Okay, here's the next (long overdue) chapter. It's not very good, since I made it in a moment of "inspiration" (aka desperate search for ideas) so I wasn't sure if it was even worth being uploaded, but since it was acceptable I uploaded it anyway.
Before the chapter starts, I have two announcements (nothing bad): 1) Thank you to everyone who followed/favorited this story. It means a lot to me that so many people like it and 2) Since no one found the Easter Egg (the hidden note) in the last chapter, it's still up for grabs. Any takers? Anyway, without further ado...I present to you the next chapter!
Rose Tyler is flying through the time vortex, a wolf following it's flighty prey through the undergrowth of the woods. Her prey is less of a single point and more of a line. A timeline, to be exact. Rose is looking for the Last of the Time Lord's timeline. But the time streams are tangled around her, for all their mighty worth resembling the thick bushes and briars of the abandoned park a few blocks away from the Powell Estates. In this runaway garden, there are trillions upon billions of timelines all knotted into an intricate tapestry, or what is known to some as the fabric of the Universe. And among this thick quilt of space and time she must find a single, lonely thread. It's all part of the Plan.
Beginning her search, she ducks and weaves through time, her golden blonde hair brushing into the Medieval Ages and inspiring the story of Rapunzel while her hip gently bumps the 1980s, leaving a small dent. All around her, she can feel the hums and song of the time vortex, and Rose feels a tug of homesickness at the noises so similar to those of a certain bigger-on-the-inside blue box. Indeed, the box is her true home. Oh, how her mother and father tried so hard to make their big mansion ("The new Powell Estate!" Jackie had first quipped upon seeing it) feel like home, but it never really was. While her parallel-father had changed into simply her father, the house never made the same transition. In Rose's mind, it was always how it was when she walked into a stranger's house in a maid's outfit all those years ago. It stayed exactly that: a stranger's house. Eventually, her mind came to process that it was her new parents' new home, but it was never her home. Her home is in another Universe. Her two homes are, actually. The small apartment she grew up in and the big box she came to love.
So she pauses, just for a moment, so that she may better here the familiar song. She remembers how she used to fall asleep to the same sound, back when she was aboard the TARDIS. Its then, when she's listening carefully, when she first hears it. At first, she thinks that its her imagination, overloaded with the proximity of the vortex. But as she listens, it gets louder and louder as if a futuristic racing car is rushing towards her at full speed.
And then it is here, in all it's glory and greatness; it pulls and prods and tries to coerce her along; it all at once is surrounding her and not there at all. It is the consciousness of the Universe, of her Universe. Her proper, original Universe is all around her. It seems to whisper thoughts into her ears that sound as gentle as the Norwegian waves breaking over the morning sand. To her, it whispers hello Bad Wolf and come along, I have something to show you. Rose finds herself being led somewhere to the sounds of Bad Wolf, I've missed you, the strands of time that formerly obscured her path seeming to twist themselves out of the way. They form a tunnel of golden threads, and she is led down the path as if being pulled by a crowd of excited small children. The tunnel stretches on for miles, or so it appears. It may be an illusion, or the shifting threads, or a trick of the shining light, but she doesn't care. She can feel the pull of something tugging at her soul and begging her to come and look. The whispers and the hum of the vortex reach out, cautiously at first but then more assured, and connect with the ever-so-small piece of time buried deep in Rose's mind.
Are you ready? They ask. Because we need you.
Of course. She replies. I've been ready for a long time. And suddenly, the time vortex is forming a wall in front of her. She is standing in front of it, close enough for her breath to cause fog on it's delicate surface, if she dared to breathe. For in front of her lies the very thing she was searching for, the wolf in the undergrowth's prey.
A police box-blue strand of time, stretching far across a vast span of time and crossing with hundreds upon thousands of other timelines. Of other people-human and otherwise. There is one cross section that catches her eye. It is the junction of two strands: a blue and a pink. The pink timeline wraps around the blue just twice, before it is pulled off on a separate course. A few feet to the right and hundreds of crossroads later, the pink fights its way back to the blue thread's side. This time, it only barely skims the blue timeline before it is whisked off again, back to it's own life, it's own family, it's own-
But there's something else. The pink thread is joined by a new, different blue timeline. This blue is different. It somewhat resembles the other blue strand, but with more ginger thrown in. It is a unique color, never before seen in this Universe or the next. At first, it only tags along to the side of the pink, as if it is magnetized to the pink but restrained nevertheless. After time, the two timelines grow closer and closer together until finally, they wrap around each other in a happy, dizzying manner. At this, Rose's eyes stop following the story woven into the vortex in front of her but instead, instantly fall into a faraway look that is remembering better times.
Those were the days. The joyful-no, ecstatic moments spent holding hands, driving cross country, watching together as a small piece of coral took root and began its slow climb to outer space. Those were the happy days, before the diagnosis and the hospitals and the doctors (the wrong kind of doctors) shaking their heads and marking x's onto their clipboards. Those were the wonderful, carefree days before-
Rose is watching the timelines again. She watches her own little pink thread as it clings to the ginger-blue strand. For its part, the never-before-seen-colored timeline begins to shrivel. It grows smaller, weaker, loses its former luster. By the time it ends, its almost brown. All the way to the end, and the pink timeline never let go.
She turns her head away. She doesn't want to watch this. She can't watch this, not again. Not after she knows the ending. So she turns away, looking around the vortex. What now? She asks, in her head, for she feels instinctively the need for the song to go unbroken.
The answer comes immediately. Come along, the Universe tells her, you're needed. It pauses, creating the impression of someone in the process of making a decision. Finally, it reaches a conclusion. Here, it beckons, you're needed here. A section of the blue thread (a section that touches the pink, she notes) worms it's way out of the blanket and holds itself in front of her face.
So, to the sound of the time vortex and the encouragements of the Universe, the companion of the Oncoming Storm reached out and touched the timeline. She vanished into the Doctor's timeline, leaving only the whispers of the Universe in her wake.
Everything will work out perfectly.
So...all done. What do you guys think? Any thoughts?