A/N: Oh, you were all expecting this ... I make no apologies ...
This one took it out of me ... I'm spent ... I'm going to go have a Moscow Mule and look out the window wondering just when the animals will be let back out into the wild...
I really truly hope you enjoy ... this is a longer than normal chapter ... With the weekend upon us, I might not be able to get another one up before Monday, but I will try my very best!
~~oooOOOooo~~
The figure that stood before her was dressed in ripped clothing of white and brown that looked no more than rags simply thrown together into an outfit. Her hair hung with loose waves and curls that fell below her shoulders. The dark kohl that surrounded eyes that glowed amber were more reminiscent of her time back on Earth than how Rose Tyler applied makeup today.
Rose made a more determined effort to keep Mark behind her. She could feet the fright within her son in the way he clutched at her leg. "Why do you look like me?" She managed after a moment, speaking in Earth English in the hope that the other version of her would switch as well. She had a feeling that she wouldn't want her children to hear and understand this conversation.
"Oh, this is a form chosen specifically for him," the Bad Wolf answered her without hesitation, and within the language chosen by Rose. She drew her hands down long her body and looked down. "I look lovely, no?"
"For who?" Rose asked. "Who did you choose that form for?"
Bad Wolf chuckled and tilted her head at Rose in a disappointed manner. "Who else?" she answered with a shrug. "The Doctor."
"W-Why?" she stammered with worry. "What'dya want from him?" She hesitated and then decided against asking just what was supposed to happen to her and the children.
"What do I want from the Doctor?" she asked herself. Her full lips pursed outward and she seemed to consider that question for a second. The pout pulled back and she smiled. She started to walk around in a circle as though stretching legs that hadn't been worked for a while. "For him to become what he needs to be."
"And you need to look like me to do that?"
Bad Wolf turned to look at her. She shrugged. "No, I really don't." She paused to reconsider. "But then again, yes I think I do." She pressed her finger to her lip in thought. "A face from his past, and into his future…" She hummed to herself. "Yes. A necessary form to take on, I suppose, if he's to trust you when you meet in his future." She sighed with a shrug. "We exist, you and me, across all space and all time, across all of reality." She looked back up. "And I need you to, Rose Tyler. To exist, that is. Well, exist till this point, anyway. Oh, but I need you in the future as well…" Her eyes widened and she blew out a breath. "Oh but the tenses are a mess with you and me, and him and you aren't they?"
"You're not making any sense," Rose challenged.
Bad Wolf chuckled. "What part of life with him does?" she asked. "Such a beautiful and difficult man, our Doctor, isn't he?"
"Mental," Rose added with her own shrug, hoping that stalling for time would give him time to find her. God, where was he when she needed him?
"Mental," Bad Wolf repeated softly. She analysed the word a moment and then laughed. "Well, yes. I suppose it is very mental. How have you managed to survive the life you both lead with your mind intact?"
"I do okay," she answered with a sniff. "And if you know my Doctor, then you also know that he's not going to be fooled into thinkin' you're me."
Bad Wolf gave her a long stare of silence for a moment. She hummed a small tune that ghosted the air around the room. Finally she shook her head. "My intention isn't for him to think that I'm you," she clarified with a smile. "Not at all, really. When he and I meet again, he won't even remember that you exist, so trying to make him believe that I'm you is a rather pointless and unnecessary endeavour."
Rose gasped in deeply. "I'm sorry, what?"
Bad Wolf's eyes widened. "Oh, was I not clear?" She stepped toward her, lifting her skirts and then feet high to clear the top of the box as she passed over it. "When the Doctor and I finally meet, he will never have heard of Rose Tyler, won't even know that he was ever a husband and a father.." she rolled her eyes and tipped her head side to side. "Well, aside from the arranged one he had back in his very early days. Have to leave him with that one, of course. He didn't become who he is without having pain like that in his past to have him leave Gallifrey in the first place." She let out a breath and twirled a hand in the air beside her. "Keep some things, lose others, have to pick and choose what works for me I suppose. I better get those decisions right, hadn't I?"
Rose half expected her to try and bump shoulders with her and share a laugh. Instead, however, the woman merely walked around them. Rose moved as well, taking care to keep Mark and the stroller behind her.
"How do you intend on doing that?" she asked her mirror image. "Make him forget, I mean. You make it sound like it's an easy thing to do, but it won't be. The Doctor's not going to let you take anything away from him, least of all me and the kids."
Bad Wolf stopped walking. "But I already have," she reminded her. "You've seen it for yourself, haven't you?"
