Chapter 12
"Follow me," said Atropos.
Rose hesitated, but then fell in line behind the old hag. It wasn't long before she was flanked on each side by a Doctor, each tightly grasping a hand.
Atropos led them out of the reception hall and into the Tapestry viewing chamber. She walked past the immense computer and skirted the sunken chamber in the center of the floor. She stopped in front of a small and relatively non-descript metal door. The door was solid and bore the patina of age. There was no door handle Rose could see, but there was an oddly shaped lock.
"Excuse me," said Clotho, pushing past Rose. As she breezed past, Rose saw a large piece of metal in her hand. Clotho blocked the lock with her body, and Rose could not see how to work the mechanisms, but after a few short seconds, she heard the loud rasp of a bolt pulling back. Another loud click and Clotho pulled. The door slid open easily despite its bulk, the hinges well-oiled.
The room they piled into was small compared the vastness of the chamber they had just left. The room was well-lit despite the fact that there were no visible light fixtures. Instead, ambient light spilled out of a series of tall clear cylindrical tubes that lined one wall.
Curious, Rose drew close to the nearest one and peered inside. The contents appeared alive; a swirling golden morass that darted to and fro, not unlike a lava lamp she had seen in a junk store. She placed a hand on the cylinder and the energy surged forward, framing her appendage with what seemed to Rose to be delight. She couldn't help but smile.
"It's beautiful," she said softly more to herself than anyone else.
"Yes," said Clotho. "It knows you."
Rose giggled feeling suddenly happy, and she pressed harder with her hand, as if pressure alone would be enough to remove the barrier. She thought she heard someone calling her name, but ignored it. She was so close now…
A hand shot out and grabbed her own, forcibly pulling it away from the cylinder. Rose blinked rapidly and looked at the Doctor.
"What-?" she asked.
The suited Doctor waggled a finger at her even as he squeezed her hand. "Now Rose, you know better than to go touching things that don't belong to you."
Donna scoffed. "So says the Space-Man who experiences the universe through the use of his tongue."
The leather-clad Doctor made a disgusted grunt. "You lick things? That's your quirk?"
The Doctor sniffed. "It's better than having a leather fetish."
The relatively normal exchange pulled Rose from her reverie, and she turned her attention to the rest of the small room. On the opposite wall were a series of pegs, each holding a skein of golden thread. The thread twinkled and glowed in a manner similar to contents of the cylinder. Sitting squarely in the center of the room was a simple spinning wheel. The evidence of earlier labors were still to be seen glistening on the wheel.
In the far recesses of the room was a large square of burnished metal inset into the wall. It was large enough to serve as a door, but there was no handle, and Rose could not detect any obvious hinges. Next to the metal panel, affixed to the marble wall was a large lever. But the most distinctive and terrifying aspect of that unremarkable piece of metal was the phrase 'Bad Wolf' that was scrawled across the front in a golden, glowing script.
As she stared at the ominous words, she felt a nudge at her elbow.
"Here," Atropos said, extending a wicked looking pair of shears. "Take this. You will need it."
Rose grasped the scissors and shivered.
"Now hold on just one minute!" shouted the Doctor with alarm.
"Idiot!" said Atropos. "She won't be able to repair the Tapestry without the shears."
"So," said Donna, "she needs to take some of that thread there and do some sewing? Doesn't sound too hard."
"Oh no," said Clotho. "She has to go to the Source."
"The what?"
"The Source. It is, like, the place where the glowy stuff comes from." She pointed at one of the clear cylinders. "It provides the raw material I use on my spinning wheel."
"Why can't she just use what's already there?" asked Donna.
"Because, girl –" Atropos fell silent when Lachesis placed a hand on her arm.
"Let me, Atropos. This will be hard enough without you making it worse." Atropos nodded. "The skeins you see here are what we use to repair, or modify the Tapestry. We cannot use these threads to repair the Polestar. For that, Rose must go into the Source."
"Does she?" piped the brown-eyed Doctor. "It seems to me that Clotho is already familiar with the Source, working with it on a regular basis like she does. Why don't you go into the Source and handle it? Hmmm?"
"Oh, I don't ever go into the Source. It is totally forbidden."
"Then how do you -?"
"The cylinders," Clotho said, patting the nearest one. "When the supply gets low, I turn a valve and it sucks in the material I need."
"You want Rose to go into the Source, when you won't do it yourself?" Donna asked incredulously. "That's just rude."
Clotho was more than a little bewildered by Donna's reaction. "But, she is the only one who can!"
"She'll die in there!" shouted the brown-eyed Doctor. "If it is anything like the Vortex, she will burn from the inside out. No one is meant to see that!"
Clotho wrung her hands. "She has to go. If she doesn't, like, everything will be destroyed!"
"Doctor," said Rose, clutching the shears tightly with both hands, "maybe I should –"
"No!" said both Doctors in unison.
"There has to be another way," said the one in the suit.
"I forbid it," declared the one in leather.
Rose shifted from one foot to the other and pulled her lower lip between her teeth. Seeking guidance, she turned to her friend who had been her constant companion since this ordeal had begun. "Zaizan?" she asked.
