Chapter One: The Big Bad Wolf
The Doctor knew from the moment he met Rose Tyler that this one was going to be different. He'd held out for as long as he could, desperately trying not to fall in love with someone so fragile, so temporary. He failed. He'd failed long before The Game Station. He'd loved Rose Tyler since he was all big ears and leather, and he loved her now, when he was all spiked hair and manic energy. He knew it could only end painfully, could only end with him cradling her corpse in his arms. He'd die along with her. Maybe not literally, too many people needed his help, but he knew the moment Rose Tyler no longer held his hand he would be dead inside. He might continue to run- and boy would he be running, from the memories, from the pain- but he would never truly be whole again.
So as he hung there, screams tearing from his throat as he watched the only brightness in his dark and lonely life plummet to an eternity of nothing, he felt something snap. He didn't know quite what it was at the time. Maybe it was his sanity, or any remaining mercy he still carried in those old bones, or maybe it was that fire in him- the fire that drove him to explore and save and discover, the flame that made him, him- but it disappeared. His arm was stretched out uselessly, as if he could still grab her round the waist, as he'd done so many times before, and tuck her under his arm safely.
It was as if he were watching this all occur from the outside, horror wrenching him from his useless body. Everything seemed to be moving so very slowly and too quickly at the same time. Were his hearts still beating or had they given out under the crushing weight of his terror? Maybe this was just another nightmare. He did dream about losing Rose often. Please let this just be another nightmare.
He knew it wasn't. This was real. The bravest, kindest, cleverest person, the one who cradled his hearts so tenderly in her little hands, was being torn from him viscously, cruelly. He knew she was screaming his name, as he was her's, and the sound of it was tearing him apart. He couldn't save her. There would be no last minute save, no quickly thought up plan. There was no saving her this, or him, this time. She was leaving him, and taking his very being with her.
He'd resigned himself to lifetimes of misery, of centuries of forcing himself to keep going, keep moving, or desperately trying to outrun the memory of his pink and yellow human, when it all stopped. For a moment he thought it was over, that he'd lost her to the sealed off void, but that's when he heard it. A melodic and otherworldly sound that was oh so familiar that brought up feelings of intense horror, but also awe, and love. He'd only heard it once before, on a day that had torn open old wounds (they hadn't been so old then) and resulted in the deaths of so many. But it was also the day he realised just how much this precious human woman loved him.
When the Tardis doors had swung open and Rose had stepped out, looking beautiful and ethereal bathed in gold, this very sound hand wrapped around him comfortingly, as if trying to reassure him that everything would be okay. The song of the heart of the Tardis. Her very soul made audible. And that's when he realised that he hadn't hit the ground painfully as he would have done if the vortex had simply closed. No, he was hovering strangely in place, debris stopped midair. His eyes fell on Rose, who was now once more immersed in that light. It seemed to emanate from every pore, filling the stark room in its warm glow, eyes once hazel now consumed with it.
She was no longer falling and now stood upright with glowing eyes fixed on him, as he managed to drop to his feet and rush towards her. "Rose?"
"No." Her voice was once more three dimensional, echoing throughout the room and, impossibly, his mind.
"Bad Wolf."
She nodded once, stiffly, her eyes never leaving him. "Yes." And once again that all consuming fear was back, raging and burning through him. This was bad. This was very bad. Maybe not as bad as her being subjected to an eternity of nothingness, but still oh so very, very bad.
"That's impossible, I took you out of her. I removed the Time Vortex from her mind!"
"You do not have the power to tear me from my place, Time Lord."
"Your place?"
"I let opened Rose Tyler up, just as she did to your Tardis, and joined with her. I did that. Did you really think you could remove me so easily?"
"But why?" He'd started to pace nervously, hands shoved into his pockets. He knew that he should be thankful that Bad Wolf had stopped Rose's fall, but she was a human, and this power would burn though her mind. He was still going to lose her. "Why would you do this to her? She's human! You're killing her!"
"Do not shout at me. You may be a Time Lord, but I. Am. Time. You do not control me, no matter you're title."
"You're killing her!"
"No, I am not. I have always been here and I always will be. We are one." The Doctor fisted his hands in his hair, frustration and fear thick in his voice.
"What does that mean? How are you one? Why didn't I detect you sooner? I've run plenty of scans on Rose since then."
"I was not ready to be found. Listen well, for I have much to tell you. Rose Tyler saw this moment that day. She saw all of what was, what is, and what could be. She saw herself being trapped in Pete's World. She saw you both lost without each other, living, but not truly whole." She began pacing, her movements incredibly reminiscent of that of a wolf. "I am Time, but I am also Rose Tyler. Not only that, but I contain the heart of your beloved ship, who loves you just as fiercely as you love her. I am the two women who love you so fiercely. Did you really think we could see what would happen, and do nothing?"
