"Bad Wolf here, Bad Wolf there. It's a message. It's telling me I can get back. All the Tardis needs to do is make a return trip. Just reverse."
I sigh with impatience at the sound of Rose's voice. All I can think about is the Doctor and the fact that, this very second, he is about to be exterminated. It's funny; before the Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at me, controlling this blue box was second nature to me; it wasn't something that I had to think about. After all, the blue box is me, and I am the blue box. But now, this one time where I really need to be away from this place and with the Doctor, I don't know how. All I know is that Rose needs to open up the console, the gateway to my very soul, so that I can move into her. But what happens after that remains unknown.
"Yeah, but we still can't do it," Mickey points out.
For what seems like the fiftieth time in the last hour, I curse my invisibility. If I could just make contact with Rose, I could tell her what to do. And maybe I would have a chance of saving the Doctor, and saving myself. Instead, I have to sit here and watch her and Mickey as they struggle to find any sort of solution that would help our situation.
Rose stands by the console, carefully watching the central cylinder as it moves up with my inhalation, and down with my exhalation. I try varying my breaths, staggering the movement of the cylinder, trying anything to make her see that there is more to this box that meets the eye.
"The Doctor always said the Tardis was telepathic." I feel the holographic replacement for adrenaline flowing through my veins, building up slowly inside me, as I sense that she's closer than ever to understanding. The cylinder's movements increase along with my breathing and she studies it thoughtfully. "This thing is alive. It can listen."
I feel like shouting and jumping for joy, but I won't be hasty. She's remembered from the Doctor's comments that I'm alive. That doesn't mean she'll make the connection between my existence and the light at the heart of the Tardis. But still, that doesn't stop my body from trembling in anticipation.
"It's not listening now, is it?", Mickey says sarcastically, and I materialise directly in front of him, feeling a stab of pain when I remember how the Doctor usually responded to my little surprise materialisations.
"Of course I am, you idiot!" I yell in his face, releasing all my impatience and frustration in that one sentence. I'm just so sick of waiting. Ever since I became this blue box, I've been waiting. 900 years of waiting. And now, while the Doctor is in danger, I'm waiting – as always. "And I'm a whole lot more intelligent than you are!," I conclude.
Breathing deeply, I step away from the unsuspecting Mickey, turning my attention back to Rose, who is studying the rim of the console, fingering it gently with her solid human hands. She must be getting closer; I can feel it in my bones.
"We need to get inside it."
I let out a cry of exaltation and if I could hug someone, I would. She's finally grasped it, and it's the best feeling in the world. I just hope that she can find a way to open the console.
"Last time I saw you, with the Slitheen, this middle bit opened, and there was this light, and the Doctor said it was the heart of the Tardis. If we can open it, I can make contact."
Unable to contain myself, partly from the relief of knowing Rose has a plan, I materialise directly in front of her this time.
"No, no, Rose! You will not make contact with me. I will be the one making contact with you! And God knows I've been trying for the last few hours!" I smile brightly in her face. I feel giddy with hope and excitement, and the promise of freedom and humanity. Happiness bubbles up inside me, like lava in a volcano, erupting in the form of a laugh.
Soon I will be free!
"I can tell it what to do," Rose concludes.
"Oh Rose, you wish, you wish!" I move away from her, the smile on my face permanently fixed in place. I watch them as they leave the blue box to find some means of opening the console. Some way of opening my gates and letting me free. Though, of course, they don't know that.
Soon, Izzy. Soon that body will be yours.
But as the minutes tick by, nothing seems to happening any time soon. From my vantage point, sitting comfortably on top of the console, I watch Mickey revving his car engine fruitlessly, pulling on a heavy chain securely fastened to the rim of the console, the other end attached to the car.
"It's not moving!" Rose complains as the heavy chain strains and creaks under the force applied to it. With a loud crack, the chain splits in half, whipping through the air and crashing into my walls.
I groan with impatience, absent-mindedly rubbing my arm from the slight pain the chain caused to my walls. With a cry of frustration, Rose kicks out at the console, causing another pain in my chest. When I first became trapped in this prison, the relationship between the physical box and my projection was astonishing to me, but now it has become part of everyday life, so much so that I hardly notice it.
With the next attempt, Mickey replaces his car with a great big recovery truck that Jackie drove up in like a prince on a white horse coming to save everyone. Once again, a heavy chain is attached to the back of the truck while the other end is attached to the console. The anticipation inside me builds up at the same time as Mickey revs the engine up, and I close my eyes, hardly daring to look.
"Put your foot down!"
"Faster!"
"Give it some more Mickey!"
