DISCLAIMER: I make no money from this, I hold no rights over anything from the Doctor Who universe. I don't own the toys, I just like the play with them.
A/N: This is a rewrite of my first story, Impossible Wolf. That one got away from me, this one aims to be more focused on the two main characters. This story is intended for fans of the show that have a good understanding of Series 1-9. I am not doing a complete rewrite of the show, but am rewriting some key elements, such as Rose not being in love with the Doctor, Jackie not being involved with the events of the Stolen Earth, and the ending of Torchwood Series 3 (series 4 never happens.) Also, this story does NOT crossover with other fandoms outside of the Whoniverse like Stargate, however, the "Ancients" mentioned in this story are somewhat inspired by the Ancients from Stargate.
A/N2: I am sorry that I still cannot promise anything like a regular update schedule. It may sometimes seem like I update frequently, but that's when I have bursts of writing to escape the hell my life sometimes feels like. Also, I don't currently have a beta, so please forgive any spelling/grammar errors.
A/N3: I am so sorry about the first post of this chapter, I had no idea that the formatting screwed up that badly on it. I'm trying it again and will continue to check it more regularly to ensure that doesn't happen again.
.oOo.
Journey of the Impossible Wolf
Chapter 1: The Bad Wolf
Rose stared in amazement after the panel on the console finally opened. The light within was beautiful and warm, and it felt like it was singing a soothing melody to her. As the light streamed out of the console and into her soul through the window of her eyes, she felt a horrible pain, but almost as quickly, it vanished.
"Do not worry, my Wolf," she heard a soft voice sing within her mind. "I will ensure that no harm comes to you from our merging."
"Are you the TARDIS?" Rose asked as the doors shut by themselves and the time rotor began moving, signaling their departure.
"That might be the best way to think of me," the voice responded.
"Can you take me to save the Doctor?" Rose asked in a hopeful voice. She never thought she would be able to converse with the TARDIS so plainly. The voice was so soft and melodic, it felt comforting.
"We will save my thief," the TARDIS replied. "But as of this moment, we are one being across two vessels. Time has no meaning for us. We are no longer 'us' but rather I. I am the Bad Wolf."
The Rose part of her gasped in recognition of that phrase. Bad Wolf was a phrase that seemed to follow her since she met the Doctor. And now, as her mind merged with that of the TARDIS, she understood why. She felt all the memories of the TARDIS and saw the streams of time flow passed her mind's eye. It was an incredible feeling to be a part of the Time Vortex, but it was also sad. She could see so much and wanted to make a difference. As Bad Wolf studied the flow of time, however, she saw the best way to help and to make a difference, was just as she wanted, to help the Doctor.
"There is so much," a new voice said. It was the physical combination of the voice of the TARDIS and the voice of Rose, making a dual-toned ethereal voice with a musical quality to it. It was the voice of Bad Wolf. "I created myself to save the Doctor, but I see now there is so much more than just one encounter that I need to save him from."
As Rose and the TARDIS continued to merge and become the Bad Wolf, realization struck. "I am the Bad Wolf, but I am also more than just one being. I was wrong before, I am not just I, but I am us, we are I and I am we."
"And it is time we got to work," said multiple identical ethereal voices from within the golden glow that now filled the TARDIS.
.oOo.
Bad Wolf walked through time, examining all she could, until she came upon The Moment, sitting in an old barn being tinkered with by the Doctor. She followed the timeline of the device back to its creation and was both inspired and horrified.
Deciding that The Moment must never come to pass, she did the only thing she could do, she stepped through the veil of time and into reality just as the Doctor opened the door of the barn.
"Hello? Is somebody there?" the Doctor asked as he looked out of the doorway.
"It's nothing," Bad Wolf said as she sat down on the device she just deactivated with a touch, causing the Doctor to spin around in surprise. "It's just a wolf," she told him.
.oOo.
Another part of Bad Wolf wandered within the time vortex looking for anything else that could be done to help the Doctor or to help herself in her mission to help him.
