Mind the Gap
Rose felt like she was growing up. The pain of being away from the Doctor had not gone away, in fact, sometimes it was worse than ever, but she'd learned to hide it better. She had Mickey and Mum and Dad and the baby to think about and, not wanting them to worry over something that could never be fixed, she tried her best to be cheerful.
Something that could never be fixed. Given everything she'd seen the Doctor do, it was hard to believe, but as he'd said, travel between dimensions was supposed to be impossible, and for all intents and purposes, it was. She knew, she'd looked.
At twenty-five, her position at the Torchwood Institute was impressive, built on the experience she'd gained from her time with the good Doctor. The head of investigation and analysis, she had enough money and clout to do a bit of investigation on her own. It seemed that there was no sign of a Doctor in her new dimension. There was no mention of him in his usual places in history, no mentions of him anywhere. And "Bad Wolf" had finally left her. Not since Bad Wolf Bay had those words coincided.
Every year, she took a vacation to Norway, to sit on the beach and look out at the ocean. It was unbelievable how lonely she could get. Mickey'd gotten married a few years ago, was expecting a second kid in a few months. She had dinner with her parents and sometimes she babysat her little brother Egan, but still, it wasn't like being with the Doctor. Even with all the weird happenings that came with working for Torchwood, life was tame, boring.
When she returned from her sixth yearly constitutional, Rose found a new case file on her desk. The usual alien invaders, thinly hidden amongst the people of Earth. A race she'd never heard of before, but thankfully, there had been nothing like the Daleks or the Cybermen since the Doctor had banished them to the depths of the rift.
But there are still some pretty nasty things out there... she thought to herself as she stalked the alien threat. She'd followed it to a warehouse, a deserted, shady place that made her nervous. Huge crates, tons of places for it to hide. There was no knowing where it could be, possibly right behind her. And then she felt it, the hot, stinking breath, on the back of her neck. She turned around just in time to watch it spring out of the darkness at her.
"ROSE!" The Doctor awoke in a cold sweat and sat up. He put his head in his hands, trying to slow his heart beats. He'd been having so many dreams about Rose recently. It wasn't terribly surprising, he thought about her enough. More than he probably should. Impossible as it seemed, best was to put her behind him; there was no reaching her now, just trying could be catastrophic. Contemplating the distance, knowing the impossibility of being with her had broken his hearts, but thoughts of her would not leave his mind. The whole thing made him wonder. He'd been around long enough to know trouble when he saw it and his dreams were beginning to seem like trouble.
He got up, got dressed, thinking, always thinking.
"it's been years. It's been years and I haven't stopped thinking of her," he said, not sure whether he was talking more to the TARDIS or to himself, "I don't think it's ever been quite this bad..."
"Aw. You loved her."
"What?" he looked around. There was no way he could be anything but alone.
"You loved her." There was a woman, standing by the controls of the TARDIS, skinny, pale, dressed in black. She wore and aunk necklace and had crazy black hair.
"How did you get here? There's no way you should be here. It's impossible."
"Nothing's completely impossible," she smirked, "you of all people should know that."
There was a prickling on the back of the Doctor's neck. He knew this woman, but he also knew he'd never seen her before in his life. "Who are you?"
"You know who I am, Doctor; I was there in the beginning, I'll be there in the end, even for you."
"Death. Are you saying you're the Death? The Alpha and the Omega and all that lot?" Death nodded, "You look more like a grunge rocker..."
"Thank you."
"You're not here to, you know, reap me... right?" he said, not looking nearly as nervous as most people when they asked that sort of question, "'Cause last I checked, I have at least another few thousand years to go before..."
Death shook her head. "No, I'm not here to collect, I'm here to help you."
"Help me how?"
"Rose is dying."
"Dying? What you mean, dying? How can she be dying?"
"She needs your help. She's in my brother's realm for the moment and she's strong, but she won't last forever." Death smiled sadly, "she's been asking for you. She doesn't ever stop thinking of you."
The Doctor looked as though he was going to be sick. "I can't reach her. I can't. To try would mean ripping open the universe."
