Chapter 10

The Doctor and Rose sat together on the examining table, their arms wrapped tightly around each other and their voices hushed. Remus cleared his throat from the doorway. The Doctor glanced up, his eyes bloodshot and watery. He blinked for a moment and recalled where he was, straightening awkwardly.

"Right, yes. Sorry. I just left you all behind, didn't I? Not very polite of me—but then again, it was established pretty early on that this me is rather rude." He sighed, distracted for a moment. "Rude and not ginger."

Remus' brow furrowed, but he shrugged it off and turned to Rose. "I just wanted to check and make sure you were all right. Dora's been out of her mind with worry, but I thought the two of you needed some privacy."

She beamed up at him. "I'm absolutely fine, Remus. More than fine. An' thanks—it was good to have some space." She glanced down at her bloodstained skin and grimaced. "I think I'd better take a shower before I talk to her, though—I can't imagine that I'd be very comforting at the mo'." She slipped out the doorway after squeezing the Doctor's hand, and the two men were left staring at each other.

The Doctor took a deep breath, let it out. "Thank you." When Remus attempted to wave him off, he continued determinedly. "No, I mean it. Thank you for stopping me. I just… it was Rose, and I…"

"Doctor, you don't have to explain." Remus sighed and sat next to him, his eyes on his clasped hands. "A few months ago, Dora and I were out on a mission for the Order. We'd only just found out that she was pregnant, but she refused to be wrapped in cotton wool. We were tracking a were that had been attacking Muggleborn families and we'd nearly trapped him, but somehow or another he discovered our trap and sprang it on us, instead." He swallowed heavily. "Dora was completely incapacitated, and I lost my wand. If it weren't for the fact that it was the night before the full moon, I don't think I would've been able to fight him off and save her. She and our unborn child would've been slaughtered in front of me, if I'd been an average wizard. That was the first time I was grateful for the wolf." He looked up and met the Doctor's gaze evenly. "So I understand, Doctor. I do. Dora was the one who stopped me then, and I'm happy to have been the one to stop you now."

The Doctor nodded soberly and pushed himself off the table. "I should talk to the others, see if they've gleaned anything important." He paused when Remus cleared his throat. "What?"

"You might want to follow Rose's example, first." At the Doctor's confused look, Remus gestured at his blood-soaked suit. "I can't imagine the Order would be able to concentrate on what you're saying if you popped up looking like that."

"Ah. Yes. Right." The Doctor swallowed heavily, his skin suddenly crawling. That was Rose's blood, staining his suit. How had he forgotten that? "I'll just take a shower, then—and go burn this somewhere."

When he followed the sound of voices to the library after a brisk, scalding-hot shower and a change of suits, he found the Order gathered in the expanded seating area around the fireplace. Rose had arrived before him, it seemed, and was dressed in her usual jeans and a jumper, her damp hair pulled back into a casual ponytail and her face free of makeup. She was sitting next to Tonks, steaming mugs of tea in both their hands. At his entrance she glanced up and beamed at him and he grinned back, his hearts pounding in a syncopated rhythm at the sight. He'd never seen anyone so beautiful, and she would be with him for the rest of his lives.

Tonks stifled a grin and took another sip of tea as the Doctor walked over to join the elder members of the Order at a large wooden table, taking Rose's attention with him. She swallowed and leaned back, her eyes twinkling. "So, spill."

"Hmm?" Rose blinked and focused on her again, blushing as she realized how caught up she'd been. "Spill what?"

"Well, what happened there? Yesterday you two were doing the denial thing—very well, I might add, and I speak from long experience—and now he's lookin' at you like you're the sun and all his stars."

Rose smiled—a shy, hesitant, hopeful look. "Circumstances… changed. Changed rather a lot."

Tonks raised her eyebrows. "And? What does that mean?"

"It's rather hard to explain. About a year ago the Doctor and I were facing off against some of his old enemies, some aliens called the Daleks." She shuddered and wrapped her hands more tightly around her soothingly warm mug. "They're pretty much the worst creatures you can think of. Imagine Voldemort, but without any of his cuddly humanity and with impenetrable armor an' a death ray that'll kill almost anything in the known universe. They'd caught us in a trap, and the Doctor sent me away in the TARDIS 'cause he thought there was no way he could survive." She took a sip and leaned her head back against the cushions. "He was wrong. I still don't remember how, but I managed to open up the heart of the TARDIS, and she an' I bonded and went back to Satellite V. We called ourselves the Bad Wolf, an' apparently destroyed the Daleks with a wave of our hand. It nearly killed me, though—that much power. It did kill the Doctor. He took the Vortex from me an' regenerated, and he seemed to think that was the end of it." Her eyes sparked a hazy gold. "But when I promised him forever, I meant it."

"So you're what, immortal now?"

"I know I'll be around as long as he is. The TARDIS an' I took care of that."

"Blimey." Tonks' head thumped back against the cushion, her expression a little stunned. "Not everyday you can say you met an immortal, time travelling couple." She glanced over at Rose, curious. "So, d'you still have the woo-woo goddess powers?"

Rose frowned in concentration. "I don't think so. I wasn't able to handle it at all, first time around—just managed to get rid of the Daleks and set this up." Her brow furrowed. "Though it feels like there's somethin' else, somethin' I'm forgetting…"

"Rose?" She glanced up and found the twins leaning over the back of the couch, their expressions guilt-stricken. "We just…"

"We're so sorry."

