Rose

I woke up again today to the awful sound of a screeching alarm clock. I had been waking this way five days a week for the last three months, but I still knew I'd never, ever get used to it. Refusing to open my eyes, I blindly swung my arm out to the bedside table behind me, my hand landing on the snooze button. Pulling my arm back under the warm duvet after reaching into the cold always seemed to put me right back to sleep.

Yawning groggily, I rolled myself closer to the warm body lying next to me and rested my cheek against its smooth chest. I usually didn't like laying on him this way. I despised hearing his heart beat. The man wedged underneath my face and arm sniffed and shifted in his sleep, pulling me in close. I hated him sleeping, too. These were reminders of bad things.

Grumpy now and still mostly asleep, I rolled back over onto my own pillow and faced the table. Forcing one eye open, I was nearly blinded by the luminous green numbers on the clock in front of my face. 8:25, it was flashing. I knew the awful sound was coming again at 8:27—the snooze ends every nine minutes—so I reached out again and turned the whole thing off. Let him sleep, I'm up, I'm up.

I used to look forward to waking up every morning. That was back when every single day of my life was a kind of sci-fi adventure. That was ages and ages ago. Now the only things consciousness brought me were coffee, work, headaches, and more coffee. Groaning, I rolled out of the bed and into my nearby robe and slippers. Leaning back over the bed gently, I gave my boyfriend a peck on his big old forehead and rumpled his rumply hair before scooting my feet out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen of our small flat.

Start the coffee; let the water heat up; step into a steamy shower; scrub away at the last dregs of sleep on my skin and in my eyes; dry my long, blond hair; dress in nice jeans and a blouse for my job in the shop; pour the coffee into a thermos and trudge back down the hall to kiss John goodbye. This was my routine. It all took about twenty minutes, leaving me ten to catch the bus into the proper part of town.

I suppose I was lucky to even have a job, but I didn't feel particularly lucky every morning, coming in the back dock of the building, tossing my bag and coat into a small room with probably twenty other people's belongings, sliding my time card, and going on to do the same exact things I did the day before in the same exact place I did them. I'd never get used to it. Sure, it was the same I'd been doing for most of my life. But ever since my hiatus from reality about six years ago, going back to this boring life felt like the end of the world every single day.

All right, I know I'm sounding pretty depressing right now. Welcome to my life, though. Sure, sometimes I really am happy. My dad's alive, my mum's happy, I have the most adorable little brother I could've asked for, and a man who loves me more than his own life. Of course there are happy times. Christmas this year, when the whole family got together, exchanged gifts and ate holiday ham while hearing John and my dad go back and forth, each trying to tell a funnier joke than the last. I was happy then.

Mornings really were the only times this was hard for me. John would still be sleeping, giving me time to think and brood over the dreams I had every night. Most mornings, I'd wake to what sounded in my dreams like the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of a far away yet all too familiar time ship, only to regain awareness and realize it was that wretched alarm clock. Most of my dreams revolved around the forbidden. The things we don't talk about aloud, for fear of denting the façade of perfect happiness we put out. But both of us knew what monsters I dreamed of when I'd wake us both up screaming in the night. Not Daleks, not Cybermen, no. Just my own monsters; the demons he left behind.

Shaking my head with the thought that I could shake the whole feeling I get when I think about him, I took a big gulp of my now-cold black coffee, and left the thermos behind to go start on whatever work they'd have me do today. Christmas had just ended, and mostly we were just tearing down displays and putting up new ones for Valentine's Day. I checked in with my immediate boss, and made my way over to the corner of the store dedicated to lingerie with a big stack of cardboard hearts.

I was prepared for passing the next seven hours in ways similar to this, but it wasn't meant to be.

As I stood up on the top rung of the step-ladder and unfastened a great billboard featuring mistletoe and a couple of naughty elves in skimpy underwear, I reached just a bit too far and the ladder slipped out from under me, flying in the opposite direction. I grabbed the top of the sign, but it was already unhooked on the other end and just tore down with me as I fell to the ground. With a loud thump and clattering of the ladder, I landed on the floor four feet down from where I had been standing.

I didn't really hurt myself much; just a twisted wrist from trying to catch myself and a much bruised ego. Without standing up, I looked around the area and was somewhat relieved that no one had been there to see. It must have been too early in the day for underwear shopping. I really didn't want to admit to my superior that I had toppled off of a ladder and shredded one of their biggest Christmas displays in the process, so I scooted myself to where my back was against the wall and tried to nurse my wounded wrist.

Of course this would happen to me, wouldn't it? Because nothing can ever go smoothly for Rose Tyler. Not anymore. Not now that my perfect world had been pulled out from under my feet for a second time. It had been two years since the last time I'd seen Badwolf Bay, but as the tears forced their way out of my squeezed-shut eyes, I knew by the crushing feeling of nothing ever goes right, ever that it didn't matter. It was one wound that would haunt me no matter how much time had passed.

Biting my lip and willing myself to not let out any audible sobs down on the floor there in the lingerie department, I let a few tears escape without a fight, and softly hit the back of my head on the wall behind me a couple of times. I hoped again, futilely, that I could shake the memories straight out of my head. The third time I hit the wall, though, the memories still bit into me like an endless winter's ice around my heart, and I heard a slow crack. Maybe it was my heart finally shattering from the cold.

Or maybe it was the wall behind me, I realized as I turned my head around slowly to see that things actually could get worse than they were already. For right before my eyes, where there was once an elfy billboard, there was now a great crack opening, painfully slow, in the shop's wall. Surely my head couldn't have… Of course it could. I'm Rose Tyler. Of course I have the ability to fuck everything up with a single touch—the ability to create a gaping crack nearly five feet long in a solid wall with just the touch of my skin.

Feeling the crushing sensation starting up again, I put my face in my hands and let out a sob. I didn't care who found me or who heard me. Things couldn't get worse.