Rose looked down to the floor with wide eyes.
"You remember, don't you?" Bad Wolf asked her with surprising gentleness. "Two Doctors older than the one you're with now, none of them remembering that you existed in their timeline before the explosion in that store on Earth." She smiled with almost juvenile excitement. She opened her arms and twirled on the spot. "Oh, you remember that, don't you? You should. That's where he took your hand and told you to run with him." She then swooned. "Run. The three-letter word that started the love story of the Doctor and his Rose."
Rose lifted her eyes to the entity. "Yeah," she managed on a whisper.
"A brilliant part of engineering on my part if I do say so myself," she sang as she exhaled a relieved breath and put her hand onto her chest as though calming her heart. "Oh the movements I had to make to ensure he ended up there at the right time.." She pointed to Rose. "And you, as well. My goodness, but you were a trial to attempt to orchestrate a life for. First old Jimmy threatened to destroy the timelines by taking you from London. Nearly killed you that last night, didn't he?" Her eyes were wide as she blew out a breath. "It took effort and manipulation of a timeline or two, but I got rid of him, didn't I? Aaand, then had to counter off the new boyfriend getting in the way as well. Bloody difficult, too, I might add. Especially my work with the Pinstriped being somewhat too effective. For a minute there it looked like he might push you into the opposite direction I needed you to go." She laughed and snapped her fingers. "Parallel Universe gingerbread house solved that problem! Bye Bye Rickey! A perfectly choreographed orchestra there. Or is that a dance? Not quite sure about that."
Rose looked horribly confused. "What?"
She flicked her hand to dismiss the entire conversation, although she did keep talking. She slapped the back of her hand against her other palm. "My needs are very specific. It has to be Rose Tyler: his lover in his past, to become his desperate and devoted lover in his future, and then the heartbroken one who runs back into his past…" She exhaled an almost exhausted breath. "Circle, circle, circle. Complicated even for the likes of me." She huffed. "Humans. And I thought Time Lords were the difficult ones to reign in." She turned and gave Rose a wide grin. "But it all worked out in the end, and here we are: You and me, first joined as one, now parted into two." Her eyes were wide. "And now that you're here, and I'm here, I suppose I really don't need you anymore." Her expression fell toward sympathy. "And neither does he. Not now anyway. No. He won't need you until he chooses to need me, and even then it's only a metaphorical need; a conscience on his shoulder whispering in his ear kind of need… until it isn't, of course, at which time he will need you because I will need you." She smiled. "It's really quite spirally the relationship between you, me, and the Doctor, isn't it? Exciting."
"You may need to pull out a pack of crayons if you expect me to keep up," Rose said with a snarl.
"You're not stupid," Bad Wolf snapped. "So stop pretending you are. You are following what I'm saying with far more clarity and understanding that you're trying to let on." She looked to the doorway. "Stalling for time, you are. Waiting for him to come and save his little family." She looked back to Rose and smiled. "Which he will, of course. Well try to at any rate. So foolishly and desperately in love, that man. So scared to lose you." She exhaled a whimper. "Such a shame he has to."
"Why does he have to?" Rose asked with rising panic. "Can't we remain who we are and do what you need him to do, anyway?"
"Nope," she popped much like the Tenth Doctor would have done. "Can't happen I'm afraid."
"Why not?"
Bad Wolf walked toward her, stopping mere feet ahead of her. "Because in his future exists a whole life time without you where you don't live in his hearts or his mind." She chuckled out low with almost lustful admiration. "And, oh, what he is without you to try and make him a better man. So rough, so determined, filled with so much anger … a warrior of the likes this universe has never seen."
Rose watched this woman smile and shudder at the mental image. She shook her head at her, lifting her chin indignantly. "No. You're wrong. That's not him. He's not got it in him to be like that – with or without me."
Bad Wolf hummed. "Which is why you can't be with him." She huffed and lifted her chin to the ceiling. "You're a calming influence for the Doctor. Even if he didn't know you, and you were just a tiny speck in his peripheral, that tiny presence of you is enough to tame the beast – so to speak." She looked down and shook her head. "That's one of the only things I can't work against. Love. There's no power in the universe greater than that."
"But you did," Rose countered softly. "With the one I left. Pinstripes. You ended what we had…"
"Manipulated it," Bad Wolf corrected with a lift of her finger. "Much different to defeating it. And even then it was the man, not the emotion, that I toyed with." Her eyes widened. "And he certainly did make it difficult for me to do, such are the depths of his feelings toward you." She blinked rapidly to shake her sudden melancholy. "but anyway, that's all rather irrelevant right now."
