timepetalscollective Anon prompt for future!Doctor saving Rose from the Void in place of parallel Pete Tyler.
Doctor Who bingo – Matt Smith falling over, TARDIS saves the day
Notes: I was going to use Twelve, but when I started actually writing this, Eleven quickly asserted himself as the dominant personality.
The Doctor glared at the offending piece of alien technology, the bright yellow button continuing to mock him as it had for over millennia.
"No," he snapped at it, abruptly pulling up the grating so that he could file it away once more. As ever, he was torn over actually letting it go and kicked the grating in frustration. He grabbed his foot, cursing as the pain now overwhelmed him. She was gone, no matter how much the TARDIS (and himself, if he would ever be honest) missed her. The hopper rematerialized beside him. "Even if I wanted to, which I don't by the way, the walls are still up. It's impossible."
The TARDIS laughed at him. The walls between dimensions weren't as solid as he liked to pretend. Though he liked to forget it, the Time Lords were coming back at some point – a time lock wouldn't last forever. Travel between realities would be more than simple, then.
Speaking of Impossible Things, where was the Impossible Girl? She'd presumably found a bedroom somewhere at some point since their return to the TARDIS… Impossible things happened, though. Like the parallel Pete Tyler somehow knowing exactly when to jump back to this universe to save her. There was no reason for him to have suspected that Rose was in danger. There had been no reason at all for him to appear in the first place.
The Doctor needed the hopper, a perception filter, and a Vortex manipulator. Before he could open the next trunk, however, all three items materialized beside him. "You miss her too, eh Old Girl," he smiled sadly. A single pink light flashed. The Doctor pulled out the keyboard, rapidly calling up all images available of Peter Alan Tyler, compositing them into a single image which he then deposited into the perception filter. The Doctor check the co-ordinates in the Vortex manipulator, not wanting the TARDIS too close to her younger self where his younger self would be able to sense her. Swallowing hard, the Doctor turned the perception filter on and placed the dimension hopper around his neck. The man in the TARDIS was finally ginger. He activated the Vortex manipulator-
-the Void was open behind him and Rose slammed into his arms. Just in time. He touched the Vortex manipulator and was back in the TARDIS. And he wasn't alone.
Rose was staring at him, mouth agape. "Take me back," she half-whispered, half-shouted. "Take me back."
He held her tighter. Rose was here, in his arms, in the TARDIS. And she was absolutely gutted. The perception filter. He removed it quickly, and he was the Doctor once more. Rose pulled away from his, scrambling away, her expression fearful and angry and absolutely heartbroken. The Doctor felt his own broken hearts shatter as she backed away.
"Rose," he said brokenly. Her name was foreign to this tongue and he said it again, rolling it over. "Rose Tyler."
Rose eyed him, breath hitching. "Where am I? The Doctor said that the Void's nothing. This isn't nothing, so I'm not in the Void. But this isn't Torchwood either and that's where I, where I just was."
"Oh, you're not saying that you don't recognize the TARDIS. She might be a different colour now, but that's still quite rude," the Doctor frowned, some part of his brain wondering why he was worried about Rose's reaction towards the TARDIS when he ought to be telling her who he was.
Hesitantly, after extending his arm several times, the Doctor finally reached out, cupping Rose's face. It only lasted a moment. He quickly withdrew, awkwardly scratching his cheek. "Yes, right. It would seem that introductions are in order after all. Rose, it's," he stopped. He'd been about to say 'it's me', but that would mean nothing. Wouldn't it? He remembered something. "The last time that I saw you, after everything, was the first time that you'd remember seeing me. You could say I was a different man then." Oh. That was clever. But was it too vague? How could it be vague? He'd literally just referenced regeneration. He watched her closely as she searched his eyes, hoping against hope that she'd find whatever it was she was looking for.
"It's you," Rose breathed, suddenly enveloping him in an embrace, to which he eagerly responded.
"Hello," he couldn't help but use the same words as the last time she'd first seen him after regeneration. He held her tightly, lifting her from the floor in his exuberance.
"Is this what you do when I'm sleeping?" A voice interrupted their reunion. "Doctor, I still don't have a bedroom, but you just pick up more people when I'm not around?"
"Clara!" The Doctor brought Rose down, still tightly holding her hand. "Clara, this is Rose. She most certainly is not 'more people'. Rose, this is my companion, Clara Oswin Oswald," he tried to gesture grandly, but with only one arm free it came off rather mediocre.
Looking at the face of her friend, Clara sighed and entered the room. "Just Clara's fine, thanks. And I'd like a proper introduction to this frankly gorgeous woman who apparently you know."
"My name's Rose, Rose Tyler," Rose smiled hesitantly.
"I rescued her. Long story, don't ask questions Clara, she'll be staying with me until further notice. If, of course, that's what she wants," he finished rather uncertainly, in sharp contrast to the swaggering bravado tone with which he started.
"She's pretty," Clara grinned.
