Wow, thank you all so much! You totally make my day when I find myself with a new review!
I hope you continue to enjoy this story as much as I am.
I'll address questions here, but please know I appreciate each and every one of your reviews!
LilienRose & Sasusc - I love Ten and Eleven, but as this is supposed to be a Rose and Eleven story, I've decided to mainly stick with Eleven, even though Ten obviously makes some serious appearances.
Mary Kathryn - I'm very flattered that you like this story so much and feel inspired to do fan art based off it! Yes, please feel free to go ahead with the art, and share when you're ready!
uzumaki_misaki - Not even the Doctor can know the mind of the TARDIS! However, she has her reasons for the things she does, as we all well know. ;)
Please review. Thanks!
"Miss?" An older gentleman tapped on her shoulder. The girl was hunched over near a pile of burning tires. She was trying to keep warm along with several other homeless people.
Rose stared with blank eyes as the burning flames licked at the night sky. She didn't acknowledge the man.
"Excuse me, Miss?" He persisted, tapping her shoulder again.
Slowly, she dragged her eyes from the flames and over her shoulder to the eyes of the stranger.
"Do you need anything?" He was a nicely dressed man with gray hair and wearing an expensive suit. He looked concerned. He must have just stepped out of one of those fancy restaurants that were nearby. Another of those people who believed he might be able to help the poor with handouts. He was ready with a wallet and an offer of sharing with her the nearest places she could get a good meal. His handouts might have been helpful to some, but they couldn't help her.
"Thanks, mate. But you can't help me. Everything I need is gone." She climbed to her feet and moved past him without looking back.
Rose felt dead inside.
Everything she knew, everything she believed in, was a lie. The Doctor wouldn't always be there for her. Her mum wouldn't either. She had nobody. She was a self-reliant girl, but she was only able to continue on as she did because she believed she could help those she loved. But how could she help them now?
She spent the past two months living on the streets. Her mother's friend had offered to give her a place to sleep and help her find work, but she refused it. Others had offered their support too, but she refused them as well. Getting a job and a bed wouldn't fix anything. As helpful as some people were, they couldn't bring her mother back. They couldn't bring the Doctor back to her. They couldn't undue the choices she had made.
Nothing mattered anymore.
Shivering, she drew her coat further around her body. It easily tucked her deeply inside. She'd lost a significant amount of weight over the past couple of months. She could have gotten free hot meals, but she was rarely hungry. She ate just enough to keep going. She didn't even want to do that much, but pure instinct made her do so. Before she'd changed everything, she thought she would only sacrifice herself if it meant she could bring someone she loved back, or save them somehow. But now, merely surviving was a chore.
Death was feeling far less like a sacrifice and more like a mercy.
She walked past others on the streets who were suffering far more than she was, or such was her belief. She couldn't help but think they all had it far worse than she. Some were very ill, others were incapable of looking after themselves at all. She couldn't tell how distorted her own mind was now, nor how weak her own body had become.
She continued on in the dark, moving past the safety of the streetlamps and onto back alleyways. Onwards she walked, having no destination in mind. She had no place to go.
Rose's tears had long since dried up. She'd spent weeks crying. Crying for her mother. Crying for her Doctor. Crying for what little there was to salvage of her life. Now, she was mostly just numb.
Was this all life had to offer her now? Just a chance to survive?
The words of the Doctor were lost on her. Nothing he said could bring him back to her. Nothing she did could make her mother breathe once more. Nothing anyone ever did could bite back the guilt that had meticulously been eating away at her since this happened.
She'd gone over it all in her mind so many times it became a silent mantra in the back of her brain. The choices she made. She abandoned the Doctor. She took away his future. He tried to tell her not to. He'd warned her. He'd told her to return to her own time line. She had refused and in doing so, and in her mind, she had wrecked everything for him, for her, and for others, possibly all of existence in one way or another.
It had taken her this long just to come to terms with the loss of everything she knew. No more did she have a soft place to fall.
She betrayed the Doctor. He betrayed her. He could have stopped her, she reasoned. He knew far better than she, the consequences of something this astronomical, yet he'd failed to take reasonable efforts in forcing her to yield to all the red flashing signs that screamed out at her to turn back and run back to the Doctor she had left in the park that cool, crisp afternoon.
But Rose couldn't completely blame him. She was a stubborn girl, and she accepted that. The problem was, he believed in her. Too much, perhaps. Far more than she believed in herself. She was letting him down.
She didn't know what to do.
He told her to follow her heart. Her heart had been aching too painfully for her to hear beyond it's cry for reprieve. How could she know what it wanted when she was now so numb to it she often forgot it was still beating?
Rose's arms were wrapped tightly around her chest as she trudged forward aimlessly. Overhead, she heart the faint rumble of thunder.
She found a small crawl space under a set of stairs leading up the back side of a building in an alley. She crawled under and pulled a piece of cardboard between the grooves in the steps above her head as a makeshift shelter before the skies opened up with with the flood of tears she, herself, no longer shed.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them to herself.
