Chapter 2

She slipped back up to her room, leaving them murmuring to each other in the brightly lit kitchen. There was something she had to do before she left. Riffling through her hefty Torchwood messenger bag, she set up her camera on its small tripod and turned it on, settling down in front of it to smile into the camera.

"Hey, Mum. I just wanted you to have this." She laughed a little and pulled her hair back from her face. "God, I should've planned this out before I started recording, I guess, but here goes. I love you, Mum. I love you so much. I know you beat yourself up about not givin' me everything you wanted to be able to growing up, but I never cared about that. I always knew I was loved, an' that mattered more than anything, even when I was runnin' off being an idiot about Jimmy Stone. You were always there for me, and that was what mattered. I'm not leavin' because I don't love you enough or some other sort of nonsense. I just… I don't belong here, and you do. You're so happy, and I'm so grateful that I got to see that." She swallowed. "I love you, Mum. Goodbye."

"Pete—I doubt you could've ever expected for all this to happen, from finding Mum again to getting a full-grown almost-daughter and a brand new baby boy, but it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bloke. You let me get to know you, get to watch you with my Mum and with Tony, and I'm so glad I got that chance. I'm proud to be your daughter, I really am. And… thank you for trusting me with Project Bad Wolf. I don't know where I'd be without you."

"Tony—oh, my little Tony-bear. I'm not going to get to see you grow up, but I know you'll be fantastic. D'you know why? 'Cause you've got a brilliant set of parents, right there. You can't fail with Tyler genes, did you hear? 'S true, I swear." She smiled softly at the camera. "You're going to be amazing, Tony, did you know that? And even if I'm not around to smear paint on while I sleep—an' I liked those pajamas, by the way, and that stain still hasn't come out—remember this: even if she's a universe away, your big sister is out there, and she loves you. She's never going to stop loving you. I've travelled to stars and planets that I can't even pronounce, Tony-bear, and that's the most important thing I've seen: to love others and be loved in return. So love your Mum and Dad, and don't worry about other kids tellin' you it's not cool, and know that your Mum and Dad and big sister all love you, too, and always will."

Rose turned off the camera and blew her nose into a tissue, wincing at how raw it felt. She looked around her room, from the soft green of the walls to the tall windows that overlooked the gardens. There wasn't much for her to pack. She pulled out the duffel that she'd taken to Norway and tossed in the clothes from her closet, the small amount of jewelry her mum had given her over the years and the few pictures she had up.

In less than an hour, she had collected everything she wanted to take with her, and there was still room to spare in her bag. A knock sounded at her door, and she opened it to find Mickey waiting outside. He smiled crookedly. "Hey. Gettin' ready?"

"Yeah. Mickey, I've lived here for four years, but look." She lifted her duffel easily with one hand and laughed unsteadily. "I don't wanna think about what I'd've done if we'd never gotten the dimension cannon working."

He shook his head and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Don't think about that, Rose. You made it work, somehow, an' I still don't know how you managed that. Those plans you drew make my head spin."

She set her bag on the floor and followed him down the stairs to the kitchen. "I dunno either, Mickey, but I think it's from when I got you two to open the TARDIS for me. I've been dreamin' about it ever since I got here, and lately I can hear her song again, even if it's faint." She paused in the hallway and touched his arm. "Mickey, I think the Bad Wolf never really went away."

He frowned. "You said the Doctor took it out of you, though, an' that's why he turned into the geek."

"He thought he took it away, yeah." She grinned at him as they entered the kitchen. "But as we've just proved, even the Doctor doesn't know everything."

He grinned and rubbed his hands together, sniffing the air happily. "Amen to that."

They sat down to a hot dinner of stuffed lamb and rosemary potatoes, and Rose tried to memorize every minute of the evening, from Tony flinging peas into Mickey's ears (he had surprisingly good aim for a toddler) to the way that her Mum and Pete seemed to gravitate to each other in loving orbit. This was the last time that she'd see her family together like this, and she wouldn't forget any of it. She felt a rush of gratitude towards Mickey as she watched him talk to Pete about possible replacements for their positions while trading good-natured insults with Jackie. She'd never be in love with him again, but she loved him completely.

