A small explosion burst out of the TARDIS console. Rose screamed, falling backwards. "Doctor!" she cried.
"Something's interfering with the navigation system!" a Northern voice called back. The Doctor was struggling to hold down a lever and also to keep his balance. "There are shields; something won't tell me where we're landing!"
"Why would that happen?!" Bang! Rose screamed again, barely keeping her balance as she had just stood up again.
"I don't know!" the Doctor shouted. "And I really don't like not knowing!" The TARDIS tilted alarmingly, more explosions echoing around the console. "Rose, hold on! We're crashing!"
"I noticed!" the blonde Londoner cried. The largest tremor yet shook the ship. Both Rose and the Doctor yelled, falling over as the cloister bell sounded, ringing like a gong.
Then, silence. Rose checked to make sure she was still breathing. "I'm okay," she said. "Doctor?"
Silence again. The Doctor didn't answer. Rose scrambled to her feet, suddenly worried. She ran to the other side of the console. "Doctor!" she cried, dropping to her knees as she saw the unconscious Time Lord, sprawled limply across the TARDIS floor. A bit of the console had broken off under his grip and was now still clasped loosely in one of his hands. "Doctor," Rose said again. "Wake up." A sudden fear clutched her. Was he still alive? She pressed both hands to his chest, one above each heart.
Two hearts beating. Rose sighed in relief. "Alright," she said, "I'm just going to take a look outside, and I'll be right back. Not that you can hear me, but…you know." She stumbled over to the door and stepped outside. Rose gasped at the cold. It was night, and it was snowing. The wind blew straight into her face, stinging her exposed nose and cheeks. If she hadn't heard shouting from nearby, she would have gone straight back into the TARDIS. But she did hear shouting, and it sounded like children, so she didn't leave. "'Ello? Anyone there?" she called.
Rising up from behind a nearby snowbank came, laughing and shouting, a small group of children. Slightly behind, and struggling to keep up, came an older man.
"See, Sherriff," one little girl shouted to the man. "We told you, something fell."
The old man wasn't looking up. He was paying attention to where his feet were going. "Yes, Caria, I believed you the first time, you know."
"Well, of course you did. I couldn't have lied," Caria said, giggling. "Look, there's a girl!"
The man looked up, finally. He caught sight of Rose, and froze in place, his eyes wide with shock. Rose managed a friendly smile and wave despite the freezing temperature and her thin, short sleeve shirt.
"Hello, mate! Any chance you could help us? We've crashed, you see. This is our…" She gestured to the TARDIS. "Our, em, escape pod, and my friend is unconscious inside of it."
The man was still just gazing at her, his mouth open slightly, an expression of extreme surprise on his face. "You shouldn't be here," he whispered.
Rose was getting a bit uncomfortable. "Um, yeah, sorry, we were crashing," she repeated. "So, could you help us?"
One of the kids, not Caria, a boy, piped up then. "Sure he can! He's the Doctor, he can help anyone!"
"What?" Rose managed, staring at the man as he stared back. "What did you call him?"
"The Doctor," the young boy repeated. "That's his name. He's our Sherriff."
Rose addressed the man now. "I know a man called the Doctor. And he's not you. Who are you?"
The Sherriff now was trying to look anywhere except for at Rose. "I…Er, that's…" He was struggling with his words. "I'm, er…" He didn't seem to be able to answer.
Something about this man was very familiar. He looked absolutely nothing like the Doctor. He had longish, dark, floppy hair streaked with grey, a fairly prominent chin, and a softer, kinder, and more wrinkled face than the Doctor. But as Rose, shivering, walked towards him, and he backed away slightly, she looked into his eyes again. She saw something there. And she saw the Doctor. The eyes were ancient and sad, just like her Doctor's, only more so, if possible.
"Doctor?" she whispered. Then she shook her head. "No, it can't be you."
The man was shaking a little. There were the ghosts of tears in his eyes. Rose looked at him closely, tilting her head slightly. "You know me," she stated softly. It was not a question. "Doctor? Are you…my Doctor?"
"No," the man said slowly, hesitantly, as if wondering whether something would stop him from speaking. "No…I'm not your Doctor."
"Then why do you know me? Why did you recognize me?"