"To you, maybe."
She flicked up a finger of warning. "So to answer your original question, Rose. You can't exist in his mind and hearts in any form for the next half millenia, because if you did, he would never become what he needs to be in order to do what needs to be done."
"And what needs to be done?" Rose asked with a shaking voice. She could feel Mark's terror behind her, hidden behind her robe. She could also hear him fumble with a phone in his hand trying to reach his father. Good boy that he was.
"They need to be saved," she answered simply.
"Who needs saving?" Rose asked, wondering why it would be that the Doctor would be expected to give up everything to save anyone? He did that on a regular basis. "Who?"
"All of them," Bad Wolf answered softly. "Everyone. Gallifrey. The Time Lords. The Universe and all of her children." She tilted her head to one side and pinched her eyes with accusation toward her. "With you at his side, the Doctor would never become what he's needed to become in order to save them all."
"Yes he would," Rose vowed fiercely. "He would do what needed to be done to save them all. Of course he would. That's who he is! You don't need to tear us away from him for him to do it."
She shook her head. "The things he needs to do, Rose? No. No, he wouldn't. I know this because, Rose, you wouldn't let him do that. And knowing you wouldn't allow it, he wouldn't let himself do it either. Especially not if it meant leaving you and his children to get it done, or risking your lives to do it." She paused a moment to let out a breath. Her voice quietened. "And he certainly wouldn't remain here when the Time War begins in earnest on Gallifrey."
Rose inhaled deeply as everything started to come together. "So the war is coming, then?" she spoke softly with a wince of pain on her face. "And it's much closer than he thinks it is."
"Not really," she offered. "It's still a ways off, really. But as I said, the Doctor has a whole life to live and things that he needs to do, which you and the children aren't part of." She smiled apologetically. "And that life for him begins today, Rose."
"And so what happens to us?" she asked with a brave lift in her head. She didn't bother to hide the tear that rolled down her cheek, nor did she wipe at it. "Are you going to erase us from existence?"
"Why would you think that?"
"Because I know you're capable of it," she answered with only a slight waver in her voice. "Because together we did it to the Daleks to end the war."
She nodded and looked down at her hands. They glowed and seemed to blur as she moved them side to side. "When you gave me life," she said with a nod. "You allowed me to spread my words and my will across time and space – warnings, manipulations, and a message so that the circle of our lives would continue." She lifted her eyes. "You gave me the ability to save him, to guide his next movements to make sure that you ran to Gallifrey…"
"To keep that loop intact," Rose said with a slow nod. Her head remained low, but her eyes lifted. "So. How about us? Do we cease to exist today?"
"You gave me life," Bad Wolf said softly. There was a genuine softness in her voice. "It would be wrong of me to take yours." She looked to Rose's hip. "Certainly wrong to take theirs, such is their innocence in this affair" She looked disgusted by the prospect. "And honestly, removing all of you from existence will serve me no purpose, Rose."
"But you'll remove us from his?"
She nodded. "I'm left with no choice in the matter, really. If I'm to help him, and he will seek out my help, then he needs to be that man. The one he is right now wouldn't even consider it." She looked around them and started to walk again. This time she walked to the chairs and with a huff she flopped heavily down, leaning back and crossing her legs at the knee. She cupped her hands together on top of her knee. "The rules for my activation are very specific."
"Rules set by whom?" Rose asked with a backward walk that took her, the stroller, and Mark a few safer steps away from her. "And just what are you?"
"The rules were set by me," she answered with a shrug. "As for what I am, well. I'm a weapon, Rose. A weapon created by this Society." She let her eyes dance around the room. "But Time Lords being the self righteous fools that they are, they made my circuits far to intricate. Much like their travel Capsules, I became sentient. Which makes me a weapon with a conscience." She shrugged and smiled. "How exciting. None like me out in the universe."
"Have you been introduced to the Human Race?"
"I hear a measure of distaste in that question," Bad Wolf replied with a smile. She held up her fingers ready to give them a snap. "A race I can eliminate if I so desire with a click of these. Want me to?"
"Do that," Rose challenged, "and you lose me."
"Glad to see you're catching on." She sat up with a stretch in her back and looked to the doorway. "The Doctor. He'll be here soon," she announced. "Your son's message got through, and he's on his way." She shuddered. "Oh I can feel his anger from here … such strong emotions in that one, let me tell you." Her eyes pinched and she spoke wistfully. "So unlike any other member of his species."
Rose looked to the door, desperation in her eyes.
