Rose-Colored Glasses
Disclaimer: Sorry guys, I own nothing.
Summary: Rose Tyler comes back to her home universe, expecting things to be the same, only to find that things have changed a lot. Twenty-sixth of the "Immortal Janto" series. Ianto/Jack, Doctor/Donna, Mickey/Martha. References to Doctor Who canon.
This is just something that popped into my head. What if Rose came back to our universe? My theory is that the 10th Doctor clone suffered a fate similar to Donna before Ianto fixed the Metacrisis – a human body can't support a Time Lord mind. Ergo, an upset Rose would want to get back to her home universe, where the original Doctor is, because she still has feelings for the Doctor.
This is what happens!
It felt so good to be back in her proper universe. The other universe had been nice and all, especially when she had had the copy of the Doctor, but it wasn't the same, especially when she realized that he had been hiding his degrading condition from her.
Apparently, he said, human bodies and Time Lord minds couldn't mix successfully.
Rose didn't remember when she had looked into the Time Vortex, but she remembered what that had done to the Doctor. It had changed him, turning him into another person, who she loved equally as her first Doctor. Still, she thought that she should have noticed the changes in the clone – John, as he had insisted – in the two and a half years before he had died.
He had been fine for the first couple of years, acting just like Rose remembered. Then, he had become a little more cocky and abrasive. His ideas made a little more sense and he was more humane than Rose recalled (in either one of his incarnations).
It had been the Time Lord-human Metacrisis. John had taken on some of Donna Noble's personality. Donna Noble – the woman who changed the Doctor, Rose's Doctor. Rose didn't like the woman for that. If Rose remembered correctly, from her brief return to her home universe, Donna Noble was the red-haired woman, years older than Rose, who had managed to solve the problem and save the day, drawing the attention of both of the Doctors (away from Rose, much to the blonde's chagrin).
Still, if John had died from the Metacrisis, no doubt Donna Noble did as well, leaving the field wide open for Rose to return and have her Doctor back. He loved her, she knew, because John had told her so many times.
It had been hard, deciding to leave her parents, but they had been very happy together, rebuilding their relationship and their new son, Tony.
Plus, it would be nice to see Mickey and Jack again. She missed Mickey, especially after he had decided to stay in their right universe, after his gran had died. It hadn't been fair that he left without consulting her. And Jack? Well, Rose was attracted to him and he had flirted with her plenty of times. That kiss back before she looked into the Time Vortex had been brief and lovely.
So, here she was, back home, where she belonged.
Rose had a device from the alternate universe that she had adapted to track down the TARDIS's residual trail, so that she could find it. She had been working on in the last three years, since John had died. (They had had eight years together before he had finally died.)
She had run all over, tracking down the TARDIS, even trooping up into Wales, up to Cardiff and the surrounding area. Rose wasn't a happy camper. In addition to trying to track down her Doctor, she had to get caught up on recent events.
Apparently, something called "Miracle Day" had caused problems across the globe for a while, with no one dying.
But finally, she managed to find the TARDIS.
Rose was surprised to find it sitting in the backyard of a nice enough house in the middle of Chiswick. What was the Doctor doing in Chiswick?
She straightened her back and strode, with confidence, up to the TARDIS and pushed open the door.
"What?" she exclaimed as she walked inside, closing the door behind her. "Who are you?"
A tall (and handsome) man, wearing dark jeans, a white button-down, a black tie, and a gray waistcoat was standing at the console. He appeared young, though there were gray streaks in his dark hair. The man's blue eyes had hints of gray in them as he cocked his head to the side.
This couldn't be the Doctor! All of Rose's sources had said that the Doctor hadn't regenerated in years!
"Oh, sorry, I didn't know that the Doctor and Donna were having guests over," the man said, with a Welsh accent.
Rose gaped a moment. Did he say, "Donna"? Donna . . . as in, Donna Noble? Why wasn't Donna dead? Her John – her Doctor copy – had died!
"I'm not a guest. I'm Rose."
The man paused a moment before nodding. "Right, I've heard about you. The TARDIS mentioned you before. She didn't like having to travel across the dimensions in order to get you and your mum back to your dad."
"Who are you?" So, he wasn't the Doctor, then. That was good. He was cute and all, but Rose didn't go for guys in waistcoats. Who wore waistcoats?
He smiled at her. "Ianto Jones. I live around the corner and I work with Donna and the Doctor. Traveled with them for years too."
"I don't understand. Why is the TARDIS in someone's backyard?"
"Donna and the Doctor live here, so that they can have a stable environment while the twins are growing up."
"Wait, the Doctor married Donna?" This couldn't be happening to Rose! After all this time and all of her effort, the Doctor had moved on – moved on! – from her. He loved her! John was a direct copy of the Doctor and he loved her.