The children were watching this exchange in confused silence. The Sherriff took a deep breath. "I…" He stopped.
Rose reached out and took his hand, impulsively. "Do you know who I am?"
"Yes." He bit his tongue, and looked like he regretted saying that.
"Who am I, then?"
"…Rose Tyler," the man whispered. Rose smiled. He said her name so familiarly.
"Yeah, that's me," she confirmed. "Doctor?"
"Yes."
"How is that possible? You don't…you're not…you don't look anything like him."
"No," he agreed. "I don't."
"Explain."
"Is he in the TARDIS?"
"He's unconscious. But yes. Are you him? From his future?"
"I am."
"Explain, then, Doctor," she insisted.
"Will you come with me?" he asked. "I can't risk…him seeing me."
"I don't want to leave him."
"He'll be fine." Rose looked doubtful. "Hey, I promise. He'll be fine. And you're cold. Please…Rose…I'll explain everything."
"All right," Rose agreed, mostly because the man who might be the Doctor looked so sad, so desperate, and so alone. "All right, I'll come. I trust you, I think, though I don't know why."
He smiled at her. "Cos you always do, Rose."
Rose sat by the fire, finding what the man sitting in the chair in front of her was saying incredibly difficult to believe, even though she had been informed of the truth field and had tested it out for herself. She gazed at the Doctor in wonder. Regeneration sounded like something out of a fairy tale.
In fact, this entire situation seemed like something out of a storybook. A town called Christmas, stuck in nearly perpetual night, surrounded by a field of truth, a Clock-tower inhabited by an immortal protector of children and a girl sitting by the fireplace listening to him tell her a story.
He finished explaining the process of regeneration to her.
"That's, that's amazing," she remarked, duly in awe. "But, hold on, you have to be dying, right?"
"Yeah," the Doctor said.
"Why were you dying?" She felt like it was a fair question. "And how long has it been since you've seen me? I know better than to ask what happens to me. You've already taught me that."
He glanced away, his eyes troubled, his face pained. "Six hundred years. Since I've seen you."
Rose gasped in shock. She was expecting a big number, but not that big.
"I've died twice," he added. "Since you met me. Or since you know me now. Or…oh, time is confusing, isn't it? But you understand me, cos you're brilliant. Have I told you that yet? You are, you know. You are brilliant. You are a shining star. I was so dark, when I found you. Still am, where you are. He needs you so much, I needed you so much. Hey," he said, eyes twinkling slightly. "Where are you now, exactly? What've we been up to, eh?"
"Just a few weeks back, I messed up pretty bad," she recounted. "Remember my dad?"
"How could I forget him?"
"Well, that happened." Rose still couldn't think about it without feeling awful at her stupidity. "And you took me some amazing places to make up for calling me a stupid ape. I can't even remember the names of many of the planets, they were all so beautiful, though."
"Yes, I remember them. Sorry about saying that, by the way, it wasn't true. Still isn't. Oh, Rose," the Doctor sighed. "There's so much you're going to see still. What was it I said, all the time? Something, some word…" He frowned. "Allons…No, that wasn't it, not yet."
Rose smiled. He really was old, if he had forgotten that word. "Fantastic?" she prompted.
A wide grin lit up his face. "That was it! It's going to be fantastic, Rose Tyler. You're going to have so much fun. So am I. Oh! You know my sonic screwdriver? Look." He pulled something out of the inside of his dark, almost Victorian coat and handed to her. "It changed, too, just like me."
She examined the object carefully. The familiar blue light was now green, which was interesting, and there wasn't much silver now. It was bronze, black, and white instead. A bit larger and much more dramatic than her Doctor's. "It's much different," she said.
"I'm much different, too."
"I can see that." She handed the sonic back carefully.
He stowed it away. "Not just looks, Rose. I'm a very different man now than I was then. And I wear a bow-tie. Isn't it cool?"
She had to laugh. He looked older, but she could tell that he acted much younger than the Doctor she knew. "Do you age normally?" she asked. "The Doctor, my…my Doctor, he's never explained that. Hasn't explained regeneration either. Hasn't explained much of anything, really. Nothing about himself, anyways."
