Summary: For Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth, there's nothing quite like the adventure of saving the world, until one Christmas, the adventure becomes far too dangerous and puts Rose's life in jeopardy.
Notes: Trigger warning for serious, life-threatening situations, violence, gun violence, life-threatening injury, and violence resulting in death.
My darling betas, mrsbertucci and Rose_Nebula! How can I possibly thank you enough? I appreciate all that you do. You are wonderful!
Thanks to doctorroseprompts for their 31 Days of Ficmas prompts. The one I'm using today is Family.
December 24th, 2021
Dear Father Christmas,
Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. That's me! (Somehow it always sounds grander when the Doctor says it, though.)
It's been so brilliant this past year to get back out in the field and feel like I'm making a difference. There's nothing quite like that feeling of saving the world. Yeah, the Doctor and I have our TARDIS, and we go travelling all around the universe on the weekends, visiting all sorts of places and times with Hope, Charlie, and Wilfred. But it isn't quite like it used to be when it was just the Doctor and me, yeah, living by the seats of our pants, leaping from one adventure to the next.
Don't get me wrong. It's still an adventure! Especially getting to watch the brood learn about all of space and time. When the time comes, the TARDIS will be theirs to inherit, and they need to be armed with all the knowledge they can possibly cram into those bigger-on-the-inside brains of theirs. It's just… I know it sounds mental, but I miss the danger; the adrenaline rush; that thrill that comes of well… saving the Universe and barely escaping with your own life.
It's strange really, because, of the two of us, you'd think it would be the Doctor who was missing experiencing that high. But it turns out he's really enjoying tinkering and experimenting at Torchwood for the time being, and he's so involved with the kids' educations. Sometimes he comes on missions with me (those are the best missions, running with his hand in mine!) and the kids stay with their Gran and Grandad, but he's mostly content to do the school run and go to work at Torchwood, these days.
I think a big part of it is him wanting to make sure that at least one of us is safe at all times. I get that. This spring, a laser from a skittish, crash-landed Jumjumut grazed my left shoulder as I was diving for cover. It hit very close to my heart. We actually lost one of our operatives on that mission, before we had a chance to subdue the alien. Isabel Stokes was a good woman, single mum of two. Fortunately, her parents were able to step in and look after her babies, but it really struck home: my job can sometimes be very dangerous.
The Doctor held onto me really tight when I got home the next night. He made love to me like he was etching the memories in his mind. Maybe he was. He never asked me not to return to work though, but in the morning, he passed me my travel mug of coffee and told me he loved me. Then he told me to come home safe. What could I say to that? I just kissed him and whispered in his ear, "I'm never going to leave you."
That's become our morning ritual since that day.
On my birthday, this year, he gifted me with my very own sonic. A gorgeous sonic wristwatch, programmed with all the settings of his screwdriver. He said it would make him feel better knowing I had it at my disposal, because you never know… I guess if he couldn't be there himself, a sonic he had crafted was the next best thing.
Life's been busy. Most of the missions weren't dangerous at all. They weren't even proper missions at all. A lot of the time, I was just checking in with pensioners who thought they'd seen a UFO. We had to follow up, of course, because you never know. Usually, though, it was the things hidden in plain view we had to watch out for. Tracking those babies down sometime took days. There were times when I had to miss some of our excursions on the TARDIS, which broke my heart, but the Doctor managed on his own with the brood.
But I had never yet missed an important occasion: I had made it home for birthdays anniversaries, concerts, recitals, holidays, the whole bit. I even booked a month off to spend summer hols winging through space and time with the loves of my life.
But here I am, Christmas Eve, stuck on a stakeout in Cape Town waiting for some well-known alien arms smugglers, the Dintashi, to try to make a deal with a rebel group of Sontarans who have been hiding out on Earth for the last month. They'd thought Earth was a dead-end planet with limited knowledge of extraterrestrial life, and for the most part, they were right. They liked it for its extensive communications networks, though: easy to tap into. Also, easy for us to trace once we figured out what we were looking for. They'd underestimated Torchwood and we've been watching, waiting for this deal to go down.
Unfortunately, I drew the short straw for the week over the Christmas period. I'm scheduled to be here five more days, which means, if I'm very lucky, I'll be home in time to ring in the New Year at the Annual Vitex New Year's Gala.