This Ianto raised an eyebrow, walking towards Rose with his arms crossed. Rose picked up on something odd about him. "What's wrong with Donna?"
"Nothing . . . It's just, I didn't think that he's the marrying type."
"It's been a long time since you've seen the Doctor. He's not the same person he was since you went back to your universe."
Before Rose could respond, the door of the TARDIS opened. Rose turned as a little girl came running past her. She couldn't be more than six, with dark hair in pigtails and a schoolbag on her back.
"Tad!" the girl squealed, running up to Ianto, who scooped her up. "Auntie Donna said that you were in here."
"Hey, Annabelle," Ianto said, kissing the girl on the cheek. "How was school today?"
"Good!" the girl responded, smiling up at the man.
"And where are your aunt and uncle?"
"Aunt Donna is making dinner and Uncle Doctor said that he had to talk to people, but he's coming out here soon."
Rose compared the little girl, Annabelle, with Ianto. They did look alike.
Vaguely, she heard the door open. A surprised noise that sounded very familiar made her turn around.
There was the Doctor – her beloved Doctor – with a surprised look on his face.
"Rose!" he said, clearly in awe. "How – how are you here?"
"I came back for you," she said, smiling, walking towards him. "After John, your clone, died, I wanted to come back to you. It took me three years, but I did it"
He smiled, vaguely, but Rose saw something else in his eyes, something that she didn't recognize. It was heavier, older than any look she had ever seen from either the Doctor or John. It wasn't just the ancient anger of a Time Lord. It was pure fury at its height.
"You aren't supposed to be here, Rose!"
"What do you mean, Doctor?" Rose was confused. "This is my universe, my home universe."
He ran his hands through his hair. "But you've been living in the other universe for so long, your body has adapted to that place. You'll degrade until you die. I - I don't know if there's anything that I can stop it!"
The Doctor pushed past her, stalking to the console. Ianto walked up beside him, putting the girl in his arms down. The Welshman – whoever he was – looked concerned. The girl held her father's hand tightly, looking over her shoulder at Rose with bright blue eyes that looked very familiar to Rose.
"Isn't there some way to stabilize her code?"
"The TARDIS might be able to find something, but that's a stretch."
Ianto glanced back to Rose and sighed. "I'll go get Donna. Between the three of us, we'll get something figured out."
The man took his daughter with him as he left. Rose walked up beside the console, leaning against the railing. She briefly looked around the TARDIS control room. It was a little different from what she remembered. There were little signs of a family around. The coat rack had assorted jackets draped over it and there was a couch off to the side that Rose knew had never been there before. Even the lights seemed a little brighter. The TARDIS had a homier feel than she remembered.
But Rose felt like she didn't belong here. When she had been traveling with the Doctor, the TARDIS had been a bit distant, a bit unreal, and very alien. Rose had assumed that was just the way the TARDIS was, as seen from her perspective as a human. This? This wasn't what she had expected. It all seemed like it should have been and Rose didn't like that she felt out of place.
It wasn't her TARDIS.
Briefly, the lights in the room flashed, drawing Rose out of her reverie. Had the TARDIS picked up on her thoughts? Rose forgot the ship could do that.
"So, Donna's still alive then?"
The Doctor paused and looked up at her, a little smile crossing his face. "Yeah. I had to suppress the Time Lord in her to keep her from dying. That made her forget everything we had been through together, but I would do anything to keep her alive, even if she couldn't ever remember anything about me. She's my best mate."
"I suppose she remembers you now. The TARDIS is here."
He nodded, laughing at some memory. "Ianto figured that one out. He had been traveling with me for a few years when he came up with a way of forcing a Vortex event on her." The Doctor saw her confusion. "It's easy, apparently, to do, especially when Naked Hide and Seek gets involved. Don't ask. You don't want to know. Anyway, Ianto would know better than I do about Vortex events. He's Immortal, Rose. Jack's the cause for that one." The Doctor smiled. "Intimate relationships with Immortals are a good way to get a Vortex event to occur."
Rose raised an eyebrow. "Jack slept with that guy?"
The Doctor tilted his head to the side. "More than once. They're married now. That's their little girl you just met."
"Wow. I didn't expect Jack to get married – to a guy, no less."
The Time Lord met her eyes. Something dark flashed across his eyes. "Rose, they're more than happy. You have no idea what they had to go through a lot to get to where they are today. Jack had to think that Ianto was dead for a few years. It was for the future of the planet."
"What about you and Donna? You got married!" That grated Rose.
"Yeah, we've been married for about fifteen years. Our twins are in Year Nine at school, a boy named Geoff and a girl named S.J. We named her after Sarah Jane Smith, who died shortly before the events of Miracle Day."
