Chapter Forty-Nine
"Mind the gap."
The loud message crackled over tinny speakers as the doors hissed open. Pushing past those pressed against the exit, Rose burst out of the carriage, unable to breathe. Mickey stumbled after her, apologising to those he crashed into, tripping over his loose shoelaces in a rush to keep up with her. Pressing herself through the crowd to reach the nearest wall, Rose stood facing with her back to the tube and pressed her hands against her solid stomach. Life moved inside her: The child pressed its skull against her as it moved position, the slide of it beneath her hand, stretching her skin, made her throat grow slick with bile.
Sinking her nails into the faded T-shirt with small holes dotted along the seam, she ripped it open. Her stomach bulged out from beneath her breasts, large and distended and rippled with dark purple stretch marks that shimmered in the unforgiving light. Her skin had stretched to accommodate the child within and a layer of soft downy hair ran from her belly button into her trousers. With shaking hands, she smoothed her hands over it and ice rolled its way down her spine.
"What is this?" Rose breathed, terrified. "What's happenin' to me?"
Her mind whirred with theories: Was it the Wire? Had it left eggs within her that had mutated, stretching her, leaving her in the middle of London with no memory and an alien child in her body?
Or was it something else?
Something worse?
The Game Station controller had once stolen her, the Doctor, and Jack from the TARDIS and dropped them into the middle of reality TV shows to fight against the Daleks, and fear licked at her chest at the thought she was in another similar situation.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" Mickey demanded when he finally reached her, face pale and eyes creased with concern as he took in her dishevelled state and wide eyes. He shrugged out of his jacket to clumsily cover the fact that she was standing in the middle of a tube station in her bra and jeans, the torn T-shirt hanging from her shoulders. "Rose, what –? Are you okay?"
A laugh bubbled up her throat. She was scared, confused, heavily pregnant, and Mickey was sporting a dark beard that he hadn't had an hour ago. Okay was not something she was capable of feeling at that moment in time.
"Where's Zoe?" Rose asked, swallowing the laughter back, desperate for her sister to make it better. "Where is she? I want – I want to see her."
"She's at uni," Mickey said, eyes flickering to the side where people dressed in sharp business suits and tourists with cameras were watching them as they waited for the next tube. Turning his back on them, he used his body to further conceal Rose's state of undress. "D'you need her? I can call her for you. She's probably sleepin' right now but she'll –"
A thin and reedy cry burst free of her mouth, stunning him into a shocked silence. She shook her head, her long hair – much longer that it should be as she had cut it to above her shoulders while in Massachusetts – shaking over her shoulders. There was a low, rolling ache in the small of her back that sent dizziness coursing through her dizzy and a powerful itch on the top of her head that spread across her scalp. She grabbed hold of Mickey's shoulder and dragged herself against him: Her one spot of familiarity in the confusion of what was happening, relief helping to chase away some panic when his arms went around her.
"It's okay," Mickey whispered into her hair, rubbing her back comfortingly. "Whatever happened just now, it's okay. You're fine."
A shudder ran through her. "I'm pregnant."
"Course you are." He pulled back and wiped the tears that had fallen from beneath her eyes with a touch so gentle that her heart ached for how they used to be. "That isn't exactly news."
"It is to me," Rose whispered, sinking her fingers into his shirt and holding onto him tightly. "I don't remember this. The last thing I remember is talkin' to Mum on the phone. I was –" she swallowed hard, tasting tea instead of lemon. "I was eatin' cake on the TARDIS, an' I don't remember any of this."
Mickey tucked her hair behind her ear. "What's the TARDIS?"
"No," she breathed. "Mickey, please tell me you know what the TARDIS is." His head moved an inch: No. "What about the Doctor? Jack, Jack Harkness?"
"Sorry, babe." Concern poured from him as his eyes flickered over her face, back of his hand resting against her forehead to check her temperature. "Is Dr Harkness one of the doctors I haven't spoken to?"
Rose pulled away from him and ran her hands through her hair, lifting it from her warm neck and gripping it close to her scalp as she tried not to panic. Think, she thought, there's got to be a reason for this. Shaking, she lowered her hands and ignored the crush of people that surged towards the new tube that had drawn into the station, dry air washing over the lower half of her body.
"They're two separate people," Rose said with a patience she didn't feel. "There's the Doctor an' then there's Jack. They're our friends. They've been our friends for over a year now, longer for Zoe though because of –" she gestured uselessly and remembered a phrase her sister had once used. "Wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey stuff."
Mickey frowned. "Wibbley-what?"
"It's complicated," she said, quickly, already regretting her word choice. "Except it shouldn't be because you know all this stuff, Micks. You know who the Doctor is. He called you Ricky for like the first six months of knowing you just because he knew it annoyed you but now the two of you are really good mates. An' you definitely know who Jack is because you're datin' him."
He reeled back from her, eyes wide. Desperate and panic, he looked around them for who might have overheard her. "Rose, shut up, I'm not bent."
"Oh, don't give me that – an' don't say bent either, it's rude," she snapped, fixing him with a stare that he felt in his bones. "I know you're not exactly gay but you're definitely flexible. At least when it comes to Jack."
Mickey's cheeks burned, back teeth grinding together. Over the years, there had been one or two dreams about men that had led to a furtive, shame-filled session in the shower as he tried to focus on the slight forms of women rather than the broadness of men with little success. It wasn't something he had ever spoken about – definitely not to his friends and certainly not to Rose, the latter out of fear that she might find him wanting if he confessed to occasionally finding men attractive. He glanced around again, embarrassed and a little angry at the thought that someone might have heard her.
"I don't know what you're talkin' about." He reached for her and jerked her coat around her bare stomach, managing to get the zip up and over it before taking hold of her elbow. "C'mon, let's get out of here. People are starin'."
Unable to free herself from his tight grip, Rose was forced to follow Mickey through the tunnelled walkway and up the stairs that led out into London proper. Vision blurred from the tears that kept welling in her eyes, she wasn't able to recognise where she was, the landmarks smudging together like ink smeared across a page. His firm and gentle hand guided her to the nearest bench and sat her down, making sure she was comfortable as he told her not to move, disappearing at a jog before she thought about protesting.
"This isn't real," Rose muttered, pressing her fingers to her face and then against the pulse point on her neck where she felt her blood thrumming strongly through her. "This is a dream or this the Wire but this isn't real. It can't be."
Curling her toes up in her shoes, troubled by the fact she was wearing a pair of dirty, old trainers that she had thrown out months ago, she drew in a deep, slow breath. Slowly, her panic receded and her mind cleared, the itch on the top of her head dulling to a low, insistent throbbing pressure.
"I'm on the TARDIS," she whispered, eyes closed to imagine the kitchen around her. "Somethin' has happened but I'm safe. The Doctor'll find me an' fix this. I'm on the TARDIS an' this isn't real."
A solid kick to the wall of her uterus snapped her eyes open, heart racing once more.
Shoving her hands into the pockets of her coat, she searched for her phone, finding only a packet of heartburn tablets and a metal container of hardboiled ginger sweets. Popping one into her mouth, hoping it would help with her discomfort and nausea, she pulled her bag from across her torso and upended the contents onto the bench next to her – various bits and bobs falling through the cracks between the slats. Her old Nokia, which was currently collecting dust in a drawer on the TARDIS, long since replaced by the phone Zoe had given her months ago, clattered to the dip in the bench.