Tony was yawning by the time they'd finished dinner, and she volunteered to tuck him in. She picked up the bundle of heavy, warm toddler and smiled brokenly. He was really getting too old to be carried.

He blinked sleepily up at her. "Rose? You gonna tell me a story? You tell the best stories, an' Timmy and Susan and Kevin all agree. They're jealous 'cause their mums and dads only tell them about fluffy animals and princes and princesses and things like that, an' I've got a sister that tells me about space pirates and monsters and aliens."

She smiled down at him and settled him into his bed. He'd been so excited about getting a big-boy bed that he hadn't slept a wink the first night he'd had it. She picked up the ragged, much-loved bear that she'd bought for him when he was born and slipped it into his arms, wrapping his green-and-blue blankets tightly around his shoulders. "Tonight, my Tony-bear, I'll tell you the story of the Bad Wolf."

"You mean like with Red Riding Hood?"

"Oh, no. The Bad Wolf was far different from the Big Bad Wolf—she wasn't any taller than me, actually, and she was the one who wore the red hoodie. The Bad Wolf had once been a normal girl, you see, who didn't have much beyond a mum that loved her and a friend named Mickey. Then one day, an alien called the Doctor found her and saved her life. He was looking for a monster, you see, and that very monster had attacked the girl. He helped her escape the monster, and then got caught himself. Well, the girl wasn't about to let him get hurt after he'd saved her, so she saved him right back. The Doctor was so impressed that he offered to let her travel with him in his magical blue box, and the girl flew off into the stars with him. He showed her the universe, with all its monsters and all its beauty. They even met a charming captain who joined them in the blue box. One day, though, they ran into some of the Doctor's old enemies, armored creatures who were blind to the beauty of the universe and had no room for anything more than hate in their squishy hearts. The Doctor knew that the armored creatures would kill everyone if he let them win, so he made a bomb that would destroy them… but he would die as well. He couldn't bear for the girl to be killed, so he sent her away in his blue box, staying behind, alone, to fight against his terrible enemies."

Rose paused and looked down into Tony's wide brown eyes and ruffled his thick ginger hair. "But the girl wouldn't stand for that. There was no way she'd let her Doctor die alone like that, so she and her Mum and her Mickey opened the heart of the blue box, and it granted the girl her heart's desire. She became the Bad Wolf, and she flew right back through the stars to the Doctor's side. She destroyed the Doctor's evil enemies with a wave of her hand and she saved the captain's life, but the Bad Wolf was too much for her, and she was burning up. The Doctor saved her with a kiss, and with that kiss he became a new man, younger and bouncier and even more odd."

She wrinkled her nose down at Tony. "His table manners were almost as bad as yours, my Tony-bear. One time we were helping a mum save her daughter, and he just stuck his fingers in an open jam jar and popped 'em in his mouth. An' he licked everything." She shook her head, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly, as Tony giggled. "Off they went, the Doctor and the Bad Wolf, dancing through the stars—but in London they found a group of people that was opening a doorway between worlds, and they were letting in terrible metal monsters from the other side. The Doctor and the Bad Wolf knew they had to save the world, but just as the doorway was closing, the Bad Wolf fell through. The door was locked, though, and the Doctor couldn't find a way to get her back. He burned up a sun to say goodbye, because he loved the Bad Wolf as much as she loved him."

Tony sniffed a little, and rubbed his button nose with a small fist. "What happened next, Rose? Will the Bad Wolf and the Doctor find each other again?"

"'Course they will, Tony-bear. D'you know why?" He shook his head and her eyes flickered gold in the dark room. "Because I'm the Bad Wolf, and I will always protect my Doctor." She smiled sadly down at Tony's excited face. "I'm going to be leavin' to find him soon, Tony, and you won't see me anymore, but I've got to go back. The Doctor's useless without me." She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I love you, Tony. Don't ever forget that, d'you hear me?"

