Close your eyes it will seem
The Doctor reasons through this on his own. He's on the right universe. He may have been a bit thick when he first met Rose, but now that she's gone he can think clearly. The TARDIS instruments agree with him - this is the same place they came to some years back, when the Cybermen attacked.
So this Rose really is his Rose.
So what's happened?
He can trace the timelines. He can see where they were one, can see where, suddenly, they diverge and continue on to a different path. It had to be here, on this planet, that the split occurred. Someone on this planet did this.
"But why?" he asks the TARDIS. "Why do this? Why erase Rose's memories of me? And Jackie and the others? It makes no sense."
The TARDIS doesn't answer. He props his chin on his hand and gazes into nothingness, thinking. His hair stands on end after being pulled through his fingers.
He'll have to follow the path of the timelines, trace the ones that belong to Rose. Programming the TARDIS controls, he follows that path. He follows Rose's timeline, guessing that if anyone's timeline was tampered with to cause this, it would be hers. Working backwards, slowly, carefully, he tracks it down.
There.
He sets the controls and the TARDIS lands. He's out the door, looking around. He will feel it, the cause.
And he does. He's still on Earth, on Rose's Earth, not the one they met on. Moving through the crowds, he determines he's in England, though not in London. Now that he's closer he feels the tangled threads of time, and moves to their end.
It's a gypsy. He stands still and blinks. Of all the possibilities, aliens and accidents and what-have-yous, a simple gypsy never occurred to him.
Maybe he's losing his touch.
"Well." He enters the small storefront, located on a tiny main street of a small town. It could be any other shop in any other town in Great Britain, but for the sign on the door that proclaims that Madame de Lancie is open Monday through Thursday until 5 pm.
Bells on the door jingle as he enters. The scent of incense hits him in the face and he coughs to clear his throat.
"Good afternoon." From behind a dark curtain comes a woman dressed all in black. She could be anywhere from 30 to 60. Silk scarves hang from her arms and her waist.
"Madame de Lancie, I presume?" the Doctor asks politely.
"How may I help you? Have you come to have your palm read?" she smiles. "Or perhaps your future told?"
"No, er, no thanks. I'm looking for a -"
"Crystal ball gazing is $25 for 15 minutes," she tells him briskly.
"What? No, I don't need any gazing. I've a friend who came to see you some time ago. I'm wondering if you might help me."
"My clients are all confidential."
He watches her closely. "Perhaps she was in town for her work. Are you familiar with Torchwood?"
Her face pales. "I cannot help you. Good day."
"No, wait. I'm not part of Torchwood. Believe me, I'm not. Whoever you are, whatever you are, I only want information."
"That's all anyone ever wants," she snaps. "At first."
"At all," he assures her. "Any unusual activity?"
"Come." She turns on her heel in a whirl of silk and disappears behind a curtain of brightly colored beads.
The Doctor glances around cautiously and follows.
She is sitting at a small round table that is draped with more silk scarves. A crystal ball sits on a stand in the center of the table. As the Doctor takes the seat opposite her, she pushes the crystal ball away.
"My name is Madame de Lancie," she says without preamble. "My professional name, anyway. I read tarot cards, tell fortunes, read tea leaves."
"But that's not all," he prompts her.
"No. Sometimes I feel... premonitions. Warnings of things to come. I felt that some time ago. A strong urge to hide, to flee."
"And did you?"
"No, of course not. I don't follow premonitions."
"You're in a funny line of work then," he can't help commenting.
She smiles. "Perhaps. But I've been successful."
"Torchwood was here."
Her smile disappears. "Yes."
"When?"
"Some time ago. A few weeks, perhaps."
"What were they doing here?"
She hesitates. "Something came to the town. I don't know what it was. The locals say it was a ship or something. Torchwood arrived soon afterwards."
"What were they following?"
"They never said. They cordoned off the area."
He waits.
"They never said."
"But you know."
"Of course not."
"Aliens," he suggests.
"No such thing," she says, so quickly that he moves in closer.
"Have you seen aliens around?"
"Don't be absurd."
"Are you an alien?" he asks, and watches as alarm flares briefly in her eyes.
"No," she says. "I'm as human as you are."
"Yes. Well, as to that...well. Is something helping your abilities along? Alien technology that you've stumbled across?"
Her eyes are wide. "Who are you?"
"I think my friend came to see you. She man have been part of that Torchwood team. Maybe you read her fortune."
Madame de Lancie sits back. "I read many fortunes. Should I read yours, it will cost you."
He smiles at her "No, thanks. My friend is called Rose Tyler."
"My customers don't use names."
"She's young. Blonde hair."
"Sorry."