Bad Wolf shook her head. "He can't help you through this," she warned. "This one – it's on you and you alone."
Rose flicked her head back to the entity. "How do you mean?"
She slumped again against the back of the chair. "Well. The Doctor's unfortunate action of activating my circuits back when he was on Askola." Her eyes flicked to Mark. "Right after the little one was born kicking and screaming into the world, I believe. My how you've grown."
"Leave my son out of this," Rose growled as she stepped forward and held him behind her. "You talk to me, and only me. You don't even look at him or my little girl."
She held up her hands and smiled. "Warning noted." Her hands dropped and once again she sat up straight. "Back to your husband. He fell upon me that day. All it took was a touch…" She lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers. "And I saw across his timeline. I saw all that is, all that was, and all that could be. In that timeline, I saw the war between the Time Lords and the Daleks. I saw the devastation that rampaged across the universe. I saw reality torn apart and obliterated, I saw the death of Gallifrey, I saw its survival. I saw the destruction of the universe, and I also saw its survival." She stood up and stretched tall. "In all of those scenarios, Rose, I also saw a man. One man. A single solitary man who was an integral part of it all."
"The Doctor," Rose said softly.
Bad Wolf nodded. "In every scenario, Rose, the Doctor was there in one incarnation or other." She rubbed her hands down along her hips. "Across the far reaches of his timeline, inside the many branches of decisions waiting to be made in his future, I saw what was coming and what needed to be done." She held out her arms either side if her, leaning one way and then to the other. "With you. Without you." She flicked the fingers of her right hand. "This side shows the timeline without you there and the outcome at the hand of Time's warrior." She then flexed the fingers of her left hand. "This branch, holds the devoted husband and father, the influence of his wife and children, and that impact they have on the final outcome."
"Not good, I'm guessin'," she whimpered.
"No." She sighed. "And for what it's worth, Rose, I am sorry that it needs to come to this." She looked at Mark's green eyes glistening with fear behind his mother's hip. "They need their father."
"So do I," Rose said with a whimper. She looked imploringly at the Bad Wolf entity. "Are you sure there's no other way around this?"
Bad Wolf shook her head. "None." She sighed. "You have to have known this has been coming, Rose. The signs have all been there."
Rose swallowed thickly. She nodded and lowered her head. "I know. I just hoped that maybe…"
"This is a fixed point," Bad Wolf warned softly. "It has to happen. The fate of the entire universe hangs on this."
"Great,' Rose huffed out. "Just brilliant."
"But if it does give you any kind of comfort at all, I will offer you the choice."
Rose had to laugh, and the sound of it was almost painful. "What choice? You're tellin' me this is a fixed point in time. There is no choice."
"There's always the choice." She held up both hands, tilting one down. "You can agree and let me remove you and your children from his hearts and his minds – thereby saving the universe." She tilted in the other direction. "Or you can tell me to sod off, I'll simply vanish back into oblivion never to be heard from again, and the entire universe goes…" She splayed her fingers behind her head and flared her eyes, "…boom."
"Don't play daft with me," she snapped back. "Choice my arse. I made the wrong choice on a fixed point once, nearly destroyed reality by doin' it. So no, ta. Learned my lesson."
Bad Wolf shrugged and inhaled a breath. She walked toward the pair of now quiet wolves. She petted Soliarn on his head. "Well. Rules are rules, Rose. I won't make the choice for you, I can't do that." She nodded to her. "That's really on you."
"I'm really beginnin' to hate the universe," Rose muttered.
Bad Wolf didn't look up, she kept her eyes on the wolf as she petted his head. "I agree with you, believe it or not. It really isn't far that the one who stands to suffer most because of the Doctor's little accident back on Askola is you and not him." She shrugged. "Oh, I can make him think that Gallifrey was destroyed at his hand – and I very likely will." She looked to Rose. "I can't quite recall that bit – I must've blinked when I got to that part of the timeline. Did I have him believe that? You know: That he's the last of them?"
"Bit more thank a blink if you missed that," Rose snapped. "Pretty much his calling card with his future selves. Last of the Time Lords and all…"
"Ahh," she breathed out, tapping at her lip with her fingertip. "Yes. I'll have to remember that, then. Must be an important piece of the puzzle." She smiled with what looked like relief. "So glad, then, that we could have this chat. Otherwise, wow, I might have made a rather glaring error."
Rose had a grimace on her face and shook her head. "What? How can you be so nonchalant about this?"