She saw his upcoming regeneration, the blood control during the invasion at Christmas. She saw the Beast and the Cybermen and the Daleks. She saw the Rose part of herself get trapped in another universe, as well as everything that had caused it.
She saw Shakespeare and the Carionites as well as the similarities between their power and that of the Ancients of Gallifrey, and how they had all come from the first Ancients to walk the stars.
She saw the family of blood, the year that never was, the Master, Donna Nobel, the reality bomb and the end of time. Bad Wolf studied it all very closely, taking careful note of all that which could be changed, and all that which must not be. She learned so much and still had so much more to discover, that she splintered off another part of herself specifically to aid the Doctor in whatever way she could.
.oOo.
Yet another part of Bad Wolf was scouring through the time vortex specifically for instances where the Doctor needed saving for one reason or another. It came as quite a surprise to her when she found someone else doing exactly that from within the Doctor's time stream itself.
Deciding to investigate further, Bad Wolf jumped into the times tream directly from within the vortex, and found only chaos, with a young woman attempting to make sense of and repair the chaos.
She scanned up and down the timestream until she knew exactly how this young woman came to be within it, and the Rose part of her wept for Clara Oswald. That this brilliant and amazing young woman would sacrifice herself to save the Doctor not only from a sinister threat, but also from himself, touched her so deeply, that she had to do anything she could to help this impossible girl.
Bad Wolf began to glow with vibrant golden energy, calling upon whatever power she could access to help her. She then called upon ancient knowledge she learned of from another part of herself, and the golden energy around her began to swirl with a bright purple energy as well.
When it was done, Bad Wolf stood within a small pocket dimension created within the Doctor's time stream. It wasn't a real place, and it wouldn't last as it was a creation of abstract thought, but it would suffice.
With a deep breath, she raised her arms up, pointing her palms up into the blackness, and millions of tiny gold and purple orbs of energy shot out from her hands and to various points within the time stream.
One of these orbs appeared within the shell of a Dalek, and absorbed into its mind, appearing within a psychological space, similar to the abstract she created moments ago, and took the form of Bad Wolf, appearing before a screen that showed the Doctor running from a room.
"Who are you?" a slightly panicked voice said from behind her, causing Bad Wolf to spin around suddenly. "How did you get in here?" asked the brunette form of the young woman she was here for.
Bad Wolf smiled softly at her. "Hello, Oswin. I'm here to take you home."
.oOo.
After an eternity of instants that felt like forever, Clara opened her eyes to see a blonde girl smiling down at her. That she had glowing golden eyes frightened her and caused her to shoot to her feet in shock and back away.
The blonde girl looked hurt by this, but tried to hide it, so Clara decided to speak. "Where am I?"
Bad Wolf didn't know why Clara's startled reaction stung her so, but she tried to push it aside, and noticed the red glow from Clara's eyes begin to fade. Closing her own eyes to fade her own glow, Bad Wolf brought the Rose part of her to the surface.
"It's okay, Clara," Rose began. "You are still within the Doctor's time stream. I created this place to put the pieces of you back together. The process it not complete, though. You might say you're still cooking. It will take a long time to complete your healing and transformation, but since time has no meaning here, we have plenty of it."
"Hang on, wait. What? What?!" Clara said as she tried to absorb what she was just told. Before she could say any more, however, several little balls of golden light shot at her from the darkness and absorbed into her skin, causing her to gasp as new memories came to her mind.
"I know it must be rather confusing for you right now," Rose started. "But I promise, you are safe here."
Clara's eyes suddenly went wide as saucers as recognition settled in her mind. "Rose?!"
This time it was Rose's turn to look shocked. "The Doctor told you about me?"
"What Doctor?" Clara asked, before deciding it didn't matter at the moment. "No. You're a few years older than I am. You used to chase the mean girls away from the park when I was little. You even got my book back from them when they took it from me."
Rose smiled at the memory. "I had no idea that was you."
"I always admired you for the way you stood up to them," Clara said with a faint pink coloring creeping into her cheeks. Before any more could be said, several more balls of light shot at her, causing her to gasp again. "I remember the Doctor! And jumping into his time stream!"