She stared at it, sucking hard on the sweet in her mouth, and looked around for Mickey. She found him across the street at a coffee shop, worried glances thrown out of the window to her as he ordered her a cup of tea and something to eat.
With shaking fingers, Rose accessed her contacts list and called her sister. Lifting the phone to her ear, she chewed on her bottom lip, knee shaking as her foot bounced.
"D'you know what time it is?" Zoe groaned in lieu of a proper greeting, yawn stretching down the line. "You're never up this early."
"Zoe," Rose said, exhaling.
The sound of her sister's voice eased the sharp edges of her panic and breathing came easier to her.
A rustle of bed clothes and a murmured apology to someone else, Zoe climbed out of bed and padded into her bathroom. "Shouldn't you be at your baby appointment? Don't tell me it got cancelled again. I'm tellin' you, you can't let them shove you about like this. Next time they try to reschedule, tell 'em to shove it up their arses. You need to get Baby checked."
Gone was the smoother, more refined way Zoe had spoken since returning from France, replaced with the heavy weight of London.
"You sound strange," Rose said, pressing the heel of her hand into her eye. "You sound like a Londoner."
"Well spotted." The sound of her peeing stretched faintly across the line. "You haven't been drinkin', have you? I know Mum says a glass of wine here an' there is fine, but did you not read those studies I left for you? Best to give it up completely until your done breastfeedin'. Speakin' of, have you decided if your goin' to do that yet? I get Mickey's all for it an' I know the benefits but even with all the pros, I can't see you bein' happy havin' a baby attached to your tits all the time."
Eyes squeezed shut, unable to bear the sound of Zoe's voice when she sounded wrong, Rose snapped. "Stop talkin' like that. You don't sound like this anymore."
There was a long pause on the other end before the toilet flushed, and Rose imagined the look on Zoe's face having seen it many times before: The careful, concerned look that meant she was acting out of character and people needed to tread on eggshells around her.
"Is everythin' all right?" Zoe asked. "Did somethin' happen?"
"Yeah, somethin' happened," she said, leaning back and pressing her hand against her stomach to try and stop the baby moving. "I'm fuckin' pregnant."
"All right," Zoe said, sounding relieved for reasons Rose couldn't understand. "It's one of these days, is it? God, you're a right mess when you're preggers. I told Mickey you'd be a nightmare but he was all – don't be daft, Zo, she'll be great. What is it this time? Constipation? Baby kickin' you through the night? Heartburn?"
"Will you shut up for a second?" Rose's throbbing head was grateful when she stopped talking but not before a muttered rude slipped down the line towards her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be short. It's just – something's wrong. Zo, something's really wrong."
"With the baby?"
"I don't care about the baby," she snapped, scrubbing her nails over her scalp to ease the pain there. "Reality's wrong. We shouldn't be here. Mickey said you're at uni, which is wrong, because you've already done uni. You graduated like six months ago. You went to MIT –"
"Did I heck," Zoe scoffed. "I'm at UCL."
"You were goin' to go to UCL before." She tugged at her coat, overheated and sweaty. "But then we went travellin'. Zo, you have to remember this! I can't be the only person that does. We met the Doctor an' a bloke called Jack an' we travel through time an' space."
The silence from Zoe was deafening. Rose listened to the sound of her breathing and the gentle rattle of a window against its pane, the latch clearly broken. Simply listening to Zoe breathe was comforting even when everything else was terrifying and different.
"Rose, where are you?" Relief slipped through her, recognising her Zoe in the tone of voice: Firm, focused, and ready to get to work solving a problem. "Are you at home?"
"No, I'm – I don't know where I am." Rose wiped her eyes and looked around, properly taking in her surroundings. "Wait. I can see Parliament Square. We must've got off at Westminster."
"Right," Zoe said. "Is Mickey with you?"
She sniffed, wondering if she would be able to get into Downing Street to see Harriet and get help there. "He's in a coffee shop across the way."
"Pricey coffee down there," she said, keeping her tone deliberately light and calm. "Whatever you do, don't move. Stay with Mickey. You're off to the hospital anyway so you can get your noggin checked as well. It's probably nothin' but you're scarin' me a little bit right now."
"I'm scared too," Rose admitted, wiping at the tears on her cheeks. "Because everything's wrong. Me an' Mickey aren't even together any more so how am I pregnant with his baby? Why doesn't he know what the TARDIS is? Or who the Doctor an' Jack are?"
She heard Zoe breathe and she knew what was coming before she said – "what's the TARDIS?"
Tipped over the edge, the phone slipped from Rose's fingers and bounced off her thigh onto the ground. By the time Mickey appeared at her side, she was sobbing into her hands, shoulders heaving. He quickly set the tea and sandwich down before plucking the phone from the ground, and Rose heard heard him talk to Zoe in quick, concerned sentences, the low timbre of his voice cutting through her.
Ending the call, he sat down next to her and drew her into his arms, pulling her close so that she was able to rest her head against his chest. Grateful for his solid presence, she turned into him and tried to calm herself down, aware that crying was going to solve nothing but not sure what else to do.
Inside her, sensing her distress, the baby kicked.
It took nearly half an hour to exhaust herself against Mickey's shoulder, her hand clumsily accepting the now-lukewarm tea and bringing it to her lips. The pressure in her head faded at the first sip, and she curled closer to him as she slowly and methodically finished the cup. When she was done, he took it and crunched it up, lips pressing against her forehead.
"I told Zoe to meet us at the hospital," Mickey murmured, softly stroking her hair back and she had forgotten how much she missed his fingers in her hair. "She's worried about you. I'm worried about you."
"How d'you think I feel?" Rose asked, forehead pressed into the side of his neck. "I'm pregnant an' don't remember any of it."
"Yeah, that's what worries me," he said, reaching to the side. "Here, I got you a sandwich. Chicken mayo, your favourite. You might feel better with somethin' inside you."
"Thank you." She held the sandwich in her hands, the plastic crinkling, and made no move to eat it. "Mickey, I'm...I don't know what's happenin' right now. Everything's so different, an' I don't know if you're real or if I'm hallucinatin' you or someone's doin' this to me. I just don't know what's goin' on an' I'm really fuckin' scared."
"It's okay," he said, gently, a deep frown cutting into his forehead. He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, his breath warm against her skin as his dark eyes met hers. "Whatever's wrong, we'll deal with it together, yeah? Me an' you."
Rose didn't know if he was her Mickey or Mickey from an alternate universe or even a Mickey that the Wire had created to lull her into a false sense of security but it didn't matter in the end.
He was still Mickey and she felt safe with him.
"Okay," she said, a brief moment of calm slipping through her. She unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite, surprised by how good it tasted, and she ate it all under his watchful gaze before he took the rubbish and threw it into the nearest bin. "Where are we goin'?"
"Hospital," Mickey said, helping her to her feet. "Had to go in for a check up anyway." He quickly checked his watch. "We're already late but don't think that matters too much. They've been runnin' behind every time we've gone so far. Once had to wait three hours. You were spittin' mad about it."
