I can't actually say this is my first ever fan-fic, but it is the first one I've every submitted onto the net so please review it to tell me if you like it or if you don't,where I've gone wrong.
Hope you enjoy it. RattyCat.
"So, will you do it?" the blond stood looking at her mother, leaning against the blue box.
There was no answer.
"It's entirely up to you, you know. Whether I go or not."
"I know. It's just not fair. Why can't you just come home?"
"I could, depending on your decision."
For a moment there was silence.
"You cheat." Jackie sighed. "You already know I let you, 'else you wouldn't be here asking."
"Thank you." Rose opened the door of the TARDIS and smiled.
"I love you mum, never forget that."
"Don't plan to. Now go on, you said you'd be arriving in a minute."
Rose went inside and closed the door. The TARDIS dematerialized.
The Doctor stood outside the TARDIS listening. Rose came through the door behind him.
"What's going on?"
"Nothing, I just though I heard… nothing, its alright."
" F' you say so." Rose shrugged. "You feel like chips before we go see mum?"
"Best not. Supposing she serves me that chocolate cake again. I mean, it was nice and everything but I'm sure that no cake is meant to be that rich. I didn't feel up to eating anything for the rest of the day."
Rose laughed and the two of them started walking to her mother's flat.
When they got there Jackie didn't seem all that surprised, but she was very happy to see them and she greeted them both with bear hugs.
When they were all sitting down drinking tea, she handed Rose a letter from "Beth. Late Christmas card."
Rose opened it. The Doctor was busy deciding which biscuit to eat from the tray on the coffee table.
The card inside was blue with little silver stars and a smiling teddy bear on it. She opened it and was shocked to see the message inside in her own handwriting.
Dear Rose,
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEWYEAR!
Below are the co-ordinates of a planet you should visit some time soon.
X-2857-REVC-U8845-2008
Just type them in the TARDIS computer and it will do the rest. Don't mention this to the Doctor yet.
Best of luck,
Rose.
P.S. Pack purple jacket if you can, you'll want it later.
For a moment she sat there silent, staring at the card in her hands. The Doctor saw her face.
"What's up?"
Rose looked at him startled before she recovered herself.
"She sent me money too, just expected a card. That's all."
The Doctor smiled and nodded understandingly. Rose looked at her mother, who avoided her gaze by looking at the Doctor.
She'd planned to talk to her mother about the mysterious card before they left. The Doctor, however, had been anxious to depart so they could go and see Mickey before they left earth.
"Why?" Rose had asked. "Its not as if we don't have enough time or anything."
"Actually we sort of don't, there's an old friend I want to see who I've been meaning to visit for a long time now."
So they had lunch with Mickey, sad and brave about the whole business as usual.
It had been a great lunch, fish and chips. Rose also had a salad with hers. After they had finished eating they had all gone to the park and watched the birds. Rose was very careful not to talk too much about their adventures in the TARDIS. She had decided beforehand that she needed to hear about how life had been on earth more. Mickey seemed relieved by this and was only too happy to fill her in on all the things she'd missed. The Doctor left them alone to catch up, saying he wanted to post some letters to people.
After they said their goodbyes an hour later, Rose and the Doctor went on their way.
"I wonder what Jo will think of me now?" The Doctor had said as they walked along.
"Who's Jo?"
"Jo Grant. She used to travel with me back when I worked for UNIT."
Jo turned out to be very nice. She and Rose had gotten on wonderfully. Which had pleased the Doctor. They had more tea, sitting in Mrs. Grants lounge room. Jo and the Doctor talked a lot about UNIT and the things they used to do.
Jo had so many questions about what sorts of things they'd been doing and she asked the Doctor whether he had gone to see Peladon and Aggedor again. She and Rose had listened intently to the Doctor as he told them all about his return to the planet of Peladon with Sarah Jane Smith (he had to put in a description of her here too) and the adventure they had had.
They arrived back at the TARDIS a few hours later. Jo had come with them.
"Just want to see what you've done to the old place." She said as they opened the door.
She was amazed.
"Oh, Doctor it's wonderful. It almost makes me want to start traveling around the universe with you again." She looked up at the roof, remembering things from back in her UNIT days. "That's the trouble with us mere mortals."
The Doctor looked sadly at Jo, who sighed and gave him a smile back.