The Doctor pulled his hands from his hair, worried that if he didn't it would start coming out, and stared at Rose- at Bad Wold- in amazement. "So let me get this straight. You're Rose, and Time, and the Tardis? How is that even possible?"
"We are one, and therefore something new. The loss of Rose would have destroyed you. Your beloveds' saw what became of you and the Human if you lost one another, and as one we decided to fix it. The Bad Wolf was never gone, simply hibernating till She was needed."
"So you lot saw this coming, and fixed it. Why did Rose never tell me?"
"She did not remember, it had to have been that way. She loves you, Time Lord, and never would have kept such a thing from you." Th alien winced at those words being spoken out loud. He'd felt what it was like to lose her today, he wouldn't be able to go through it again. "Stop." Bad Wold boomed, shocking the Doctor from his thoughts. "I know what you are thinking. You now know of our capabilities, our power, and still you doubt?"
"Doubt? There's nothing to doubt. She's human, and I will be forced to watch her grow old and die." He choked on that last word, pain crashing over him as if it had already happened.
"We have pulled the strings of Time, you will not be without."
"Stop speaking in riddles," the Doctor snapped, "and just tell me what you mean." He knew what he wanted her to be saying, but he refused to hope.
"Rose is no longer truly human. She is more. On the day we joined and she saw this horrid moment, she tied herself to you, in every way possible. You will never be without one another." He couldn't help the hope bursting forth anymore, and he knew that it showed on his face. He grinned brightly, a grin he only ever gave Rose, and bounced on his toes, until it hit him. What if Rose didn't want this? Sure, she used her power to keep her with him, but she'd also used it to save Jack and she hadn't meant to make him immortal the way she had. And even if this was what she intended, what about now? What about a hundred years from now? Would she blame him?
"Rose knew her own mind, and what her actions would result in. Look inward, Time Lord, and you will see." Curiously, the Doctor closed his eyes, the sight before him taking his breath away. There, stretched before him, was his timeline, but it was different. Rather than just the solitary blue-gold he usually saw, it was intertwined, with Rose's. Her usually pink timeline now held gold itself as it twisted tightly and intimately with his, stretching out for eternity. He was briefly brought back to that evening on a cliff side where Rose had promised him forever, and how the word had seemed to reverberate so strongly with truth that he'd been tempted to look and see just long their path's coincided, before brushing off that hope, and fear, and simply grinning back at her.
Now their paths no longer just coincided, they were one, and it took his breath away. "And this is what she wants? Truly?"
"Yes, it is. Now my hand, Doctor, our Doctor, and let us take you home." It hadn't escaped the Doctor's notice how Bad Wolf's pronoun's changed, switching from singular to plural, and he couldn't help but wonder what it meant. Were they always one? Or did one of them occasionally take control? Rose had definitely been the primary consciousness on the Game Station, but now it seemed that Time itself was in the captain's chair. Curious. He brushed that train of thought aside for another time, and reached out to take the hand that always fit so well in his. She was his matching puzzle piece.
As soon as his fingers interlocked with her, a rushing sound filled his ears, outmatched only by that familiar melody, as gold light completely obscured his vision, the only thing visible was Rose herself. It wasn't a very comfortable way to travel, better than by vortex manipulator mind you but still, it was his he'd been picked up and flung through the the vortex itself, but he hadn't moved. He remained perfectly still, as did Rose, and yet it still felt as if he were tumbling, seemingly twisting and pulling and falling. It was the oddest feeling he'd ever felt besides regeneration itself.
And then, not even a minute later, the were outside the Powell Estate rather Torchwood, the Tardis somehow ten feet away. The singing faded, and the light disappeared as if it were never there, a few tendrils still clinging to Rose's skin before seeming to be absorbed as her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell limp. The Doctor was quickly to catch her, scooping her up into his arms as he strode over to the Tardis. He fumbled to unlock it clumsily with one hand and flung the doors open. He cast one sad look back at Rose's childhood home, peering morosely at the window he knew Jackie used to peer out of hopefully as she waited for the wheezing sound of the Tardis. The loud blonde he'd come to consider family would never rush around that old flat ever again. She'd never jabber on and on over the phone, or bustle around in the kitchen making tea. He smiled at the memory of her shooing him inside for Christmas poppers and Rose in that pink crown. Their family had gotten a lot smaller without Mickey and Jackie, but they still had each other. Forever.
—
Rose came to with a massive head ache on the bed in the med bay. "Doctor?" She rubbed her temple slowly as she sat up, finally managing to pry her eyes open. She found the time lord asleep in a rather uncomfortable looking chair next to her bed and she smiled. It was rare for the Doctor to sleep so their last adventure must have really worn him out. That thought caused it all to come rushing back. The ghosts, the void ship, the Daleks and the Cybermen, her mother going to Pete's World, and finally, her fall in the Void. But she wasn't in the Void, she was in the Tardis with the Doctor. What had happened? She leapt to her feet, frantic to get some answers after the horrible day she'd just had, only to collapse as soon as she tried, hitting the floor with a thud.