The cries of Jackie and Rose come in through my open doors; the doors which I have kept open on purpose so I can observe what's going on outside. As the chain pulls on my console, it feels like it's pulling on my very heart, stretching it and opening it, slowly, little by little. I can hear the confirmation; the sounds of the console creaking steadily.
"Keep going!"
"Come on, come on!"
The tugging at my very heart increases, and slowly I let myself drop downwards so that I'm no longer sitting on top of the console in my projection form, but I am at one with the box again. I position myself below the grate of the console. 900 years of waiting, building up to this point. And I have never been more ready.
With a loud snap and a crash, the console gives way, and at the same time, all the barriers surrounding my heart give way too. I am exposed in a way that I have only experienced once before. My raw soul, on display for everyone to see. I feel naked without my protective barriers. But I ignore the feelings of discomfort. I have more important things to deal with now.
Rose comes running in through my open doors. She turns and stares straight at me, and it's too direct for me to deal with, but I hold her gaze.
"Rose. Come to me Rose," I whisper, looking straight into her eyes. My tunnel into her mind.
She runs straight at me and stares straight down into the heart of my soul.
With the force of a tidal wave, I crash my consciousness up against hers, streaming into her mind, filling all the available space. I can feel her shock and horror; feel her trying to resist me, putting up barriers in her mind to block me out.
But she is human. And I am so much more.
I allow myself to breath in deeply through Rose's nose, feeling the cool air traveling into her – no my – nostrils. The effect is calming, and I allow myself to focus. I am still spreading out through the space in Rose's mind like radiation, taking her over, fighting through all her resistance. I can sense every single one of her emotions.
I am Rose.
I am human.
But Rose is more than an ordinary human. I knew that from the moment that I first set eyes on her. I think of the phrase that has been following us around since Rose started to travel with us. Bad Wolf. And now, sitting here inside Rose's mind, in full control of her living body, everything makes sense. Rose said that it was a message, a message telling her that she could return to the Doctor. In a way, she was right. Only, it wasn't the words that were telling a message, it was the letters that make up the words. Excitement courses through my body, real adrenaline this time, as I realise what I have to do.
BAD – Battle Against Death.
The Doctor can be saved from death. Rose thought that the message was only for her, that she alone could return to him to save him, but she was so very wrong. There was more to this message than that.
WOLF – Warrior Of Light and Flesh.
I am the light and Rose is the flesh. And together, combined, we can save him.
I abruptly stop spreading out through Rose's mind, leaving a tiny corner where her consciousness still exists. I can't kill her yet. I need her. The Doctor needs her, and because of that, the universe needs her. I shut my doors with a sudden slam. I am no longer simply Izzy, and because of that, the Doctor's sonic screwdriver has no hold over me now. I start up the engines, disappearing from Mickey's and Jackie's view.
Doctor, the Wolf is coming.
I'm not really sure where I'm going, but I'm following all the 'Bad Wolf' messages that have been littered throughout time and space. They create a path, a tunnel through time, leading me straight back to the Doctor.
In the corner of the mind that we both share, I can feel Rose's agitation. She is still trying to fight her way through my presence, but I've got her trapped in a corner, literally. The whole volume of her super-human mind squashed down to a tiny corner of her brain. It's no wonder she's scared.
"Rose?" I ask, reaching out my mind to gently touch hers. She doesn't respond, just grows ever more agitated. What did I expect? After all, I am still Izzy, the invisible Tardis. Why should she hear me now? I don't know what else I can do to calm her, so I hum what I hope is a calming tune. I allow it to fill our mind, filling the entire space, including the small corner where Rose's consciousness is cowering. I feel my tune making contact with her soul, calming her down, so I sustain the tune as I fumble with the controls of the console. Now Rose is quiet, I can concentrate on finding my way to the Doctor.
Breathing heavily, I run around the Tardis control room, pressing the appropriate buttons, flicking the right switchs, pulling on the right levers, following the instructions that pop up on the main screen which is set to follow the 'Bad Wolf' messages, running so fast that I'm in danger of tripping over my own feet. One minute I'm running to the left, then to the right, almost like I'm taking part in some kind of dance. A victory dance I think grimly to myself, feeling my lips tighten into a line.
Then I feel something – someone – weakly reaching out into my consciousness.
"Who are you? Where am I?" The voice is weak, trembling slightly, but surprisingly steady considering the situation Rose is in. For it is clearly Rose.
I don't know what to say. I don't even know if she would hear me if I did say something. "I'm the Wolf," I reply tentatively.
The seconds tick past while I hold my breath. Just when I think she really can't hear me, her voice comes back, this time a little stronger.
"If you are the Wolf, then what am I?"
