Father's Day: A Tyler Down
"I'm a dad," Pete suddenly chuckled while sitting on one of the benches next to Rose, the almost fully-grown one. "I mean, I'm already a dad, but Rose grows up and she's you. That's wonderful! I mean, I suppose I thought that you'd be a bit useless, what with my useless genes and all, but... Well, I mean... how did you get here?"
Rose pursued her lips, all tears finally gone but still trying to get comfortable talking to him. The answer should be a bit obvious to Pete, at least it would be the answer that everyone would jump to first... oh, why not?
"Do you really want to know?" she cautioned him with a smile slowly forming on her face.
"Yeah," Pete nodded eagerly.
"A time machine," Rose informed him and watched his reaction closely. There really was no reason for Pete to think that she was crazy now, after all he just discovered that there are creatures called Reapers that feed on wounds in time and his daughter saved his life. He would be the crazy one not to believe in anything she said.
"A time machine," Pete laughed again and hung his head, but not denying her words.
"Cross my heart," Rose laughed as well and did the cross over the heart symbol on her chest.
"What, do you all have time machines where you come from?"
"No, just Virgo and... the Doctor," Rose started off the sentence happily but then her smile fell when she said the Time Lord's name. She had completely forgotten about his supposed 'death' thanks to the whole Reaper mess and Pete telling her he knew who she was. What kind of friend was she if she could easily forget about him?
A silence grew between the two of them, more awkward for Pete because this was the part where he was supposed to comfort her loss.
"... Sorry," he eventually said and didn't meet her line of gaze. "You... okay?"
"I'm fine," Rose nodded then turned her head behind her to see Virgo walking up and down the aisle mumbling something repeatedly with narrowed eyes. "It's her who could use the 'sorry.' She's the one that loves him." She refused to say 'love' in past tense.
"Right," was the only thing that Pete could say before changing the subject. "So, did you know these things were coming?"
Slightly thankful for this, Rose said, "No."
"God, I don't know. My head's spinning. What's the future like?"
"It's not so different," Rose shrugged absently. It really wasn't. The only things that changed were the music styles, phones, cars, and people. The way of life was almost exactly the same.
"What am I like?" Pete asked her, unintentionally - once again - going to her sore spot. "Have I gone bald? Don't tell me I've gone bald." He laughed and it soon died down when Rose didn't speak. "So... if this mate of yours isn't your sister and I have to say, I'm glad, because I don't think I could handle three Jackie's all at once. Same thing goes for the Doctor, because being your dad and all, I think he was a bit old for you. Have you got a bloke?"
"No," Rose said sadly, still hurt by Mickey's rejections from when the world was being invaded by the Slitheen. That was only a typical day, of course. "I did have-"
"Mickey!" Jackie's shout for him finished Rose's sentence.
The said little boy had ran away from Rose's horrid mother and hugged Rose's waist for reasons unknown. The blonde stiffened at first but eventually let out a laugh or two from shock and patted Mickey's back.
The action went noticed by Pete, "Do you know him?"
"I just didn't recognise him in a suit," Rose said. "You have to let go of me, sweetheart. I'm always saying that."
"He just grabs hold of what's passing and holds on for dear life," Jackie walked over to them and took hold of Mickey's hand. Her sentence reminded Rose of her very first adventure with the Time Lords under the London Eye. He had clung to her like she was about to fade away from him. "God help his poor girlfriend if he ever gets one."
"Me and Rose were just talking," Pete gestured to himself and his daughter.
"Oh, yeah?" Jackie scoffed. "Talking? While the world comes to an end, what do you do? Cling to the youngest blonde." She shot Rose a nasty glare before taking Mickey away from them. "Come on, Mick."
Pete sighed in frustration and was about to get up and storm over to Jackie for talking to their daughter like that, but Rose stopped him.
"You can't tell her."
"Why?" Pete asked exasperatedly.
"I mean, I don't want you to tell her," she corrected her previous words.
"What, do you don't want people to know?"
"Where I come from, Jackie doesn't know how to work the timer on the video recorder."
"I showed her that last week," Pete said in confusion, but his daughter's pointed look said it all. "Point taken."
