"Rose River" AU
'River Run'
Chapter Four
- Time is Relatives -


We Now Return You
To Your Regularly Scheduled Programme
Already In Progress


Cardiff 2009

The strangest part of staying through December, was the absolute lack of any alien intervention interrupting the Christmas Holiday. On the other hand, there was an unspoken agreement that the weekend before it certainly qualified. Still, even with the nineteenth and twentieth being a muddled mess of a memory lapse for most everyone on the planet, the Christmas Hols went as smoothly as they'd ever done in the past five years… surprisingly enough.

That wasn't to say that there was nothing bad going on. Even if people weren't themselves and couldn't remember what had happened, computer records of various Near Earth observation satellites and land based observatories had the mention – plus a lot of pictures – of the rather large planet that had came within a hairs breadth of impacting the Earth... cosmically speaking. Those video reports were the only thing that explained the record high tides that had occurred.

Still, the most amazing thing about all of that, was the fact that there were hardly any recorded deaths due to the tides. Most that either lived in coastal areas or small islands all woke up in completely different areas, and generally on the mainlands. Even island nations had been completely evacuated during 'The Blackout', which is what those two days were eventually called.

Most of the chaos that ensued in the week before and after Christmas Day, was completely due to people simply trying to return home to assess the damage from the flooding. Most were declared disaster areas by the global community.

Usually, Jack would've been the one to update all the different organisations as to what had happened. However, he'd been conspicuously absent that entire week plus the one after, so that lovely chore was left to a rather perturbed Gwen Cooper. All the same, she stepped up to handle that rather beautifully. Her report to the Crown alone increased Torchwood's operating budget by a substantial margin, especially after the Doctor and crew took care of most of the television recordings from that weekend. No one needed to see that, even though some leaked through to some of the pirate channels.

The Doctor had equivocated when asked as to why they were still about in the hub, and it took a single question to Donna to figure out what was up: "She wont leave."

"Pardon?" Mickey asked with his brow all askew.

"The TARDIS," she explained. "She's being all cryptic again, but she doesn't feel the need to go anywhere." Huffing a stray curl out of her eye, a thought occurred to her. "Maybe she likes sitting on a power source for longer than half a day, or something."

John took that moment to speak up from one of the computer terminals from across the way, his deep voice was resonating and rather dry about it. "She's not leaving till you and Sylvia come to an understanding, and you know it."

Her head whipped in his direction with a glare and a snap. "Back seat driver."

"The pot and kettle both want a word with you," John said with a wide grin.

Sighing, Donna deflated even further into the couch next to the TARDIS. "Oh, shut it. You know how she gets," she mumbled.

Making his way over, John patted Mickey on the shoulder, then plopped down next to Donna. "You can't put it off forever, love," he said softly. "Of all people, you know that running only gets you so far. Before you know it, you're right back where you started."

Mickey had sat down again, and rolled his chair over. "Look at it this way, Donna. If I can get over things, she can."

"He's got a point there," John mused with a grin. "And since when did the idiot start to sound like a wise man?" he asked him with a smirk.

"Watch it. Helps to think about things before you open your gob," Mickey said with his head up, looking at him mockingly down his nose.

"The secret of wise men everywhere," John said with a grin. Turning to look at Donna, he could feel her distress over everything and had an idea. "C'mon, you," he bumped shoulders with her. "Let's go to the quay and get some Italian. Pretty sure there's a gellato out there with your name on it."

Donna fought a smirk, and eyed him from the side. "Just no sausage in it this time, thanks."

"Can I help it if our taste buds were messed up?" he said, grinning his face off. "It's the only thing you'd eat without spitting."

Rolling his eyes, Mickey excused himself from that conversation. The sight of three people having an involuntary battle with food was still something that made his stomach churn. Between John, Donna, and Romana, the TARDIS kitchen had been a complete mess. Out of the three of them, John had recovered first, then helped the other two with his discovery: Chopped bangers in vanilla ice cream. Thinking of that, Mickey smirked at what else happened that night.


While everyone was disgusted with what they ended up eating, Donna sat back with a bit of shock. She was kicking herself for not doing something about it sooner, but that was easily remedied. Standing, she gave John a mental threat to keep his gob shut, then adopted a friendly expression.

Moving around the table, she tapped the Doctor on the shoulder and got him to stand up. Positioning him just so with a smile on her face, she dropped the pretence and slapped the life out of him with a flaming scowl. "Don't you EVER make me forget again! Do you have any idea what my life was like?" she thundered.

Everyone was wide eyed and staring, while the Doctor had been spun about with his mouth open in an expression of extreme pain. "Donna, I..."

"No! I don't care that I could have died, and you need to understand that." Turning him back around to face her, she ignored his flinch as she hugged the stuffing out of him. "Moron," she mumbled into his shoulder.

While the hug was nicer, the Doctor was still rubbing his cheek. "Donna, I'm sorry. I just..." Glancing at Rose, he noticed that she was rubbing her jaw with a look of incredulity on her face. "Uhm, Donna, in the future you might want to think on causing me pain."

She pulled back, squinting at him. "Oh? And why's that, then?" she snapped. Seeing him incline his head and look over her shoulder, she turned around to see Rose holding on to her cheek with her mouth open, blinking back some stinging tears. "Oh!" Letting go of the Doctor, she leaned down and hugged Rose from the side. "Oh sweetie, I'm sorry! I completely forgot all about that!"

