Author's Note: I was just wondering what would happen if The End of Time hadn't happened but the Master was still out there and if the Doctor managed to rescue Rose from the parallel universe after all, and I came up with this. The 'he' and 'she' is a reflection of the title, it's a one-time writing style that I just wanted to see if I could make work.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in relation to Dr. Who.
"This isn't the end of this!" screams their prisoner while struggling against his bonds. "Do you hear me? I will escape from here, I always do and then I will come after you!" He pins her down with his maddened gaze, the intensity of his true insanity barely hinted at, and growls, "I will come for you! I will rip you right out of his arms and you will never see him again!" Then, spoken so softly, they both have to strain to hear him, "This will never be over, not for any of us."
She turns away from him in a mixture of disgust and fear, and her lover draws her close into his side and whispers one word, "TARDIS," and the glass window pane separating them from the crazed Time Lord inside fades away. "Come on, love, he urges, let's go."
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She watches as he tries to distance himself from her and the situation that they've suddenly found themselves in as he works on the TARDIS, trying to repair all the damage that crossing the void and barriers surrounding Pete's World have wrought. Rising from the jump seat, she stretches out the kinks in her muscles, she's been watching him for hours after all, concerned with how he reacted when he saw this man who is now imprisoned on the TARDIS and is a complete stranger to her.
Stepping over the various tools strewn about the floor, she walks over to stand next to him. "You seemed as surprised to see him as I was, who is he to you then?"
He halts his work and stares at the Time Rotor for awhile before he finally replies, "He's an old enemy," then with a small chuckle filled with irony, "and an even older friend."
"You two were friends?" she asks in sheer disbelief. Shaking her head in amazement, she mutters, "I really didn't see that coming."
"Neither did we, believe me," he states sadly. "We attended the Academy at the same time, met up again on Earth a few lives later and with the exception of being forced to work together on occasion to save our own lives as well as everyone else's, we have been at each other's throats ever since."
"Doesn't everybody have friends like that?" she inquires teasingly as she bumps his shoulder with her own in hopes of lightening his somber mood.
He chuckles softly as he places an arm around her waist to draw her closer. "Me, more than others it seems."
Rose slowly trails her fingers along the console in a show of fondness for the time machine. "How's the old girl doing?"
"Well," he replies as he releases her and bends over the cluster of wires that he'd been working on, "she's seen better days, I'll tell you that much. Although, considering what she's been through, she's doing better than the chances that I would have given her. A few more days of repairs in the Vortex should give her time to recuperate enough to make the jump to the rift in Cardiff. Once she's refueled there, she should be good as new."
She bites her lip, more out of nervousness for him instead of her. "Are you still planning on asking U.N.I.T. for help with him? They're not likely to be that eager, not after the Sycorax incident."
He frowns momentarily as he ponders the matter. "Well that may take some fast talking around that particular subject but I think that I can call in an old favor as it were, I did after all help save their planet a time or two. Besides, the people that I'm thinking of know him just as well as I do. If anyone can help us with him, it'll be them." He offers a sardonic smirk as he muses, "I wonder what the Brigadier will think of my new look," as he straightens his tie.
Her smile is half-hearted as she frets, "So, what do we do with him in the meantime?" while she leans into him, resting her head against his shoulder.
"We keep him here, locked up, keep him safe," he answers without a trace of sympathy.
"More like keeping the universe safe," she notes with a snort of derision.
He gives her a wry grimace in agreement and nods ruefully. "Yes, I guess it is." He stares up at the ceiling as if he'll find the answers that he's looking for. "I never thought that I'd see the day that I'd become his keeper."
Rose leans back against a coral strut and bears a soft smile as she recalls, "Yeah, and as long as I live, I'll never forget seeing the TARDIS crash through that bloody white wall in Torchwood."
He takes his own casual stance against the TARDIS console, his arms resting across his chest and his legs crossed at the ankle in a pose so reminiscent of her last Doctor while his lips quirk in amusement. "I bet that must have been quite the sight."
"Oh, believe me, it was," she assures him. "Bits and pieces of wall and ceiling flying everywhere, sparks shooting out of damaged equipment being blown apart, sort of reminds me of when we first met."
"Best day of my life," he responds without hesitation.
"What about all of the days that you were stuck in Pete's World?" she wonders aloud. "All the days that you had to live day in and day out, stuck with me, living life on the slow path?"