"We should've kept a closer eye—"

"I still don't know how that bloody bastard snuck around us—"

"Oi, guys!" They stopped and ducked their chins, looking like they had just been caught stealing biscuits. Rose twisted and grabbed their hands, looking them both earnestly in the eye. "It's all right, really. It wasn't your fault at all, and I won't have you blamin' yourselves." She chuckled. "Bloody and painful as it was, it happened as it was meant to happen. So, really, it's okay."

Fred and George gripped her hands tightly, and Fred spoke, his voice tight. "We're just really, really glad you're all right."

"Thanks. An' trust me, I am, too." She grinned at them, and they grinned back. Someone cleared his throat behind them, and they turned to see Kingsley standing there.

"Miss Tyler. Glad to see you're feeling better. If you would all care to join us, another meeting seemed to be in order."

The group collected around the long table, Professor McGonagall at the head. She nodded at Rose and cleared her throat. "Thank you for joining us. What we've learned from Gouldman doesn't amount to much—we'd known Riddle was after wandmakers before, and this has just confirmed it. However, it seems to be in conjunction with Mr. Potter, and we must do our best to support him in absentia. There are some very real concerns about Tom getting the information he wants, and we must do our best to stop him. Kingsley?"

He nodded gravely at her. "As far as we know, he's been heading after well known wandmakers before this. Gouldman's attack was most likely because of his location in Diagon Alley—from what I observed, he doesn't seem skilled enough to warrant specific interest."

Tonks frowned. "D'you think it was because we were there, then?"

"It's possible. Was your wand recently inspected, Tonks?"

"Before I headed off on leave, yeah. But that was months ago." She pulled out her wand and studied it suspiciously. "Is it possible that they've had tracers on it for that long?"

"We've only been seeing lately how deeply Tom's forces are embedded in the Ministry. You can bet he's been putting the pieces in place for a long, long time. That brings up our next order of business—" Rose snickered, and the Doctor unsuccessfully attempted to hide a smile—"sabotaging what Riddle-inspired Ministry functions we can." He looked around at the group seriously. "This could get very dangerous. With the amount of lies that Tom has been producing, there's more anti-Order sentiment out there then there is against the Death Eaters. If we'll be working against the Ministry, we have to be ten times as careful as we were before."

"Don't you have a radio station?" Rose flushed as the group turned to stare at her. "Well, if Riddle's been publishing propaganda, why not tell your own side? You could do, I dunno, a pirate radio station."

Kingsley nodded thoughtfully, but Molly frowned, confused. "What's a pirate radio station?"

Fred and George had straightened at Rose's suggestion, their eyes bright. Fred turned to his mother, his expression already thoughtful. "It's an illegal radio broadcast—no need for a studio, just piggy-back off the official channel. We could do it from anywhere."

George grinned. "We would do it anywhen."

"We could get Lee—he's got enough experience as an announcer."

"And we could pass on where & when Snatchers were sighted."

Professor McGonagall nodded her head decisively. "Then that will be your responsibility, boys. Do we have any system set up for distributing perception filters?"

Remus looked up from a quiet discussion with Tonks. "I could supply them to wizards on the run as I visit the different packs."

"Good. Then that's what we'll do." The meeting continued, and Rose sat back thoughtfully. She'd just changed history, but apparently she had already changed history. She shook her head and finished her tea. Thinking too much about it would give her a headache, and she'd had a long enough day already. The Doctor caught her hand under the table and squeezed it, his dark eyes worried. She smiled reassuringly back at him and focused on the meeting again, only to find it breaking up. The room emptied slowly until it was just them and the bookshelves that stretched to forever.

"Come on, you look tired." Rose followed the Doctor over to the couch, curling into his side when he sat down. She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed.

"I'm not tired, exactly. More just... oh, I don't know." They rested against each other contentedly, with no need for any more noise than the soft hiss and crackle of the fire. After a long silence, Rose spoke softly into the Doctor's blue suit (and where had he pulled that from?). "Why can we save Snape, and not Remus and Tonks or Fred? I just don't understand."

The Doctor's eyes shut tight as he wrapped his arms firmly around Rose. "I could say it's because Snape's ending is more fluid, I could say it's because the others' deaths inspire Harry to defeat Voldemort, but the truth is, I don't know why. I don't know what makes a person's death necessary while another could live. Time is cruel, Rose, and it doesn't make sense." He rested his nose against her hair and breathed in her scent to distract himself from the thought of Teddy Lupin. "If I could save them, Rose, I would."

"It's not your fault, Doctor. I know you would, if you could. I just kinda hate it, that's all."

He raised her face gently to his, his expression guilty. "Are you sure you want to stay, Rose? I've dealt with this for centuries, and you're still so young. Forever is a long time, after all."

She raised an eyebrow at him and poked him in the side, grinning when he squirmed. "Yeah, thanks, I know that forever's a long time. I'm not stupid, Doctor." She sobered. "An' yeah, of course I want to stay. It's hard, this life. But that doesn't change anything. I'm never gonna leave you, got it?"

He smiled down at her, eyes suspiciously bright in the firelight. "I don't know. You might have to keep saying it for it to get through. I can be quite thick, if you haven't heard."

"Fine." She grinned up at him and leaned up, trailing soft kisses across his features as she spoke. "I'm never. Gonna. Leave. You." He bent down and captured her lips with his own and she shoved all her regret and all her worry out of her mind, focusing instead on the texture of his slightly chapped lips and the way his hands trailed across her back. This life was beautiful and terrifying and heartbreaking, but it was so much more, and now it was hers. More than that—it was theirs.