I'm sure someone's thought of this before, but I just had to write it, considering how many people are writing TenRose reunion fics. And because I love the Ninth Doctor. I'm sure there are lots of discontinuities, though, considering that I have not actually seen 'Doomsday' yet.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is the property of BBC.
She's driving home when he call comes. "Rose?"
She sighs, preparing herself for another crisis. "Yes?"
"We found an alien. Unconscious. It's been heavily electrocuted by Cybermen, but that doesn't appear to have damaged it. Doesn't appear to be much of a threat, but you never know. The data banks don't recognize its DNA, so we thought you might know what it is."
"Oh, all right. Describe it to me. Is it humanoid?" She does a U-turn and heads back for the base. She really was hoping for a quiet night with her family. Domestic. The simple word brings memories, and she shakes her head in despair. It's been a year since she last saw him and he still haunts her every thought. She tries to distract herself by focusing on the current problem.
"Yes. Remarkably so. Looks exactly like a human male. We didn't know it was alien until someone tried to check its pulse. Two hearts."
The world seems to slow. Rose narrowly avoids a tree. She gasps, trying to force down the insane hope. It's not him, it's not him, it's not him... "Has he got brown hair and eyes? Sort of freckled?"
"No, long black hair, don't know the eye color," her friend says in confusion. "Why? Think you might know him?"
"No," she says, sighing, despair hitting her all over again. She focuses driving. "What's his body temperature?"
"15 degrees celsius, 59 fahrenheit." Rose rubs her forehead. This unknown alien visitor seems to have the exact same phisiology as Time Lords. She scans her memory for more information about that mysterious species.
"Don't give him aspirin."
"We're not stupid, Rose."
"Sorry. I'm tired. I'll be there in a minute." She drives into the parking lot and in a few minutes is on her way to the Torchwood hospital facility. As her shoes click on the smooth white floor, another possibility comes to her. He could have regenerated... She stops. If that happened, would she still love him? Of course she would. She'd loved his past two reincarnations, hadn't she? But it wasn't him. It's not him, it's not him, it's not him...
Eventually she comes to the right ward and takes a deep breath. If he's regenerated, will she recognize him? Of course she would. The earth would stop turning and nothing would exist but them, and it wouldn't matter if he was wearing a different face because it would still be the brave, witty, totally insane man she loves so much. But it wouldn't be him. It's not him, it's not him, it's not him...
She walks in.
Tosh runs over to her. "He's over here," she says, pulling Rose along. Worry is etched on her lovely face. "He seems to be getting worse and we don't know how to deal with it." She tows Rose over to a hospital bed and pulls aside a curtain.
Rose stares into an extremely familiar face, one she'd thought she'd never see again. The hair is much longer, but he still has big ears.
She faints.
timewartimewartimewartimewar ...
Sounds. Smells. Whiteness. Slowly he returns to consciousness. His head hurts, and he moans softly.
Smells. It smells of disinfectant, of that queer mix of scents that make up a hospital. A hospital. He is in a hospital. A vague memory surfaces. He regenerated once in a hospital. Strange that he is the patient so much. He can't quite remember why it is strange. Something to do with his name. A name that has temporarily slipped his mind.
His vision returns more slowly, but eventually he can see that a young woman has collapsed in front of the hospital bed he is lying on. She is wearing some kind of uniform that reminds him a bit of UNIT. The others are wearing the sterilized white peculiar to hospitals everywhere, be they Raxicoricofalipatorian or Human. They are fussing over her. Slowly she awakes. She stands up, a bit wobbly. She stares at him. "Hello," he says. It doesn't come out quite as friendly as he had planned, a strangled cough (there's something wrong with his throat, he realizes) but he knows she hears him.
"Doctor," she whispers. Ah, yes. That's his name, or part of it, at least. Doctor who? he wonders. It'll do, for now. But how does this pretty young human know it? Is that one of the memories that lurk out of sight?
He clears his throat and tries again. "Hello! Have we met?"
He sees the stunned look on her face as darkness claims him once more.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
Fainting was stupid and embarrassing, Rose decides. She stares at the man on the bed, the readings on the screens proclaiming him to be unconscious once again. She can't take her eyes off him. You're dead. You died. It was my fault.
Doctor. My Doctor.
But he doesn't recognize her. A possible explanation comes to her. What if this is him before he met her?...