Bad Wolf tapped at her temple. "Must've gotten a bit of your Humanness when you helped create me, Rose Tyler." She chuckled. "Not so big up here, are you?" She stopped and blinked with a gasp. "I mean your kind, of course, not just you specifically. Your mind is rather special by comparison."
"Not sure if that's a compliment or not."
"It is," she said with a sigh. "For what it's worth right now, anyway." She shrugged and walked toward her box. She spun on her toe and dropped down to a seat atop it. "We're running out of time now, Rose. You really need to make a decision and make it quickly. Preferably before he gets here and his presence makes you sway toward the wrong one."
She could hear heavy footfalls bounding down the corridor and snatched her head to look toward the door. "Doctor…"
"Yes," Bad Wolf breathed with a nod. "He's here. We're out of time. So, make your decision, Rose."
"What decision?" she asked sharply. "What decision am I really expected to make here?"
"For Gallifrey to survive, or for Gallifrey to burn," she snapped in reply. "If Gallifrey burns, Rose, the Daleks will continue to move across the universe destroying it planet by planet, galaxy by galaxy until there's nothing left. If Gallifrey survives, the Daleks destroy themselves."
"But," Rose cut in with sharply. "Gallifrey burned. It's already happened."
"You haven't been listening to a word I'm saying, have you?" she said with impatience. "I said I will make him believe Gallifrey burned." She extended her legs and leaned back o her hands. "Right now, who aside from you and me what really happened." She looked to the still empty doorway. "Not him. Not them. None of that lot up in the council chambers even know what's coming." Her eyes moved back to Rose and she exhaled to lower the tone of her voice. "Because I'll tell you right now that if they did, they'd make the decision for you – and they'd be a lot less kind about it that I'm being."
Her eyes snapped toward the pair of wolves as they both growled and leapt to a stand. "Kids?" she asked timidly as they both stalked to the doorway and leaned back on their haunches. Both animals had their shackles raised high and their fur shimmered light blue in the darkness.
The Doctor skidded around the corner and made it three steps into the room before having to stumble as many steps backwards to escape the snarling, snapping teeth of his two wolves.
"What in Rassilon?" He looked up urgently toward his wife – wives - one dressed in Prydonian robes, the other in rags. A look of confusion and panic crossed his face. Every step he tried to make forward was thrown backward by snarling, aggressive teeth. "Rose? What's going on?"
"Papa!" Mark cried out loudly, wanting to run to his father, but wanting to keep Alirra well protected behind him at the same time.
"Mark," Rose hissed out, finding strength in his presence. Surely, the Doctor could stop all this. "Quickly! Get Alirra, go to your father."
"He will not!" Bad Wolf warned. She raised her arm, which lifted a glimmering see-through wall between them and the Doctor. "This has gone on quite long enough. Make your decision, Rose." Her other arm shot up in the opposite direction, drawing a circle against the other wall. It quickly hummed, crackled, snapped, and then split open.
Through the centre of the circle Rose could see a quiet English street, and a row of townhomes all packed closely together. She shot her look back to Bad Wolf. "What. What is that?"
"Your way home," she answered simply. "I'm giving you the path to go home, Rose Tyler. You and the children, and even your wolves if you'd like them to." She nodded to the Doctor, who now pounded at the wall with the butts of both of his fists demanding entrance. "He stays here, forgets you, forgets your entire life together, and moves along the path he is destined to follow." She looked back at Rose. "Without you in his life Gallifrey survives the war."
The pounding at the wall ceased, and in its place was the collective gasps of two of the people she loved most in the entire universe. She lifted her head again, tears falling down her cheeks. "And if I say no?"
"Then the entire universe is at risk, not just Gallifrey," she answered. She looked at the Doctor, flanked by his brother, both of them looking on with horror. "Reality won't survive the war." She looked back at Rose. "And neither will he. Or you." She looked toward the children. "Or them."
Rose swallowed thickly around a ball of emotion that was stuck inside her throat. "So for Gallifrey to survive – he … he and I can't." She closed her eyes. "At least not as a family?" she asked, wincing when the Doctor immediately launched into a rather violent litany against the wall begging her not to make any such decision.
"But you will survive," she offered. She then looked to the wall, and to the half-blurred figure of the Doctor throwing himself at the wall in an attempt to break the barrier. "As long as he does his part, of course, everyone will." She looked back to Rose. "Then when the war is won, the two of you can meet in a department store basement, and the cycle can begin anew."
"Will I ever see him again?"
"The expanse of all space and time is wide," she answered. "The chance that the two of you could meet again is so very small." She stepped up to her side, both of them side by side watching as the Doctor fought with his all to break the barrier. "You can't seek him out, though, Rose. Pinstripes has a timeline critical to this, which you can't be part of. You won't know when it's safe, so don't even try."