Interesting question. What is she now? She is not me; I allowed that when I let her occupy the small corner of her mind. But she is not Rose either; not entirely.
"You are also the Wolf," I reply simply, because I don't know what else to say. There are no other words to explain what we have become.
"How can we both be the Wolf? I don't understand!" The volume of her voice is rising and I can feel her starting to panic. "Where am I?"
"We are opposites. I am the sun, always on fire, and you are the moon, the steady rock. I am the day, because I see everything, and you are the night, blind in the darkness. But right here, right now, we are a team. We are the Wolf."
"I don't understand," she whispers feebly, surrendering to my control.
"Let me show you." And I open my mind and stretch it around her tiny little consciousness, enveloping her inside my mind. "See what I can see, and then you will understand."
I hear her gasp inside my mind. Then there is a loud thump and, startled, I look up as the Tardis doors open, parting down the middle like a stage curtain, revealing the Doctor crouched on the floor at the mercy of the Daleks. Slowly I start to walk towards the open doors, framed by the golden residue of the energy from our transformation, but Rose interrupts my thoughts.
"I know I can use this body too. Don't tell me I can't, because I know I can. I know everything you know Izzy." Strangely, hearing my name tumble from her lips doesn't shock me. She sounds strong, defiant and brave, and now I know why the Doctor cares about her so much.
But she is wrong. She can't see everything I can see. Because carefully hidden, right at the heart of my consciousness, is my plan. Rose will die by the end of this. I may as well allow her to have her last words with the Doctor.
"Go ahead," I say, and I pass our body over for her to control.
And for the first time, I step over the threshold of the Tardis doors.
I never thought I would do it in such circumstances as these.
The Doctor looks up at us from his position on the floor. At first he looks confused. Then, as he registers the residue energy still spilling out of the Tardis doors, he knows that I have something to do with it, and his face transforms rapidly into one of anger.
"What've you done?!" he asks in desperation.
Rose looks directly into the eyes of the Doctor. "I looked into the Tardis, and the Tardis looked into me." It feels weird, because my mouth is opening, and my voice box is vibrating, and I even know the words before they are spoken, but it's not me controlling anything. I feel like someone is controlling me with a remote, and it feels unnatural. Even for someone used to being a blue box.
He gazes up at us, his blue eyes wide open, his mouth slightly parted in disbelief. This is exactly what the Doctor gave me permission to do, and Rose should be dead by now, so I know he's trying desperately to understand how she can still be there. "You looked into the Time Vortex. Rose, no one's meant to see that."
I was never meant to see that. And that is why I must break free I think to myself in satisfaction, in the heart of my mind where Rose's presence can't reach.
"This is the Abomination!" I shiver at the sound of the Master Dalek's mechanical voice over the intercom.
"Exterminate!" cries another, and as the extermination beam heads in our direction, I quickly take control over our body and stop the beam with my hand.
The Doctor looks from us, to the Dalek, then back to us. I have never seen him so confused.
"I am the Bad Wolf," I say, even though the voice that comes out is Rose's. I see our name, written across the doors of the control room we are in. 'BAD WOLF' in big letters, for everyone to see. In this Battle Against Death, we are the Warrior Of Light and Flesh. But we will never get here, unless I give myself the path that I followed here.
"I create myself. I take the words; I scatter them in time and space." I reach out my hand, Rose's flesh, and with the power of my light, I scatter the letters across time and space. "A message to lead myself here." A tunnel through time to lead myself here.
"Rose!", the Doctor exclaims, staring up into our face. Then suddenly, he is addressing me, pleading me. "You've got to stop this! You've got to stop this now!" The intensity of his voice moves me; the contrast of it with his normal confidence. But I don't understand. How can I stop this now, when I'm doing what he told me to do?
He can tell that he's going nowhere, so he tries a new tack, his voice increasing in urgency. "You've got the entire vortex running through your head! You're going to burn!" I know he's addressing Rose, but I hear it as a warning to me and I can't understand why he's giving me conflicting orders now. One hesitation on my part, and suddenly Rose is in control again. Inwardly I curse myself for allowing her to do so.
"I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false God" Her voice is so timid, so sincere, but it makes me so angry. He is my Doctor and he will never be hers. I have protected him inside my walls for 900 years and I'm the one protecting him now. I can see in the way his eyes soften that he knows it's Rose talking to him, and it feels like someone has shot me in the heart.
"You cannot hurt me. I am immortal," boasts the Master Dalek. But something I've learned with the Doctor is that nothing, no one, is immortal. And now Rose can see that too.
Standing up straight with a new air of confidence cracking around her, she addresses the image of the Master Dalek. "You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence" She pauses, and I know she is waiting for my light again, because as far as she's concerned, we are still a team. Just like I told her.