"I won't. Promise, Rose. I won't."

She watched him fall asleep then headed down to the enormous living room, where her parents and Mickey were sitting around the fireplace. She curled up on the luxurious sofa next to her mum, watching the dancing flames. Jackie was the first to break the heavy quiet of the room.

"It's always a trade-off, isn't it? I had a life with you, but my Pete died. Now I've got Pete again, an' you're leavin'. "

Rose blinked away tears as she met her mum's eyes. "I can't stay, Mum. An' it's not just because I miss 'im." She glanced down at her twiddling thumbs before dropping her bombshell. "I haven't been aging, Mum, an' any cuts or bruises I get heal up right away. Mickey ran some tests after I got so banged up when we faced off against the Demotians, remember? The kinda squat purple guys who looked like an Oompa Loompa biker gang?"

Jackie nodded bemusedly. She's been visiting Torchwood that day, and had been used as a hostage by the angry waist-height aliens—at least until their delicate eardrums gotten tired of her shouting, and they sent her back to the humans simply to get rid of her.

Rose took a deep breath. "I never told you, but they broke two ribs and my left arm—an' they were healed by the next morning."

Pete raised his eyebrows. "I wondered how that happened. I'd known you were hurt, but you seemed fine the next day, so I thought I'd just overreacted."

Rose winced. "Sorry about that. Mickey and I thought it would be best if that part wasn't in my Torchwood files. I know I can trust you, but some of the others get a little… excited when it comes to scientific inquiries."

"Did the Doctor do this to you, then?" Rose looked back at Jackie and winced. Her eyes were nearly aflame, she looked so angry. "Did he think you weren't good enough just as you were, an' decided to play god, the arrogant prat?"

"No, Mum, it wasn't the Doctor." Rose took a deep breath. "It was me."

Jackie raised a skeptical eyebrow and snorted. "What, you were bored an' decided to play around with your own DNA, an' you without you're A-levels? How's that work, then?"

"You weren't far off when you said it was somebody playing God, but it wasn't the Doctor. When we opened the TARDIS, I was… changed. Mum, I'm not quite human anymore." She tried to smile, but it came out more as a grimace. "I'm not quite sure what I am anymore."

There was a tense silence, and then Rose was surprised to be pulled fiercely into her mother's arms. "I'm sorry, Rose."

"Sorry for what?"

"What I said, the day Canary Wharf happened. I was wrong. No matter what happens to you, no matter what species you are or aren't, you will always be Rose Tyler. My daughter."

Rose closed her eyes against the firelight and curled up into her mum's arms, letting Jackie's soft cashmere robe absorb her tears. It was a long time before they went to bed, that night.


Rose looked around her office, hefting her bag over her shoulder. It was nearly as bare as her bedroom at the mansion, despite the fact that she spent most of her waking hours here. There was another copy of her Superphone picture here, and she slipped it in her pocket. The one from her bedroom she had left with her mother, along with the videos she'd recorded last night. She looked over her desk and sighed. All her paperwork was filled out, all her equipment ready for her to take with her. It was time.

She headed back down to the lab and found her team waiting for her. Jake, Anahid, Devon, and Leah each gave her a hug and wished her luck before heading back to their work. She'd never really connected with them, despite how much she respected them. They'd all been part of the Preachers before joining Torchwood, and were still a little leery of outsiders. Mickey had his belongings stuffed into his big khaki duffel backpack, and multiple guns strapped to his chest. Rose herself had her ever-present stun gun strapped to her thigh and her pistol in her shoulder harness. They were looking for the Doctor, after all, and that almost guaranteed that they would find trouble. Mickey met her eyes and grinned, and she smiled back at him. If this worked—if they found the Doctor—she'd finally be home. Pete came in and gave her one last hug before stepping back behind the technicians. He gave the order, and the lab technicians powered up the Dimension Cannon. The coordinates were set, and with an ear-splitting crack, Mickey and Rose vanished from the lab, leaving only blue sparks in their wake.