The sound woke the Doctor from his, surprisingly, dreamless sleep, and when he took in Rose crumpled on the floor he scrambled up and rushed to her side, dropping onto his knees beside her. "Rose! Are you alright?!"
She groaned as he helped her sit up, his hands cradling her elbows gently. "'M head, 's killing me."
"That doesn't surprise me after all that happened."
"What did happen, Doctor? Last thing I remember is losing my grip."
"Let's get you back up on the bed and get some scans running and then I'll tell you everything, okay?"
Her brow raised as he helped her get on the bed, her voice sceptical as she asked, "You held off on running scans till I woke up?" That didn't seem like him, protective as he was.
He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and ducked his head. "Well," he dragged the syllables in that way that always made her smile, "I ran a few, just to make sure you weren't seriously hurt or anything."
She beamed at him, her tongue between her teeth as her head was already beginning to feel better from the pills he'd handed her moments ago. "That sounds about right. Alrigh' then, go on. What happened after I slipped?" He turned from her and bent over the counter, muscles tensed as he fiddled with the monitor.
"Remember Bad Wolf?"
"The words I used to tell myself I could get back?"
"What 'bout em?"
"Well, its a tad more than that. Bad Wolf is how you referred to yourself when you held the time vortex within you. I thought I'd gotten it all out on the Game Station, but I guess not." He took a deep breath before spinning back around, leaning against the counter and folding his arms in an attempt to look calmer than her felt. Rose saw right through it.
"Okay, but what does that have to do with today?"
"Bad Wolf is apparently the combined forms of you, the Tardis, and time itself. It saved us today. Stopped time and transported us, and the Tardis, out of there. But, it also told me something, Rose. Something really important."
"Wait, wait. So Bad Wolf took over my body and saved us?"
"Yes."
"Why hasn't it done so before? Like on Krop Torr?"
"Well, if it had gotten us off Krop Torr, the "Devil" would have escaped and I would have done all I could to get her out of you, therefore making it impossible for it to save us today. You would have ended up trapped in Pete's World." He saw her take a shaky breath at the thought, and moved to sit beside her, taking her hand in his. "But there's more, Rose." She nodded at him to continue, and now it was his turn to take a shaky breath. He was so afraid she'd react badly to this, that she would hate him. "On Game Station, you did more than save me. You made it to where you'd never leave me."
"What?"
"You tied your timeline to mine, essentially made us a fixed point throughout time. You're not going to age, Rose. You'll look twenty one forever. You're going to live as long as I will." She was looking at him, but her thoughts were elsewhere, frantically trying to process this information.
"I'm not going to wither and die?" He gave her a small, sad, smile at her use of his words, and shook his head, squeezing her hand reassuringly. Her mind was racing. She knew that he was probably waiting for her to break down or freak out, but she was so incredibly happy. She loved him and now she could truly give him forever. It that's what he wanted. Her happiness faded at that though and she took a steadying breath. They needed to clear the air about this right now, so she wasn't worrying whether she was going to be spending forever alone all while trying to mourn the loss of her mum. "I really can give you forever." Her grin was blinding, and that certainly wasn't how the Doctor expected her to respond. "If you want it." The insecurity in her voice blew him away. This amazing, beautiful, woman was offering him forever, and she thought he wouldn't want it?
His beaming grin was brighter than hers as he took her other hand into his, squeezing them both tightly as he leaned closer to her. "There's nothing I want more." His answer took her breath away, his smile disarming her and scattering her train of thought for a few moments. Finally, she collected herself and leaned closer to him. It was now or never.
"I love you." His breath caught and his hands tightened over hers painfully as he stared at her for a few terrifying minutes, Rose quickly wondering if she'd gone too far, had she scared him off? Before it had seemed like he couldn't be more than her friend because of her life span, but maybe he was just saying that because he was trying to let her down easy. Oh god, she'd made a fool out of herself.
Just as she was beginning to truly spiral and thoughts of escaping to her room and never leaving were starting to take root, the Doctor crashed his lips to hers in a kiss that took her breath away. She'd never been kissed like this, not by Mickey, and certainly not by Jimmy Stone. His tongue traced along the seam of her lips, and they parted enthusiastically, her fingers flying up to knot in his hair. His tongue darted between her teeth and smoothed along her own before he pulled back, just enough to be able to look in her eyes as he spoke. "Rose Tyler, I love you."
To keep herself from sobbing at hearing the words she'd been longing for him to say for ages, she clashed their lips together once more, mentally thanking herself, or rather Bad Wolf, for making this possible, and the Doctor, for showing her what living truly was.