She walked toward the wall and held out a hand to touch it, laying her palm flat against it. "And you promise me he won't remember anything, yeah? That he's not going to feel the pain of our loss?"
The Doctor stopped throwing himself at the monitor. He walked to the wall and lifted his hand to touch where hers lay. "Don't do this," he begged sadly. "Please, Rose."
She flicked her eyes to Braxiatel, who stood silently behind his brother. She could see in his eyes the Time Lord, who would – as the Bad Wolf said – make sure that she came to the decision that would better serve the Time Lords than anyone such as her. She gave him a small nod, and then looked to her husband. "What choice do I have, Doctor?"
His lip curled and the only reason he didn't punch again at the wall was because he was trying so hard to feel her touch with his palm. "Together, Rose," he demanded. "Whatever this thing is telling you to do is a lie. A trick."
"It's not," Bad Wolf said against her ear. "You know it's not."
"I love you," she said through the wall, finishing that thought with a soft recital of his Gallifreyan name. "I have to do it. Gallifrey is more important that I am."
"No it's not," he growled back petulantly. "Not more than you and the kids."
She shushed hum gently. "Goodbye, Doctor. You're the best thing that ever happened to me."
"Please don't do this," he begged almost pitifully. "Don't leave me. I need you."
His tears almost broke her completely, but she held on to whatever little strength she had left to lean forward and press her forehead against the wall. "I need you, too, Doctor."
He stopped struggling and leaned forward to press his forehead against the wall where hers lay. He locked his eyes on hers. "I'll find you," he vowed fiercely with a hiss between his teeth. "I promise you that. No matter where in the universe you are, I'll rip it all apart and find you."
"You do that," she whispered. "We'll be waiting for you."
His eyes flashed to where the raggy image of his wife stood to her side. "Not even you're powerful enough to stop me. There's no power in the universe that can."
"Oh you'd be surprised," Bad Wolf answered with a sniff. She stumbled when the young brown head of the Doctor's son squeezed in between she and Rose. His sister was on his hip. "Oh my," she breathed out as she took a step back. "Yes, I suppose you should have the chance to say goodbye to him. Go ahead, then."
Mark set Alirra down on the floor and walked to the wall. He took her hand and helped her to walk to their father. There was confusion and fear in his eyes when he lifted his hand and pressed it to the wall. He looked at the yellow glow beneath where his hand touched the wall. "Dad? Why are you behind a wall?" He looked up to his father. Watching his movements as the Time Lord on the other side lowered into a crouch and held up his hand to reach out to his child.
"Hey my little Time Lord," he cooed with as little waver in his voice that he could. "So I hear you and your mum are going on a little trip."
"Are we?" He looked up to his mother with a puzzled look. "Mum?"
She put her hand on his head. "Daddy's got some work to do at the hospital," she said sadly in reply. "So we're going to take a holiday. An adventure. You love a good adventure, right?"
He nodded and looked back to his father, pressing both hands against the glass. Beside him, Alirra did the same, except the little girl pressed a set of lips, covered in the salivery goo that came with teething, against the glass to kiss her father. She kept her lips against the wall, speaking against it.
"Papa papa papa…" Her eyes widened as she blew against the wall and her cheeks puffed up. She fell backward with hysteric giggles, then quickly scuffled back to do it again and again, pealing out with laughter each time.
The Doctor looked up at Rose with devastation in his eyes. "I can't," he breathed out. "I just can't." He slowly slid his hands up the wall to draw himself to a stand. "Don't go," he whispered desperately against the glass as he touched his forehead to it again. "Please."
Bad Wolf stepped forward and touched Rose on the arm. "It's time, Rose." She looked toward the doorway. "It won't be long until the rest of them arrive, and really, the fewer that know my existence, the better." She looked toward Braxiatel, who was standing silent. "Time Lord, I don't need to tell you that breaking silence on this to spread warning will threaten not only yourself and your precious world, but also the universe itself."
Braxiatel gave a firm nod of his head, but he said nothing at all.
Rose scooped up her daughter and held her on her hip, bravely trying to excitedly tell her that they were going to go on an amazing trip together. She looked to her distraught husband and blinked free a tear. She spoke to him of her love and devotion inside his language, letting him know with no room for doubt that her heart beat for him, and him alone.
"Wait for me," he pleaded in reply. "Because I promise you, Rose. I promise I'm already on my way to you."
