IF YOU FIND THIS BORING SKIP TO CHAPTER THREE. CHAPTERS ONE AND TWO ARE SETTING UP THE BACKGROUND STORY. KINDA LIKE THE FIRST FIFTEEN MINUTES IN THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS.
A/N: So, first chapter! This one's a bit... script-ish? Sorry, 'bout that. At least the TARDIS makes her presence known. Something in here is important though. Let's see if you can find it. ;) If not, please enjoy my, hopefully more descriptive version of POW. If you get bored of this, check out my profile to see a synopsis of this story.
Rose was mad. She was also worried, scared, and on the verge of flooding the café with tears.
The Doctor had sent her home. She couldn't do anything to help him and now he would die. That bloody blue box wouldn't fly back to the game-station. It would just sit there and gather dust. And now Mickey had the nerve to suggest that she thought she was better than them. Of course she didn't think that, she was only worried about the Doctor.
"It was a better life. And I don't mean all the traveling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That doesn't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life.", she took a deep, shuddering breath, "You know, he showed you too. And you can't just give it up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't-"
Rose ran outside and she saw it.
Bad Wolf.
Her mind went wild. Everywhere she went it was there. But why? It was like a part of her that she didn't know. It wasn't a warning. It was a message that followed her.
She ran to the TARDIS with Mickey. How was she supposed to get back to him? Maybe a reverse trip. All she had to do was go back exactly where she left.
They burnt out the tires on the mini trying to open the console and she was ready to give up when her mom came around the corner with a truck. This time she attached a chain to a handle on the TARDIS. And this time it worked.
She looked into the console. It was beautiful. A golden light swam around her as a song floated through her head and she felt like she could fly. She didn't even take notice when the TARDIS slammed the doors on Mickey.
'It's so beautiful' thought Rose, as she closed her eyes and listened to the song.
The TARDIS laughed in her mind. 'Thank you. It's the sound of the Time Vortex, and my song', she explained.
Rose gasped. "You can hear me?"
The TARDIS laughed again. 'Yes'
The TARDIS found something in Rose that was familiar. She could handle the vortex, something she shouldn't be able to do. There was something ancient in her, something hidden. Stuff of legend. Quite literally too. She realized this small, human girl was the only one who could save her thief. Of course he'd be mad at her for letting Rose see the Vortex, but the TARDIS somehow knew she would be fine. Better even, because now she would be slightly telepathic and the TARDIS would have another girl to talk to.
The Doctor bent his head down. He was going to die, and ironically, by the hands of his own enemies. Normally he would have accepted this and would think he deserved it, but all he could think about was a certain pink-and-yellow human. The girl who started to heal his hearts. The reason that caused him to want to live again. He realized didn't want to die. He wanted to stop these bloody Daleks and go back to Rose and apologize for lying to her and sending her away. But that wouldn't happen. He would die and Rose and the TARDIS would be alone.
But then he heard a glorious sound, albeit, one he really didn't want hear right now.
He looked back and the doors of his beloved ship opened. He squinted as a golden light assaulted his eyes.
Rose, equivalent to a goddess, stepped out. She was bathed in a golden energy that snaked it's way out of the TARDIS console and around her.
The Doctor was dumbstruck. "What have you done?", he yelled.
Rose looked at him the way a mother looks at her child when explaining something sad or serious. She spoke with a soft, ethereal voice, "I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me".
"You looked into the Time Vortex, Rose! No one's meant to see that."
"EXTERMINATE!" a robotic sound echoed in the room.
Rose lifted her hand and stopped the blue beam. She spoke to the universe with a commanding tone.
"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself." She lifted a hand to a company sign as the letters, spelling out BAD WOLF, floated into the air in chaos and disappeared. "I scatter them in time and space, a message to lead myself here."
The Doctor knew what she could, and would do with the power running through her. "Rose. You've got to stop this. Stop this now. You've got the entire vortex running through your head." He swallowed."You're going to burn."
Rose, her face painful and sad, looked at him. A few tears slide down her cheek. "I want you safe, my Doctor. Protected from the false god.", she whispered.
The Emperor retorted in a disbelieving tone. "You cannot hurt me. I am immortal."
She swung her head to him. "You are tiny", she vehemently spat out, "I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence, and I divide them."
She slowly disintegrated a Dalek slowly, to prove her point.
"Everything must come to dust." She squeezed her hand shut. "All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends."
The Dalek Emperor yelled out about his immortality in vain as he and all the Daleks fell into piles of gold star dust, along with their ship.
The Doctor looked back at Rose. He could see she was in pain, and starting to sweat. She was burning. "Rose, you've done it, now stop. Just let go."
But she felt Jack's dead body and gave it life. "How can I let go of this? I can bring life", she countered.
"But it's wrong! You can't control life and death."
"But I can." She paused to confusedly search his face. "The sun and moon. The day and night. But why do they hurt?"
"It's going to kill you, and it's all my fault." He tried to show her reason, but she ignored him if she even had heard him speak.
"I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be." She started crying as she saw something. Something horrible. Her own personal doomsday. The day she would be separated from the Doctor. She didn't see the rest of the timeline when he spoke again.