"Sounds 'bout right," Rose murmured, fingers curled against her stomach. In her mind, she heard Jack telling her to assess the situation, to take in the details and analyse them: Corners and doors, Rosie, corners and doors. "Why are we here? Why not closer to home?"
"It was a last minute thing," he explained even though she had been the one to tell him the other day when he got home from work. "Our doctor isn't available an' we were sent over here." She swallowed and closed her eyes, her sandwich churning in her stomach. "Babe, you really don't remember this, do you?"
She shook her head. "No."
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Let's get to the hospital, yeah? We'll check everythin' out an' Zo will be there too, so we can – we can find out what's wrong, okay?"
With no other option available to her, Rose nodded her head and waited as he flagged down a taxi to travel the rest of the way. It was out of character for Mickey for whom money was a thing that was meant to be saved rather than spent on things like taxis when they both had functioning legs, though she soon realised why he was willing to spend the money. As it turned out, walking any more than ten minutes at a time was exhausting to the point of agony, her stomach weighing her down and dragging against the small of her back so that rolling pain spread throughout her.
Struggling to climb into the back of the taxi that pulled up alongside the pavement, she flopped heavily into the seat and stayed quiet on the trip to the hospital. Her mind turned over possibility after possibility of what might have happened to her: The Wire was her first – and really only – theory but she didn't understand why it would impregnate her and create a strange, off-kilter version of her reality.
There was also the idea that TARDIS air filtration system had malfunctioned and was pumping hallucinogenic gas throughout the ship; or, she had slipped from one universe to another without the painful fall that had accompanied her first Void crossing; or, she had accidentally drunk one of the Doctor's weird teas that weren't fit for human consumption; or, it was all real and she was truly crazy.
The thought sat uncomfortably with her, recalling many times in her early days on the TARDIS when she and Zoe would trade amazement at what their lives were luck and how it didn't feel real, pinching each other to check to see if they were dreaming.
"We're here," Mickey said, touching her thigh and dragging her from her thoughts. "You need help gettin' out?"
"No," Rose said, instantly regretting it as she toppled out of the door, her weight unbalanced, and she grunted. "Shit."
"Fuck, hold on, babe." Mickey pressed a twenty into the driver's hand and waited impatiently for the change. "You okay?"
"I'm like a fuckin' beached whale," she complained, pushing herself back to her feet with immense difficulty. "My centre of balance is completely fucked."
"That's what those yoga classes I signed you up were for." Rose looked around at the sound of Zoe's voice, her sister approaching out of the main entrance with a cup of Costa tea in her hands. "Didn't think I'd beat you two here. What d'you do, take the scenic route?"
"Needed to sit for a bit," Mickey said. "Thanks for comin'."
"Yeah, course," Zoe replied, critical eyes sweeping over Rose. "Rosie, how you doin'?"
Her words washed Rose who was unable to focus on anything other than how different Zoe looked to normal. Sometimes she forgot that it was only a little over a year since she had asked the Doctor for a quick pitstop back at home to get some clothes and toiletries – not yet trusting what the TARDIS provided – and to see her mother and sister. So much had happened since then that time seemed to stretch out in her memory, events tumbling together until she was unable to put a date on them, and to see Zoe from her memories standing before her in clothes that she wouldn't be caught dead in now was unnerving.
Gone were the soft jumpers she now preferred, the kind that Jack had taken to absently stroking whenever he stood near Zoe, the texture helping soothe the chaos his stint in Stormcage had done to him; in its place was a baggy T-shirt that hung loose off one shoulder, the blue strap of her bra showing. Instead of dark slacks, she wore a pair of artfully torn jeans that had an old stain on the upper thigh, distracting from the scuffed boots that were peeling after years of use and careful repair.
The most distressing sign that something was wrong – beyond the unexpected pregnancy and them not knowing about the TARDIS – was Zoe's hair.
It was short. Cropped close to her scalp. The sides shaved. Streaks of blue within.
Zoe didn't have short hair. Not since Tolandra. She kept her hair long as a preference, a way to control something that was once taken from her.
"She's...doin'," Mickey said when Rose failed to answer who stared at Zoe with her mouth parted in surprise and shock. He placed a warm hand on her back, grounding and comforting. "How did you get here so quickly?"
"A friend dropped me off," she said with a shrug. "I've been here 'bout ten minutes. What took you so long?"
"Wanted to make sure she had somethin' to eat first," he said, eyes flicking over her and lingering on a small bruise that pressed a shadow on the curve of her neck. "Which friend?"
She twitched her T-shirt over the bruise. "None of your business."
"Your hair." Rose reached out to touch it, flinching back before she touched it. "What've you done to your hair?"
"I cut it," Zoe said, frowning. "You were there, remember? You came round with a bottle of tequila you didn't drink, leavin' me to get really bloody sick on it, an' watched me do it. Then you took me to the hairdresser's to get it done properly 'cause I'd made a right pig's ear of it."
Rose swallowed and shook her head, pulling back. "I don't remember."
"It's okay, babe," Mickey said, shaking his head sharply at Zoe who shut her mouth and shoved her questions back down. "Let's just get inside an' check in. We'll have a chat with the doctor 'bout everythin' once we're there."
"I've already spoken to the receptionist," Zoe told him, falling into step with them. "They're runnin' behind so you're actually on time, maybe. It's busy this mornin'."
"It's busy every mornin'," he complained, breathing out as they passed through the doors into the hospital. "You haven't called Jackie, have you?"
"Don't be daft," she scoffed, Rose walking silently between them, trying to spot the cracks in the facade, anything that might tell her where she was or what was happening. "Last thing we need is her freakin' out. Nah. If it's somethin', we can call her then but I reckon it's just a brain fart. Pregnancy's weird like that."
"I'm not pregnant," Rose said. "This isn't real."
The weight of the look that passed between Mickey and Zoe over her head pressed into her.
The waiting room was as uncomfortable as most waiting rooms were – though she thought fondly of the hospital on New Earth with the regulated temperature, comfortable chairs, and fresh plants that released a gentle, calming fragrance – and with the added weight of a baby resting on her bladder and other organs, Rose quickly grew uncomfortable. It was an excellent simulation, if that was were she was: Highly realistic though the details were off.
Pulling her phone from her bag again, she searched through her contacts, wondering if signs of the Doctor and Jack were on it. The list was filled with people she hadn't spoken to properly since meeting the Doctor: Shareen was there, obviously, as were Livvy, Dana, Jess, Lesotho, and Saira but those friendships had fallen by the wayside, not one of them believing she had simply taken off with a bloke and forgotten to call home. Only Shareen had accepted her version of events even those Rose knew that she didn't believe her, and she hadn't spoken to the others properly since the Doctor brought her home a year late. Not that she mourned their absence, barely thinking of them when she was travelling, and seeing that Lesotho had sent her a message late the night before – talking about a TV show Rose hadn't seen – sent a strange, mournful feeling rolling through her.
"Where's the bloody Internet?" Rose complained. "Zo, how do I get onto Google from this?"
Zoe paused her conversation with Mickey and blinked at her. "You don't. You can't get the Internet on that."
"Give me your phone then."
"I can't get the Internet on mine either," she said. "You think I'm made of money? My student loan barely covers tuition and accommodation."
