Author's note: After Rose's and Meta-Crisis Doctor's dangerous venture in 'Forever: The Broken Fragments', after running into the Time Lord Doctor in 'Forever: Nineteen Hundred' at the very moment of his regeneration, Rose and her - now one and only - Doctor are about to start a new journey together. There is just one thing they completely forgot about... the void.
English is not my mother tongue so please let me know when you find errors or when something just doesn't sound right. Reviews and comments are always welcome!
[Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. BBC does.]
I would like to thank Bria for volunteering to be my beta! This chapter is now officially better than it originally was :)
FOREVER: COLOURS OF ETERNITY
When you stare up in the empty sky,
Can you see galaxies passing by?
Have you thought where all this heads into?
There's nothing to it and you ponder upon...
What colour is the nothingness?
What colour is the empty void?
"Color of nothingness" (by Kel'Thuz)
COLOUR OF NOTHINGNESS
The TARDIS jolted violently. The Doctor realized something was very much amiss; the ship's behaviour seemed erratic. She could just be mad at him, he thought hopefully, even though he could not recollect doing anything to anger her over the last minutes. No, that was not likely after all she had just done for them. It could have been the algorithms he tried to enter into the console. Perhaps the idea was all wrong and caused a short circuit? But then again, it never happened to the TARDIS to choke on silly human science: if it didn't make sense she would just ignore it. If she was running out of power, she would do anything to give him time, so he could work it out. Unless, he realised with a sinking feeling, she took heavy damage in the process of healing him and Rose, and that made her vulnerable.
He gritted his teeth. He should have known better. He let himself get carried away. First, the happiness, then the doubts: all those regrettable human emotions had clouded his mind to what was important, made him lose precious time. But no more. Rose's safety, her life was at stake. Holding on to the console, trying not to get shaken off by the violent convulsions of the ship, he listened to the engines. The noise told him nothing... unless... He frowned trying to get to the ship telepathically, to make it out somehow.
What he heard robbed him of all hope. The TARDIS was screaming.
He looked around desperately, assessing the damage and thinking of something - anything - he could do. The screens were off and there was hardly any light in the console room now, except for some violently flashing emergency lights. The door was ajar, with Rose holding on to the railing just next to it. He shouted to her through the havoc to hold on, just as the ship hit into something: instead of stopping, he could feel her fall, inert and heavy, gaining speed, and going into an insane whirl. The force was so powerful that it made him lose his grasp, pushing him away from the console and throwing him against the wall - and throwing Rose against... no, not against but straight into the open door.
For a moment, time literally froze for him.
He noted blackness behind the TARDIS's door: the utter darkness that made the mind shriek and panic at the mere sight of it. In the corner of his eye he thought he noticed something, like the blackness was torn by a lighting-shaped crack - A crack in the wall?! - but he wasn't sure. He didn't stop to look. His mind was focused on one thing. Rose was sliding into the void. The battle of Canary Wharf appeared before the Doctor's eyes, but the image didn't last. He had no world to save, no lever to hold, no Daleks to destroy now. He had just promised Rose... And now she was falling out of time, forever, and the whirling TARDIS would let her fall.
He steadied his mind, concentrating on the revolutions of the ship, and on what he had said to Rose. The wheels of time moved on, he almost heard a clock ticking in his mind, but he still saw it all in slow motion. It was a trick of the mind Time Lords used. The time kept running as fast as it always did, or even faster. It was his keen time sense, focused to the maximum, that let him perceive it in more detail. He could almost see the threads of time and space interwoven in a complicated pattern, like silvery gossamer around him. So delicate, so intangible. Focusing on the thread leading towards when and where he needed to be (holding Rose's hand as she was falling out of the TARDIS), he jumped.
Grasping Rose's hand, he wondered fleetingly how it would be. Would it hurt? Or would their consciousness just dissolve into nothingness? He struggled to draw her closer to his chest as they plunged whirling down. It was almost undoable but he was used to doing the impossible. And much more so when Rose was there for him. It should be fractions of a second now until they are out of the TARDIS's protection field.
Holding her tight, her heart fluttering against his chest like a butterfly caught in a web, he was overwhelmed by the relief and fondness she felt when she realized he was not letting her go.
'...wherever it takes...' he gasped into her ear just before the pitch-black darkness closed around them both.