"I'm too old now, and I'm married and I've got kids, and grandkids. It was awfully good fun though. Even all the running around in high-heels and when we didn't end up in the right places, or at the right times."
"Trust me, that part hasn't changed." Rose put in.
After Jo went back home and they were getting ready to leave, Rose turned to the Doctor.
"She will be alright, won't she?"
"Rose, she lives her life. You heard her. She's got kids and everything now. How alright does she have to be?"
"S'pose." Rose said sulkily.
"That's the trouble with us mere mortals," the words echoed in her head.
She wondered how her own parting with the Doctor was going to happen.
What would her life be like afterwards?
Would she marry Mickey?
There were so many questions. She had known what to expect from life before she had met him, the wandering Time Lord. She had known what happened next. She still did. It was only now she knew there could be more. Something bigger then her own little life on earth and one day – she wasn't going to be able to take part in any more. Looking at Jo, she was almost looking at a little glimmer of her own future. For a moment she was afraid of what time would bring. Though she had traveled through it to the past and the far distant future, seen places others could only dream of, she couldn't stop time from passing.
"Doctor…"
"Rose, did it never occur to you that one day you might want to leave?"
She turned around.
"Yeah, but..."
"But it isn't now. I know. She knew too, they all did. Jo fell in love Rose. Yes it was the end of her adventures with me, but what good is an adventure if there's nothing afterwards."
Rose nodded, he was right. He understood what she was thinking; maybe there were times when he felt the same way too. She found herself wishing once again that he still had a home to go to.
"Now come on, there are still so many places to visit and we're not going anywhere by moping about."
Rose smiled. For the moment this was her life, and she wasn't going to leave it for anything.
Rose stood on the dune, looking out over the water. The moon was beginning to rise over the horizon. She took a deep breath of the salty sea air and ran through the checklist of places she had been. Everything was ready for her past self.
She and the Doctor would be arriving on the planet of Trolong three days after their visit with Jo.
Trolong. Snow covered peaks and thick evergreen forests. Somewhere in that wilderness she would find the Evermore. A revolutionary ship built by an ancient race of people, capable of creating worlds and even whole solar systems.
The people who had built it new all about time, they knew that they and their planet would die. The Evermore was built, knowing that they could not save what was, but they could ensure what would be. They could give their children a future, when they could not give themselves one.
The Evermore was an ark. It could carry the physical information and knowledge of an entire world. When Rose had activated it, it had been preprogrammed to re-create the world of those who had made it. Rose was standing on this world now.
"Rose, it's time."
Rose nodded and turned around. The Doctor was standing behind her. She walked down the hill toward him.
The TARDIS had landed on a grassy hill by a river. Rose sat under a large willow-like tree listening to some music. The Doctor was off somewhere examining the native flora and fauna. The planet they were on was a lot like earth. Blue skies stretched away to the distant hills and mountains along the horizon, green grass swayed and danced in the gentle breeze. Rose sighed, looking over at the TARDIS she started thinking about where they could go next. Then she remembered the card her mother had given her. She took it out of her pocket and looked at the strange message again. Why had she decided to send a card to her past self, and how had she convinced her mother to take part in whatever she was up to?
She got up and walked over to the TARDIS, turning the card over in her hands. Why had she told herself not to tell the Doctor about the card? Was it some kind of surprise she wanted to give him? Or did it break the laws of time the Doctor was always telling her about?
She opened the door and went inside. Whatever her reason, there was only one way she was going to find out. Rose Tyler walked over to the control consol and looked at it. She decided to take the chance. Whatever happened, she knew that it couldn't be any sort of real danger, or she wouldn't have a future self to tell her about it. She typed the co-ordinates into the computer and walked back outside.
She'd only just gotten out the door when the Doctor came tarring up the hill towards the TARDIS, closely pursued by a large scaly, carnivorous looking animal. Rose looked around for any sticks she could use to fend it off with.
"Rose get in the TARDIS now!" the Doctor shouted up to her, he almost at the top of the hill. She opened the door and went inside, waiting just behind the door to close it as soon as the Doctor came in.
He bolted past a moment later and Rose slammed the door in the creatures face. They could hear it outside, growling, snarling and throwing its weight against the door, trying to get in.
"I think we've stayed here long enough." The Doctor fiddled with the controls for a moment before the familiar sound of the engine filled the room. The sounds of the animal's rage faded away outside.
"That was close," the Doctor said a moment later.