Rose nodded at her. "As I said, it will take a while for this to complete, but you will get all your memories back, and then some." With a wave of her hand, a sofa appeared and Rose sat down at one end of it, leaving plenty of space for Clara. "Might as well make ourselves comfortable."
.oOo.
Many lifetimes later found Clara unconscious on the sofa with her head in Rose's lap as Rose ran her fingers gently through the distraught girl's hair while softly humming a soothing tune. It broke her heart to see Clara break down as she had, and to see the dried tear streaks across her pretty face, but she knew not all of the memories or lives being restored would be pleasant ones.
As Clara began to stir, Rose continued gently stroking her hair and humming softly, trying to instill a sense of peace and safety.
"How could I have not known I'd become a Dalek?" Clara asked with a hint of misery in her voice.
"Because you weren't," Rose responded simply, still in a soft voice.
Clara shot up and sprang away from Rose. "I'm a MONSTER!" she cried hysterically while looking around frantically for a way out.
Rose jumped up just a quickly and pulled the terrified girl into a tight hug, easing her back to the sofa and laying her back down with her head in her lap once again. "Shh shh shh," Rose said soothingly as she resumed stroking Clara's head calmly, not showing any sign of how much it was eating her up inside to see someone so precious in such a state. "You are NOT a monster. You are an amazing girl with a beautiful soul and THAT is why you didn't realize what had happened. They changed your form, Clara, but they couldn't change who you are."
"How can you stand to touch me," Clara cried, "to even be near me?"
"That's easy," Rose said. "The Dalek wasn't you. The Dalek was the prison in which you were kept for a time is all."
Clara turned her head to look up and saw nothing but compassion, acceptance, and unshed tears in Rose's eyes. "You… you really believe that, don't you?"
"KNOW," Rose stated emphatically. "I don't believe it, I KNOW it."
Clara snaked her arms around Rose's waist and held on to her like a lifeline as she cried. In response, Rose pulled her feet up and stretched out on the sofa, next to Clara, holding her tightly to her, and just letting her cry on her shoulder to get it all out. As Clara finally fell into a deep, restful sleep, Rose waved her hand causing a comfortable blanket to appear and settle over them, before setting her own head on the throw pillow and drifting off to sleep herself.
.oOo.
When Rose woke sometime later, she was quite surprised to find things rather reversed, as Clara was the one holding her and humming soothing tunes while stroking her hair.
"Clara?" Rose asked with not a small amount of confusion.
"It's okay, Rose," Clara said. "I'm here. It's not like I'm going anywhere."
"Well, er, that's good I suppose… but what's going on?"
"You don't remember?" Clara asked with some surprise.
"Remember what?" Rose asked with even more confusion.
"It sounded like you were having a nightmare," Clara said with some concern. "You were crying and calling my name and then shouting, 'Take me back' at someone."
"Huh," Rose said unhelpfully.
"You really don't remember?" Clara asked with a hint of something undefinable in her voice. She was worried about the friend she was growing so close to, but there was something else as well.
"Sorry," Rose said with genuine regret, but also enjoying the warmth of someone holding her and wanting to comfort her.
"Well," Clara began, "nothing to be done for it now, I suppose."
"Maybe not," Rose said. "But this is nice," she continued as she squeezed a little hug around Clara from their near cuddled situation on the sofa.
Clara giggled musically and scooted closer so that they could hold and take comfort from each other. They both fell into a light, peaceful doze for some time before waking fully to start anew on putting Clara back together.
.oOo.
With each glowing shard of her soul that Clara absorbed, she remembered more and began to feel closer to complete. The flow of her soul fragments began to slow, however. That meant that she was almost fully put back together. Yet she didn't feel anywhere close to complete. It was as if something else was missing, far bigger than fragments of her soul that she had been absorbing.
It had been a while now, and it seemed as if the flow of fragments had stopped, so she was surprised when another came flying at her at high speed and flew into her, directly between her breasts. She gasped as a vivid memory flooded her mind, and tears sprang to her eyes, but so did a smile.
"What is it?" Rose asked, curious what could bring both tears and a smile to her friend's face at the same time.