"Should've stayed at home then, shouldn't you?" Mickey said. "Could've saved some money. It's only twenty minutes on the tube."
"An' be the only fresher livin' at home with their mum? No thanks." Her attention drifted from Rose. "An' stop fussin' about money. I've got a job."
"You've got like half a job," he replied. "You work four hours a week as a tour guide. That's not enough to save."
"Six, thank you!"
Rose tuned them out and tried to keep herself grounded, wanting to find a computer to access the Internet and find a way to send a message out of whatever was happening to her, certain that the Doctor was looking for her. It was difficult though, Zoe's London accent striking her every time she dropped an ending consonant and with the sporadic kicks inside her that startled her every time.
Doctor, where are you? She thought, glancing to the doors, half-expecting him to come crashing through them. C'mon, I need you right now. Help me.
"Mr and Mrs Smith?"
Mickey stood up. "C'mon, babe, that's us."
"What?" She asked, startled.
"Don't tell me you've forgotten you're married, too," Zoe said, gathering their belongings. "Did you fall an' knock your head or somethin'?"
Rose looked at down at her hand and saw the thin wedding ring for the first time, her stomach twisting as Zoe helped her to her feet. Marriage and babies: she thought she had left those prospects behind when she ran away with the Doctor, yet here she was, heavily pregnant with a husband.
A sudden visceral panic hit her.
All her life she thought that growing up meant getting married and having a baby, and she thought she was going to do that with Mickey even though their relationship had been boring. It wasn't like what he had with Jack where the two of them laughed more than they didn't, disappearing on adventures and staying up late to talk about anything and everything. Theirs had been a normal, boring, but wonderfully safe relationship – everything she had needed after Jimmy Stone – that was heading towards marriage faster than she had been comfortable with.
Had she not met the Doctor, the awareness that this would truly had been her life left her feet cemented to the ground.
"Rose, c'mon," Zoe said.
"No."
Mickey turned back, half into the consultation room. "Babe?"
"This is a trap," she said, stepping back. "You're tryin' to trick me. I'm not goin' in there."
"What?" Zoe moved towards her only to pause, hurt lancing across her face when Rose flinched away from her. "Rosie, it's fine. They're just goin' to do an ultrasound. That's all."
The painful, itching sensation crept down her forehead in a slow trickle.
"Babe," Mickey said, softly, hands gentle on her elbows. "It's okay. Everything's goin' to be okay. Just come on in an' I'll keep you safe, we both will, right, Zo?"
"Yeah, course."
"C'mon," he murmured, a gentle tug lifting her feet from the ground and propelling her forwards. "There we go. That's my girl."
Hesitant, Rose followed Mickey into the room only for her knees to buckle and her head to burst with pain as bright white light flooded her vision. She fell, grasping her head, a scream pulling from her throat.
"Rose."
Forcing herself to look up, face twisted against the blurred image of a woman before her, she cried out.
"Help is coming." Light and melodic, her voice was rimmed with gold, reaching every atom of Rose's body, twisting agony through her. "Hold on."
She convulsed, jerking forward, mouth stretching wide as bile rushed up through her and she –
– slumped back against a stack of pillows, chest heaving, body aching.
"It's a boy!"
Rose's head span from the sudden dislocation. Her fingers clenched around Zoe's hand in hers, the pain in her head fading to a dull, itching throb that stretched down her face and behind her ears. From between her legs where hands were working, the press of fingers against her inside thigh and inside her making her flinch back, violated, a wet, screaming baby appeared. She stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed in horror, as the thick, purple umbilical cord stretched from its stomach back into her, suddenly conscious of the feel of it stretching out of her.
A camera flashed in the background, rapid sounds of joy spreading through the room, and a gloved nurse took the baby and placed it on Rose's chest. Its wet, sticky hands smeared a white substance across her skin, tiny body curling into her heartbeat, and there was another bright flash of a camera.
Mickey leaned over and kissed, his tears wetting her cheeks as he stroked her sweaty hair back from her face. "He's perfect. He's so perfect. You did such a good job."
"A boy," Zoe said with a smile wider than Rose had ever seen before, bright and glowing with happiness that seeped from her, her eyes fixed on the baby on Rose's chest. "You have a son. Oh my god, you have son. Rose. You're a mum."
"No." Rose struggled to push away from the baby, away from Mickey and Zoe's suffocating joy. She wrenched her hand from her sister's and clawed at the covers, weak and dizzy and more terrified than she had ever been in her life. "I can't – I can't breathe."
"That's okay." A nurse appeared at her side, kind smile on his face. "You just need to rest. You worked really hard these last few hours and you just need a second to let everything settle in. You'll be okay, Mrs Smith."
"Rose –" she pushed her name out from between chapped lips. "My name's Rose."
"I'm so proud of you," Mickey whispered, one large hand resting gently on the back of his son's body, nose pressed into Rose's hair as Zoe stepped away to give them privacy, leaving to meet Jackie at the doors to the birthing ward, her mother having missed the birth by mere minutes. "That was amazin'. I didn't think – you're so amazin'. An' look at him. Rose. Look at what we made."
Frightened, she turned her eyes down to the baby on her chest. Dark hair was plastered to the top of its head, skin pale beneath the white gunk that clung to it, certain to darken further in the following days and weeks; tiny feet pressed against her breasts, and small fists curled against her collarbone. Its mouth moved as it stopped crying, resting over her heartbeat clearly sufficient in calming the child after the trauma of birth.
"Mickey –" his name shook in her mouth. "Take the baby. Please. Take the baby. Quickly."
"Here we go, little man," Mickey said with softness pressing into every inch of him, gently lifting the baby from Rose's chest, his fingers brushing over her skin in an intimacy they hadn't shared in over a year. "Come to Daddy. Yes. That's me. I'm your dad. Hello. Hello, son."
Rose dragged oxygen into her lungs, a sob shuddering out of her. Casting desperately about the room, she searched for the woman from before. Blinded as she was by pain, she had barely heard her words before she was thrown into the aftermath of giving birth. Help is coming. Hold on. She didn't know who the woman was or what she was talking about but she was a sign that she wasn't alone. Holding onto the memory of Zoe reaching out to her inside Momo's simulation, she hoped and prayed that her friends were doing something similar now and projecting Zoe to her.
"What's happenin'?" She whispered, cutting half-crescents into her palms as she dug her nails in. "What the hell is this?"
"An' this is your mum," Mickey said, oblivious to her torment and confusion, angling the baby in his arms towards her. "I'm a little biased but she's the best mum ever. You're so lucky to have her, an' we both love you so much already. You're such a lucky little boy. You've got us, your Grandma Jackie, an' your Aunt Zoe. You're goin' to be so loved. Yes, you are."
The noise of the room and the smell of the hospital swamped her, blood, excrement, and antiseptic mingling to rest in her nose. She felt as though a fire burned between her legs and the itch rolled down the back of her neck, a fuzzy discomfort that was small and insignificant compared to everything else. Lifting her hands, she sank her fingers into her sweaty hair and scratched viscously at her skull in an attempt to relieve the irritation.
A loud clattered of the door smacking against the wall announced Jackie's arrival, bags knocking against her legs as Zoe loped in behind her with half a grin on her face.