Rose gaped in surprise. "What?" Sarah Jane was dead? Rose liked the older companion, even if she felt that Sarah Jane had a more comfortable relationship with the Doctor than she did.
"Cancer. Her adopted son handled it well. He has K-9 with him."
"I can't believe it." Rose couldn't believe that Sarah Jane had a son (even an adopted one) and that the Doctor had been fine with letting that boy keep K-9. K-9 should be with the Doctor. Rose had always assumed that it was just a kindness that the Doctor had given K-9 to Sarah Jane.
"Yeah."
The door open and in walked Ianto with Annabelle, the red-head Rose vaguely recognized as Donna, and Jack Harkness. Donna nodded to Rose before walking over to the console, next to the Doctor. They began talking quickly and quietly, technical jargon being tossed out that went so over Rose's head that she couldn't even process. The two were finishing each other sentences in rapid succession and Donna began arguing a strange point that Rose couldn't follow.
Rose looked at Jack and grinned brightly. He was as handsome as ever, though Rose remembered, a moment too late, that he was married – to that Ianto. That point annoyed her. Jack didn't seem like the kind of guy who would get married or be in an openly gay relationship.
"Rose, what are you doing here?" Jack asked as he walked in.
She walked up to him and hugged the American.
"I came back."
He looked at her with a little smile, very subdued for Jack, in Rose's opinion. She was expecting any number of sexual comments from him.
"You've met my husband, Ianto, and our daughter, Annabelle," he said, walking over to the Welshman and the little girl. He wrapped an arm around Ianto's waist.
"Yeah, we've met," Rose said.
Jack smiled. "Good. Oh, and if you ever get the opportunity, Ianto makes the best coffee in the known universe. The man's a wiz in the kitchen, among other places."
Rose raised an eyebrow and Ianto shook his head, nudging Jack in the side, blushing a bit.
"You'll forgive Jack. The innuendos have gotten better over the past few years."
"I don't mind," Rose replied. "It's good to hear some of Jack's old jokes again. I have missed being around him – all of this."
The two men shared a look that Rose couldn't read.
A moment later, the Doctor gave a bright cheer, causing Annabelle to look at Jack. "Did Uncle Doctor figure out the problem?" the girl asked.
"More like, Aunt Donna did," Jack answered, smiling down at her.
Donna came walking over to them with device in her hand. For a few moments, she scanned Rose. The device gave a beep and a bright light flashed out over the device, covering Rose. It felt a little strange, light and comfortable, much like Rose remembered the TARDIS being.
A few seconds after the light diminished, Donna backed away from Rose, anunreadable expression on her face. "That should do it. You should be stable enough to survive in this universe."
The Doctor came up beside Donna – his wife, Rose admitted to herself. She watched as the Time Lord wrapped an arm around the woman's waist. Around them, the TARDIS flashed warmly. Donna shifted a tiny bit, her hair falling over her shoulder as she tilted her head to the side in a way that was very reminiscent of the Doctor.
"So, how did you survive the metacrisis?" Rose was curious. By all rights, if Donna was still human, she shouldn't be standing there. What did Donna have that made her so special to the Doctor?
Donna smiled. "I'm a Time Lady – at least, for the most part. There's still a little bit of human in me."
Rose looked back at the Doctor. "Aren't you the last Time Lord?"
"Not anymore." The Doctor grinned that mad grin of his. "The Doctor-Donna was prophesized and, well, here we are." He paused for a moment, clearly thinking. "Of course, with the twins around, there are more Time Lords and Ladies about."
"I don't understand."
Ianto chuckled briefly. "Let's just say, everything is where it's supposed to be and all is good."
Rose shifted her weight from foot to foot. "So I came back for nothing then?"
The Doctor looked at her. "Why did you come back, Rose?"
Oh, now he asked.
"For you, Doctor," she admitted, honestly. "I came back because I wanted you. John, your clone, eventually died, a result of the metacrisis, he said. And, I missed you and loved you. I thought that you would . . ." Rose trailed off, seeing how happy the four in front of her were with each other. "Right, this was a bust. I guess I'll go."
She turned towards the door.
"Where?"
Jack's question was honest.
Rose shrugged. "I guess, if you're married and moved on, then Mickey has as well. So, I was thinking about heading up to Cardiff. It's a nice enough area. I liked it, when I was up there."
The group shared a look and Jack nodded definitively, as if making a final point about something.
"If you need anything, please let us know. You know where we are."
She nodded. "I will."
And, with that, Rose Tyler walked out of the TARDIS.
Okay, not so much on Jack and Ianto, but it was something that popped into my head. It's a little different, so I apologize on the non-focus on our favorite focus. Let me know what you think. I'll get back to our regularly scheduled Janto-ness!