No. The paradoxes that would entail make her brain hurt. There must be some other explanation. But what? It doesn't matter. He's here. Her Doctor. She reaches out and holds his hand for the first time in two years. She realizes she is crying. She stares at his familiar face. He looks different, with long hair. More vulnerable.
"You know him?" Tosh asks, a question in her eyes.
"Yeah," she says, swallowing. "It's the Doctor."
"The-" Tosh begins, incredulous. Like all of Rose's coworkers, she knows the story of the man who left her stranded in another universe. It doesn't help that her parallel self in the universe Rose still thinks of as home actually met the Doctor, shortly before he blew up Tenth Downing Street. This Tosh knows nothing of that, but her face tightens in anger.
"Tosh, it's not his fault," Rose insists. "An' anyway, this isn't the Doctor who left me here. He's..." She tries to find the words to explain the Doctor's regeneration, and fails. "How is he?" she asks. "I'm not a... a doctor, I can't read those screens."
Tosh glances over them. "When we found him, he had a bad concussion. We don't know what caused it. Technically he shouldn't have been able to wake up like that, but he's an alien, and we don't know what his physiology is... what do you know?"
Rose takes a deep breath and forces herself to concentrate on the problem at hand. "I don't know much," she says. "He has two hearts, yeah, and it means he doesn't need as much oxygen and his body temperature is much lower than ours. He's very strong and he has a lot of stamina. He hardly ever sleeps. He..." she trails off, then gathers courage, "...he's about nine hundred years old."
Tosh starts. "What?"
Rose nods. "Yup. And that's not that old for his species." She wonders if she should mention regeneration, then decides not to. It's not important at the moment. "He can also survive being electrocuted and he's slightly telepathic."
Her friend sighs. "Sounds perfect. Any downsides?"
Downsides. Yeah, there are downsides. Such as being the last of your race in the universe. That, she knows she can't mention. It's the Doctor's secret and it's not hers to tell. She changes the subject. "Where did you find him?"
"We found a group of Cybermen near St. James Park. He helped us using this." She holds up a small object and Rose jumps, recognizing the sonic screwdriver. "It knocked them out somehow until we could destroy them. One of them zapped him." She grimaces. "We were all rather surprised to find he was still alive, and far more surprised to find that he had two hearts."
"Came as a bit of a shock to me, too," Rose murmurs absently, her gaze once again straying to that face. She'd seen her first Doctor asleep before. Some people look more innocent, less careworn when they're asleep, and he hadn't been one of them. He'd acted like he was fighting a private war in his dreams, and from what she had known of him that could well have been true. Now, though... he looked, well, not carefree, but definitely not tormented like before. At peace.
"Sleep well, Doctor," she whispers.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
"Do it, Doctor, do it!" Sarah cries. "Remember what the Time Lords said!"
Time stretches into eternity as he contemplates genocide... but he knows what he must do.
He presses the button that sets off the explosives.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
Rose sits by the Doctor's bed. Someone- maybe Tosh- has brought her a chair, and she sits there, unwilling to leave his side. Afraid he'll evaporate into a mist, or just disappear like the other one did a year- so long!- ago on that Norwegian beach.
So it's her that first hears the beeping as his breathing and heartbeats stop, his temperature drop. She stares at the screens, then rushes to his side. He's not breathing and he has no pulse. God, no! This was all I needed.
Tosh comes running. She stares at the screens, then checks his pulse. She tries to start his hearts again with electricity, but fails. She looks at Rose, still gazing at the Doctor's face, trying to memorize it before it changes. "Rose," she says gently. "Rose, I'm so sorry. The hearts must have been damaged by the electric shock. He's gone."
"No he's not," she says almost bitterly.
Tosh frowns. It's not like Rose to deny reality. She's seen plenty of death before. "Rose, you have to accept it, he's dea-"
"Tosh, no!" she cries. She takes a deep breath. "There's something I didn't tell you about Time Lords. They... they don't die, they change." She stares at the Doctor. Any minute now... "It's called regeneration, and it happened to him while I was traveling with him. That face, it isn't the one he was wearing when he left me." She feels like sobbing. Once again she's lost him.
She's sick of seeing the Doctor die.
"Don't do this, you idiot!" she screams at him.