Rose was about to reply when there was a loud bang. The room shook and the TARDIS veered off course.
"WHAT WAS THAT?" Rose yelled over the strange noises the engine was making.
"We've hit a bit of a ruff patch."
"Turbulence." Rose mumbled to herself.
The Doctor spent the next minute rushing from one switch to another. Slowly the engine noise returned to normal and the TARDIS stabilized.
"We've landed."
Rose sighed with relief. That was one thing in the TARDIS you could never get used to, no matter how long you traveled in it. She went over to the door and opened it.
There was ice. A great plain of ice stretching away as far as the eye could see. The sun was rising slowly above the horizon and a great ringed planet loomed above them.
Fist stop, Tronga. That is where they would land first. And there, on Karikul's icy moon they would find the first part of they key needed to activate the Evermore. Rose walked along the path toward the city. It was early summer and the trees were covered with new leaves. Rose caught one of the falling silver leaves in her hand as she walked along.
"Doctor, where are we?"
"Tronga, ice moon of Karikul." He looked up at the sky. "It used to have life on it. Now its just waist land, there are still ruins around the place."
"Its beautiful." Rose turned to the Doctor pulling on her purple jacket as she did so "Can we go and see them?"
The Doctor nodded and gestured towards the horizon directly ahead with his hand. Rose turned back and looked again at the world of ice, the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and closed the door. Then they walked out into the still, frosty air. Side by side, neither one knew yet what they would find.
Rose stood on a hill and looked down at the vast ice covered landscape beneath her. She watched them walking towards the ruins. She knew it was risky. But then life was always risky and on the same note, she had already been quick enough. The Doctor would only just catch a glimpse of someone on the hill. More worrying was what he had half sensed in that moment that had made him look in the first place.
They hadn't walked far when the Doctor stopped and looked up suddenly.
"What is it?"
"There was someone up there, watching us," he pointed up to the top of one of the snow-covered hills. Rose looked but whoever it was had gone.
"Its strange, I almost thought I felt… nah." He shook his head, Rose looked at him.
"Felt what?"
The Doctor took a deep breath, "I almost thought I felt… just for a moment, but I was wrong. Don't worry about it."
"Ok," Rose sighed, "So how far is it to these ruins?"
"We're almost there now." He pointed at a low wall ahead of them.
The ruins were beautiful. Low stonewalls marking the shape of what had once been a great tower. If you looked at them from the right angle, as Rose and the Doctor looked at them now, you could see the way the walls were arranged make the shape of a lion.
The Doctor sat on one of the walls and cupped his head in his hands.
"Who was that up on the hill? What did they look like? You can tell me Doctor."
The Doctor remained silent and unmoving.
"Doctor?"
"Rose, I was wrong. There was no one up there. It was just a trick of the light."
Rose was not going to give up without an answer.
"Doctor, please. Who was it?"
The Doctor was silent for a moment more and then he sighed.
"I thought I saw one of my people."
"But what if you did, what if you're not…"
Rose stopped, the Doctor was crying. His tears rolled down his cheeks and onto the snow.
"I'm…sorry…I…"
"Why, its not your fault." The Doctor looked at her. "I wish it was true. That there was one, just one, so I could know I wasn't alone. But there have been other times, when I've been to places like this, places full of memories, that I've felt like there was someone else and there wasn't. I don't want to be disappointed by shadows again."
Rose put her hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
She felt bad about that. But it had been important, would be important for him. She slumped down on a seat by the fountain, watching the silver leaves dance in the breeze.
Rose wanted to leave. This place had upset the Doctor and brought back memories that he didn't want to remember. She looked back at the ruins and she saw something glimmer in the snow.
"Doctor, look."
He turned around and followed her gaze. They both walked up to it. Rose bent down and picked it up off the ground. The Doctor nodded.
"My people made this." He reached out and gently took the shinning pendant from Rose.
"Maybe that's why…"
"Maybe" the Doctor turned it over in hands.
They reached the TARDIS a few minutes later. Neither of them had said a word on the way back. It was only when they had gone inside that Rose had spoken.
"So where to now?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Don't know."
Rose looked at the floor.
"What's the pendant?"
"Part of some sort of lock, I think."
Rose looked at the Doctor. She wondered again about the card. Was there really another Time Lord somewhere out there who had contacted her some time in the future and told her to send herself a message? She wondered whether she should have told the Doctor about it.