"There she is!" Jack headed straight to Mickey and the baby. "Oh, look at him. Look at the little thing. He's gorgeous."
"Mum –" Rose croaked, mouth dry and throat sore from screaming, wanting comfort. "Mummy."
"Give him here," Jackie demanded, dropping the bags at her feet and peeling the baby from a reluctant Mickey, her face opening with love as she looked into the face of her grandson for the first time. "He's perfect."
Stepping around Mickey and Jackie, content to wait for her turn to hold her nephew, Zoe picked up an empty glass from Rose's bedside table and filled it with water, dropping a straw into it. She smiled when she turned to her, holding the straw to her lips.
"Here," she said. "Drink some of this. I'll check with the nurses for when you can eat somethin' an' I'll get you whatever you want. Reckon you deserve it after this."
Rose curled her hand around Zoe's wrist, holding onto her as she sucked the lukewarm water desperately, the wash of it against her throat eased some of her discomfort but did nothing for the fog in her brain that made it hard to think.
"Thanks," she rasped.
Zoe set the glass down and sank down onto the edge of the bed, twining their hands together and fixing Rose's dishevelled hair with her other. "That was some weird shit. Like, you pushed a baby out of your body. I actually watched some of it come out of your vagina, an' I got to tell you, I ain't doin' that again. Next baby you have, I'm stayin' right up at your head."
Rose exhaled slowly, feeling the bones in Zoe's hand when she squeezed it. "What's happenin'?"
"They're just checkin' you over," she said, smile touching her eyes "You've still got to deliver the afterbirth thing, which I'm guessin' is about as gross as everythin' else has been. Seriously, there's like zero dignity in childbirth. I know babies are cute an' all but you'd think less women'd have them if they knew what it was like. God knows you've put me off havin' one of my own."
"No." Her grip tightened. "What's happenin' to me? Where am I?"
A frown flickered across Zoe's forehead. "What are you talkin' about?"
"Where's the Doctor, where's Jack?" Rose asked. "Why aren't I in the TARDIS? What is this place?"
Recognition filtered across Zoe's face and she glanced worriedly at Jackie and Mickey who were oblivious to everything except the baby in Jackie's arms, their heads bent together in a rare moment of truce between two people who cared for each other but bumped heads when it came to the woman they both loved. Freeing her hand from Rose's, she leaned in close to fluff the pillow and Rose was hit with a faint waft of something light and floral.
"Not this again," she whispered, her breath cooling Rose's hot forehead. "That was a dream. That's what you told the psychiatrist. Please don't start this again. Not now. Not with the baby."
"Zoe –" Rose sank her fingers into her sister's shirt, pulling her closer so that that TARDIS blue streaks in her short hair caught the light and glimmered. "I'm not supposed to be here. This isn't real. I need you to help me. Please."
"Please don't," Zoe pleaded, face pinched with worry. "The social worker's comin' around to check on you later because of everythin' after last time an' if she doesn't think you're fit to look after the baby, I don't know what's goin' to happen. So, please, stop talkin' like this. Just...wait. Wait until you get home, yeah? Then we'll talk but right now, I need you to be quiet. Please."
Releasing Zoe's hand, relief tinged the edges of the disappointment that seared through her.
It wasn't Zoe.
Her sister was many things – annoying, intelligent, grumpy, kind, and occasionally condescending – but there was one truth to her that Rose knew with a certainty that ripped apart the facade of the world she was inhabiting. And that was that the second Zoe, the real Zoe, heard her say that something was wrong and she needed help, she would immediately leap into action to fix whatever it was.
The strange facsimile of Zoe with her short, dyed hair and ridiculous septum piercing wasn't her sister.
This isn't real, she thought, pressing a hand over her chest, wanting to laugh. This isn't real.
"Sweetheart," Jackie said, tears of happiness wetting her cheeks. Rose's nose was filled with the overpowering scent of her perfume as she leaned over and kissed her forehead, Zoe sliding off the bed and taking Rose's hand in hers. "You did it. You're a mum."
"No, I'm not," Rose said. "I'm not."
"Poor thing," she replied, rubbing the press of lipstick from her skin. "After I had each of you, I was well out of it. Your Aunt Caroline had to feed me soup 'fore I started feelin' like myself again."
Rose gasped, a light contraction rolling through her. Mickey immediately stepped closer, reaching for her as he held their son against his chest, Zoe twisting around in panic to call for the midwife while Jackie remained calm, slipping her hand into Rose's and coaxing her through the delivery of the afterbirth. The room expanded with controlled chaos as she went through each successive contraction that forced the placenta away from her uterine wall until it slid from between her legs as a warm, slimy, veiny mass. As soon as it fell into the midwife's waiting hands, Rose leaned over the side of her bed and vomited.
"Shit!" Zoe jumped out of the war, vomit splattering over her shoes. "Is she all right?"
My name's Rose Tyler. I'm twenty years old. I live on the TARDIS. This isn't my life.
She shook as she sat back up, the nurses cleaning her with an efficiency that soon left her alone.
My name's Rose Tyler, she repeated on a loop in her mind. I'm twenty years old. I live on the TARDIS. This isn't my life.
"That's all right, love," Jackie said, stroking her hair. "It's all done now."
"Excuse me, Mr Smith," the nurse said. "We need to take the baby to be weighed and checked now. You can come with us, if you'd like. It'll take about ten minutes, maybe twenty."
Jackie kissed Rose's head again. "Zoe, stay with your sister, I'll go with Mickey."
"We'll be back as soon as we can, babe," Mickey promised, brushing his fingers over Rose's cheek with a tenderness that bloomed through her. "Don't go getting' into any trouble while I'm gone."
Rose closed her eyes in a slow blink. When she opened them again, they were gone and Zoe was peering at her with concern etched into every corner of her face. Rose was startled by how young she was, how untouched by the world her heart was: She had never loved Reinette and then lost her, never sacrificed years of her life to save her family, never fallen in love all over again.
She was like a canvas with only the outline of a person drawn, colourless and empty.
Zoe looked at her, twisting the hem of her T-shirt between her fingers. "Are you okay?"
Her mouth opened to snap at her, to tell her that of course she wasn't okay because how could she be when she didn't understand what was happening. She stopped herself at the last moment, swallowing the words back and exercising the caution that had been in short supply most of her life.
The girl before her wasn't Zoe.
And if it was a simulation or something that the Wire had created in her mind to drag information out of her in some twisted version of an interrogation, she wasn't going to give it the satisfaction of her frustration and anger.
"I'm fine," Rose lied. "Maybe Mum's right an' I need to eat."
"Yeah?" Tentative hope crept into Zoe's eyes. "What d'you want to eat? My treat, obviously."
"Pizza," she said, not caring about anything except getting her to leave the room. "You know what I like."
"Pizza, okay, good." Zoe smiled at her. "I'll get you it with extra everythin'. Just, please, when I'm gone –"
"Yeah, yeah," Rose interrupted. "I won't say anythin'."
"It's not that I think you're crazy or anythin'," Zoe told her, quickly. "It's just the social worker's lookin' at you real closely right now an' I don't want somethin' to happen. We'll talk though, when you come home?"
"Course we will," she said, managing a smile. "Don't fuss."