.l.l.l.
Virgo was sitting on table near the choir stalls in puzzlement, staring at Baby Rose in her carrycot like she was a complete mystery to her. She had been here for about five minutes trying to come up with something to get her to go to sleep, but nothing was popping up. She didn't have any children's books and she certainly wasn't about to try and cradle her until she went to sleep because Jackie would have her head if she did.
"Go to sleep," Virgo commanded Baby Rose while she stared at her with wide, curious eyes. "Babies do that all the time. Uh..." She snapped her fingers. "I command thee to sleep! Do it! Abra-cadabra, you're asleep!" Baby Rose continued to stare at her, and the Time Lady sighed and rested her head on her hand. "I need you, Doctor. It should be you doing this."
The Present Rose cautiously walked up to her, and Virgo didn't even glance up at her.
"I'd better be careful," she awkwardly said. "I think I just imprinted myself on Mickey like a mother chicken." She tried to glance at her baby self, an opportunity that didn't come around too much for anyone.
Virgo slapped Rose's hands away from the carrycot with a harsh glare, "No. Why are you doing that? You're the same person. You touch her, that causes a paradox and it'll let the Reapers inside. Any disturbance in time will get them closer and closer to breaking those doors down."
Rose rubbed her hand and sighed sadly, "Can't do anything right, can I?"
"When it comes to anything about your family, yes," Virgo agreed and crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the wall. "Leave the baby alone at all costs."
"I'm not stupid!"
"Clearly!" Virgo said sarcastically. "Let's look at the evidence, shall we? You tell us a story about your dad and want to see him in the flesh and blood. Fine, so we take you to your parents' wedding. But, no! That wasn't enough, was it? We just had to take you to the day he died so you could be with him in his last moments! Justified, then you ask us to try again. Already that affects the timelines, but you know why we let you try again? We trusted that you would be able to do this and wait until our past selves were out of sight for you to run to him, but you took that trust and flushed it down the toilet. You saved him, changing your past and Jackie's future. And if that wasn't bad enough, the Reapers decided to show up and take the Doctor away!"
By the time the Time Lady was done shouting, both blondes had tears in their eyes and Virgo was panting. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, speaking with a more broken voice.
"If you understand the situation at all, then please say one thing," Virgo wiped away a stray tear or two before they could finish their journey of trailing down her cheek. "Just tell me you're sorry."
"I am," Rose apologized as honestly as she possible could, to have this guilt lifted off her chest. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"
The two of them found themselves being hugged by the other, unsure who it was that started the hug. They cried on each other's shoulders, mourning their deceased friend and ignoring odd stares from wedding guests that had overheard the argument. Virgo had been shouting quite loudly, so it wasn't too difficult to eavesdrop even if none of them had any idea what the Time Lady was trying to say.
Virgo suddenly hissed in pain and pulled out of the hug to fetch her TARDIS key from around her neck. When she held the key in her bare hand, she quickly dropped it to the ground since it was so hot. The key laid on the ground, glowing brightly with little hums here and there, as if the TARDIS itself was speaking through it.
"What's wrong with it?" Rose questioned and bent down, about to pick it up.
Virgo stopped her by slapping her hands away, "No, don't touch it. It's hot." She pulled off her panda sweater (unknowingly causing a few men to blush and look away, them expecting something... different than a tank top) and used it to pick up the TARDIS key so she wouldn't burn her fingers off. "It's telling me it's connected to the TARDIS, but..."
"But?" Rose asked her with raised eyebrows. "But, what?"
"Only the Doctor is connected to the TARDIS," Virgo furrowed her eyebrows, a puzzled expression on her face. "He is the designated pilot, after all... Why would-"
"Never mind that," Rose waved her off. "What do you mean it's connected to the TARDIS? What's wrong with the TARDIS?"
"It would have lost its interior and became an actual police box. It's a time machine, and the Reapers are making the wound in time bigger... put two and two together."
She then ran away from Rose, walked up the stairs while glaring at each step, and stood at the pulpit to make an announcement to everyone in the church.