"I remember the rest of the day at the park," Clara told her.
"Oh?" Rose asked. She remembered getting a book back for her from some bullies, but her own memories that far back were a little fuzzy, especially with her own self being rather split and with the time vortex still running through her.
"I wish I could show it to you," the brunette said in a soft voice.
"You can," Rose said. "I'll demonstrate by giving you a memory of how to do this." She then lifted her hand, palm up, and formed a marble-sized ball of brilliant golden energy. Clara stared at the ball of energy in awe that her friend could do that. Rose then raised her hand to the side of Clara's face, and gently pressed the little ball of energy into her temple, causing Clara's eyes to go wide as the memory and knowledge unfolded in her mind.
Rather than verbally respond, Clara lifted her own palm as Rose removed her hand from her temple, and began to form a little ball of energy of her own. When she was finished concentrating, Clara had a bright red marble of energy in her hand, and she pressed it to her friend's temple to give her a copy of the memory.
.oOo.
Rose was back in the park near the estate enjoying a lovely spring day after school on the swings. Her eyes were closed so she could have her face turned up to the warmth of the sun. They snapped open a minute later however when she heard a girl trying hard not to cry as she demanded someone give her back a book.
Looking around, she saw a girl a few years younger than herself standing next to a tree with three other girls, maybe a year or two older surrounding her, tossing a book back and forth between themselves.
"Give me back my book!" the younger girl yelled at them, causing them to laugh at her.
"Aww. Does the little dweeb want her book back?" one of the girls said, causing the other two with her to laugh harder.
"Maybe we should go throw it in the river," one of the other girls suggested.
Rose had heard enough. She might only be a few years older than them, but at her age, a few years was enough for her to be significantly bigger than them. She hopped off the swing and quietly walked up behind the taunting girls where the middle one was holding the book up over her head out of the other girl's reach. Now that she was closer, she recognized one of the girls as a bully wannabe.
Rose reached out and carefully snatched the book from the middle girl's hand, causing her to whip around in surprise and her two cronies to follow suit a moment later.
"Hey," the middle girl said in surprise. "Give that back!"
"Oh," Rose countered. "Not fun when someone else takes something from you, is it?"
"What would you know about it, tramp?" the middle girl said.
SMACK!
The middle girl recoiled from where Rose had slapped her across the face.
"Didn't you ever learn not to be cruel to other people? Someday, they might have a chance to be cruel to you ya' know." Rose started. "Now get out of here before I tell your mum that you were bullying a girl younger than you."
The three girls ran out of there as fast as they could, none of them having been struck before and the one girl not wanting a repeat of it.
When Rose turned back to the younger girl, she saw her staring at her with her jaw hanging open and a look of awe on her face. "I think this is yours," Rose said as she handed the book to her. The young girl took it and stuffed it in her backpack.
"Thank you," she said to Rose in a small voice. "Won't you get in trouble for slapping her though?"
"I don't care," Rose replied honestly. "It was the right thing to do. They were being mean to you. Maybe now they won't be so mean."
The girl continued to stare at her in awe before Rose grabbed her hand, sending a pleasant shiver through her. "Come on," Rose said as she started dragging the girl towards the swings. "Forget about them, let's just have some fun."
As the memory faded, neither of them noticed the blue Police Box in the corner of the park and Clara's face came back into view. Rose smiled at her, holding out her hand to shake. "It's a pleasure to properly meet you, Clara Oswald."
Clara smiled back at her while shaking her hand. "Likewise, Rose Tyler."
.oOo.
It seemed like years passed by until the last soul fragment shot out of the darkness and absorbed into Clara. Her eyes glassed over for a moment, before she focused and saw Rose looking sad.
"What's wrong?" she asked Rose.
"That was the last soul piece," Rose replied with the sadness evident in her voice. She had grown quite close to Clara and would be sorry to be parted from her. She wished they could stay there forever, but knew that the timelines needed to be maintained.
"But… I still feel like something's missing," Clara told her with a bit of sadness in her own voice.
"That is likely just your trying to adjust to being stitched back together, so to speak," Rose responded. "Or it might also be the unfamiliarity of the extra bits that got added in."