"Can't help it." A small shrug lifted Zoe's shoulders, her hands stuffed in the pockets of baggy jeans held up by a cracked leather belt. "I'll be back as soon as I can with the food. Try an' get some rest while I'm gone. Mum an' Mickey'll bring the baby back soon an' you probably won't get much sleep then."
Placing an arm over her eyes, she sighed. "Don't remind me."
There was an audible hesitation before Zoe left the room, the schtick-schtick of her shoes fading as the door swung shut. Rose dropped her arm from her eyes and pushed the covers back from her lap, swinging herself out of the bed to make her escape only for sharp, blinding pain to ripple through her.
Gasping at the shock of it, she bent double and spread her legs to twist away from the fire that burned between them. Fumbling, she reached out for an ice pack that sat innocuously on the rolling table that covered the bed and pressed it against the pain, wincing and groaning as it hurt for a whole other reason. She shifted and pressed down on her teeth, grinding her back molars together, and managed to get to her feet, hunched over on herself as she shuffled away from the bed and grabbed hold of the bathroom door.
She glared around at the empty room, searching for cameras or any sign that she was being watched.
"I don't know what the fuck you want but you're not gettin' it," Rose snapped, anger cracking out from her. "An' you're goin' to be in a shitload of trouble when my friends realise what's happened to me. An', trust me, you don't want them mad at you. Let me go an' the Doctor'll be merciful."
The soft sound of a busy hospital ward slipped beneath the door. Someone laughed in the distance, another person screamed as a contraction seized them, all of it drowning out the lack of response from whomever had taken her.
"I mean it," she said, pulling herself up until the pain that stretched through her settled into an ache that centred between her legs, ice melting down her inner thighs. "You don't have any idea who you're messin' with. You think the Doctor's bad? Please. The Oncomin' Storm's got nothin' on my sister. She took down the fuckin' Daleks by herself! An' then Jack an' Mickey? They're not goin' to let this stand. You've made a big mistake takin' me so let me go now an' I'll think about forgettin' about this."
A brush of gold crept into her vision. She turned only for her head to explode with pain, a thousand sharp knives digging into her brain, and she collapsed to her knees. The ice pack fell and burst open, cold water spilling across the ground, and Rose clutched her hands to her head.
"Rose." The woman from before, still blurred but clear enough to realise it wasn't Zoe, crouched in front of her. "You're dying. You must stop."
Eyes watering from the pain of the woman's voice sweeping through her, she tried to speak, jaw throbbing from the pressure of it all. "Who are –?"
" – and Aunt Zoe says the moon's made of cheese!"
Rose swayed and caught herself on a lamppost. The metal was hot to the touch, the sun beating down on her, sweat immediately pricking at her skin, and her head spun as she pulled in deep lungfuls of fresh air that tasted like home. Gone was the pain that burned her body and gone was the heavy weight associated with pregnancy; she felt lighter, more like herself, and she looked down to her stomach where it was mercifully flat and firm once more though there was a soft pouch where a child had once grown that she pressed against with her fingers.
A small hand tugged against hers. "Mummy, are you okay?"
Surprise whipped through her. The child that had been a baby covered in a white film and with no discernable features had changed in the blink of an eye to a small child no more than four or five years old that looked like Mickey. Skin the colour of Zoe's and eyes the exact shade of Mickey's, the boy stared up at her with a head of tightly packed curls and chocolate ice cream smeared around his mouth. Dressed in the navy blue and red uniform of his primary school, her heart gave a throb at the sight of him, already in love despite knowing that he wasn't hers.
Not really.
Not in any way that mattered.
"Mummy?" He repeated, ice cream melting over his fingers, his small, round face puckering with worry and there was Jackie staring out at her, framed perfectly within her grandson's features. "What's wrong? Are you sick?"
Touching a hand to her chest, disoriented and confused for the third time in as many hours, she pulled herself together as quickly as she could. Fake the world was, she wasn't capable of worrying a child, particularly one that called her mummy.
"I – nothin'," Rose lied, slowly and carefully touching the top of his head with light fingers to feel the springy texture of his hair. Mickey, she thought, amazed. You should see this. "Sorry, sweetheart. I just had a funny moment."
The expression that took over his face was pure Zoe – sweet and bordering on disbelief – before he held up his cone to her. "Do you want some ice cream to feel better?"
"Oh – that's so sweet, thank you but no." She forced a smile onto her face, smoothing a hand over the top of his head, marvelling at this child that was equal parts her and Mickey with elements of the people they loved thrown in for good measure. "I'm all better now. Tell me somethin' though, where are goin'?"
"Home!" His mouth opened wide, stretching like a snake dislocating its jaw, before he stuck his ice cream in it, trying to get as much into his mouth as possible but succeeding only in smearing it higher up his cheeks. Watching him, Rose fell deeper in love. "We're going to make a cake."
"An' where's home?"
He blinked up at her with eyes larger than she thought possible. "Is this a game? Like the kind Aunt Zoe plays?"
"Yeah, yeah, it is," Rose said with a smile, wondering what boring games Zoe played with the child in front of her in the name of education. "Just like them."
"I love Aunt Zoe's games!" He bounced in front of her, pulling her arm back and forth as they continued on their way, walking down the pavement as cars sped past spitting out dark fumes of pollution that made her worry for his lungs. "Home is at Number One, Chrisp Street, Poplar."
"Well done!" She recognised the address Rita Smith's home before she died, understanding that Mickey must have moved them from the estate at some point as he had always wanted to raise his children there. "An' what's your name?"
"Peter Tyler Smith," he said, proudly.
Of course they had named him after her father. There was no other name she would consider for a son and Mickey knew that.
"An' how old are you?"
"Five," he said, proudly, holding up four fingers.
"An' where's Daddy right now?"
"At work."
"What does he do?"
Peter licked around the cone. "He fixes cars and does a lot of paperwork."
"An' what does Aunt Zoe do?"
"Read a lot of books!"
Rose laughed, hand tugging him back as she stopped him from crossing the road without looking, marvelling at how instinctive it was to care for him. Above their heads, the little green man flashed and she guided him across the road, half relying on muscle memory to take her to Rita's house. She hadn't been there in years, not since helping Mickey clean it after his last set of tenants had left and he hadn't wanted to pay for professionals to do it, but with Peter cheerfully talking ten to the dozen, ready to tell her if she took a wrong turn, she found herself in areas she soon remembered.
"Is it true?" Peter asked, bouncing in front of the locked door as she searched through the bag on her shoulder for her keys that she assumed were somewhere inside. "About the moon?"
There was too much junk in her bag: Detritus, crumbled biscuits, a mouldy piece of gum, and more buried beneath her phone, wallet, and what looked to be a small first aid kit that made her think of Jack.
"What about the moon?" Rose asked, distracted.
Peter stretched himself up onto his toes. "Is it made of cheese?"
She found the keys right at the bottom and shook the crumbs and dust from them. "I think Aunt Zoe's just teasin' you with that. You shouldn't listen to everything she says. She's a silly person."
"Daddy says she's the smartest person he knows," Peter replied, waiting patiently for her to find the front door key. "And she helps me with my homework all the time."