I don't want to help her, but the Doctor's safety is more important, and I cooperate. "And I divide them," I say, commanding the light towards the first dalek with the flesh of Rose's hand. I watch it as it crumbles into dust. Then I turn my attention to the others.
"Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies." Even Rose Tyler I think to myself grimly, as I watch the Dalek's crumble at my command. When the Master Dalek slowly crumbles like the rest of his army, I allow myself to dream. Always dreaming.
"The Time War ends," I finish. And Izzy Saunders will be set free.
I stand there with my arms wide open, welcoming myself to the real world, and welcoming the real world to me.
"Rose." This time, he's not exclaiming. He's reminding me that she is still there. Like a warning. "You've done it. Now stop. Just let go."
"How can I let go of this?" I ask myself again, but this time I hear it in Rose's voice. How can I possibly let go of this chance of freedom? How can he ask me to do such a thing? "I bring life." And I am life. And with a human body, I can do anything I want to do. To prove my point, I locate Jack's dead body in the gloomy tunnels of the satellite and breathe a tiny part of my soul into him. I feel him gasp, all life retuning to him in an instant.
"But this is wrong! You can't control life and death!"
Says the man who spends his whole existence trying to do just that.
I'm about to repeat those words out loud, but to my surprise, Rose fights me for control, and unwillingly I give it to her. She moves our head sharply downwards to look him directly in the eyes. "But I can. The sun and the moon, the day and night." Two opposites, but together making the whole. The Wolf.
Hearing Rose say those words, for I can tell he knows that Rose said them, seems to be the biggest shock so far for him. I can see his lips trembling, because this is a Rose that he can't understand. And this is a Rose that he never will understand. Because I have done what I came here to do. And now it is time for me to take my reward.
Now I start crowding in on Rose's consciousness, still enveloped inside my mind. Moving inwards, I will reduce the space left in the centre, until there is no more space and my consciousness has no choice but to squeeze hers, building up the pressure inside her mind until she finally bursts and what is left of her mind becomes mine.
"But why do they hurt?" Her voice starts to give way under the pressure, but I try not to listen to it. This is something I have to do, regardless of the consequences for Rose.
The Doctor can barely even look at us. His voice is so upset, so emotional, and so, so sorry. "The power's going to kill you and it's my fault." And it is his fault. Because he gave me permission to do this. His voice breaks my heart, because I can't bare to see him this sad. And for the second time, my lapse in concentration allows Rose's trembling consciousness to speak.
"I can see everything." He turns to look at her in astonishment. "All that is, all that was, all that ever could be," she whispers, her voice breaking. I know she can, because I'm slowly taking control of her mind, linking it to mine forever.
Getting to his feet, he looks at her with so such sympathy, so much compassion. "That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"
I will not take this anymore. I cannot take this anymore. He should be looking at me like that, not her. Not this human girl. Me.
With refreshed energy, I throw myself into my attack again, squeezing Rose's consciousness harder than ever before.
"My head," she squeaks as the pain intensifies.
"Come here," and he takes her hand.
"It's killing me." She cries as the pressure in her head reaches its highest possible level.
"I think you need a Doctor." And he leans in towards her face and places his lips on hers.
His eyes look straight into hers, right into the mind where I am fighting my battle. With all the power of a Time Lord, he draws me out of her mind and into his through his eyes, in the same way that a small child sucks drink through a straw.
What is he doing?
Why is he doing this?
WHY IS HE DOING THIS TO ME?!
As I enter into his mind, through the Doctor's eyes I watch him catch Rose as she falls into his arms. I allow my fury to take over his mind.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" I scream, and I feel his mind shake with the force of my energy and anger. "YOU TOLD ME I COULD TAKE HER BODY! YOU PROMISED ME FREEDOM!"
He is silent; he simply places Rose gently on the ground, before standing to his feet again.
"DOCTOR! ANSWER ME!" I yell, and I feel him wince inside his own head.
"I'm sorry Izzy. I just can't do that to her. Not another innocent soul. I'll find you another way of escape, I promise."
But his promises mean nothing to me now. They are as empty as my heart. Before I have time to answer him, he forces me out of his mind, breathing me out through his mouth back towards the blue box.
"No! Doctor, no! Please, don't do this to me!" I struggle against the force of his breath, but I'm simply not strong enough. "Don't do this to me!" But I feel myself rushing back towards the console of the box, sinking back into it, before the doors slam shut.
I am the Tardis.
For now and forever.
And even as I sob, crouched tightly in the centre of the box, I can feel the Doctor's gaze on me. He is sorry; he is always so, so sorry.
But sorry means nothing to me anymore.
