Disclaimer etc.: see Prologue.
Hey, me again. I'll be surprised if anyone actually reads this chapter after the wait I put you guys through… Sorry.
I think there will only be a couple more chapters after this one; nearing the end now.
A massive thanks to all the people who reviewed the last chapter, I love you all, and I hope this one is up to par.
Enjoy!
Golden Death
8 - Homecoming
The red being settled down into the armchair Jackie Tyler had offered it. It clutched a purple mug between its hands, the heated ceramic reminding it faintly of what it had once called 'home'. The brown liquid within the vessel smelt vaguely familiar. It took a sip and blinked. The drink was remarkably pleasant.
"See? That's tea." Jackie stood over him, hands on hips in a motherly fashion. "Where do you live anyway?" she inquired belligerently. "What sort of place doesn't have any tea?" The tone of her voice made it clear that any place that didn't know of the existence of tea was obviously backwards to the extreme.
Another trickle of warm softness made its way down the red being's gullet. "I lived in Hell," it replied matter-of-factly.
Jackie blinked. "Hell?"
"Rather a pleasant place. Better than it sounds."
"Is it—"
"It is not fiery."
"How'd you know I was going to ask that?"
"Everyone does."
"Oh." Jackie smiled faintly and plumped herself down on the adjacent sofa. "Well then," she started, "why don't you tell me all about it?"
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The Angels hovered, invisible, contemplating. They knew that they would be unable to destroy Rose Tyler, or the Doctor, but he knew that this woman (however much the Time Lord protested) meant much to both of them. And grief was such a powerful emotion, with the raw potential for creating a relationship, chasing two people into each others' arms as they grieved together. And then there was the possibility that the sorrow would be too much, and the relationship would shake itself to pieces in the aftermath of crushing loss. The Angels knew which one they preferred.
They hovered, swaying closer to the blonde's head, invisible blueness brushing the bright strands of hair. They could feel her thoughts, racing a mile a minute, listening to the red being, worrying over the fate of her precious daughter, and, oddly, hoping that the Doctor was safe as well.
Odd. The Angels had gotten the impression that Jackie wasn't too fond of the ancient Time Lord. And that it was very much vice versa.
But no matter.
Once they were inside the woman's brain, snapping the cerebral pathways, burning the bridges from her soul to her body, there would be no secrets from them, and they would find all the answers they desired on a fleeting whim. And when that was done, maybe a timespace of a fraction of a second, they would set her body aflame from within, and abandon her.
Anticipatory pleasure flooded the Angels, and they sank down, through skin and flesh and blood and bone.
And almost instantly, she belonged to them.
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Fire; heat, blazing against his face, making him blink.
Fire and brimstone, the Doctor's mind murmured. Heaven becomes Hell. He suppressed a shiver in the heat. He hugged Rose's body closer to his chest, protecting her from the flames.
His dark gaze flickered across the wreck of Heaven, scanning, searching. He needed her; not the lifeless form in his arms. He needed her; her warm body in the circle of his arms, her breath gusting against his ear, her soft lips pressed to his with her dextrous fingers wound into his spiked hair. He sniffed roughly.
Look for gold. The TARDIS again, lending a gentle helping hand, snapping him out of his morose thoughts. The Wolf. Rose.
He acknowledged her input and her prodding, and forced himself back to the moment. His gaze flickered back across the conflagration before him. She was here, somewhere. A smile traced his thin lips as he saw it. A slender twisting column of whisper-thin gold tracing up to the arched sky hanging above Heaven.
"Rose!"
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Come on come on come on come on comeon!
The Wolf was yelling inside their joint mind, trying desperately to drag Rose back from the black spectre of death. She was slipping from the Wolf's grip, her strength all-but gone. The Angels had unwittingly stolen the energy from her soul and that was not a good thing.
The Doctor was close, the Wolf could feel it. He was racing, running through the flames, her name on his lips in a panicked hiss. No, wait. Not a hiss. A yell, a scream, loud enough to reverberate around Heaven like a church bell.
But yet the Time Lord was not close enough.
The Wolf wept softly. The Doctor was too late, too late to save his love. The Wolf could feel Rose's grip on reality and the world fading with every raged gasp of oxygen her spirit took.
The Wolf rose up, still weeping, but now searching, desperately hoping that he would come for her.
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Jackie Tyler jerked.
The red being raised one crimson eyebrow in reaction. "Jackie Tyler?" it inquired softly, the mug of still-steaming tea halfway to its lips.
The blonde turned to face it, but her lips made no sound.
The red being became abruptly worried. "Jackie Tyler?" it asked again, a silver spider's-thread of worry seeping into its voice.