"You're five," Rose told him, finally finding the right key and opening the door for him, feeling the brush of him against her thighs as he bounced inside. "How much homework d'you have?"
"Too much, Mummy," he said, solemnly. "Too much."
She pressed her lips together to stop laughing, shutting the door behind her. "Go clean up. You look like you got more ice cream on your face than in you."
"Can I watch cartoons after?" He asked, hopefully. "Please?"
"Sure."
He pumped his chocolate-covered fists in the air and thundered up the stairs to wash his hands, leaving Rose alone to release a slow breath. It was the first moment of true quiet she had had since finding herself pregnant on the tube, and she listened to the muffled sounds of traffic and pedestrians, finding comfort in the familiar hum of London life. Once she was certain that she was steady, the itch the emanated from the top of her head was creeping down her throat and over her shoulders; she rubbed the flat of her hands over her skin, rolling her neck until it cracked.
She was calmer now.
The shock of discovering herself pregnant and then the trauma of appearing at the tail end of giving birth lingered, but it was easier to think when she wasn't torn apart with horror at having her body overrun by a child she hadn't wanted.
The house looked friendlier and more homey than it had the last time she was there: Rita's style of decorating had been born very much from the era she came from and Mickey hadn't the heart to change it after she died, renting it out as it was and taking a hit on the monthly rent since most people didn't want to live like a grandmother from the 1950s. It was clear that he had taken the time to turn the house into a home for his family, stripping everything out, sanding it down, and then redecorating in light, warm colours.
Rose was reminded of Sarah Jane's home and how welcoming that felt.
Setting her keys in the bowl on a table by the door and hanging Peter's bag on a hook as she kicked hers to one side, she moved deeper into the house. The living room was small but cosy with new furniture, a large TV mounted on the wall, and pictures of them in frames around the room.
She stepped closer to look at them and stared at her photographed self in fascination.
Standing beneath Mickey's arm, Peter in a sling against her chest, she was smiling widely at the camera and looked happy and glowing. There was a picture from her wedding that showed her sitting on Mickey's knee, arms looped around his neck, laughing into his temple as he beamed up at her. Another more recent one from Zoe's graduation from UCL, Mickey and Jackie on either side of her as Peter stood right in the centre and beamed widely up at the camera, Zoe's hand resting atop his head.
Even though they were typical family pictures, the absence of the Doctor and Jack from them slid a sharp shard of painful longing into her chest. The pictures looked incomplete without them bracketing them, and she picked the photograph of Zoe's graduation up and stared at it, comparing it to her true graduation, the photograph of which took pride of place in Jackie's flat and hung on the wall of the kitchen on the TARDIS.
"What is this?" Rose tightened her fingers around the frame, the sharp edges biting into her, focusing her mind. "Why is this happenin'?"
Peter's loud run announced his return and she set the picture down, turning to him with a smile already pulling across her face. He had washed himself thoroughly – too thoroughly judging by his damp curls – and had changed into his pyjamas though it was only three-thirty in the afternoon. Not that she was going to make him change. If he wanted to wear his dinosaur pyjamas then he was welcome to do so. He held out his hands for inspection, tilting his face one way and then the other, and she humoured him, finding it easy to do so, before she nodded.
"All clean."
He jumped onto the sofa, squirming until he was comfortable. "Do you want to watch cartoons with me?"
Yes, she thought, surprising herself.
"Sorry, sweetheart," she said. "I need to call Aunt Zoe."
His face fell with worry. "She's not in trouble, is she?"
"What for?"
"For telling me the moon's made of cheese," he said with a seriousness only a child was capable of achieving.
Rose grinned. "No, she's not in trouble. I just need to talk to her about somethin'. You go on an' watch your cartoons."
"You need to turn the TV on, Mummy."
Taking the remote from him, she managed to get the TV working and flicked through to Cartoon Network. Setting the remote next to him, she stroked her fingers over his damp hair before leaving him sitting happily on the sofa, as Teen Titans Go! began to play. The theme tune playing in the background, Rose crouched to pull her mobile phone from her bag, pleased that she was no longer in possession of a Nokia, and took the stairs two at a time to look herself in a small bathroom that was clean yet cluttered with stuff.
She picked Peter's uniform off the ground and stuffed it into the wicker laundry basket before sitting on the closed toilet, scrolling through her contacts for Zoe. As it rang in her ear, she reached out and turned the lock on the door, remembering Leia's penchant for getting through unlocked doors and not putting it past Peter to do the same.
Zoe picked up at the tail end of another conversation. "...in the XR2 file. I think Paco has it. Hey, Rosie, what's up?"
"You remember that conversation we had when Peter was born," Rose said, launching straight into it as she wasn't sure how much time she had before the woman appeared again and sent her to her next moment in time. "An' I told you that reality's wrong –"
"And then you proceeded to forget all about it when I asked you what was going on later? Yeah, I remember." Zoe sounded like herself again: More London than she was normally, the rougher edges of her accent had been sanded off and Rose imagined that she was speaking to her true sister. "You going to tell me what that was all about? Because, I've got to say, now's not the best time. I've got a meeting in ten minutes and I need to prep for it."
"I'm jumpin' through time," she said.
Zoe sighed. "I really don't have time for this. It's an important meeting that, if it goes well, will be what I use to push for a promotion in six months. The Paris office is hiring at the end of this period and I know it's a stretch but I really think I can get it if I don't fuck up, so whatever this is, can it wait?"
Rose pulled the phone from her ear and pressed it against her forehead, frustrated. Breathing out slowly, she straightened up.
"You're not my sister." The silence that radiated down the line was hurt, Zoe's breath catching wetly in her chest. "So who are? Are you the Wire? Or are you somethin' else entirely? Tell me who you are."
"Rose." She closed her eyes and braced herself. "I don't know what the hell's going on with you but I don't know what you're talking about. You haven't spoken about reality being wrong since you were pregnant with Petey. You didn't even remember talking about it afterwards. It's like it never happened."
"That's because none of this is real," Rose said. "You, Peter, this reality – none of it's right but I'm movin' through it like I'm a rock bein' skimmed across water."
"Then you want to be careful you won't sink to the bottom."
"What?"
"Rocks only have so many bounces in them," Zoe told her. "Eventually they sink beneath the surface."
Rose hadn't thought of what would happen when she ran out of time: When this reality she found herself in no longer had anything with which to support her.
You're dying. You need to stop.
"I'm dyin'." She turned numb as she finally understood what was happening. "Oh my god."
"Don't be so dramatic," Zoe said, sighing again. "You're just having an odd moment. Take a pregnancy test and then have a cup of tea. I'll pop around after work and we can talk about it, unless you're going to forget again in which case I might just thump you for doing this right before my meeting."
"Zoe –" Rose didn't know what to say to her. "I love you."
"I love you too, you loon," she replied, sounding a little warmer. "Now, piss off. I really do have work to do. Give Petey a big kiss from me, yeah? And I'll see you later."
The call ended and Rose lowered the phone to her thigh, staring at the towel that was looped through a large metal ring next to the shower. She was dying. Whatever was happening to her was because she was dying. Letting the mobile fall from her fingers, she got to her feet and stood in front of the sink, staring at her reflection, pausing to take in the extra years she hadn't yet lived and may not get a chance to experience.