Death smiled in a way that was not only knowing, but ancient. "It doesn't have to."
After quite a few bananas, three cups of chamomile tea and a glass of hot milk, not to mention several hours of counting many, many sheep, the Doctor finally began to drift off. He wondered if it had ever taken him this long to get to sleep before it actually mattered.
A familiar face. A familiar voice. And then nothing.
Light...
Watery light...
Watery--Water! The Doctor was suddenly horribly aware that he was twenty or thirty feet underwater, looking up at the sky. Trying not to panic, he began to make his way up. There was something strange about the water; it wasn't blue. It was purple. The light filtered all the way from the surface to the mountainous bottom, illuminating an endless landscape, dotted with coral reefs, sunken pirate ships and what seemed to be sparkling under-water hamlets for as far as the eye could see.
He broke the surface and found he was a mile or so from shore. For a while, he just floated there in what must have been a sea. The sun was warm and though he had a long swim ahead of him, he couldn't help but notice that he was rather content. Felt like he was on vacation. It'd been a long time since he'd had proper vacation. The breeze that skittered over the water carried with it the warmth of a carefree, boyish summer. The mainland floated ahead of him, beckoning, filled with promise of new discoveries, new adventures. It was seemingly overly abundant with what looked like forests, jungles, snow-topped mountains, cities and a desert or two, a Neverland, tightly packed to avoid the annoying down-time that came between more exciting engagements.
It took the Doctor some time to get to the white sand beach, but he didn't mind. He sat in the sand and looked out at the purple ocean. It reminded him of something. Something distant and wonderful... Suddenly, the once tepid sea grew choppier and choppier, the sky darker, until a great wave swelled and began rolling inland. Ten, twenty, forty, sixty feet it loomed, casting a humongous shadow over the beach. But, as it towered, the ocean, the entire ocean, flash-froze, leaving the wave hanging motionless above him. Slowly, the sun returned, shining through the ice, casting purple light over the arctic shore. "See that, Rose?" said the Doctor, smiling, "Isn't it beautiful?"
He turned to see Rose's reaction, but she wasn't there. And at that point, the ocean might as well not have existed; his mind had wandered from it completely and was wondering what had become of her.
Perhaps she'd gone to see her mum?
The flat was empty. Empty, dark and forgotten. It was the night after the incident at Canary Warf. The Doctor wandered through the bleak half-light, touching a door frame, or one of the little tacky things Jackie collected. Everything was as neat as was to be expected, there was no sign of the pain or panic that had occurred. It was just as it had been before everything'd gone wrong, frozen in the brief, odd time before the world had come back to its senses, declared the Tyler family dead and moved on. He knew Rose wasn't there. She'd never be there again.
The Doctor walked into Rose's room and sat down on her bed. He had to find her, but where? The fluffy pink bedspread gave him no ideas. He sighed in frustration. Why was he here if he knew she wasn't? Because it was a start and a start was better than nothing. He laid back and began to think. The bedspread, the pillow cases, smelled like her. How long had it been since he'd forgotten what she'd smelled like? He'd put her things away long ago, stored them in a bin, the bin in a dark closet. They smelled of nothing but moth-balls and other dark closet smells now...
That's when he heard it. It was faint. A breathing. The Doctor, sonic screwdriver in hand, leaned over the side of the bed and slowly looked underneath. There, sitting in the dark, was a tiny, golden-orangey, thing. It was so small and seemed harmless. It looked up at him with little beady black eyes, almost like a bug's "Well, hullo there," said the Doctor, moving down to the floor, "who are you then?"
"Urkle." The little thing wobbled on its tiny legs, its head seemed too big for its body.
"Is that so?" he said, putting the screwdriver back in his pocket, "and where did you come from?"
"Urkle."
The Doctor nodded. "Well, seeing as how you know your way around, maybe you can lend me a hand. See, I'm looking for a friend of mine, might of seen her? About so tall, blond hair, a knack for getting herself into trouble...?"
The little gargoyle approached cheerfully, "Urkle!"
"Right," said the Doctor, helping the little thing into his coat pocket, "Off we go then."