"Attention!" she shouted and brought some people's attention over to her that weren't staring at her already. "Everyone sit down, I've got some news that'll brighten up your day."
Many smiled broadly and took their seats, but a small group near where Virgo was standing was still talking quietly, and this went noticed by the Time Lady.
"You lot, shut up," she glared daggers at them and they immediately ceased their talking. "Sit down and pay attention." After the group disbanded and sulked to their seats, Virgo returned to her audience. "The inside of the Doctor's... my, apparently, spaceship was thrown out of the wound, but we can use this-" She held up the TARDIS key so that everyone could see "-to bring it back. And once... my... ship's back, then I'll be able to get rid of the Reapers and you can all go back to your normal lives. A bit of a problem, though, I need a battery so that I can get some more power into it. Please tell me someone here has a battery."
The people in the seats shared unsure glances with each other in silence until Stuart remembered his dad's phone from before. He picked it up and raised it above his head so that Virgo could see, "This one big enough?"
The Time Lady squinted her eyes to try and examine it, then nodded and jogged down the stairs, "That's good enough."
"Good old dad," Stuart laughed sadly and handed the phone over to her. "There you go."
"Thank you," Virgo took it and pulled out her sonic screwdriver to do a bit of jiggery-pokery upon the telephone to get the battery out.
Meanwhile Pete and Rose were talking quietly with each other, Pete using this opportunity of everyone chatting excitedly amongst themselves to try and get to know more about the future Rose.
"You, er, you never said why you came here in the first place," he pointed out to her, but Rose really wasn't paying any attention to him. She was still quite upset from Virgo's words and the Doctor's death. "If I had a time machine, I wouldn't have thought 1987 was anything special. Not round here, anyway."
"We just... ended up here," Rose shrugged absently.
"Lucky for me, eh?" Pete smiled softly. "If you hadn't been there to save me-"
"That was just a coincidence," Rose quickly spoke and cut him off, really not wanting him to say, 'I would be dead by now.' The Doctor and most of the world's population of humans were gone now, and she really didn't need to hear her own father say that he would die. "That was just... really good luck. It's amazing."
Pete stared at her oddly before changing the subject, "So, in the future, are me and her indoors still together?"
"Yeah."
"Are you still living with us?"
"Yep."
"Am I... a good dad?"
Rose stiffened and slowly brought her eyes to meet with Pete's. How was she supposed to answer that question? She couldn't ever bring herself to say that he wasn't there at all because he was supposed to die about an hour ago, and she didn't want to anyway. The only thing she could do right now was to tell him what she would have wanted from him should he have actually lived with her for more than a year.
"You...," she began hesitantly, and already Pete was frowning at this, "you told me a bedtime story every night when I was small. You were always there. You never missed one. And er... you took us for picnics in the country every Saturday. You never let us down. You were there for us all the time. Someone I could really rely on."
Pete shook his head with a sad smile, "That's not me."
Rose's small grin faltered and she turned to look away from him, pursuing her lips to stop herself from crying again. From the look on Pete's face after she finished her lie, she could guess that he was starting to get that something happened. Maybe his first conclusion wasn't death, but it could be that he and Jackie had divorced and Rose had lived with her for a very long time and hardly visited him. That was small hope, though.
She was thankful when she saw Pete pay close attention to something else and when she finally followed his gaze, she discovered that a faint outline of the TARDIS was materializing around Virgo's TARDIS key that looked like it was levitating.
"No one touch that key!" Virgo shouted at everyone with a stern look. "I repeat, do not touch the key. If you touch it, then you'll have ruined our chances of getting out of here. It probably looks odd, but I don't care. Just leave it be. Actually, try not to even look at it if it helps. Just... don't touch it."
The Time Lady blew a piece of hair off her face then slumped down on the bench next to Rose and crossed her arms, staring intently at the TARDIS outline.
"When time gets sorted out-" Rose began, but Virgo already provided her with an answer.
"No one will remember what happened up until the moment the first Reaper appeared. If you're worried about the 'thing' you changed, it'll still be the same."
Rose was about to ask if the Doctor would be restored, but Pete spoke before she could say a word. Even when Pete was talking, she clamped her mouth shut and stared at the ground, Virgo's solemn expression already revealing what her answer would be. No or unlikely was the answer.