"S'allright," Rose said quietly, still in a bit of shock over it. Patting her shoulder, she blinked and shook her head. "Slap worse than my mother, you do." She baulked at what she just said, then mumbled. "Blimey, never thought I'd say that."

Chuckling from the other side of the table, Wilfred was completely amused. "Yep, still my Donna." That of course made her blush profusely.


Smirking over the memory of that slap, Mickey turned back around and focused on his reports while John and Donna left the hub. Movement in the corner of his eye caused him to turn his head, and he grinned when he saw Martha.

"Hey love." His smile faded when he saw the expression on her face. "Are you sure you don't want to get out of here for a couple of weeks? I know Fiji's out, but we can go skiing in Switzerland or something."

Smiling gratefully at him, Martha shook her head. "It's okay babe. We can have our honeymoon after the world's settled." Coming up next to him, she bent down to give him a kiss. "Besides, I still need to walk down the aisle."

A small chuckle barked out of him. "The day nothing happens, will be the day we retire. Not even then, most like."

Martha pursed her lips with a sigh. "Got a point, there. How're things with you?" she asked with a hand to his screen.

"Not bad, considerin'," he said, putting an arm around her waist. With her standing and him sitting, his arm ended up cradling her bum instead. "Still a nightmare out there, but at least I'm keeping up with the paper work."

They were interrupted by the sound of the TARDIS door opening. Turning, they were surprised by who came out of it. "Oh my god, you're alive!" Martha teased. "And just where the devil have you been, Jack?"

The sight of Captain Jack Harkness flushing and biting his lip caught them completely off guard. When he gave a small wave, Mickey was incredulous. "Wha'? Not going to go ten rounds of innuendo?"

"I knew it was a mistake to come out here," Jack complained in a mutter. Dodging the question, he tried to reclaim a bit of authority. "Everything under control?"

"Oh sure. Everything's just fine," Martha said sarcastically. "World's gone to hell, but we're handling it without you."

"I'd hide a bit more, if I were you," Mickey said. "Gwen with a rant on is one thing, but being pregnant on top of that?"

Jack cringed. "Where is she? Need to mend some fences." Both Mickey and Martha thumbed over their shoulders to Jack's office, making him wince harder. "Right." Taking a breath, he let it out dramatically. "Okay, time to face the music."


In the middle of the Gallifrey Garden, which was more of an extremely large arboretum than a garden, Romana sat at the base of a silver leafed tree. While she had changed clothes to better fit in – what with her denim trousers, blouse, and a lavender wool coat – none of that mattered to her. Staring up at the artificial orange sky through the branches of the tree, she tried very hard to pretend that she was on Gallifrey.

The buzz of minds in the back of hers belayed that wistful imagining. Normally there were thousands upon thousands that would blend into a white noise of comforting thought. They were so few in number now, that she could pick out who was who, where they were, and the general state of them without even thinking about it. Like now, she could tell that the person approaching her was the woman that replaced her.

Shoving that bitter thought out of her head, she looked up and forced a smile on her face. "Hello, Rose." Her smile faltered though, when she felt the radiating concern coming from her. "I'm all right. You don't need to check on me."

Kneeling down, Rose situated herself to sit against the tree next her. Removing her hand from her pocket, she tossed a small white bag in Romana's lap. "Jelly baby?"

Startled from the bag landing on her thighs, Romana looked down incredulously. So many memories from something so small and insignificant rushed through her. A giggle started a round of laughter, which rapidly transformed into hysterical sobbing. Before she knew what was happening, Romana found herself being rocked back and forth.

For herself, Rose sort of knew what was going on when she went to look for her. Having dealt with the Doctor's grief in so many different ways, this was something that she needed to do. There was no one else that she knew of that could possibly do it, and she was actually happy to be there for her. The tang of bitterness that was directed at her at first was something she actually expected. Her bonding with the Doctor enabled her to see many things from his past, including one book smart woman from his home that infuriated and intrigued him... to the point of some 'experimenting'.

Honestly, Rose didn't feel threatened by Romana being there. She looked at her like a refugee of the universe. Even though she knew that Romana was headstrong and stubborn, something she identified with strongly – and suspected that was what drew the Doctor to her to begin with – there was something else too. Grief that was unexpressed could do nothing but turn inwards. Something else she'd witnessed before.

Regardless, even though she didn't mean for it to happen right then, Rose wasn't about to abandon her. She'd intended the jelly babies as more of a peace offering than anything else, between the 'ex and the missus' as Mickey laughingly pointed out so long ago when it was Sarah Jane, but the emotional onslaught that the little bag provoked wasn't completely unexpected. Much like what she'd done for Jenny before Jack was up and about again, Rose offered up supportive emotions for Romana to cling to... and she did, rather desperately.

What neither of them expected, was the sudden appearance of the Doctor and Celeste. Romana didn't notice it until they were both kneeling down and hugging them both. Rose though, saw the tell tale sign of the TARDIS warping them to their location. Having been beaten to the other side of Romana by his mother, the Doctor knelt down in front of them to take one of Romana's hands while she cried.

Words weren't necessary, and they were like that for a while, to the point where the Doctor had to adjust his position to forestall the cramps his thighs were getting from kneeling. Through it all, the only thing Romana could stutter out every now and then, was a horribly simple, 'They're dead,' or 'They're gone,' or 'What am I going to do?'