Title: Hole in my Heart
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nine/Rose (but you can imagine Ten if you like, probably wouldn't make much difference)
Word Count: 2,414
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not in the least bit.
Author's Note: Um, hi. I'm new to the fandom, just got the DVDs and I'm still on series one, so I was inspired to write me some Nine/Rose fic. I'm sure I'll get to Ten next since I'm mad about him too but for now, hope you like it and please comment. Thanks.
It was The Doctor who first noticed it, which was odd in itself. They had only just returned from the New Species Conference on Uubu Pi and were calculating the coordinates for their next point of origin when he looked up and something caught his eye.
A pinpoint of light where light shouldn't have been.
That was because Rose was standing in front of the light, and rather than block it with her body as bodies should do, the light was escaping. That was what caused The Doctor to do a double take and it was then that he realized what was amiss.
There was a hole in the center of Rose's chest.
Not a big one, about the diameter of a pencil, but it went clear through her and he could peer into it like a tiny spyglass. Rose looked quizzical as The Doctor slowly approached and kneeled down like he was going to propose. Then she looked down and followed his gaze. Clearly she didn't feel a thing.
"When did that get there?" she asked.
The Doctor didn't answer, couldn't answer really because he hadn't the slightest idea. It was the oddest thing. Immediately he took out his sonic screwdriver and made a few adjustments. When it was ready he focused it on the opening, hoping to seal it.
But instead, it only grew bigger.
"Stop it!" gasped Rose, taking a small step back, showing alarm for the first time. The Doctor only fell back and sat, knees bent, jaw clenched in frustration.
"What's happening?" Rose asked him, which of course she would.
He was The Doctor after all, Time Lord, vast repository of knowledge of all things in time and space. She was asking for his help because clearly he was the only one who could help her. But he was at a loss, so he said nothing.
And his Rose was disappearing bit by precious bit.
He forced himself to replace the screwdriver back into his pocket, fighting the urge to fling it across the room. If it couldn't fix this he didn't want it anymore, what use was it? He stared at the hole that was the size of his eyeball now, a proper spyglass. His voice sounded stale and dry, as if having travelled a great distance over hot desert.
"I can fix this Rose," he heard himself say.
What he didn't tell her was that he had never seen anything like it before.
He didn't have to. The way Rose looked at him he knew she could see it in his face. It was an emotion she rarely saw there, one he rarely allowed out of its cage. This was not some wondrous mystery of the universe, a new world to explore. This was an invasion, an attack on someone he had come to care about, and it was neatly eating away at her. Before he could undo it, he had to identify it, and that meant figuring out where the hell it had come from.
Rose was a step ahead of him as she so often was.
"The last place we visited was Uubu Pi. Did this come from there?" she asked.
"Unlikely," he replied, thinking quickly. "The TARDIS was designed to filter out any pathogens or harmful agents to prevent the traveler from cross contaminating the galaxy, which means… this isn't a sickness exactly. So it might be… a species."
"A what?" Rose exclaimed, "You mean I might be breeding something?"
"Well, no, not exactly," The Doctor tried explaining, "It's more like a stowaway, a parasite that the TARDIS failed to recognize as harmful. But it does seem to be growing."
"Oh, well, as long as it's not harmful," Rose sneered, her voice going shrill in a way that reminded him of her mother, "I mean, if you don't mind going round imitating a donut, or a peep show, maybe I can sell tickets, and…"
"Rose, Rose," he stopped her, hands on her cheeks, staring straight into her eyes, "I can fix this."
A single tear formed in her eye but refused to fall, it was too stubborn like the rest of her and The Doctor had to resist the urge to smile at the thought.
"How?" she asked.
"We'll go back," he said, "back in time to before it started. Simple, really. I should have thought of it before."
Scrambling to the controls he programmed the TARDIS to travel back to a point in time prior to their visit to Uubu Pi. In reality it was a bit trickier than that since time wasn't linear, they couldn't really go back but he could get them to a point where the events of Uubu Pi had never happened to them, like the system restore of a computer. If this started there, then traveling back in time should cause the hole to go away because it would never have happened at all. His hands flew over the controls, eager to make his calculations as precise as possible. It was so obvious it had to work, retrace your steps and…
The hole grew bigger.
This time Rose let out a scream. The Doctor looked up, confused at what he saw. He was able to put his fist through it now. Really, it was a wonder she felt no pain.
"I thought you said we were going back in time," she cried.
"We did," he said, "and it got bigger."
"How can it get bigger in both the past and the future? That's nonsense." She asked.
"Nonsense for a species," he agreed, wheels turning. "Therefore, it's not a single species, exactly."
"Well what is it then?" she asked, throwing up her hands at the large hole in her body.
The Doctor thought until his head hurt. Nearly every species is born at a point in time and then grows into the future. This thing grows in all directions. There was only one thing he knew of that grew in all directions in space and time, but that simply wasn't possible. At least, he had never seen it before, which wasn't quite the same thing as an impossibility now was it?
"A universe," he whispered, staring at Rose with renewed wonder, despite himself and her predicament.
Not surprisingly, Rose didn't share his enthusiasm. "I'm giving birth to an entire bleeding universe?"
"A very tiny one," he explained, getting closer to look again at the circle. This time he could see countless motes of dust floating in the space within. "It must have latched on to you at a critical point in its inception, and now it's using you as a sort of incubator."
Rose reached out and grabbed the Doctor's arms, bringing him back to focus on her and not the miracle of science she was fast becoming.