"She's beautiful," the Doctor gently corrected her.
"She's right here," Rose laughed, rolling her eyes at their eccentricity.
"Oh! Stupid, stupid Doctor," he muttered, bounding back up to the TARDIS console, pulling Rose after him. He flipped the dematerialization lever, and the TARDIS slowly phased into the Vortex.
"Not that I'm complaining that you saved me, but won't there be a paradox? M starting to get the feeling that I was supposed to have died back there." Rose said softly.
"Died?" The Doctor turned to face her. "Died? Rose Tyler, how could you ever think that you were meant to die at Canary Wharf?"
Rose pulled at her hair. "Died, spend forever in the Void, semantics really. I wasn't meant to walk away from Canary Wharf. You wouldn't have been there otherwise. And I don't know how long it's been for you, but if I died there then I need to die there. You once told me that an ordinary man who wasn't there before was the most dangerous thing in existence. So what's that make me, then?"
"Home," the Doctor suddenly wrapped her in a tight embrace, his voice muffled by her hair. "And you're going to have to leave again, but not for a long, long time." Hesitantly, almost uncertain of himself, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "The walls of reality are splintered, but they're closed enough that travel between them is impossible. Other Pete could never have known that you needed rescuing at that moment. Oh," he groaned as he realized that the younger Doctor needed to see Rose at Dårlig Ulv-Stranden. "Rose, connect with the TARDIS telepathic fields and think about your mother. We need to send her a message."
"Doctor what's going on?" Clara was sitting quietly on the chair, watching as the Doctor hurried around the console.
"Saving history, Clara. Making sure that it happens the way it was meant to," the Doctor threw a lever. "Dårlig Ulv-Stranden, here we come! Now, Rose, you need to ask him to come through properly. Remember that." He sonicked the holo-projector and Rose gasped as her mother materialized in the TARDIS.
"Rose!" Jackie cried, quickly closing the space between her and her daughter. "Where are you?"
"M in the TARDIS. The Doctor saved me, Mum." Rose looked into her mother's eyes and Jackie knew that something wasn't right.
"Jackie Tyler," the Doctor rubbed his hands together. "Hello. As you can probably see, I've got a new face. But everything's okay, I'm from the future! In about," he consulted his watch, "four minutes, I'm going to materialize as another hologram about two feet that way," he pointed. "I need you lot to act as if Rose is trapped here in this universe with you. Not to worry, you'll see Rose again after this is all over, but, and this is important, that man needs to believe that Rose Tyler is in Pete's World."
Jackie tried to slap him, watching in horror as her hand passed right through his face.
"Holograms, Jackie." The Doctor reminded her, walking back towards Rose. Jackie watched as he passed through a rock, then tripped over nothing.
"Four months," she said furiously. "Four bloody months I've been in this universe with no knowledge if my daughter was dead or alive."
"The Doctor's coming, Mum. He needs to truly believe that I'm in your universe."
"Why?" Jackie asked, turning on the Doctor.
"Because I've seen it happen, Jackie. I had to say goodbye to Rose on this beach all those hundreds of years ago and as much as it's going to hurt, it's already happened and it must happen. We need to maintain the timeline." The Doctor's hologram disappeared and a new one took it's place.
"Where are you?" Rose asked, though she already suspected the answer. He was in the same universe as she, in the same TARDIS, at the same moment in time but now at different points in their timelines.
"Inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap in the Universe left, just about to close, and it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a super nova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye."
"You look like a ghost." Rose couldn't stop her voice from cracking, looking at the face she knew so well of the man she loved.
"Hold on." The image solidified as the Doctor sonicked something beyond her viewpoint.
"Can I," Rose started. He looked so real that she started to wonder if there wasn't some way of connecting with him. They were in the same TARDIS, after all.
"I'm still just an image. No touch." His voice was pained.
"Can't you come through properly?" She remembered the other Doctor's one instruction to her, already knowing that he wouldn't be able to.
"The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse."
"So?" The word felt so selfish, so wrong to say. And yet she had said the first time she'd been on this beach. But this time, her only time experiencing this, she needed to make this exactly how the other Doctor remembered.
"Where are we? Where did the gap come out?" The Doctor looked around the beach.
"We're in Norway." Rose dreaded the words.
"Norway. Right." He nodded, as if they were simply having a normal conversation.
"About fifty miles out of Burgen. It's called 'Darlig Ulv Stranden'."
"Dalek?" The Doctor's tone changed, suddenly underlined with fear.
"Darlig. It's Norwegian for bad. This translates as Bad Wolf Bay. How long have we got?" Oh, the irony hadn't missed her when the older Doctor had told her the translation. She'd supposed that Bad Wolf truly had seen everything.
"About two minutes."
"I can't think of what to say!" What did you say? When you were a hologram on a beach, speaking to a hologram of the man you loved, who believed you were trapped in a parallel world?
