Chapter Twenty-Five -
Rose sighed as she sat on her's and the Doctor's shared bed flipping though an old family album that she had stolen from her mother the last time they had stopped of at home, which had been just a couple of days for them. She looked at the smiling picture of her father from this universe and bit her lip. She missed her father, both versions of them. Since she had taken the album and had seen her father's picture she had been reminded that they hadn't stopped off the day he died so that he wouldn't be alone.
Rose felt the TARDIS try to nudge her mind away from that thought. She gave the TARDIS an annoyed look. She had learned her lesson the last time, she understood that her father's death was a fixed point in time. But that didn't mean he had to die alone.
Rose bit her lip. She wanted to ask the Doctor to take her to the day her father died. But she was scared that he would either refuse or think that she was just using him. Like he had accused her the last time.
"Rose, you in here?" She heard the Doctor say as he opened the bedroom door. Not knowing exactly why she did it, Rose shut the album and tried to hide it behind her back looking like a child caught with their hands in a 32nd century cookie jar. "What have you got there?" He asked stepping into the room.
"Nothing really, just a family photo album." Rose told him, giving him a small smile as she pulled the album out from behind her back and sat it on her lap once more.
"Ever since you had me smuggle that book out of your mum's flat in my pockets, you've been staring at it." The Doctor asked sitting next to her. "What's so much more interesting in that book than me?" He joked causing her to laugh as she opened the album back up to the page that held her father's smiling picture.
"You've met Jacquelin Andrea Suzette 'Jackie' Tyler, my mum. Now, Doctor, it is time you met Peter Alan Tyler, my dad. The most wonderful man in the world, aside from you."
"You've got his eyes." The Doctor told her and Rose laughed taking it as a joke.
"And you've got his jacket." Rose told him jokingly, pointing to the leather jacket that her father was wearing in the photo.
"So I do." The Doctor joked back. "But I was serious. You have his eyes."
"Doctor, his eyes are blue, mine are brown." Rose told him.
"Golden brown, more golden than brown." The Doctor corrected almost automatically. "But the color isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the way they see the things. Just from looking at this picture, the look he has in his eye tell me that he sees the world not by how it is but by how it could be. Just like how you don't see people how they are, but by how they could be. I can see that the both of you see the world and its people by the light inside it not by the darkness it carries." Rose quickly reached over, gently took the Doctor's chin in her hand and pulled him down for a kiss.
"Nothing you could do could ever make me think ill of you." Rose whispered once she had pulled back.
"Not even me wanting to beat the shite out of a young boy for accidentally starting a mosh pit in the dancing ring you were in while trying to get his brother to give him his shoe back?" The Doctor asked reminding Rose of what had happened on Apollonian a few weeks back.
"Not even that." Rose told him with a loving smile before turning back to the album and the picture of her smiling dad. "Peter Alan Tyler was born 15th September, 1954. He died 1987, 7th of November, less than a year after I was born. I never knew him. Don't really remember him. Him and my mum, along with me, were on their way to the church to go see Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clark get married." Rose paused to wipe a few stray tears from her eyes knowing that she'll never get to know this Peter nor even the other Peter since she'll not be staying in that universe. "Mum was always telling me that he was always having adventures. You'd have loved him."
"He's your father, of course I'd love him." The Doctor told her seriously. "I mean, after all he helped Jackie create you." He added jokingly causing Rose to give out a wet chuckle.
"Is that the reason you tolerate mum so much, 'cause she created me?" Rose asked.
"Of course, what other reason is there?" The Doctor joked. "Right, well, I think it's time we go on that trip to Barcelona I've been promising you for sometime now."
"Actually, I was wondering if we could..." The words got caught in her through by fear. "I mean, we don't have to, it's not really that important, just a silly idea is all..." Her rambling was cut off by a gentle and loving kiss from the Doctor.
"No place you want to go to is silly." The Doctor told her and Rose bit her lip. "Where would you like to go?"
"Could we go to the last day my dad was alive?" Rose asked and the Doctor's eyes widened.
"Rose," He started warningly.
"Not to stop him from dying. I swear. I know that can't happen, his death is what lead everything to happening in my life to lead me here, to you. I just... I don't want him to be alone." Rose told him, tears in her eyes. "Mum always told me that they had found him, alone, on the street. He had died alone and most likely scared. I don't want that. As long as I don't attempt to save him, it should be fine to stay with him until the end, right?" Rose watched the Doctor look away in deep thought. Would he allow this trip now that she wasn't technically tricking him into it like she had last time. "If we can't, if it goes against the laws of time or something, we don't have to. Like I said, it's not really that important."
"No, it can be done. As long as he isn't saved and he dies, because, as you've stated, his death leads you here, to me, it means that his death is now a fixed point in time." The Doctor told her. "What I'm worried about is how this will effect you. Seeing your father die, being there with him during his last moments, isn't going to be easy."
"I understand." Rose told him with a small nod.
"Do you? This isn't something that you can prepare for." The Doctor warned her.
"I know. I just... I have to do this for both me and my mum. It tore her up knowing that he died alone." Rose told him. The Doctor searched her eyes before he stood up and held his hand to her.