The rain quickly soaked through the flimsy cardboard and drenched her. She pulled up the hood of her coat, but it was hardly much protection from the elements. It wasn't the first storm she'd weathered and she figured it was far from the last. She was shivering and soaking wet. She didn't care.
She thought over the past couple of months. The months that stretched on longer than any year she'd ever lived, could have.
She was aware of small groups. Groups that had formed to talk about the mysterious Doctor. He had been seen from time to time over the last few years. She tried investigating a couple of the groups. Most were full of people who had brief encounters with the Doctor or knew people who had.
Rose realized quickly that the groups were as much support groups as they were fan clubs. These were people who needed to talk about their brilliant and troubling experiences.
She met a woman named Donna Noble who had quite a tale to tell. She said the Doctor kidnapped her on her wedding night. Rose spent a couple of hours with the woman, hearing her story. The Doctor, Donna told Rose, had been completely annoyed at Donna's appearance in his TARDIS. He hadn't been particularly kind to her. He'd ignored her questions, left her terrified as he dragged her along for an adventure she would have happily done without. He dumped her outside of the Thames after saving her. He hadn't even attempted to ease her heartbreak at losing her fiance, and at the betrayal she'd suffered. The Doctor simply ignored her pain and went through the motions of saving the world from the Racnoss. That wasn't the Doctor she knew. He could never ignore someone hurting like that.
When Rose pointed out that, that didn't sound like the Doctor at all, that he would have cared, Donna just shrugged and said that she was just a temp and it wasn't important anyway, but Rose thought it was very important.
That was just one of many similar stories. The Doctor swooped in or was unceremoniously dropped into situations where he went ahead and saved people, but then hurried on his way. He didn't stop, didn't pause for a moment to even get to know a single person he had met from what she could tell. That definitely wasn't like him.
When asked if he ever spoke of someone named Rose, Donna got a frightened look and said something about the Doctor having a violent tantrum of sorts when she asked him about a bag of women's clothes he had. But when pressed, Donna wouldn't say anything more on it. The terror and confusion in her eyes was enough to tell Rose that Donna, and many others like her, had been traumatized by their encounters with the Doctor.
Could this really be her beloved Doctor about whom they spoke such terrible things?
Someone else mentioned the name Rose should never be spoken around the Doctor because it drove him mad. Rose tried to find out more about this, but anyone who seemed to know much about it also appeared too frightened to speak on the matter. None of these people had seen the Doctor in at least a couple of years.
After that, Rose had grown more despondent than ever. The Doctor she knew and loved was changed. He was out there somewhere, lost and alone and needed her, but she didn't think she could help him. How could she? She could barely manage herself. She didn't know if she could save him from himself. She couldn't even seem to save herself.
Perhaps that was when she allowed the numbness to overtake her. When she realized there was nothing more she could do. When grief overtook all else and hopelessness reigned in her heart.
Her lips were turning blue and her fingertips were tingling in the cold and rain. She had seen a woman die out in weather like this a couple of weeks back. She thought about laying down and curling up on her side. Maybe if she just went to sleep, she wouldn't ever have to wake again. The idea was tempting. She looked down at the puddle of rainwater she was sitting in. It would be so easy to give up. To give in.
She had tried finding Mickey. A few of his old friends told her that he was killed in a shipwreck while searching overseas for her. Just another brick in the layer of guilt she was abusing herself with.
She closed her eyes as a painful tremor ran through her. She cleared her mind and thought about the comfort of an eternal sleep. The solace of resting her head and no longer feeling the pain. The thought continued to appeal to her.
Every time she heard about some mysterious happening, the thought that the Doctor might not have been there or might have been there wrong, caused her to completely blame herself. Things like an entire hospital vanishing and turning up later only to find nearly everyone dead. A survivor said they'd been taken by aliens and to the moon. Most people dismissed his tales as hallucinations, but Rose believed every word. Whenever she heard about an invasion of Daleks or Cybermen or anything unexplainable that didn't seem well dealt with, she felt it dig deeper into her already broken heart until she was sure it was blackened and nearly dead.
Even the things that the Doctor never would have been there for in the first place, she believed she was fully at fault for. Every last one of them.
Lightening streaked above her and thunder crashed loudly, bringing her back to the moment.
Her hand reached out and touched the gravel of the hard ground beside her. She no longer noticed the rain still beating down upon her in spite of the storm's noise.
She had been out in the freezing storm a couple of hours now, settled under the metal stairs. It felt like only minutes.
All it would take was a nap. A nap and she wouldn't have to think anymore. She wouldn't have to feel anymore. Everything would be okay.
Rose ran her fingers across the rocky ground. While it scraped against her delicate skin, she continued to give in to these most dangerous thoughts.
It wasn't really the coward's way, was it? Purposefully starving to death or jumping off a building would be, but simply laying down to sleep, could that really count? She hardly had the fight left to argue with herself over it.
Her core body temperature was dropping dangerously low due to prolonged exposure and lack of nutrition, along with exhaustion. The drop was causing her to shiver uncontrollably now.
Her heart was slower than normal.