I have to tell you Santa, stakeouts are mind-numbingly dull. We know something is going to happen soon. It's just coordinating terrestrial and extraterrestrial calendars can be a bit dodgy sometimes so, a lot of the time we have to wait, and play it by ear.
Me and my partner, Arjun Sreeram have worked together on loads of cases. We train together, so we know each other pretty well. We're camped out in a vacant flat across the street from the Sontarans' building. He's just gone out for a coffee run, and I'm sitting here by the window dictating this diary. I have to keep this thing private, though. I'd never hear the end of it if Arjun ever found out I still write to Santa every year. Oh, I see him. He's coming back. I gotta go!
-ooOoo-
December 30, 2021
Hi Santa, I'm back. I hope you didn't think I'd forgotten or something. I just didn't get a chance to finish my story until now. Hope you had a happy Christmas!
Where did I leave off? Right, I was waiting for Arjun to come back to our flat. It took him a bloody long time to come up the stairs, and by the time he got there, I was famished, hungry enough to down the lukewarm coffee and rather disgusting egg salad sandwich he brought me in a few gulps (better that way, anyway, so I could barely taste it.)
Right then, I got a ping on my mobile. It was the Doctor. Arjun said he'd be fine doing surveillance if I wanted to take the call. The best part was it wasn't just a call! It was a videochat! From Yultidia, nonetheless! The kids and the Doctor were at the top of the snowtubing hill. They were just about to go down and had wanted me to join them very badly. They decided if I couldn't be there in person, I could at least be there virtually. The Doctor shouted "Allons-y, Rose Tyler," and we were off down the hill. It was wonderful to hear their shrill, little voices, screeching in delight, and see the big grins on all their faces as they went careening down the hill, but it was all I could do to hold back my tears. I wanted to be there with them more than anything!
"We'll call back later," the Doctor told me, "to say goodnight." And then he said, "Rose Tyler−" And the line went dead.
I tried really hard not to dwell on the memories that that unfinished sentence dredged up, because I knew exactly what the call cutting out meant: something was about to go down.
Arjun argued with me. I told him to shut it and just keep an eye on things. Any people walking by, cars moving. Anything. Even a stray animal. He kept insisting he saw nothing amiss, no sign of a transmat anywhere in the vicinity. But I knew. I'd sonicked my mobile so it would drop everything at any sign of a transmat within a 50 kilometre radius. And that's just what happened.
I don't know why I did it (some instinct niggling in the back of my mind, I guess, that prickle of suspicion you just can't ignore) but I surreptitiously peered out over Arjun's shoulder just as two lean bodies slipped into the shadows around the side of the Sontarans' building. It was the Dintashi, I was sure of it, even though they looked perfectly human. The Dintashi were well known for using Shimmers. Arjun had to have noticed, and he hadn't bothered to tell me. Something was very, very wrong.
I confronted him, and he got this really scary look on his face. Accused me of messing things up for him, saying that I should have just kept my nose out of it. He even pointed his gun at me. I didn't really have time for his crap, to be honest. I needed to catch the two the Dintashi and the Sontarans across the street. But now, I realized, I had absolutely no back up.
We had two other operatives in the flat below, but there'd been no communication from them since Arjun had come back from the coffee run… And then it clicked. It had taken him an awful long time to come up the stairs... I had to assume he had subdued them, and now I didn't know if they were alive, dead, or incapacitated, or maybe even involved in this scam somehow. Whatever the case, they certainly weren't going to be around to help me.
Arjun aimed the gun at my head. I was so frightened, Santa! I just kept the images of my laughing children and husband replaying in my mind as I moved toward him. If this turned out to be the last thing I would ever do, I wanted that to be my final thought. Them. Always them. Only them. Forever.
Sorry, Santa. Give me a mo'. I'm crying again. I promised I wouldn't do that…
Anyway, so he's pointing the gun at my head, and I knew I had to do something unexpected. Arjun knows the way I fight. But there was one thing he wouldn't be expecting. I activated my sonic, and pointed it at him. It shone an incredibly strong light in his eyes, temporarily blinding him. While he was reeling from that, I knocked him out cold with a solid lead punch right to the side of his neck, just behind his ear, and once he was down, I kicked the gun from his hand.