Zaizan bowed low. "The decision belongs to the Golden Mother."
"No it doesn't," said her second Doctor emphatically. He moved in front of Rose and extended his hand. "Give me the shears, Rose."
Atropos snorted. "You? You are not prepared. You don't know the Songs."
The Doctor whirled to face her. "Oh, you'd be surprised. I know over 5 billion languages and twice as many songs. Not to mention the fact that my voice has brought professional opera singers to tears."
"They were probably crying from pain," muttered Atropos. "You, Time Lord, cannot fix this."
"Just watch me!" he shouted. "Rose, give me the shears." He again stretched out his hand.
She pulled the scissors in close to her chest and took a step backwards. "Doctor, no. Please no."
"It's alright Rose," he said. "Everything will be fine. You and Donna will go with him." He indicated the leather-clad Doctor with a nod of his head. The blue-eyed Doctor returned the nod, and a quick flash of mutual understanding and purpose passed between them.
"What?" screeched Donna. "I don't want to go with him! He's mean!"
"Hey!" protested the Doctor in question.
"Donna, please-," the Doctor started.
"No! You're about to go do something heroic but incredibly stupid, aren't you?" Donna yelled.
"You can't -," pleaded Rose.
"It will all work out in the end," he said firmly. "I promise. Now, Rose, give me the shears."
Rose felt her eyes well up with unshed tears. He was offering his life for hers, and she would be lying if she said she wasn't tempted. The thought of what lay beyond that door wasn't just frightening, it made her blood freeze in terror, and the picture of her riding off with her first Doctor whom she had missed so much was a tantalizing counterweight.
Besides, saving the universe regardless of the cost was the Doctor's specialty; surely he could save the day and then quip about how easy it was later. If anyone could survive the Source, it would be her Doctor.
"He will try to take this burden from you. Don't let him. He cannot fix this. Only you can."
She remembered the words and her grip on the shears tightened. She gazed at his outstretched hand, that hairy manly hand, and saw only a TARDIS in flames. She looked up into the eyes of the Oncoming Storm and saw the lie.
"When the choice comes, you will be tempted to choose left. Choose right, Rose! Choose right!"
Rose looked to her left and saw her first Doctor; his icy blue eyes glittered and determination was etched deeply into the hard planes of his face. Donna stood beside him, her cheeks nearly as red as her hair as she glared daggers at her second Doctor.
She looked to the right and saw only that ominous square of metal, its intimidating message beckoning to her as it pulsed.
"Rose," said the Doctor. Her name was not a soft expression of unexpressed feeling, but a hard command. She felt his burning gaze as surely as she would have felt his touch, and she tightened her grip on the shears, suddenly afraid he would attempt to wrest them from her grasp.
"I-," she stuttered. The last thing she ever wanted was to disappoint the Doctor; she wanted to give him no reason to shun her company, but in this instance, it looked as if she would not be given a choice.
"I-," she tried again. Whatever else she would have added to that statement was swallowed up by a loud echoing rattle followed by an ear-splitting bang.
"What the hell?" said Atropos.
"It came from out there," said Lachesis, moving to the door they had entered through only moments earlier. She pushed against the metal and it swung silently outward.
Not one, but two swirling masses of energy darted past her and into the room. Each energy storm was tinged purple.
"Don't look!" shouted the blue-eyed Doctor. He shut his eyes tightly and clapped a hand over Donna's eyes.
"It's the TARDIS," shouted the second Doctor, throwing up his arm to cover his own eyes. "Rose! Don't look!"
Rose did not hear him. As soon as the two hearts burst into the room, she heard nothing but a haunting melody that she knew intimately. Knowing that this energy had come for her, she opened her arms wide, welcoming her old friends.
The energy from the two TARDISes poured into her; the more energy she absorbed, the more pressure she felt. She was asking her body to house more entities than it was designed for, and the fit was tight and uncomfortable. But Rose did not complain; she felt one TARDIS crowding her left, the other crowding her right, and both stretching out to shield her from what was to come.
"The three-in-one," she whispered with understanding.
"Rose!" the Doctor roared. "Not again! Let it go!"
Past, present, and all future possibilities stretched out before her, and in that instant, Rose remembered.
"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself," she said, the familiar words spilling from her tongue.
"Rose, don't do this! Stop it now!"
Rose ignored his pleas and took a step towards the right. "I took the words and scattered them in time and space. A message to lead myself here."
A few more steps to the right and she was within touching distance of the door, the words 'Bad Wolf' glowing eerily behind her. Hands grabbed her shoulders and whirled her around.
"Rose!" cried the Doctor. "Please, don't."
His brown-eyes were red and shimmering with unshed tears. She reached up and lightly caressed his cheek. "My Doctor," she said. Her hand dropped to her side and she looked from him to her first Doctor. "I want you safe," she added, reaching behind her. "I love you no matter what face you wear. Always remember."
She planted her hand on the metal door behind her, and in between one breath and the next Rose Tyler exploded into a shower of tiny golden particles. The cloud of her essence hovered for a split second before the door shone a matching gold; what was left of Rose pushed through the portal into the unknown.