And, like a miracle, he opens his eyes.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
It's rather rude, he thinks, all things considering, to wake a Time Lord from his healing coma, especially considering that he was only trying to recover from being fatally electrocuted helping them. He opens his eyes, feeling very irate, and once again he sees the blond girl. She looks like she's going to faint again. Now why would that be? He shifts, trying to get comfortable, and feels the needles in his arms. Ah. The problem with the healing coma is that so many species mistake it for death. Oh dear. Now he'll have to explain. Oh, and sort out the mystery of the mysterious girl. "Hello again," he says.
"Doctor?! But you were dead!"
"Hard to kill, me," he says. "But if you don't mind me asking, miss, how d'you know my name?"
"It's me," she breathes. "Rose. Don't you remember me?"
He scans his quite extensive thousand-year memory. "Nope. Not a clue. Is this earth?"
"Sort of," is the rather confusing reply.
She's pushed aside by a professional-looking Asian woman in a doctor's uniform. "Excuse me sir, now that you're awake, would you mind filling out this form for me? Standard Torchwood procedure, I'm afraid."
"Torchwood?" he asks, remembering.
"Yes," says the blond- Rose (nice name)- "but it's okay. They're nice."
He is even more confused. "Of course they're nice. I of all people should know they're nice. After all, they kept helping out UNIT."
She gapes at him. "What?"
He ignores her, turning to the form. He reads it, and stops when he reaches question nine. "Who wrote this?"
"I did," Rose says, smiling tentatively.
He re-reads the question. "Do you intend to take over the earth, enslaving and/or destroying all human life? It would save a lot of time if you said yes." He grins his usual manic grin, and she inhales sharply, but when he turns to look at her she shakes her head and he continues reading. Question thirteen brings him up short. "If you know how to contact an alien known as 'The Doctor', please, tell him Rose Tyler wants him back." What?
He looks at Rose, just as she bursts into tears and flings her arms around his neck.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
After he returns home, there is congratulations, a medal. It's all hollow and empty and he wonders if it was worth it. Xenocide is the most terrible thing in the universe.
Romanadvoratrelundar is the only one who understands.
He takes Sarah Jane home. She never sees the mummies, anti-matter monsters, or Loch Ness Monster.
timewartimewartimewartimewar...
After a moment she backs off, much to the Doctor's apparent relief. Again she's struck by how different he looks. His black hair hangs down below his chin, and he just looks so much... happier. "Don't you remember me at all, Doctor?" she asks.
"Nope." He shakes his head. "Tell me, how did we meet?"
She takes his hand. "You had discovered that the Nestene Consciousness was trying to take over the earth by controlling all plastic. You'd tracked down its signal to a relay device on the top of a department store animating a bunch of living dummies in the basement. You were certain there was no one else in the building- it was late- and you had a bomb that could blow up the relay before the dummies had a chance to hurt anyone. Then a stupid little shopgirl happened to wander into the midst of the dummies...
Even though she knew it was just a student prank, the sight of the dummies sent a shiver down her spine. She backed against the wall. One of the dummies held out its arm. She struggled not to scream...
And then he was there, a comforting presence with an air of authority and barely contained excitement. He took her hand and it felt right. "Run!"
... and of course we saved the world, stopped the Nestene Consciousness, and then you invited me to travel with you in the TARDIS and we jus' kept on saving the world. Exploding sun in the year five billion, ghosts and Charles Dickens, Raxicoricofallopatorians in Ten Downing Street, Daleks on Satellite Five... it just never stopped, and I wouldn't have missed it for anythin'." She doesn't know whether to smile or cry.
The Doctor has a look of complete bewilderment on his face. "Nestene Consciousness? But why would it invade Earth? It's perfectly happy with its food planets. And... Daleks? There are no Daleks. I was sent back in time by the Time Lords to destroy them before they had a chance to hurt anyone. Your story just doesn't make any sense!"
Rose stares at him in horror. She's beggining to realize... "Doctor, the Nestene Consciousness' food planets were destroyed in the war. You know, the Last Great Time War? Between the Time Lords an' the Daleks? Your... your planet was destroyed? You... you always said you were the last Time Lord?"
"What?" Now the look on his face mirrors hers. "Gallifrey? Destroyed? No! No, it's fine! I can feel it there!"
"Oh, dear Lord..." she murmurs. She rubs her eyes.
"Rose?" Tosh asks. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"The Doctor," Rose explains. "It's not him. It's his parallel in this universe."
Well? Did you like it? Should I continue it? Please review!