Of course, I confiscated all his weapons, but I just left him there, unconscious, 'cause frankly, I needed to focus on apprehending the Dintashi and Sontarans. I called Dad as I ran down the stairs. Told him to mobilize anything in the area. But he said it would be a while before anyone could get to me. They were all a few kilometres out. He also ordered me to wait before engaging. Well, I've never been one to follow orders and if I didn't act, the weapons exchange would go down, unhindered, and then where would we be? Earth would be getting a reputation for being a place for holding these sorts of transactions. It was dangerous and needed to be nipped in the bud.
Still, as much as I wanted to go in there and take them all down, myself, I do have a bit of common sense. I'm pretty good at my job. I can be tough and have good combat skills. Dad wouldn't have given me the position of Field Commander if I hadn't been good. But that also means I know when I'm in over my head. This was one of those times. I might have been able to handle just the Dintashi, but the Sontarans were another matter.
But I wasn't just going to let this go. And there was only one person I could call on who I knew could help me, and be here right away. My Doctor.
I quietly snuck into the room where the aliens were negotiating the details of their transaction (they weren't that hard to find with my sonic), and sent the Doctor a signal from there so he could easily lock onto it. They heard it, of course, and turned to face me. One of the Sontarans shouted at the Dintashi something along the lines of "…you assured us we wouldn't be interrupted…" He had his rifle pointed at the arms dealers who looked like they were making to transmat out of there. I shouted for them to stop. They couldn't escape now! Then, before I could react, another of the Sontarans fired at me with his disruptor rifle.
Unprepared, I went down. All I remember is the disruptor blast cutting across my torso, dropping me, and everything started to go black. I could just make out the sound of the TARDIS, and in my mind, I clung to my vision of the laughing faces of my family, smiling at me.
The next couple of days were hazy. I kept trying to fight out of the darkness but it kept sucking me back under, and always before it did, I would see my family grinning at me as they snowtubed in Yultidia. I didn't know why, but I just knew I had to hold on to that image.
Then I remember seeing the Doctor. It was only for a second. The lights were so bright and he was all back lit with spiky hair and his face in dark shadow, but I could see his eyes. They were full of the aftermath of the Oncoming Storm: so unsettled and sad. I was falling under again, the darkness claiming me, and suddenly his hand grabbed mine and his thoughts washed through me. I love you. Come home safe.
And I told him I'd never leave him.
I finally woke up properly yesterday in the medical facilities at Torchwood. I'd missed Christmas entirely, and ruined it for my family. They were all staying on cots in empty rooms nearby. They'd decorated my room with a tree and garland (even some of that garish stuff from Yultidia!) All the presents were tucked under the tree. No one had opened even one. I feel so guilty about that.
We're going to open them tonight, though. I wasn't up to it yesterday, but I'm feeling a bit better today. Turns out the disruptor broke several of my ribs and sliced open my abdomen. My intestines had to be stitched back together, but the doctors couldn't do much for my uterus. They did a hysterectomy, saving as much as they could. We hadn't been planning on having more babies, but now that the choice has been taken away from me, I feel a bit empty. I was told I had been very lucky that no other major organs were involved, though. So I'll just have to keep focussing on that.
The Doctor had taken the Sontarans and the Dintashi to Torchwood for questioning and to be kept in detention there. The Dintashi, not unexpectedly, have a ship close by and a contingent is expected to arrive to negotiate for the release of the prisoners. Being a rogue faction, the Sontarans are on their own. Back in the Prime Universe, the Doctor would have handed them directly to the Shadow Proclamation, but he hasn't done much research into that organization's presence in this universe, yet. Until he does, the Sontarans will remain prisoners of Torchwood. Arjun is in lock up. He'll probably be retconned after a thorough interrogation. The other operatives he (thankfully) only incapacitated are back home, recovering with their families.
As for being Defender of the Earth… I think I'll be quite happy to lead a quieter life for a while, not that I'll have much of a choice until I'm properly healed up, which could take some time. Anyway, the title doesn't seem so grand anymore, even from the Doctor's lips. For now, the greatest adventure I want to have is spending time with my family, and always holding onto each memory as though it's going to be my last.
Until next year, Santa. I hope Mrs. Claus and your family of elves and reindeer have a safe, happy, and healthy year.
love, Rose