"You mean I'll still be alive, though I'm meant to be dead," Pete said harshly. "That's why I haven't done anything with my life, why I didn't mean anything."
"You do mean something," Virgo frowned at his words. "Everyone means something."
"Rubbish," Pete scoffed with the shake of his head. "I'm so useless I couldn't even die properly. Now it's my fault all of this has happened."
"This is my fault," Rose countered.
"No, love," Pete smiled sadly at her, not mad that she kept the little detail about his death from him. He was sure she knew more about this time travelling business than he ever could. "I'm your dad; it's my job for it to be my fault."
Unfortunately for him, Jackie was standing right behind him with Baby Rose's carrycot, "Her dad? How are you her dad? How old were you, twelve?" She grimaced, immediately flushing down that image to the back of her mind. "Oh, that's disgusting!"
"Jacks, listen," Pete closed his eyes to keep himself from yelling at her and put his hands on Present Rose's shoulders. "This is Rose."
"Rose?" Jackie's voice cracked with heartbroken tears in her eyes. "How sick is that? You give my daughter a second hand name? How many are there? Do you call them all Rose?"
"Oh, for God's sake, look," Pete stood up suddenly. "It's the same Rose!" He quickly picked up Baby Rose and put her in Present Rose's arms with the intention of showing the similarities.
"No, no, no, wait!" Virgo scrambled clumsily to her feet and grabbed Baby Rose and shielded her from Present Rose, but by then it was already too late.
By the time Virgo gave Baby Rose back to a frantic Jackie, a single Reaper already magically appeared in a golden light and flew around the Church while screeching to scare its victims. All the innocent wedding guests screamed and ran around the room.
"Everyone, stay behind me!" Virgo stood up on the bench and shouted at the top of her lungs so that she could be heard over the Reaper's nagging. "I'm the next oldest thing, no time to explain why. Just do it!" She already hated the idea before it came out of her lips, but what else was there to do? Either let everyone run around like animals while the Reapers plucked them from life one by one, or she could give them the impression that she knew what she was doing and they could live off of false hope. False hope was better than no hope at all.
"Virgo!" Rose screamed at her in horror, and that was the last thing the Time Lady heard.
The Reaper screeched once before diving down and gobbling her up, killing two birds with one stone. It screeched once again and flew over to the TARDIS. When the two of them touched, they instantly disappeared in a flash and Virgo's key dropped to the ground, not glowing anymore.
Rose breathed heavily as she stared at the TARDIS key, eventually slowly walking/running over to it and picked it up with shaky hands. Its texture startled her greatly.
"It's cold," she managed to say, unaware of Pete standing behind her and looking at her sympathetically. "The key's cold. Oh, my God, she's dead." Pete placed a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him away. "This is all my fault. The three of you. All of you. The whole world..."
"This is it," Bev declared mournfully. "There's nothing we can do. It's the end."
.l.l.l.
Pete stood by the window and watched with tired eyes at the beige car appearing around the corner then disappearing alongside the church in a golden light on loop. He rested his head against the glass and gazed down at the floor for a few moments before sighing and leaving the window alone.
Grabbing his coat, he walked over to Rose who was sitting on the bench closest to the double doors. She was staring at the ground in resignation, so done with losing both of her best friends on the same day. He didn't want to do this, he really didn't, but it was the only way now that the TARDIS was gone.
"Virgo really cared about you," he said as he rolled up his sleeves. Rose slowly looked up at him and he noticed the dried-out tear stains on her cheeks. "She didn't want you to go through it again, not if there was another way. Now there isn't."
"What are you talking about?" she questioned him in confusion.
"The car that should have killed me, love," Pete pulled his coat on and buttoned it up. "It's here." He gestured to the doors. "Virgo worked it out way back, but she, er, she tried to protect me. Still, she's not in charge anymore. I am."
"But... you can't," Rose pursued her lips when she felt another sob travel up her throat. He was not going to do this. She went through all this trouble, lost both of her best friends just to save his butt from that stupid beige car. If he was going to attempt to kill himself, she was going to make a fight. Not today.