"You've still got Mister Mickey, then?" Mickey. Rose chanced a look back at her parents, seeing Mickey hanging back for the first time.
"There's five of us now. Rose, Pete, Mickey and the baby." Jackie Tyler called. Rose turned to look at her mother, her eyes wide. Mum? She mouthed. Her mother smiled sadly.
"You're not?" The Doctor asked, incredulous.
"No. It's mum. She's three months gone. More Tylers on the way." Rose could hardly believe it herself.
"And what about you? Are you…" He left the sentence unfinished.
"Yeah, I'm back working in the shop." Rose improvised.
"Oh, good for you." The Doctor looked at her, his face pained.
"Shut up. No, I'm not. There's still a Torchwood on this planet. It's open for business. I think I know a thing or two about aliens." This world's Torchwood was where Pete Tyler worked, she didn't think it that far a stretch that he'd get her a job.
"Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. You're dead, officially, back home. So many people died that day and you've gone missing. You're on a list of the dead. Here you are, living a life day after day. The one adventure I can never have."
"Am I ever going to see you again?" She knew the answer. She was already with the Doctor, in the TARDIS.
The younger Doctor's face flashed with sorrow. "You can't."
"What're you going to do?" How long between this and him saving her from the Void?
"Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords." He put on a bravado, airs of nonchalance, but Rose could see that he was close to breaking down.
"On your own?" Rose remembered the last time she'd heard him say those words. They'd been followed by him asking if she wasn't coming along. "I, I love you." This would be the last time she would see this face that she knew so well. The older Doctor had all but confirmed that.
"Quite right, too." The younger Doctor smiled, his face lined with sorrow. "And I suppose, if it's one last chance to say it, Rose Tyler," he disappeared before her eyes. Almost immediately, she felt a hand slip into her own. Looking up, into green eyes that were so new and so old, Rose swallowed.
"Doctor," she was at a loss for words.
"You were wonderful," he told her, pressing another kiss to her forehead. "Now, we should also be going. The TARDIS is going to need to refuel after this. Younger me wasn't being flippant about burning up a sun for the projection."
"Mum." Rose tried to take her mother's hand, knowing that it wouldn't hold.
"Don't forget to go home once in a while, eh?" Jackie forced a smile. "You might be a Defender of the Earth or whatever, and officially dead, but don't forget where you came from."
"Course I won't," Rose promised. "Pretty sure that Earth's the Doctor's favourite planet, anyway."
Jackie laughed at that. "I love you, sweetheart."
"I love you, too, Mum," Rose whispered. The hologram flickered, then died away. Rose was suddenly aware of her surroundings. Turning, she looked into the green eyes of the older Doctor.
"You were perfect," he said quietly. He fingered his bow-tie anxiously.
"Is anyone going to tell me what just happened?" Clara jumped off the chair. "Right now, all I'm getting is you used to be a bit of a looker, and you've lied to yourself about where this woman is."
"That's the gist of it, yeah. Well, you missed the bit where I'm in love with her, but I'll forgive you that since I never actually managed to say it." The Doctor wet his lips.
"Still never managed to actually say it," Clara keenly observed.
Oh. His companion was quite correct.
"Doctor, I," Rose turned away. "M not feeling well, think I'm going to lie down a while."
"Oh, er," the Doctor didn't know how to tell her. "Your room will be the first door on the right, the TARDIS just moved it for you, didn't you dear?" The console lit up, the ship happy that Rose was back. "Erm, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation why your room isn't how you left."
Rose was barely listening to the new Doctor's rambling, walking down the corridor and opening the door.
The room was, at first glance, exactly how she'd left it that morning. A pink hoodie lazily thrown over the chair, a book on the nightstand, the same warm purple comforter over the bed. But there was a pair of spectacles on the book, bow-ties hanging on the vanity, and a tweed suit in a crumpled heap on the floor. Clearly, it was someone else's bedroom now.
She turned to see the Doctor leaning against the doorframe. "Bit of a mess, I'm afraid. I hadn't been planning on rescuing you today." He entered the room, crossing over to hastily gather the items.
"No, they, they can stay." Rose heard herself say. She turned to face him once more. "How was that sentence going to end?"
He froze. "I can't tell you that. Not my words to say." Technically true, but the other other him had already told her the words, from his perspective. "Do you want to skip ahead, then?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're going to go back to Pete's World, Rose. It could be today, if you want."
"How many times have I got to say that 'm not leaving you?" Rose's voice was pained.
"You will, though. This me, anyway." She'd think he was referring to his face. No, she'd go with his Metacrisis. It would always be better that way. "But," he said, clapping his hands together, "we have time. It took you years in the linear timeline of this universe to come back. You're still from 2006. One could argue that you're too young to go back into the timeline properly. So, you could, I don't know, stay?" His hand extended towards her.
"Yeah?" She reached for him, taking his hand in hers. Bigger than his immediate predecessor's, it still managed to fit perfectly with hers.