For what seemed like a long time, no one said anything. Rose went to her room. The Doctor worked on the TARDIS. Life gradually went back to normal. When Rose came back she and the Doctor chatted about where they would go next and then Rose went to bed.
Next stop Krasa. Rose sighed. While she and the Doctor had been out looking at the ruins they had found the pendant. Now the TARDIS would go to the Krasa Korga, the restaurant where they would find the next part of the key. She remembered…
Rose woke the next morning to find that they had already landed. The Doctor was still busy at the controls of the TARDIS. He looked anxious.
"Morning."
The Doctor looked up.
"Someone's been fiddling with these controls. Well it looks more like two people actually."
Rose looked nervously at the floor; she knew she should tell him.
"I might of pressed a couple of buttons."
The Doctor looked at her sternly. Then he looked back at one of the screens.
"Pressing buttons is one thing, feeding co-ordinates into a machine like this is another. Unless you knew the co-ordinates of the planet Tronga, I doubt it was you. No. There's been someone who might have just been fiddling," he shot a look at Rose. "And someone who really knew what they were doing."
Rose took out the card. It was truth time. She took a deep breath and walked over to the Doctor.
"That card mum gave me wasn't from Beth."
She handed him the card.
"It was from me."
The Doctor looked at the card, he read the message. Then he turned the card over in his hands and his eyes scanned over a series of strange symbols on the back that Rose hadn't noticed before.
And burst out laughing.
Rose stared at him.
She asked him again and again what had been so funny about the message, which had clearly been specifically for him. He had just looked at her and smiled, every time.
"I'll tell you some time, just for you to be able to write that I'm going to have to."
"You mean I wrote it."
"Who else? Though you know that still doesn't explain who's been fiddling with my TARDIS"
Rose and the Doctor stopped at the Krasa Korga for breakfast as they had parked just outside. As they sat at their table the Doctor continued to ponder about who could have (a) gotten into the TARDIS without being noticed (b) programmed the TARDIS to take them here to Krasa and (c) gotten out again. Rose was eating a bowl of cereal of some kind and the Doctor was eating a plate of fried meat and eggs.
After she had finished Rose reached for her drink, dropping her spoon as she did so. She crawled under the table to get it and there, lying under the seat she found a crystal. It had the same sort of symbols on it that the pendant they had found on Tronga had. She crawled back out at sat down.
"I don't know who sent us here, but I think I've just found their reason." She said, passing the crystal to the Doctor. The Doctor looked at it for a moment.
"We're going back to Earth." He said.
"Why?"
"Because this is getting out of hand Rose, we need answers. Earth is the place to find one. We're going to Earth to have a talk to your mother. Someone gave her that card to give you, and I suspect she knew – at least in part – who it was."
Jackie Tyler sat in front of the Doctor.
"Mum, this is important. You have to tell us who gave you that card."
"Well you did." She looked at Rose.
"You arrived in the TARDIS and told me that you were going away. You told me that it was my choice whether or not you went and you told me that I was suppose to give you that card when you arrived and that I was to tell you it was from Beth."
Rose and the Doctor exchanged a glance.
"Was there anyone with us? Mum, can you remember?"
"Well no, there was just you and the Doctor I thought. Have I done something wrong?"
"No, it's fine." Rose shook her head.
"Well I only saw you, didn't I?" She nodded at Rose "You were wearing the funniest clothes too. Sort of orange robes."
The Doctor sat bolt upright in his seat.
"What did you say?"
" 'Bout what?"
"That last part, about what Rose was wearing…"
"Oh yeah. She was wearing this orange robe thing, with a sort of helmet. She said she was wearing it 'cause her own clothes got ruined and she didn't have time to change into anything else. I thought it was really strange but when I asked you just kept telling me that you didn't have time to explain it prop' ly."
The Doctor stood up and stormed over to the door. Rose got up to follow him.
"Stay here, both of you!"
"Doc…"
"Stay!"
He slammed the door behind him. Rose sat back on the couch. This was big, someone was messing around with them. What had started as an innocent looking event had turned into a nightmare and Rose had no idea what to do. The Doctor had never acted this way before, about anything.
The TARDIS door was open when he arrived. He went inside slamming the door behind him.
"Who's there?"
Silence
"I know you're here, now come out."
Silence.
The Doctor walked cautiously over to the Consol. He looked at the display on one of the screens.