He's getting impatient. "Something's happened. My friend has lost all memory of me. Something I never would have believed possible."
"You have a very high opinion of yourself," she says, but recognition is in her face.
"You know her! What happened?"
Her lip trembles. "I don't know. I can't help you. I'm sorry." She starts to stand and he grabs her wrist.
"I know more than you think," he says in a deadly voice. "I'd rather not force you to help me. Tell me what you know."
"Time is not a straight line. It curves and twists, dances and bends and runs in a circle. It goes forward and back and sideways. I can't do anything unless she is here with me."
The Doctor stares at her. Humans do not normally go on about time like that. Of course, humans normally don't possess the power to alter time and memories. He tries to think of possibilities.
"Are you a Trickster?" he asks, and waits for the answer.
She tilts her head. "I am a teller of fortunes. I don't know what a Trickster is."
"Someone who can alter time, alter fate. A person's destiny can change in the blink of an eye, history altered forever."
She considers this. "Interesting. But that is not what I am."
"Who are you, then?"
She is reluctant to answer.
"Tell me what I wish to know," the Doctor says, "or things will not go easy for you."
"I can sometimes change outcomes," she says finally. "If a person wishes it badly enough."
"Outcomes? Of lives? Of reality?"
"Not always. Only when someone wants it badly enough. Only when I need it badly enough."
"What do you need badly enough?" he asks, but he knows the answers, or suspects he does.
"The potential of fate, the energy that comes from it. If someone - your friend, for instance - wants to rid their memory of an event, I can sometimes do it."
"Change their memories?"
"Change the event," she corrects him. "In exchange they receive something more preferable, and I receive the energy from the painful event and its reminders."
"What, like, like psychic energy?"
"In a way."
"Why?"
"I...I cannot say. Only that I do so."
He stares at her, utterly baffled. "That is something new to me. And I don't often see things I've never see before."
"In one so young that's truly surprising."
He sighs. "I'm not so young. Can you change it?"
"Sometimes." But she will not meet his eyes.
Something does not add up here. He can't put his finger on it yet, but he will. First things first, though.
"I will bring my friend to you, and you will put things back the way they were." There is no room for interpretation in his voice, no hint of second chances for her if she refuses.
"I do not know that it was I who did this to your friend. If something did indeed happened to her." Her voice gets a bit louder, for no reason the Doctor can ascertain.
She looks behind her, although as far as the Doctor can tell there is only a wall at her back. "I will try," she says to him in a quiet voice. "But everything comes at a cost."
That night Rose dreams that she is falling. It's not new, this dream. She's had it before. The sensation of falling. Holding on, trying to stay put, but losing her grip and falling through space. Someone is screaming her name as she falls.
She wakes up at the same point every time, just before she falls into darkness.
Only this time, tonight, she remembers the dream when she wakes up.
She's disoriented, and it takes a second for her to figure out that she can't breathe because she's crying too hard. As she sits up she notes that her hands are stretched out. She's trying to reach for someone.
Wiping at her eyes, unsure why she's crying at all, Rose lies back down. Cries herself to sleep without knowing why.
Pete Tyler sees his wife that night. Not Jackie, lying beside him now, but the Jackie who was killed by Cybermen the night of her birthday party. She's wearing the black dress she wore that night. They're escaping from Lumic, running to a zeppelin, and it's Jackie who's running with him but it's not. Her face changes to Rose's face, and the black dress turns into a black tuxedo.
Pete wakes with a jerk, confused. Turning to look at Jackie, he gently touches the mound of her stomach to reassure himself.
They told him of the lunatic who confronted Rose. He followed her home and knows all about the details they've been keeping secret. Pete worries about blackmail, about kidnapping threats, about what would happen if the news got out. To him, to Vitex, to Torchwood. The risk seemed small, when he begged Jackie and her daughter to come with him to this world.
Now he has so much to lose, all of it in this house.
The man has not been caught, but Pete is confident that he will be. He will not allow anything else.
That night Jackie dreams of a tall man with piercing blue eyes. He's got her Rose and he won't let her come home. Jackie wakes up with a feeling of deep, intense anger, so strong that she doesn't recognize herself. She's never felt such anger for anyone or anything in her life.
She tries to calm herself, for the sake of the baby she's carrying. When she wakes up the next morning the memory is gone, but the sight of Rose's leather jacket makes her frown.
Mickey Smith dreams of flying through the air in a cardboard box. A voice with a northern accent is calling him an idiot. In his sleep, Mickey scowls with annoyance.