"That's what I see all the time. Doesn't it drive you mad?"
"My head", she cried, not for the physical, but the emotional pain she had seen.
"Come here."
She walked to him. "It's killing me", she whispered.
Then he used his favorite pick-up line. It probably wasn't the time or place, but he needed to break the worried, jumbled thoughts running through his mind.
"I think you need a doctor." He gently touched her cheek as he softly kissed her. He took in the Vortex, wondering how she handled the searing pain. She finally collapsed in his arms and he exhaled the time energy back into the TARDIS, who stored it away in her console and closed the doors. The Doctor picked up Rose and carried her to the TARDIS, laid her on the floor of the console room, and set the ship adrift in the vortex.
He looked at his pink-and-yellow human.
(Wait. His? When did that happen? Bah, whatever.)
She, Rose Tyler, a mere human, had stopped the Time War. After all the years and years of fighting, a simple selfless girl had ended the horrible war, and his family and friends that had died because of it were finally avenged. And she had made the last act of this horrible life, not death. She definitely was not a stupid ape.
Rose woke up and squinted her eyes at the light in the console room. She was legitimately confused and a bit dazed, like when someone wakes from a dream.
"What happened?", she moaned.
The Doctor but worried, but slightly relived. "You don't remember?"
"It's like- There was this singing", she gestured with her hand.
The Doctor flashed her a goofy grin. "That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away."
The TARDIS chuckled and decided to tease him. "That's why I shock you when you sing in the shower."
The Doctor ignored her and turned his attention back to Rose.
She was trying to piece the day together in her head. "I was at home. No- No, I wasn't, I was in the TARDIS, and there was this light." She sighed. "I don't remember anything else."
The Doctor looked down at his hand and saw a flash of regeneration energy run across it.
"Rose Tyler." He sighed. "I was going to take you to so many places. Like Barcelona! Not the city, but the plant Barcelona. You'd love it. Fantastic place. Did I ever tell you about the dogs with no noses? No matter how many times a day you end up telling that joke, it's still funny."
Rose furrowed her eyebrows and questioned him. "Then why can't we go?"
He looked up at her. "Maybe you will. Maybe I will, but not like this."
Rose was definitely worried now. "You're not making sense."
The Doctor rambled on, not making a lick of sense as the TARDIS rolled her metaphorical eyes.
"I might never make sense again. I might have two heads." He chuckled at the thought, but seriously hoping that wouldn't happen. "Or no head. Imagine me with no head! Don't you dare say that's an improvement. It's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with when- " He lost his train of thought as he doubled over in pain.
Rose wasn't worried now, she was scared, maybe more like terrified. "Doctor!" She ran over to help him, but he stopped her with his hand.
"Stay away!"
"Doctor, what's going on?"
He sighed and explained. "I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex and no one's meant to do that. Every cell in my body is dying."
Rose, now on the verge of hysterics, and not the happy kind, was struggling to hold in her tears. What had happened? What was making him suffer like this?
"Can't you do something?"
"Yeah, actually I'm doing it now. See, Time Lords have this little trick, sort of a way of cheating death. Except it means I'm going to change, and I'm not going to see you again. " Rose gasped as he continued. "Not like this, with this daft old face." He grinned. "I before I go-"
"Don't say that!"
"Rose, Before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic, and you know what?" He nodded. "So was I." He grinned as a golden light shot from his head, hands, and feet. Rose hid behind a coral strut, her mouth partly hanging open, as his body become smaller and his face changed. It lasted a few minutes before the regeneration energy began to diminish and finally faded. The Doctor brought his head back down and shook it. Rose stood, her mouth still hanging open, and stared at the Doctor.
He was skinner, not to mention a bit taller. The leather jacket seemed to barley hang on his lanky frame. His skin was a tad lighter, and sprinkled with freckles. His ears and nose weren't quite as big. A mass of brown, unruly, slightly spiky hair replaced his cropped head. The stern, cold, blue eyes were now brown and soulful, but they still held the look of the Doctor. They were ageless as time itself and had seen the equivalent of Hell, but yet still had felt love, especially for a certain human girl. (Not that he would tell her that. He didn't even tell himself that yet.)
The strange-yet-familiar Doctor grinned at Rose. "Oh, Hello." She found out his Northern accent had been traded in for Southern London one. He ran his tongue over his top row of teeth and tested out his face muscles. "Ooo, new teeth. That's weird. So, where was I? Right. Barcelona."
All Rose could do was stare, her mouth still hanging open, while the TARDIS rolled her eyes. Again.
For a Lord of Time, her thief was incredibly thick. He had months to warn this poor girl about regeneration, but did he tell her? No, not even she reminded him. Now the poor girl would wonder where the Doctor was and he'd have to convince her it really was him, not to mention gain her trust again.
If the TARDIS had a face and a palm, she would have facepalmed. Repeatably.
A/N: Did you find it? Look in the middle. Right above the horizontal line. The TARDIS knows what's up. ;) Also, be kind to a new FF user and leave a review. Or PM me if your some English Nazi who knows the whole .", stuff. It's bugging me 'cos I don't know what to do.