Someone had been here, and they had been in the middle of programming more co-ordinates in. Although they hadn't finished there was enough information there for the Doctor to tell where they were being sent.
"Trolong."
"Trolong?" A strangely familiar voice echoed the name. The Doctor turned toward the speaker.
And fell backwards on the consol.
"But we were told to stay here."
"I can't. The Doctor might be in trouble."
"He's always in trouble. What difference do you think you'll make?"
Rose shrugged. "Enough."
Rose hurried out the door and down to the TARDIS, ignoring her mothers pleas.
"Hello Doctor."
"Mickey." The Doctor sighed with relief.
"Well, if that wasn't an over reaction."
"Hey, hold on. How'd you get in here?"
"The door was open when I got her so I just came in. I thought you and Rose were here."
So someone else had been inside the TARDIS. And Mickey had wandered in thinking it was them.
"Why didn't you answer when I called?"
"I didn't hear you. I only just came back from the wardrobe."
"Did you see anyone else?"
"No. Why? Is something wrong Doctor?"
"Could be."
The door flew open. Rose charged in armed with a saucepan.
"Rose. I though I told you to stay put."
Mickey grinned and waved. Rose sighed with relief.
"Emergency over then?"
"Not quite. We still don't know who's been operating the TARDIS. I don't know about you but I seriously doubt it was our young friend here."
"You mean someone's been getting into the TARDIS and tampering with it?" Mickey asked.
Rose nodded; the Doctor gazed solemnly at the controls. Mickey looked at Rose.
"You going off again soon? Or you got time for some lunch?"
"Du' know." Rose shrugged.
The Doctor was about to add something when Jackie ran in, breathless. The door slammed shut behind her. Everyone stopped and stared at it for a moment before the TARDIS engine started up. The column rose and fell as the TARDIS dematerialized.
"What's happening?" Shrieked Jackie.
"Someone's operating the TARDIS remotely. We're going to Trolong."
"Where's that?" Mickey shouted over the noise of the engine.
"The planet that whoever was here before was programming us to go to. Hold tight!"
It was a ruff flight. The Doctor had been trying to stop them all the way, but the controls were all jammed. They landed with a heavy thud in a thick forest of evergreen trees.
Rose was the first to step cautiously from the TARDIS. There were patches of snow on the ground around them. A cold wind blew in from the surrounding mountains, making Jackie and Mickey shiver. Rose snuggled deeper into her purple jacket.
"Trolong." The Doctor spoke softly to the air.
Behind them, the TARDIS door closed suddenly. Then the engines started up. The Doctor ran desperately to the door. The TARDIS dematerialized and he leapt through the space where it had been.
"Looks like there's no turning back then." He looked sadly at the emptiness his ship had occupied a moment before. Rose patted his shoulder. Jackie was furious.
"You promised you'd keep my daughter safe!" She stormed over to the Doctor.
"You said you'd keep her safe! And now look at us. We're stuck here in the middle of who knows where with no way of getting back and that's all you can say! You…"
"Jackie, for goodness sakes. NOT NOW!" The Doctor leaned over her.
"Do you think I want to be here? With, of all people, YOU?" Jackie fell silent before mumbling something in reply, which might have been 'sorry'.
"Lets just concentrate on getting out of here. Now lets look at what we know. First Rose gets a card from you…" he pointed to Jackie, "which you said you got from her…" he looked at Rose. "We arrive on the planet of Tronga and find a Gallifreyan Pendant."
"Where's Gallifrey?" Jackie whispered to Rose.
"His home planet. Shh."
"Then we go to Krasa, and find a crystal, also from Gallifrey. We return to earth and when were all in the TARDIS, someone sends it here remotely and then when we're all out, sends it off somewhere so we can't leave. Whoever sent us here wanted us to have to pendant and the Crystal before we came and they went to a lot of trouble to make sure we got them. Now the question, why are we here on Trolong? Are we here to pick up another relic? Or are we here to do something else?"
As if in reply, Rose suddenly noticed a sigh pointing off into the forest.
"Look." She pointed at it. The others turned.
"Fantastic!" The Doctor exclaimed running over to the sign. Rose shrugged at her mother and Mickey before following.
The climb had been steep. Now they stood at the top of a hill (which was more a small mountain really) and looked down.
"It's huge." Jackie gasped.
The Evermore lay beneath them. It took up the whole of the valley it was in, and some of the surrounding hillside. What looked like the main entrance lay directly down and ahead from where they were standing.