She nodded and dropped her hand to take her son's hand in hers. "C'mon, Mark," she said with a sigh. "Want to see Mummy's world again? I'm thinking England, this time."
"Can we visit Nanna Jackie?" he asked excitedly with a bounce in his step.
"Of course we can, baby."
He turned back with a smile and a wave at his father. "Bye Dad, see you soon!" He waved to the wolves, both of whom rushed toward the spinning hole between Gallifrey and Earth. "Tiallu, Soliar, Come on!"
"In my hearts," the Doctor called back desperately through the wall. "All of you. You're in my hearts."
"Not for much longer," Bad Wolf corrected behind Rose and the children as they walked into the gaping hole in reality. "Say goodbye," she advised him, waving her hand to drop the wall that stood between them.
Immediately, the Doctor burst through, launching into a run toward his young family. As her feet stepped onto the green grass of London, Rose turned quickly at his yell. She was ready to leap forth and back toward him, but was held back by her pair of wolves, who stood silently between them. They weren't in any way aggressive, but they had become an impenetrable wall of blue-white fur. "Doctor!" she called back desperately.
"I'm coming!" he called, thrusting his arms sideways to push the Bad Wolf out if his way.
She spun and held up a hand, stopping him in his tracks. His back arched as he stumbled forward onto his knees with a cry.
Rose watched with horror as her image walked up behind him and slapped both her hands either side of his head, holding him firm in her grasp. "Look away," she snarled toward Rose. "He's no longer your concern." She lowered her head, grit her teeth, and spread her fingers to completely cover his face and head.
The Doctor let out an horrific cry, his eyes locked on those of his wife. He managed to get out one more cry that affirmed his love for her before the tear of reality between them slammed shut. She swore she could hear the sound of a zipper in the air around them right before the Doctor's cries were shut off and they were left in relative silence, the only sound around them the chirping of birds and the rev of a jet engine above their heads from a passing airliner.
Rose curled arounds the shuddering little bundle of pink in her arms and dropped down onto her knees. She wanted to sob, and to wail, but knew doing that would further upset her children. Instead she panted hard and heavy to try and push that despair away.
"Mum," Mark asked worriedly at her side as he dropped to his knees at her side. "Mum, what happened? Is Dad okay?"
She put an arm over his shoulder and pulled him close to her. She kissed his temple. "He's okay, baby,' she tried to assure him. "He's just playing a game, that's all."
"Didn't look like a game to me," he said with a sniff. "He was hurting, Mum."
"He's just sad he's not coming with us," she tried with a soft look toward him. "But he'll be here, soon." The two wolves nosed at her knees. There was apology in their nuzzling and a whimper in their breaths. "Couple of turncoats you are,' she murmured as she scratched Tiallu's ears.
"So where do we go from here?" Mark asked. He wasn't completely stupid. He knew that whatever had just happened wasn't supposed to happen. They had no change of clothes, no nappies for his sister, and no TARDIS to take them home.
"I don't know," she admitted with a glance toward him. She leaned forward to lean her forehead against his temple. "But we'll work it out baby."
~~oooOOOooo~~
The Doctor's cries rang out loudly inside the small room. It wasn't simply a cry of pain. The sound that exploded from between his parted lips was a cry of such utter despair and heartbreak, that Braxiatel could feel the burn inside his own chest. He stood inside the doorway of the room, watching with horror as the Bad Wolf tore the memory of Rose and the children from the Doctor's mind. And he had no doubt at all that's what was happening to Thete right now. Many time's he'd borne witness to such punishments levered toward those who would harm time's path with negligent and dangerous behaviours.
…Rassilon, he'd handed down such sentences on others in the past.
He turned his head to one side, trying to shield out the cries from his brother. "I'll remember then for you," he vowed under his breath. "I promise you, Brother, they won't be alone."
At the end of the hallway, he saw the fast arrival of his own beloved wife. When she caught sight of him, he held up his hand, ordering her to stop, and that what was happening here wasn't for her eyes. He was thankful that she did as he ordered, and came to a complete halt in the corridor. She held back her three Chancellery Guard escorts.
It felt like an eternity, but in a moment, Thete's cries stopped. He looked toward him as he heard the thump of his unconscious body fall to the floor.
"There," the Bad Wolf said as she rubbed her hands together with a slap. "That should do it." She stopped to think about it, and then rolled her eyes and leaned down again, pressing her hand in between his hearts. "Almost forgot," she admitted with a look toward Braxiatel. "And what a foolish thing to forget, as well." She closed her hand into a fist and slowly rose to a stand. As she lifted her fist from the Doctor's chest, a trail of glittering blue light followed the movement of her hand. The Doctor's chest rose with it, but only so far as to keep his shoulders back on the floor. Bad Wolf tugged at the light, and then threw her arm backward. "Cursed bonds," she snarled through her teeth. "Always complicate things, don't they?"