"But if it keeps expanding, there'll be nothing left of me," she whispered.
He looked back at her. "I won't allow that to happen. You have to trust me."
"You know I do," she said through new tears that were harder to stop. "But I also know you won't sacrifice an entire civilisation for one person."
He let go of her wordlessly and turned away to think. Going backward didn't work. Going forward didn't work. This little universe was determined to expand no matter what. It was creation in progress and nothing could stop it. It would expand and expand for millennia long after Rose was gone until one day…
…it would collapse.
They didn't have time to wait for that to happen of course, but the process sped up when they attempted to travel. So, theoretically, if they could just travel fast enough, he thought… Yes, that was it. Get it over with, like ripping off a plaster.
He returned to Rose and explained his plan to her. When he was finished he said, "Perhaps you'd better lie down. I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen."
For once she didn't argue, but when she was comfortable she asked in a small voice, "Can I call my mum?"
The Doctor's heart swelled. She looked like a cartoon character with a cannonball shot through its stomach and now The Doctor was feeling that cannonball land squarely in his own – and it was called Jackie.
"Not yet," he urged her. He had a job to do first, stemming from a promise he had made to keep her safe, and this wasn't over.
"Are you ready?" he asked her.
She braced herself, then sat back up, "Wait, isn't this like genocide, wiping out this entire race of… whatever it is?"
He shook his head, "No. I'm not destroying anything. This universe will live out its life, expand and collapse like all good universes do. Time is relative. What seems like seconds to us will be an entire lifetime to them. They'll never know the difference."
Rose nodded, understanding, then lay back down and closed her eyes.
"Do it," she commanded.
The direction they traveled in was unimportant, it was speed that mattered. They had light years to cross, perhaps billions of years, as fast as they could – fast enough to complete this universe's life cycle, but not have Rose dead of old age by the end of it.
"Hold on tight," he told her, and when he was ready he hit a button and the TARDIS was off.
The vessel shook and rattled like it was coming apart at the seams. The Doctor could feel the speed under his feet, could sense every life form whizzing by him like gnats on a superhighway. He turned to Rose and watched her as the universe within her expanded, taking his entire world with it. Flecks of space dust went golden in her midsection then swirled and danced, glowing brighter just as the light in her eyes dimmed. He wanted to run to her side but there was nothing he could do but hope that his plan would work. They were moving at top speed now, millions of miles per second. The Doctor didn't know if the TARDIS could contain whatever was growing before his eyes, he just knew he had to see it through to the end. For all the worlds he had longed to explore, this was one he was anxious to be done with.
Despite the acceleration, it somehow still felt like an eternity, a slow burning agony. He could hardly see Rose anymore; her outline had been almost completely obscured by a brilliant glow, an atomic furnace of life taking the place of her own. It was a spectacular sight, and he would have marveled at it were he not so concerned for the welfare of his companion. The TARDIS was filled with the light now, the force of a thousand suns, and though he didn't want to take his eyes off her, The Doctor was forced to shield himself and turn away.
The energy that was building was like a leaden weight on his chest, the pressure pounding in his ears. This will never work, he thought, panicking, we're going to be blown to bits. His only consolation was that they were dying together; with a small pang of regret that there would be no one to tell Rose's mum what had happened to her brave daughter.
The Doctor fell back and held onto a bulkhead, the force pinning him to the spaceship wall. When he felt his chest compress and the air leave his lungs like a bellows he let loose a final scream before a deafening noise…
…followed by a silence so complete he was certain it could only mean death. When the light behind his lids died down from a fiery orange to black, he slowly opened his eyes and froze.
Rose was gone.
In her place was a small planet, like one of those models they use in classrooms, floating above the cot where she had lain. It was perfect in every detail, peaceful and blue. He was so struck by the sight that he forgot that the TARDIS will still moving, speeding through time, and that was fortunate, because a moment later there was a second tremendous bang, even more violent than the first, and he was thrown back off his feet once again.
He had little time to consider what was happening before the world shifted into reverse and he was being pulled back. The planet was acting like a black hole, sucking in everything around it as it imploded in on itself. Its meager existence was over -- generations came and went, species evolved and became extinct and it was time to die. The Doctor held on fast to the console to keep from being drawn into the centre of the thing, to be obliterated along with everything else. He could only save himself now, the last Time Lord in the universe. The force was incredible and he was losing the fight, slipping and regaining hold again and again, feet flying off the ground towards oblivion.
As quickly as it had begun it all stopped with a white hot bang. He fell heavily to the floor, and was rewarded with another wary silence. This time he instinctively reached up to the controls and stopped the TARDIS' momentum. The screen told him they had traveled over a billion years. The vessel came to a halt, and he turned around. The planet was gone.
Rose lay on the floor, intact, breathing heavily as though this had all been some dream of hers. The Doctor smiled and sprinted to her, collapsing at her side.
"Rose!" he called, "Are you all right?"
She moved and murmured sleepily, "Is it over?"
The Doctor looked down and placed a hand flat on her chest where the universe had been. He felt her beating heart.
"Their world is over," he said smiling, "Yours is just beginning."
He helped her sit up and she embraced him, trying to speak but unable to form the words that would equal the feat he had just performed.
Instead, she choked back tears as he said, "Hey, no need for that. I told you I'd fix it. Now you can call your mum, you've got quite a story to tell her."
"No," said Rose, wiping her eyes, "I couldn't possibly. If she knew how close she came to losing me…"
"…It would tear her apart," he said, turning away the moment he realized he had said the words out loud.
He would save his tears for later.