"It's Gallifreyan, but it's so unlike anything I've ever seen before." The Doctor was stunned.
"If you can fit so much into a little blue box, what's the inside of that thing going to be like then?" Asked Mickey.
"Do you know what it was built for?" Rose asked.
"No idea. But there' s only one way to find out and I think we can safely say this is what we were sent here to find." He started off down the hill, the others followed.
The great, heavy doors stood between them, and whatever lay inside. The doctor took the pendant from his pocket, then the crystal. He walked over to the doors and began examining them closely. They were locked solid. He looked again at the pendant turning it over in his hands, his fingertips slid against its surface.
There was a deep, echoing click from inside and the doors slid open.
"We'll, this is definitely what we had to find. Come on." The Doctor wondered inside. Rose, Mickey and Jackie stood for a moment at the entrance open mouthed before following.
The inside of the ship was dimly lit. She had been sure she was just behind Mickey when she suddenly found herself alone in some sort of control room.
Rose had shouted and yelled for the others. But there had been no answer. She had tried to find her way back. But every way she had tried had only led in a loop back to the control room. Now she stood looking at the various panels and screens. Maybe she could find them on one of the screens; some of them were bound to be for some kids of security system. She looked closely at each of the buttons, trying to see if any of them would turn allow her to view cameras or scanners. Finally she decided on a small green one. It was just below one of the screens, so it should turn something on, right?
The Doctor turned around.
"Where's Rose?"
Mickey and Jackie looked at each other.
"I though she was just behind…"
Jackie was cut off by a voice from somewhere above them.
"Evermore pre-programmed sequence activated. Take of in five… four… three… two… one…"
The whole ship shook. In the control room Rose was tumbled head over heals. Back in the corridor Jackie, Mickey and the Doctor we're thrown onto the floor as the great ship lifted from the ground. Engines whirred. Clumps of earth and foliage fell from its hull.
"We're taking off." Shrieked Jackie.
As the ship left the planets atmosphere, the shaking stopped. The Doctor, Jackie and Mickey stood up. Mickey rubbed his head.
"Where are we going?" Jackie was almost in tears.
The Doctor looked at her sadly. "I don't know Jackie. I really just don't know."
Rose sat up on the floor, rubbing her head. She felt dizzy. She looked at the control panel; it was alive with flashing lights and various displays. She sighed. All this from pressing one little button and she still didn't know where the others were. She got up and went over to the main screen display.
She almost fell over again.
Out there in space, the ship was doing something amazing. Matter streamed out of openings in its hull, forming into a swirling mass. Rose watched as the spiral slowly condensed into a spinning orb, glowing hot. That's when she realized what the ship was doing, what it was made to do. Out there, a new planet was being formed, right in front of her very eyes.
She remembered what it was like to see a planet die. Remembered missing the sun swallow the earth in the blink of an eye. Now she was watching one being born, and she knew which planet it was.
They were running along the corridor, calling as they went. Gradually making their way up to the control room.
"Rose!" the Doctor called.
This time there was a reply. Faint and far away, but it was there. He called again, slowing down into a walk.
"I'm here! Doctor, you've got to come and see this."
The Doctor started running again, Jackie and Mickey struggled to keep up.
They reached the control room a moment later. Rose was standing, watching the main screen. The planet outside was taking shape. An orange halo surrounded it now, and there were oceans and continents. A newborn moon orbited around the newborn world. On the planets surface, the first plants were growing, animals took their first breaths. The Doctor recognized it immediately. He gasped.
"Gallifrey. Its Gallifrey!"
Rose smiled "Gallifrey mark 2" She turned around and pointed into the corner. The Doctor turned, and smiled.
"The TARDIS." He walked across to the blue box and patted its side affectionately. The doors opened. The Doctor blinked and then laughed.
"The TARDIS Rose! It was the TARDIS all along. It must have had information about this ship in its memory banks. It was what was sending us around the universe. It knew the time was right. That it was safe to give us the information we needed so that Gallifrey could be re-born."
"So we can go home now Doctor?" Mickey walked over to the Doctor's side.
"Yes Mickey. Yes Jackie. You can go home now."
Jackie and Mickey hugged each other.
"Can't we go and see it first?" Rose looked into the Doctors eyes.
"Of course," the Doctor grinned "anything you want, anything. I owe you the world Rose Tyler."