"Alright. Your wish is my command." The Doctor told her as Rose took his hand and allowed him to pull her from the bed. "If this gets too hard for you, just remember that I'll be right beside you the whole time. I'll not let you do this alone." He informed her as they made their way into the console room.
"I wouldn't have it any other way." Rose told him with a small smile as he helped her onto the captain's chair.
"Right, November 7th, 1987." The Doctor muttered before putting in the coordinates and pulled the lever to start the dematerialization. The trip was quick and the landing was smooth. Rose looked over at the doors knowing that just outside of them was the last day her father would ever be alive. Memories of the last time she had done this washed through her. She had been so young and stupid then. Tried to save her father and caused the reapers to appear, forcing the Doctor to sacrifice himself in a vain attempt to fix the timeline and allow Rose to have her father.
Rose's body began to tremble in fear of loosing the Doctor. She knew her fear was silly. The reapers weren't there, and they would never be there for she wasn't there to try and save her father like last time but to actually be there for him in his last moments.
"You don't have to do this, Rose." The Doctor whispered to her from his spot at the console.
"I know. Just give me a moment." Rose whispered back before closing her eyes. She took a few deep, calming breaths while mentally reminding herself that the reapers weren't out there. That the Doctor wasn't going to sacrifice himself. That they were just going to go out there and sit with her father until the ambulance came. "Right, I'm ready." Rose said, opening her eyes and sliding off the captain's chair. She held out her hand for the Doctor to take, and he took it instantly. With the comforting weight of the Doctor's hand in her's she lead them both down the ramp and out the door.
The neighborhood was exactly like she remembered it: nice, clean, and not the Powell estate. Rose looked around in awe, knowing that had her father lived then she would have been raised up in this neighborhood, if not one similar. Her father's office job he had while trying to get his ideas and inventions off the ground having been enough to keep them in a nice neighborhood like this and not have to move to the Powell estate.
"It's so weird." Rose muttered gaining a gentle squeeze of her hand form the Doctor. "The day my father died. I thought it'd be all sort of grim and stormy. It's just an ordinary day."
"The past is another country." The Doctor told her. "1987 is just the Isle of Wight." He looked at her in concern once. "You sure about this? We still have time to enter the TARDIS and leave. We haven't been spotted yet."
"I'm sure." Rose told him before looking around to get her bearings. "Mum said it happened right around over that way. On Jordan Road." She said pointing in the direction she knew Jordan Road was. They didn't move for a minute, neither of them in a hurry to get to the place where Peter Alan Tyler would take his last breath. Rose tightened her grip on the Doctor's hand for a second before she forced herself to move, taking the Doctor with her.
"This is it. Jordan Road." Rose said not even five minutes later once they had gotten to the road that separated the 'nicer' neighborhood to the 'nice, but not as nice, yet still better than the Powell estate' neighborhood.
"He was late. He'd been to get a wedding present, a vase." Rose explained not wanting to wait in silence. "Mum always said: 'that stupid vase.'" Rose gave a wet chuckle before sucking in a breath as the green car that she knew was her father's car came around the corner. "He got out of his car..." Rose continued nodded to the car, letting the Doctor know that her father was in the car, "and crossed the road." Her father parked just beside them. "Oh, God, this is it."
"We can leave right now, Rose. Just say the word and we're gone." The Doctor promised her, his voice almost sounding like he was begging her to ask him to take her away from here. Rose watched her father as he fiddled inside his car for a few seconds. Turned the radio down, clean off the front seat before he turned off the car and grabbed the vase. The Doctor squeezed her hand comfortingly as Peter stepped out of the car as a golden car sped around the corner.
Rose nearly bit off her tongue in her effort to keep from shouting out and warning her dad. Rose cried out when she saw her father get hit by the speeding car. The vase hit the ground and broke. Rose dropped the Doctor's hand and ran over to her father. She gently cradled his head and took his hand, tears in her eyes.
"I'm here, dad, it's me, Rose, I'm here. Me and mum are going to be fine. You don't have to worry. We're gonna take care of each other, and she's gonna raise me to be a strong woman." She whispered to him as she held him close.
"Rose? How?" Her father rasped out and Rose shook her head.
"I've learned not to question things like this, and to just be glad that they happen." Rose told him as her tears began to fall.
"You look like your mother." Peter told her with his last breath before his body went limp. Rose cried harder and held him to her for another minute before gently placing his head back on the ground. "We need to call an ambulance."
"I've already called them, they should be here any minute." The Doctor as Rose felt the memory of the stories her mother used to tell of this day change. The driver had been caught, a young kid that hadn't been paying attention, and a girl who sat with her father while he was dying before she left. Rose knew that it was because of the Doctor that the driver had been caught, and that his mysterious girl was her. Rose heard the sound of the ambulance getting closer and bent over to kiss her father on forehead before standing up.
"Can we go see something happier and funnier now?" Rose asked the Doctor, taking his hand, as a small crowd of people formed as the ambulance arrived.
"Of course. Anywhere you want to go." The Doctor said as he lead her back towards the TARDIS.
"My parents wedding day." Rose told him.
"I get how that's happy, but I fail to see how that's funny." The Doctor said.
"My dad apparently forgot my mum's name." Rose explained.
"Oh, now this I have got to see." The Doctor said with a laugh.