining for his love, that she views him differently. But then again, they are the same person. Perhaps she remembers that more often than he does.
"Because...because he's the Doctor," he sighs into her hair. "He wanted to tell you. But he lives a dangerous life, and he's lost so many in his time because of this. So he doesn't allow himself to be close to anyone, because he can't bear that pain, he never could. He told you so, outside that cafe with Sarah-Jane. You wither and die. Imagine that happening to someone you love. But he can't help himself, and that's why he didn't tell you. He had the opportunity to give you what he never could before; stability, someone to age with you. The price was his hearts, and he made that sacrifice. He wanted you and me to be together, and if he had finished that sentence then you would have stayed with him, and he would have disappointed you, and you would have aged and it would have broken him. So he wanted you to be with him, but as me." He slides his finger beneath her chin, lifts her tearstained face to meet his gaze. He wants her to understand, now, as his predecessor had never explained. "I'm a clone, Rose...if he didn't love you, then neither could I. But he did, and I do, and the only difference is that I am capable of showing it." He kisses her, lightly, on the lips, and he feels her face soften as he does.
Rose draws back, and looks at him, her lips twitching upwards in a watery smile; the salt in her dried tear tracks tingling as her skin tightens. She knows, and she always has. She just didn't want to believe it, preferring to let the bitterness overrule her judgement. But she understands why he did it, and the gift he left her with. And she will cherish it, for she knows that it will be better than he could have ever imagined.
She leans up and kisses him again, tenderly this time, still sniffing back the last of her tears. The shoulder of his pyjama top is damp. She reaches down and grasps his hand, rocking back and forth as she takes a deep breath and looks into his eyes.
"He...he would have given his life to save someone," she rushes, convincing herself and him at the same time. "It would have been...right."
He nods, and pulls her forward to press his lips against her forehead. "And with death, brings life," he reminds her, his voice soft and gentle.
She pulls one hand free, to rest on her swelling stomach. "Yes," she agrees. "New life – for him and for me."
"For us," he intones.
"Yes. For us."