She felt nothing.
The more she called up images of the joys of being swept away in the nothingness of death, the easier it was to give in to them.
She began to lean toward the ground.
There was no reason worth going on for anymore.
She felt the cold puddle splash against her cheek as she laid her head down. Her ear and cheek became submerged, her nose just barely out of the puddle as she rested on the cold, hard, wet ground.
Just a nap. Maybe I'll dream of him.
She closed her eyes.
An image of the TARDIS crept into her mind. Where had that come from? The beautiful sounds of the TARDIS crashed into her ears. She smiled. It was a nice dream. To think she could hear him so close and yet knowing he was so very impossibly far away.
She tried to ignore it, but the sounds grew louder and louder until they drew her eyes open. She blinked at the fuzzy lights of far away streetlamps through the rain. It couldn't be, could it?
But it had to be.
The sound jolted her out of her stupor.
Then it stopped. But thoughts were now surging through her mind.
He was still out there. It wasn't just a dream. That was the TARDIS she'd heard. She would recognize that sound anywhere. He had to be close!
He was still wondering where she was, she remembered. She might never find him in her current state, but what if she could? What if knowing what had become of her was all he needed to let go of his own pain and become the hero she knew him to be? To become the man so many needed him to be?
She struggled and pushed with both hands on the ground, heaving herself upright again. It was too late for her. She'd lost everything, but if she could give him back anything, she had to stay alive. If she could live long enough to tell him she was sorry, it would be enough and she could let go finally and peacefully.
She had to find him. He was lost, alone, angry, scared, hurting. All because of her. She had to tell him how sorry she was. She had to tell him it wasn't his fault!
Rose ignored her numb and trembling limbs. She forced herself up onto her feet.
She grabbed at a piece of the under railing of the stairs to steady herself. She continued as tremors shook her so hard she had trouble staying upright.
"I-I-I'm coming Doctor." Her voice came out so meekly that no one could have heard her, least of all the Doctor. But she meant it.
She took several breaths and pushed herself away from the railing. She stumbled forward nearly landing on her face. She caught herself on the side of a rubbish bin. She clung to it. Her knees were weak, her legs didn't want to stay up. Her hands couldn't keep their hold.
Determined, Rose forced her legs to take small steps. It was all she could manage now. Through the dark and rain she swayed, grabbing onto walls and bins and cars she passed when she needed something to keep her from falling over.
I have to save him!
Every step was a fight. Each taking more effort than the last.
He needs me!
Her thoughts thrust her feet forward.
She went toward the direction of the sound she had heard only moments before. What if he left before she could get to him? Then she was sure she would have to go on long enough to track him down. She couldn't give up on him, not now. Now was the time to fight for him.
Rose stopped at a car, clutching onto the side. That was when she saw it.
The TARDIS.
It stood on a street corner as bold as it ever could have been. She could practically feel it calling to her.
She knew right away the TARDIS had to belong to the new Doctor she had met. It was a brighter blue than the TARDIS she knew so well, and it had small, round sticker on the door. This wasn't the Doctor she was expecting to find.
Had he died anyway? Had all of this come to pass only to have him die and end up alone all over again anyway?
Throwing her back against the car, she tried to regain some strength. She decided it didn't matter if he had died. It didn't matter if he had changed a dozen more times. He was alive, he was still the Doctor, and he needed her.
She glared at the blue box as the wind forced the rain to cascade sideways against her. She lifted herself up and pushed off the car, flinging herself with all her might toward the TARDIS.
Rose fell before the doors of the box she so desperately needed to get inside. She tried once, twice, three times to climb back to her feet, but failed. Each time her trembling legs collapsed beneath her.
Furiously, she dug at the ground with her fists, crawling her way to the police box.
She had already done so much wrong, she just couldn't get this wrong too. She would not fail him.
Only when her head lightly bumped against the wooden door did she stop.
Rose reached up, her hand shaking so bad she could barely grasp for the door handle. Please be unlocked, please be unlocked, please be unlocked! Was her silent chant while she reached up for it.
Feeling a firm grip on the cool metal door handle, her strength and resolve was renewed. She dragged her body up off the ground and used the handle for support. When she was sure her feet would continue to support her, she shoved the door open, relieved to find it opening without resistance.
Rose staggered in.
She kept a hold of the door to keep herself upright. She looked up.
Her vision was murky at best. She thought she could make out at least two figures, but both were so blurred before her that she couldn't pick them out. Surely one of them had to be the only person she was here for.
She had come to help him. To explain. To tell him things weren't his fault. To ask for forgiveness.
But as she stood there on the edge of a darkness so deep it threatened to swallow her whole, her body failed her.
The world spun out of control as it dropped out from under her.
She couldn't let it have her. Not yet.
"D-D-Doc...Doctor, I'm s-sorry!" She sputtered at the figures that were swimming before her vision.
She could hear a voice, panicked and full of questions, but she hadn't the strength to comprehend what it was asking.
Rose felt the darkness finally capture her.
The last thing she was aware of was that the floor came rushing up to greet her.