The Doctor lands the TARDIS back at the Tyler mansion. The perception filter will do its job, and the only person he's worried about is Rose. He's prepared to wait for a bit, until she comes out of the house. He may have to talk her into coming with him. He may have to stun her with the sonic screwdriver. Either option is acceptable right now. He has to get her to that fortune teller. He has to reverse whatever's happened. It's not just Rose who's been affected, but others as well. This needs to be fixed.
His mission is given a boost when Rose comes out of the house. She's walking directly over to the TARDIS, and he hurries outside to meet her.
"What is this thing?" she asks him, motioning to the TARDIS. "No one else could see it."
"There's a perception filter on it. Keeps people from noticing it."
"I noticed it."
"Yeah. Well. You used to travel in it. With me."
"That's what you said." She doesn't sound very encouraging.
He tries to think of the obvious things that would appeal to Rose Tyler. Anything that would make him seem rational and sane. "Your things are here with me. Things you left behind."
"What things?"
"Your room is intact. All your stuff. The stuff you had when we were traveling around. I have it with me."
"With you?" She surveys his person, clad in the brown suit and white trainers.
"Not on me, obviously. Inside."
"Inside you?"
"Inside my ship."
She looks beyond him. "The blue box. It was moving before, wasn't it? Was I imagining it?"
"Come and see," he invites her, and walks back to the TARDIS.
Rose knows she shouldn't. Part of her knows she should get away, that this might be a trick. Despite that she moves closer, drawn to the TARDIS as if it were calling out her name. "I don't get it. It's a phone box."
He opens the doors. "Come inside."
"To that little thing?" she laughs. "No way."
He simply enters, leaving the doors ajar.
Rose fights with herself for a moment, and finally takes a deep breath and steps inside. She comes to a halt with an audible gasp and looks around in horror and amazement. "What is this?"
"My ship."
"It's...it's not a call box."
"No."
"It's alien," she states.
"Yup."
"Are you alien?"
"Yes."
Rose swallows and stares at him.
"Is that all right?" he asks.
"Yeah," she says quickly. "Yeah."
"It's called the TARDIS, this thing," he tells her. "T-A-R-D-I-S. Time And Relative Dimension In Space."
Rose doesn't know what to say. She walks to the middle of the room, where a large structure appears to be growing out of the floor. It's made of some sort of material that looks almost alive.
Cautiously, without knowing why, she reaches out her hand and touches it. It hums, and she snatches her hand back.
"She remembers you," the Doctor says.
"What?"
"You've been here before. We used to travel together."
"I've never gone traveling," she denies, looking away from the console. "I've never been here. I don't know you." She heads for the door, and the Doctor knows that if he lets her go it will be all that much harder to get her back.
He locks the doors and leaps for the control panel.
"Let me out!" she says in alarm.
He's already flying through the Time Vortex. "We're going to find out who did this to you," he tells her. "And then, if you're still not convinced, if we can't get your memory back..." He falters at the thought.
"What then?" she prompts him, curiosity overcoming her anger.
"Then I'll take you home."
"Home. And what will you do?" she asks quietly. "If I don't remember you?"
He looks a bit lost at that. Despair and grief swirl through his eyes for just a moment. Rose hesitates and opens her mouth to speak.
He forces a smile. "Hope I can still get through the breach and go home to my proper universe."
"Your universe?" she questions. "What about your world?"
"Haven't got one," he says briskly.
"How can you not? Where is your home?"
"My home is gone," he tells her, and it's amazing how much it hurts to have to explain all this to her again. So he decides that he won't. He'll perhaps leave this Rose Tyler a little better off than before. "Nothing else to tell."
Well. Rose may have lost her memories - may have - she stresses to herself, but she can still take a hint.
"I'm sorry," she says softly. "What about your family?"
He takes a deep breath. "Gone, too," he says, and it's not so bad if he says it quickly. "I was alone for a long time before you."
"And after me?"
He looks at her, emotion strong in his face. "After you there was the two of us," he says softly. "You and me."
"So we traveled together," she says. "Were we friends?"
"Oh, yes," he says eagerly, smiling at her. "Good friends."
"So I wanted to stay with you?" Rose persists.
He steps over to her, crossing the grated floor of the console room. "You wanted to stay with me," he tells her in a voice that's little more than a whisper. "I tried sending you home when things got dangerous and you came right back."
"Like a bad penny?" she quips, but he doesn't smile.
"Like someone who didn't want to leave."
"Why didn't I want to leave?" she whispers, but the words he said to her at the house hang in the air between them.
The Doctor lifts his hand and touches her face. He tells himself he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be acting like this is his Rose when it's clearly not, but he can't stop himself.
Rose's gaze holds his, her lips falling open as she stares at his mouth. Something is familiar and something is different here, and she's not sure which is which.