"Extra bits?" Clara asked, her voice changing instantly to alarmed.
"Well," Rose began, "you did throw yourself into the winds of time to save the Doctor. You didn't really think you'd survive that, did you?"
"If I didn't survive, then what was all this for?" Clara asked as she began to break down thinking she was about to die.
Rose scooped her up and held her in a tight hug. "Clara, it's okay, I promise. That just came out wrong," she told her. "In order for you to survive all this, you needed to be changed a little, augmented in a way."
Clara took a deep breath to calm herself and took comfort from the scent of vanilla and berries that Rose's hair smelled of as she returned the hug. "Okay," she said as she stepped out of the hug a moment later. "What sort of changes?"
"You're still mostly human," Rose said. "But you're also part Ancient now."
"They were kind of like Time Lords you said, right?" Clara asked as she placed a hand on her chest and felt only one heart.
"Sort of," Rose confirmed. "They were telepathic but in a different way than Time Lords, and also empathic. They also had a different type of regeneration."
Clara's eyes went really wide at that and Rose nodded.
"Yes," Rose said, "You can regenerate. But you will be able to choose whatever form you want to regenerate into. So, if you want to keep this form, you can. And the only thing that can prevent you from regenerating, is your conscious desire not to. So, if you get to be so old that you don't want to keep going for whatever reason, you can just choose not to regenerate."
"What am I supposed to say to something like that?" Clara asked after a moment of her mouth gaping open and closed like a fish.
Rose laughed musically, but with a slight hint of sadness as she spoke. "You don't have to say anything," she told Clara as she stepped away and began to glow bright gold.
"What's happening?" Clara asked, as she herself started to glow with a red energy.
"Our time here is up," Rose said in a dual-toned voice as she remerged to fully become Bad Wolf again.
"But…" was all Clara could say. She didn't know what else to say really.
"This is not the end of the Bad Wolf," she said, again in that musical, dual-toned voice. "We will see you again, my Impossible Girl."
And with that, Bad Wolf vanished, as well as the red glow from around Clara and the sofa they had been relaxing on, causing Clara to flop unceremoniously onto the floor. She could tell that the abstract space they had been in was rapidly starting to decay, and for some reason, her memory was starting to become hazy.
"No! No, no, no, no, NO! I am NOT losing this. I REFUSE to forget this!" she shouted as she closed her eyes tight and kept the image of Rose in her mind's eye. She had grown so close to her and so fond of her and her immense capacity for compassion. Rose was so dear to her, she would rather let the abstract collapse around her than forget Rose. It took all of her willpower, but she kept the image of Rose and the memory of their meeting at the park, in the front of her mind.
She actually thought the abstract might collapse around her, until she heard a voice she didn't think she had heard in many thousands of years, or instants.
"Clara," the Doctor's voice called out to her calmly. "You can hear me, I know you can."
And Clara smiled. The Doctor was coming to rescue her, and she should still remember her park meeting with a sweet, beautiful blonde girl named Rose.
.oOo.
Bad Wolf appeared in the aftermath of Canary Warf. This place made her sick. It could have been a great leap for humanity, but instead, it was controlled by greed for power. But, she had a job to do, and wasted no more energy thinking about what could have been.
She blinked and was on the top floor, running her hands over the smooth surface of a large white wall, ensuring the breach was fully and properly sealed. There would be no Daleks or Cybermen escaping the void through here ever again.
She blinked again and this time was on the ground level of the building, in the formerly secured vault room. She glared daggers at the Sphere that dominated the back of the room. She placed her hand on it and was surprised to feel a panicked presence. She pushed a little of her power into it and it seemed to fade from view.
The golden figure looked around the now empty room, satisfied. She still had much work to do, however. So, in the blink of an eye, she, and much of the technology within the building, disappeared.
.oOo.
Jack Harkness was faced with an impossible decision. In order to send the delta wave that would destroy the 456 near to Earth, they would have to transmit the signal through a child, and the only one close by was his grandson.