"Who am I, love?" Pete asked her with a sad smile.
"My daddy," Rose sobbed into her hand as her mother walked over to the two of them with a curious frown.
"Jackie, look at her," Pete gestured to her. "She's ours."
Jackie swallowed hard and stared into Rose's teary eyes, then the realization finally dawned upon her, "Oh, of course." She pulled her future daughter into a well-needed hug and allowed her to cry on her shoulder.
"I'm meant to be dead, Jackie," Pete joked with a straight face, trying to lighten up the mood that was impossible to lighten up. "You're going to get rid of me at last."
Jackie winced and shook her head, "Don't say that."
"For once in your life, trust me," Pete gave her a pointed look. "It's got to be done. You've got to survive because you've got to bring up our daughter." He kissed Jackie on the lips for the final time before she left him to go cry with her friends, then his attention turned to a crying Rose. "I never read you those bedtime stories. I never took you on those picnics. I was never there for you."
"You would have been!" Rose sobbed.
"But I can do this for you," he cupped her cheeks. "I can be a proper dad to you now."
"But it's not fair!"
"I've had all these extra hours. No one else in the world has ever had that. And on top of that, I got to see you, and you're beautiful. How lucky am I, eh? So, come on, do as your dad says." Rose swallowed away her sobs, or at least tried to, and picked up the vase that was sitting on the bench and handed it to her dad. "You going to be there for me, love? Thanks for saving me." He kissed her on the forehead before dashing out of the church.
He ran and ran to the road, ignoring the screeches from the Reapers above him and looked for the blasted beige car. When he spotted its golden light, he ran toward it and stood in front of it with open arms, closing his eyes as the car's engines grew louder and louder.
"Goodbye, love," he spoke his final words before the beige car struck him. The vase dropped and shattered on the ground just like it was originally supposed to and the all of the Reapers disappeared for good in the golden light.
Rose stood in the church entranceway and stared at her father's barely alive body, not even turning around when someone whispered into her ear.
"Go to him," it was the Doctor's voice. He must've been restored as well as everyone else who were killed by the Reapers. "Quick."
This time, Rose followed the Doctor's instruction and sprinted to her dying father. She kneeled beside him and put his head onto her lap, staring into each other's eyes. The driver had gotten out of the car and stood on the grass, completely shocked by what had happened and not at all affected by the loop.
.l.l.l.
"The driver was just a kid," Jackie told six-year old Rose in her bedroom, still having the photo album open to Pete's smiling face. "He stopped, he waited for the police. It wasn't his fault. For some reason, Pete just ran out. People say there was this girl, and she sat with Pete while he was dying. She held his hand. Then she was gone. Never found out who she was..."
.l.l.l.
Pete's eyes lolled to the back of his head and Rose kissed his forehead in farewell. She gently placed his head on the road, stood up, and looked for the Doctor... but he was nowhere to be seen. Did she imagine his voice?
She didn't because she finally found not only the Doctor but Virgo as well. They were back over at the church and were sharing a hug, both of them crying on their shoulders in relief that the other one was alive. Rose managed to form a small smile before deciding that she was going to be part of this reunion. She needed a good cry, too.
"Peter Alan Tyler, my dad, the most wonderful man in the world. Died the 7th of November 1987."
A/N: I know, right? I finally updated. Shocker. All I can really say is that I apologize for the long wait... if anyone was even waiting for this to update, lol. I'm far from done with this story, especially since we get Jack in the next chapter *squeal* and the Bad Wolf... actually pretty soon. Huh.
And can I just say I am pretty exhausted. I spent 3 hours working on a stupid French project about Madame de Pompadour. We were able to choose the topic that we wanted to do, and I chose her because she's the first thing that pops into my mind when someone says "France." She actually had a daughter and we didn't see her in The Girl in the Fireplace, and I would actually like to see that episode revised with "Fanfan" in it... I think I know what to do about that episode when I get there *wink wink*
Right, anyway, thank you all for your reviews, favorites, and follows! Seriously, it's so heartwarming to see that people at least like it and no hate just yet. Really appreciate it :D