"You hurt so much," she says softly, "don't you? I can see it, and I only just met you. Pain and loneliness and grief."
"Rose," he whispers. "Rose."
The TARDIS lands with a thump, and his hand falls from her face.
The Doctor clears his throat and wonders frantically what's come over him. He steps away from her, reaching to find his balance again. He'd spent much of their time together trying to distance himself, and the first few moments they're together he's doing things he never would have done before. "Here we are."
Rose blinks rapidly. What just happened? Was she really going to kiss a man she doesn't know? One who has mental issues and is an alien?
He's landed them in the same place as before. The Doctor checks the computer and nods, satisfied that they're where he wants to be. So far this trip the TARDIS has been cooperating. "Come on," he says, and waves to the doors.
The last thing Rose wants to do is follow him, but she's come this far. Slowly she moves to the doors. They open at her touch and she steps out and looks around.
"We've moved," she says in wonder. The TARDIS - or whatever it was that he called his ship - is standing in a field in the country. She can see a small village not too far away.
"Yes. Do you know where we are?"
"It's..." Rose looks around, her Torchwood training kicking in as she takes note of landmarks. "It's familiar."
"You know it?"
"We were just here." Rose turns to look up at him. "An explosion over by the water. It was a craft that had to be contained. We found some small alien objects there. Why are we here?"
"Something happened to you while you were here," he tells her excitedly. "I think I may know what."
"Nothing happened to me. Except that I got very wet. It was raining."
"Come on. There's a woman here." He takes her hand, a gesture so well-remembered to him that it's automatic.
Rose's reaction is to pull away. He tries to ignore the feeling of hurt.
"Right!" he says. "This way."
Rose stays behind a bit, confused by her own reaction. She just doesn't go around holding on to strange men - and if there's a stranger man than this one around she doesn't know it - but she's hurt him by pulling away. And on top of that is the feeling of closeness to him. She is drawn to him, pulled to him, and she wants nothing more than to touch him.
She follows him, catching up with him despite his longs strides.
"Haven't you got any other clothes?" she asks without thinking.
He looks down at her. "Sorry?"
"Your clothes. All I've seen you wear is that suit. Haven't you got anything else?"
He shrugs. "This is what I get."
"Get where?"
"Get from my wardrobe each day. The TARDIS does my laundry."
"Does it?"
"Used to do yours, on occasion." They've come to a halt and are staring at each other in the field, leaning in close to one another to hear.
"Did it?" Rose asks skeptically.
"Sometimes. Sometimes you brought it home to your mum. She liked that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He smiles at her. A breeze blows her hair around. She brushes it away from her face. Her hand encounters his, reaching for that same strand of hair. His fingers move instead to her cheek, softly caressing her skin.
"I've missed you, Rose," he says quietly.
She doesn't know what to say to that. To say she's missed him too would be a lie. And yet she knows if he leaves her now she will be unaccountably bereft.
"Doctor," she murmurs, and tilts her head up to his.
Of all the things he wants and needs from her, her memory is the most important. Without that she's just a shell of the girl he knew, and he is nothing more than a man to her.
"Come on," he says. "Let's get this fixed." He takes her hand and pulls her along. Rose lets him this time, and makes herself acknowledge the fact that it feels right and familiar and wonderful. Acknowledging that fact unnerves her, and she stops.
Misunderstanding why, the Doctor turns to her. "It will be all right," he assures her.
"How do you know?"
"I do. This is the only way, Rose."
She looks away. "What if you're wrong?"
He looks affronted, as though the suggestion that he might be wrong is incredibly insulting. Maybe it is. Maybe he's never wrong. "What if I'm wrong about what?"
"About me. What if I'm not who you're looking for? What if your friend is still out there somewhere?"
"She's not. She's you."
It's such an act of faith, to believe this man who's not a man. Rose can't deny that she does feel something for him, but it's only because he's handsome and charming and mysterious. No other reason. Certainly not because she's starting to believe him.
She's afraid. To believe him is to accept a truth that can't possibly be true. If he's right, her life is a lie. What will happen to her parents, to Mickey and Jake?
"What will happen to everyone?"
"Everyone?"
"If...if this is true and I'm your ...your friend and I get fixed - what'll happen to everything? To everyone?"
The Doctor regards her soberly. "That will be up to you, Rose. All I want is to make sure you get your memories back."
And that is all he wants. He came back for Rose for purely selfish reason: he missed her. Not finding her the way he expected reminded him that humans are fragile. Finding her without her proper thoughts was worse than losing her in the first place. If she regains those and wants him to go, then he will.
So the Doctor tells himself, anyway. What he'll actually do if that happens is still undecided.
"It's right down here," he tells her, not reaching for her hand. "Come on."