With a final grunt, the glittering light dissipated, and the Bad Wolf Stumbled backward as though being released from a tether. "That about does it," she exclaimed. She set her hands on her hips and looked down at the Doctor. There was a lift in her brow and a shake in her head. "I truly am sorry, Doctor."
Her eyes shifted to Braxiatel in the doorway. "You can feel it, can't you?" she smiled when he attempted to look at her innocently. "The fixed point," she clarified.
He gave her a nod. "Yes. I can." He let out a breath. "I'm sure all of Gallifrey can feel it."
"The sensitive ones at any rate," she said with a shrug. "I expect that you can also feel that this point isn't just a single moment in time, but spans over multiple centuries." She looked to the wall, where a spluttering rip in reality once was. "Her part in it is over." She looked back to the floor, and the man laying on it. "His. Well. He's got a long way to go until his part's over."
"I see."
"You had better," she warned. "You cannot tell him about her. You can't bring them up. You can't let him deviate in any way from the path he has to take from here."
"Why don't you just make me forget," he queried with a tic in his eye.
Bad Wolf looked back toward the wall. "Because they're going to need someone." She looked back at him. "And for more than just support and the needs that come with child rearing."
"You need me to stop her from looking for him."
She nodded. "She can't. And your job as a Time Lord is to protect the fixed points that surround us."
"Can she ever…?" he didn't even want to finish that sentence.
"When Gallifrey is safe," she began with a shrug. "And the Time War is won, then perhaps. But not until then. He's got a very long path ahead, and she's not part of it."
"I understand."
"You had better," she warned. "Because the whole of reality depends on your ability to keep the timelines stable."
She stretched and then let out a breath. "Time for me to go, be dormant again for a few hundred years." She gave him a wink. "Good bye for now, dear Time Lord. Oh! Any chance you can put me somewhere with a little more light? It's terribly depressing being locked up in the dark like this."
He closed his eyes to blink with incredulity at her request. When they opened again, she was gone, and the room was completely silent. He looked left, then right, then twirled to see if he could find any sight of her. All he saw was shadow and a small wooden box in the middle of the room.
He rushed forward, his brother's name exploding from his mouth, as he dropped to his knees at his side. "Thete! Thete! Wake up."
The Doctor stirred with a moan, but didn't open his eyes. "Ugh, Brax? Is that you?"
He slapped his brother's face with the backs of his fingers. "Come on, Thete. Wake up, man."
The Doctor swatted his hand away, annoyance clear in his expression as he lifted his hand to his head and winced. "What in the name of Rassilon did I get up to last night?" He looked at his brother through squinted eyes. "For you to be here, it can't have been good."
Braxiatel helped his brother sit up, holding a hand at his back. "What is it you remember, brother?"
He sniffed and leaned forward, scratching at his head with a hard rake of his nails. "Not much," he admitted with a slap of his tongue to the roof of his mouth. "Where am I, anyway?"
"The Capitol," he answered.
The Doctor's head shot up, a look of what the hell on his face. "I'm on Gallifrey? What in the name of Rassilon am I doing on Gallifrey?" He looked down at the robe he was wearing. His brows lifted high. "And what am I doing wearing this?"
Braxiatel pursed his lips. "I think Rose told you to wear it,' he ventured, wondering just how he'd respond to that name.
"Rose?" he said with a worried expression. "Who's Rose, and why would she be telling me what to wear?" He narrowed his eyes at his brother, hoping for a little more clarification on just who this Rose person was – he didn't know anyone called Rose. "Is she anyone interesting?"
"Rose?" Braxiatel asked before shaking his head with a smile. "Romana," Braxiatel corrected with a rather uncharacteristic roll in his eye. "Sorry about that. I meant Romana. Not Rose."
"Ahh," the Doctor drawled. He rose to a stand and brushed off his thighs, dropping the robe off his shoulders to leave it in a heap on the ground. "Well thank you for rescuing me from whatever trouble I just got myself into. But I really must be off."
"Where to?"
He looked around him with a curl in his lip. "Anywhere but Gallifrey," he breathed out with disdain. "Anywhere but here." He looked back at his brother. "So? You'll have to help me out a little. I seem to have forgotten … but where'd I leave the TARDIS?"