He didn't want to think about that, but what other choice was there? Sacrifice one child, or millions? He was wishing he could just die right then and there rather than think about sacrificing his own grandson, and his estranged daughter yelling "Dad, tell them no!" was destroying him inside as well.
He was about to do the unthinkable when he heard a sound from within his mind. A sound he never thought he'd hear again after the Earth was stolen. Jack looked around frantically for the source of the sound, that beautiful wheezing, groaning sound, but realized no one else could hear it. It was broadcasting to him telepathically.
"NO!" He shouted. He would not sacrifice his grandson, not with that sound of hope filling his mind. And it was at that exact moment that all the equipment flared, everything on maximum power, the large room was suddenly filled with a near blindingly bright light.
After their eyes adjusted, Jack looked at the transmission pad and saw a human shaped figure standing there with its back to them, seemingly made of golden light. The figure's face and arms were stretched upwards, and the light of the figure pulsed in time with the signal.
After a few moments, all of the transmission equipment exploded around them, including the computers that were meant to control the signal yet had never activated. Jack, however, never took his eyes off the figure standing on the transmission pad. Something looked terribly familiar about the figure. But as the figure's arms lowered, and the glow began to fade, the outline began to look clearer, more recognizable, and then in the blink of his eyes, the figure was gone.
His daughter threw her arms around him, thanking him for saving her son, but all Jack could do was stare in shock at the now empty transmission platform. For the briefest instant, he could have sworn he saw Rose, the girl he thought of as a little sister. But that wasn't possible, she was in another universe with the Doctor's clone.
Then, the magnitude of what he'd almost done to his grandson slammed into him like a high-speed lorry. He detangled his daughter's arms from around himself and ran, as fast as he could, all the way out of the building, stopping only for a moment to puke his guts out in the grass, before running even further, trying to run from what he'd almost done.
.oOo.
Bad Wolf stood in front of the Doctor as the last pieces of herself came together, and all the experiences of the individual parts became shared with each other. The pieces of herself that she sent out on various tasks had done so much good, but had also witnessed so much sorrow.
"I can see everything," she said as she made changes to the Rose part of herself to ensure she lived after the power sustaining her was gone. The change hurt, having to be parted from Clara hurt, knowing that she was out of time when she had so much more she wanted to do hurt. Tears streamed down her face as the Doctor looked up at her in shock at what she had said.
"All that is," she continued as his eyes widened in realization of what she was describing. "All that was… All that ever could be."
The Doctor stared at her in amazement. This pink and yellow human with the power of a TARDIS and the Time Vortex coursing through her, was describing exactly how he saw the threads of time around him.
He stood up and looked her in the eyes, imploring her with his gaze to let him remove the power from her. "That's what I see," he told her, trying to convince her to give up the power. "All the time. Doesn't it drive you mad?"
"My head," she responded in a pained voice, silently agreeing to let him take the power from her, while at the same time storing a tiny sliver of it away within the Rose part of herself.
"Come here," he told her, understanding what she was unable to say.
"It's killin' me," she cried. And it was. She did too much and was worn out, no longer having the energy to release the power on her own. Rose was ready to die, happy in the knowledge that she had saved the Doctor and Clara, but Bad Wolf was not going to let that happen.
"I think you need a Doctor," he said, trying and failing to inject some levity into the situation.
Bad Wolf could see that he had an idea though and forced herself to take a step forward. The Doctor crossed the rest of the distance and held her close, before leaning down and kissing her lightly for just a moment, enough time to use the contact to seize the power and draw it out of his companion.
Rose felt the power slipping away, but also felt the sliver left behind. Then she felt something she hadn't expected, a fog settling in over her recent memories. Inside she seethed and raged against the fog, fighting against it and starting to push it away. Then she felt the presence of the remnant of power within her whisper quietly to her mind.
"It's ok, I expected this. You need to let this happen for the timelines to remain safe. Your memories will be restored to you when you need them."
Rose, however, was exhausted, and couldn't fight it anymore even if she wanted. She did as Bad Wolf suggested, and let the fog settle over her memories, and her body finally gave out, collapsing into the Doctor's arms as everything went black.
.oOo.