She smiled. And it was a very familiar smile as well. The exact duplicate of the one that had slid across Rose Tyler's lips when she was not herself. When she was possessed. Possessed by…
The Angels.
The red being dropped its mug, tea splashing across the floor, and lunged forward, seizing Jackie Tyler's head between its palms. Its head dropped until its chin brushed its scarlet chest and its lips moved in silent almost-prayer.
And then Jackie Tyler and the Angels began to scream.
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He could see her. Her faint form, curled over on the hard ground. And he knew that he was losing her.
"NO!"
He plunged through the flames, barely noticing the fire that licked at his pale flesh. Even if he had noticed, he wouldn't have cared. He needed to get to her, more than he'd ever needed anything in his life.
Rose, please, hold on!
He crashed to his knees beside her, tears already beading in his dark eyes. He laid her feather-light body down next to the curled outline of her spirit. He felt a single liquid diamond burst free from his eye and wend its way down his cheek. The Doctor reached out to the spirit-Rose. "Rose…" Her name cracked on his lips. "Rose, wake up," he whispered desperately, brokenly.
He saw slight movement, a twitch of an eyelid, maybe less.
"Rose, please," he pleaded. "Don't leave me, you promised, please, you can't…" He was close to breaking down, and that was something he hadn't done in a very long time. But if there was anyone in the entirety of time and space worth weeping over, it was Rose Tyler.
But the last of the Time Lords wasn't ready to weep yet. The soul's eyes were open and she was gazing up at him.
He ventured a tentative smile, finally allowing himself to believe that this whole mess might work out. "Rose, please. Listen to me. Come home."
"…home?"
He slowly reached out his hand to her, tears still rolling silently down his face despite his nervous smile. "Home," he reaffirmed, and in that one word there was every promise he had ever made her, and every emotion he had ever shown her in his naked soul.
She raised her translucent hand oh-so-slowly, and touched her ghostly skin to his. His fingers cradled lovingly over hers, sheltering her hand. "Come home," he repeated in an almost-heartbroken whisper.
The spirit of Rose Tyler gazed up at the Doctor, and then a smile broke her lips. Her hand faded to golden dust in his grasp, the crumbling carrying on up her arm and reaching the rest of her ethereal form. His forehead furrowed in fear and panic. "Rose!"
Sshh. Quiet. Wait. He wasn't sure how she said those three words, but it was definitely her.
So he obeyed, and gold dust swam around his knees.
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There was no time for niceties, no time to ask for permission. It was sorry for the intrusion, but this would most likely save her life.
The red being delved into Jackie Tyler's mind, plummeting past the surface and swimming down to the very core of the Tyler matriarch. There was a tightly packed kernel of emotions that formed the centre of who she was, and the red being was instinctively drawn to the glow of this defiant blaze of passion. Maternal love and care wrapped around fear of the unknown; the heart of Rose Tyler's mother.
But wrapped around this bundle of care was a blue shadow; a cold ghost that had no place in the warmth of this human's soul.
The red being reached out with insubstantial fingers, carefully avoiding anything that Jackie Tyler might want to keep secret. It grabbed hold of the blue phantom and in that instant knew that only one entity of the three embroiled in this silent struggle would come out alive.
Before, the red being hadn't known how it fitted into all of this.
Now it did.
It twisted its mental fingers into the insubstantial substance of the Angels. It felt more than heard a psychic scream, agony and anger in their purest forms. The red being from Hell dragged the Angels from Heaven into its mind, releasing Jackie Tyler from her torment.
This was not balance, it screamed into its head. This was control. Domination for you. Subservience for us. The red being wasn't even aware that it was repeating the Doctor's impassioned words.
The Angels screamed with anger and the creeping madness of terror.
The red being, for the first time in eons drew itself up, mentally and physically. It could feel its brain dying, neurons ripped apart by the wild thrashings of the Angels within its skull. But that didn't matter; pain didn't matter. Not anymore. The screams faded as physical sensation crept away from the red being's body.
Wondrously it realised it could hear a small boy's voice, calling to it. Papa? Papa is that you?
The red being smiled. I am here.
Are you coming home papa? I missed you!
A single tear slipped down its crimson cheek. Yes. I'm coming home, son.
Childish laughter, filled with joy and hope and peace and happiness flooded through the red being's head. The giggles overcame the faint whimpers of the dying Angels and the red being felt a small hand in its own. Come on papa!
The red being's spirit slipped free from its burned-out corporeal form and it followed its eager son, long removed from this world. You'll like home papa!
The empty scarlet body slid to the worn carpet in Jackie Tyler's flat, forgotten.
The red being ran with its son, and as they chased one another towards their home, 'it'became 'him', and their former existence crumbled to ashes around the finally reunited pair.
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