She smiled and shook her head.
"No, you don't."
The Evermore landed gently on the planets surface. The city was already there. They were already there. The Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey. Rose had seen the Doctor happy before, but he had never shone like this before. Through all the time she had known him, through the end of the world, through his regeneration, she had never seen him more alive.
They walked slowly off the ship. Rose, Jackie and Mickey were all lost for words. It was beautiful. The streets were lined with cheering people as the walked along, the Doctor's people. Rose smiled, he was almost dancing with joy, his grin mirrored by those of all those watching on the streets, out of windows.
The four travelers stood proudly at the front of the hall. The president stood before them smiling kindly, the white robes flowing as he moved.
"For acceptance beyond one's own nature, we award you, Jackie Tyler of Earth, our medal of honor, and hope that your family shall always have a safe home to go to in times of peril."
Jackie blushed as the medal was placed around her neck.
"For outstanding love and devotion to those held dear, we award you Mickey Smith of Earth, our medal of honor, may your love be a guiding light to you in times of darkness."
Mickey only stood as the medal was placed around his neck, as soon as the presidents back was turned he smiled at Rose and gave her a wink.
"For continuing to stand for what right in the face of death and despair, we award you, Doctor of Gallifrey, our… Doctor? Where's he gone?"
"And where's Rose?" Jackie looked at the spot where Rose and the Doctor had been.
Rose giggled, it seemed even though he'd gotten his world back, he was still the same old Doctor. She had been wandering about that, thinking about how they didn't do this kind of thing. With the sort of life the Doctor led, if he'd started collecting things like medals pretty soon there wouldn't be anything else left. He'd loose his freedom, loose the greater responsibility he felt for the universe to useless baubles. She smiled.
The TARDIS stood on the sand, a blue pillar against the orange sky. Rose stood on the dune, looking out over the water. The moon was beginning to rise over the horizon. She took a deep breath of the salty sea air and ran through the checklist of places she had been. Everything was ready for her past self. She had gone back with Gandred, a young engineer she had met in the city.
Rose Tyler, still wearing the orange robe she had been given for the ceremony, had gone back into her own past and given a very puzzling card to her mother, to give to her. She had warned Jackie about what would happen – and Jackie had agreed to let her go. For acceptance beyond one's nature, Rose felt proud of her mother for that. It was strange, now she came to think of it. They had found that it had been the TARDIS taking them on this mission all along. There had been no strangers involved in sending them anywhere. Yet Rose had still sent herself the card. Maybe he putting in the co-ordinates for Tronga had activated the TARDIS to take them on to Krasa and Trolong? So who or what had given her the card before she did? It was just the way things had happened. Were happening. Would happen. And then there was the joke Ganded had told her, and shown her how to write in Gallifreyan. I had just seemed appropriate to put in on the card.
She and the Doctor would be arriving on the planet of Trolong three days after their visit with Jo.
Trolong. Snow covered peaks and thick evergreen forests. Somewhere in that wilderness she would find the Evermore. A revolutionary ship built by an ancient race of people, capable of creating worlds and even whole solar systems.
The people who had built it new all about time, they had known its wonders and its dangers. The Time War had almost seen them wiped out of existence, forever. Not many worlds get second chances. But some do. Rose smiled. The Doctor had his home back. Born again.
"Rose, it's time."
Rose nodded and turned around. The Doctor was standing behind her. She walked down the hill toward him.
Jackie and Mickey were already waiting inside the TARDIS.
"So, who am I taking home?" The Doctor asked cheerfully.
"Everyone, I guess." Said Rose.
The Doctor smiled.
"Had enough adventure then?"
"Huh? But I thought 'cause…"
"I don't think I'm ready to retire yet thank you. There are still so many things left to see. Places to go, adventures to be had…"
"Unbelievable, that's what you are." Jackie sighed.
"You mean your gonna keep traveling then."
"Why not?"
Rose smiled. He was still the same old Doctor.
The TARDIS spun through space and time.
Inside, sparked were flying from the console. The Doctor tapped at it with a hammer. The sparks stopped.
"So, where too?" Rose asked as she held down one of the switches.
"You know, I fancy Australia. You haven't seen the opera house or the bridge in Sydney have you?"
"Seen pictures."
"Hmm. How 'bout Cradle Mountain in Tasmania then."
"Sounds good enough for me."