"Being stuck with you?" he returns with a grin as he reaches for her. "That's not so bad. Besides, I've been stuck on Earth before, remember? I knew what I was in for and I can assure you, if I didn't want to stay then I would have found a way out a lot sooner than one found us."
She stares down at the floor, still unsure that this, her actually, is what he really wants. "We were stuck there for three years, that's a long time for you to have done domestic if you didn't have to. I need to know if this," she clears her throat and wills away the beginning of tears, "…if I'm what you really want then I want you to be absolutely sure. It took a long time for us to come together and if we're only going to go back to the beginning where we dance around each other and what we're feeling, then-"
"Shhhh," he hushes her gently. "That's not going to happen. I'm not here for now, I'm here for always. It's taken me eons to find you, don't go thinking that I'm letting you go now." He cradles the back of her head as he pulls her into his embrace. "I trusted you enough to make me better, now I need you to trust me."
"I do, love," she murmurs against his chest. "I do, it's just that now we're back where everybody knows us, where everybody's going to be watching us to see what we do and how we act now that we're together." She gives him a pointed looks as she reminds him, "You hated being under the microscope at Torchwood, are you positive that you're going to be able to handle that here as well? Because Jack will help us out all he can, I know he will if I ask him to, but not everyone knows me like he does and if we honestly want to help him," she gestures down the hall towards the occupied cell, we're going to have to stay and tough it out no matter what."
He throws his hands up in surrender and vows, "No worries here! As much as I hated being under constant scrutiny, especially under your father, I was still able to stay within the bounds of their primitive rules and regulations and manage to amuse myself at the same time." A look of pure craftiness crosses his face as he flashes an insidious grin. "Remember that bloke down in Research that fancied you and wouldn't stop pestering you? Well, I left a little something in his locker and after that; he stopped dropping by unexpectedly at your desk, didn't he?"
"That was because of you?" she accuses with a gasp. "I had to trek down four levels every day for six months because of you!" When he stares at her in bewilderment, she informs him, "The only reason that Simon stopped by my desk everyday was because he delivered the mail!"
"Don't kid yourself," he scoffs, "that wasn't the only reason."
She rolls her eyes at him in exasperation, recalling how many former co-workers who were deemed to fancy her abruptly met their end at work, thankfully through new job searches and transfers instead of the lethal variety.
She stares down at the hall and worries, "Do you really think that he'll be alright, that you can make him better?"
He reaches out and cradles her face, stroking his thumbs across her cheeks, and replies, "Isn't that more your line?" When she doesn't respond with the light-hearted laugh he was expecting but merely stands there with as serious an expression that he's ever seen on her, he relents with a sigh. "Maybe…," he drags his hands over his face in frustration. "I don't know. But there's always another way, and I swear to you that I'm going to do everything in my power to find it."
Instantly, his gaze changes and he's suddenly watching her intensely and almost penetratingly as if he's searching her very soul as he studies her. "More importantly, who am I to you, Rose Tyler?"
She steps closer to him and vows, "You're the man that I love," and kisses him gently, "the only man that I love." Then she takes his hand and gives him a reassuring squeeze before kissing him more firmly and for a much longer time. When she draws back to view her handiwork of ruffled hair and a cat that ate the cream appearance, she leans in again and whispers a satisfied, "Forever," against his lips.
"I'm holding you to that," he proclaims with a burning gaze, "and thanks to Bad Wolf residing inside you, that will definitely happen." He lets her go with a reluctant sigh and pushes her away from him. "However, there's time to discuss that latest revelation later, for now we need to start working out approaching U.N.I.T.. We'll contact the Brigadier first, even retired; he'll know how to reach the people that have dealt with him before."
"Well, like I said, Jack will help us, and once he knows who it's for, he'll want to be very hands on," declares Rose with her tongue in teeth grin.
Although his countenance is stern, his tone remains playful with a hint of possession. "I know all about Harkness, you just make sure that he keeps his hands to himself!"
"Easier said than done," she retorts with a laugh. "So planning ahead, eh? Not really our thing but I'm willing to give it a go." She turns to him and queries interestedly, "How about your name then? We can't use your chosen name or your Gallifreyan one, so are you simply going to use your trusty old alias that you used in the parallel universe?"
He mulls it over for a few moments while he returns to working on the console wiring before deciding, "No, no I don't think so, I may be back in my old universe but I'm a new man and a new man needs a new name. Besides, I was tired of Harold Saxon." He tips his head to indicate their prisoner down the way. "And I doubt that the Time Lord Victorious down there would appreciate me using John Smith."
THE END