The Doctor made a face. "No, well, he wouldn't, would he," he muttered. "Oh, that was me. I'd never stop talking, but I'd never say anything. Someone told me that once. Oh," he said sadly, as if he remembered something. "I know who." Then he shook his head quickly. "Cheer up, spaceman," he whispered to himself. Then, to Rose, he said "All right, Rose Tyler. You need to be going soon."
"I don't want to go!" she protested, surprising herself. "I don't want to leave you all alone." He flinched at the first part of her sentence, and looked at her with a sort of pity.
"No, Rose," he said softly. "You don't. And you never will. But I'm sorry…I'm so sorry. You don't remember this conversation."
She looked at him incredulously. "What d'you mean?"
"I mean, one day, I will regenerate. And you will be there. And you will not know me. You do not know what regeneration is."
"Well, of course I do. You just told me."
He shook his head, slowly and carefully. "But I was already there. And you don't remember. I can't change my own timestream. I have to fix it."
There were tears in Rose's eyes. "How?" she asked desperately.
"Come here."
She hesitated.
"Rose Tyler, please."
Unwillingly, she stood up and walked over to him. He stood, too. "I'm going to have to make you forget," he whispered.
Slowly, reluctantly, she nodded. "Wait."
"What is it, my friend?"
"If I won't remember, please, can you tell me what happens? Please, Doctor."
He smiles slightly, looking at her wistfully. "Oh, Rose. You're going to be amazing. And you're going to be fine. And we are never going to stop running." He took her hand. "Run," he whispered.
She didn't know why, but she started to cry. She pressed the back of her free hand to her mouth, glancing upwards in an effort to stop the tears and sniffing. Without thinking, she threw her arms around him. He embraced her tightly. "Come on," he said. "Let's get you back to your TARDIS."
... ... ... ... ...
"When are you going to do it?" Rose asked the Doctor.
"Inside, if that's all right with you." He reached out to the blue door, stroking it. "I miss her," he said suddenly.
"The TARDIS? Where is she?"
"I sent her away, with a friend of mine. So she could be safe."
"Not me?"
"No, not you. Her name's Clara. Was Clara. Is Clara. Oh…It doesn't matter. Are you ready?"
"You can't leave?"
"No, I'm stuck here. And that's okay, that's good. This is my place now. We can't keep moving forever. Are you ready?" he repeated.
"What if the Doctor is awake? My Doctor. The Doctor in there." She pointed to the TARDIS.
"He's not. I remember."
"Right. So, um, we'll go in." She opened the door, and walked in. After a moment's hesitation, the Doctor followed her.
His face was that of remembrance. He looked at the coral-like pillars with sadness and recognition. He caught sight of the other Doctor, lying out on the floor, still unconscious. "Hello there," he murmured. "It's been a long time." He turned back to Rose. "Rose, I'm going to leave you with a single instruction: make him leave, as soon as you wake up. I'll link you to him, you'll awaken at the same time. He's not going to want to leave, but this is important. You have to make him. He'll listen to you in the end. It's going to be fine, but he cannot go outside."
"All right." Rose sat down on the floor. "Go ahead, I'm ready." Her voice trembled.
The Doctor knelt down next to her. He pressed his forehead to hers, hands cupping her face. She gave a small sigh, and went limp. He caught her gently and laid her down. "Goodbye, Rose Tyler," he said sadly. "I love you so much, dear friend." He struggled to his feet. The TARDIS hummed at his presence. She was telling him he had to leave. He knew that, and he did. Just as he stepped back into the snow, he turned to address her. "Hey, old girl," he said. He couldn't stop himself from crying now. "Hey, you take care of them, okay? For me."
He stood in the cold, everlasting night that was to be his final home, and waited. He waited to hear that sound, that wonderful, beautiful sound. The sound that brought hope to whoever heard it. He needed a bit of hope right now.
After several minutes, it started. The blue box began to dematerialize with the rushing, wheezing music he had always loved. And then they were gone, as if they had never been there. The Doctor finally broke down, falling to his knees and ignoring the freezing snow. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
Thank you so much for reading. I hope you liked this. Thank you to tonicook15, my friend IRL, who suggested I write this story. I hope you liked it! I wasn't ever sure if I would publish it, but...here it is. Love you all.