"I don't want to die," Rose whispered, touching her reflection. "I'm not ready yet. There are still things I want to do. How do I stop? Hello! How do I stop?"
Tendrils of gold ghosted around her reflection and there was a split second of peace before agonising pain gripped her.
"Rose."
Crying out, she pressed her hands to either side of her head and tried to fight through the pain that came from all directions, bearing down, down, down on her until the throb of her blood was all she could hear. The woman appeared in the mirror behind her, clearer than she had been before: Clear enough that Rose was able to make out dark, messy hair and an outfit that looked as though it had been discarded from a charity shop and then dragged through the streets.
"You're running out of time," she said. "Stop dying."
Rose stared at her, vision contracting, the pain in her head buckling her knees and sending a small trickle of blood from her left nostril. "How? How do I sto–?"
– a rattling cough and the beep of hospital machines greeted Rose when she slammed into herself, the disorientation that was becoming familiar with her jumps swirling the room around her.
"Not again," she groaned.
Dropping her head to her chest, she felt that unbearable itch spread from across her shoulders and down her back, inching down her spine vertebrae by vertebrae. The woman was gone, taking with her the pain that came only with her presence, and Rose breathed out, swallowing against the tacky dryness in her mouth. She jumped, startled, when a weak and frail hand flopped against hers, skeletal fingers closing her hers.
"Water," Jackie rasped.
Rose stared, horror yawning through her, at the sight of Jackie Tyler lying in a hospital bed with waxy, yellow skin that hung from her bones, hair wispy and pale beneath a silk scarf carefully looped around her head. There was a smell of death in the room, layered beneath the sharply medicinal smell that was characteristic of all hospitals, and the bedside table was covered with pictures of friends and family, paintings done by Peter hanging on the wall and bringing a splash of childish colour to an otherwise grim room.
She staggered back, pulling her hand from Jackie's shaky grip, and knocked the carafe of water to the floor, the glass shattering and sending water spilling into a large puddle.
"Jesus, Rose, be careful," Zoe snapped, no longer short-haired and poorly dressed; almost severe in her tailored business suit, hair straightened and twisted back into a low bun at the nape of her skull. "Get the brush and clean it up. I'll get the water."
Rose looked around for a brush as Zoe strode past her, throwing her filthy look out of Jackie's eyeline. Unable to find one, she used the side of her boot to scrape the glass against the base of the bedside table, keeping her eyes away from the gaunt, sick form that was her mother. The tap shut off in the bathroom and Zoe re-emerged, shoulder her out of the way to perch on the edge of Jackie's bed and place a straw to her cracked lips, gentle as she cupped the back of her neck and lifted her slightly.
"Here," Zoe said, shouldering past Rose and knocking her out of the way. She held a straw to Jackie's cracked mouth and murmured encouragingly. "There you go. We don't have to do this today. Not if you're not feeling up to it."
"I never feel up to it right now," Jackie whispered, hoarsely. "Best do it now before I can't talk any more."
"Don't say that," she said, wiping the water from her bottom lip with her thumb. "You're going to be fine. You'll be up and about before you know it."
"You're not daft, sweetheart, don't start actin' it now." Jackie swallowed, pain lancing across her face and Rose watched, horrified. "I need you both to listen to me because I'm not goin' to be here much longer. You've heard what the doctors have said – I'll be lucky to get a few more good weeks."
Zoe bowed her head. "Mum –"
"Ssh, it's okay." Jackie touched the top of her head lightly, stretching her hand out for Rose, arm shaking with the effort of holding it aloft. Rose jerked forward, placing her hand in hers, shivering at the feel of it. "When I'm gone, you're goin' to need to look after each other. You need each other even though you're on two different paths. You've got to balance the other out otherwise you won't be right."
"Of course we'll look after each other," Zoe said, looking up at Rose. "Right?"
She blinked, managing a nod. "Yeah."
"My girls –" Jackie breathed, eyes feasting on them. "You're the best things I ever did. I'm so proud of you, both of you. Rose, you've got such a lovely family: Mickey loves you somethin' fierce an' I know he'll look after you an' the kids when I'm gone. I was wrong about him an' thought you could do better but he's the best man for you, he's proven that time an' time again. You make sure you look after him in return."
Rose swallowed hard. "I will."
"An' tell those boys of yours that Nana loves them so much," she continued. "An' I'm sorry I won't be there to see them grow up but I know they're goin' to be good men like their dad, an' good people like their mum. But don't you forget that you need to find somethin' for yourself too. Bein' a mum is wonderful but you need to save a little somethin' for yourself at the end of it all. Zoe, you make sure she does that."
"Of course," Zoe whispered.
"An' you." Jackie cupped her cheek, thumb shaking as she smoothed across her cheekbone. "My little girl. Look at you. You've done so much more than I dreamed of. You make sure you go back to France once I'm gone. You only came back for me an' I don't want you to give up your dream because you think you've got to stay here. You go home an' you work hard but make sure you find someone too. Work is lovely but you need someone to come home to at the end of the day, someone to share your burdens. Rose, that's your job. You make sure she opens herself up to love. Don't let her close her heart off to it."
Rose thought of the Doctor and how his eyes were drawn to Zoe every time she walked into a room, his entire body lighting up in her presence. And she thought of the way Zoe sought the Doctor out to tangle their fingers together or to lean in close and share something with him, fingers stroking through the hair on the back of his head.
She wanted to scream, the spreading itch rolling down through her chest and settling in her stomach, her arms buzzing with it.
"Mum?" Zoe whispered. "Mummy?"
Jackie's head lolled to the side and, for one moment where terror was the only thing Rose knew, she thought she had died. Zoe slipped her fingers to Jackie's neck and her shoulders loosened, relaxing when she felt the pulse.
"She's sleeping," she said, relieved, rubbing her face. "God. I don't know how much more of this I can take."
"Zoe –"
"If you need to get back to your family, go," Zoe said. "I'll stay with her."
Rose felt untethered. "They're your family too."
"You know what I mean," she said, slipping out of her jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair, standing in front of the window that showed a wet and blustery day. Rose stared at her, wanting to reach out but not sure how. "I heard from Joy today."
"Joy?"
"She said that she wants to come and be with me while –" Zoe sighed and dipped her head, fingers pressing against her eyes. "I don't know what to tell her. Part of me wants her here but she's never met Mum and – I don't know. What do you think I should do?"
Rose looked down at Jackie, who looked small and childlike in a bed that seemed to dwarf her, gently tucking the blankets around her. Slowly, conscious of her time running out, she went to stand next to her sister, ignoring the uncomfortable itching sensation that consumed the top half of her body.
"Why hasn't she met Mum?"
Zoe glanced at her. "C'mon, you know why."
"No, I don't."
"I don't know if it escaped your notice when you stayed with us last year but Joy's a woman."
"You're an idiot," Rose said. "That's always been your biggest problem. You're an idiot."
Zoe raised her eyebrows. "Excuse me?"
"You think Mum'll give a shit that you're in love with a woman?" The only thing Jackie had done upon learning that her daughter had married Reinette Poisson was to check out multiple biographies of her from the library to learn more about the daughter-in-law she would never meet. "She won't. All she cares about is that you're happy. Let her see that you're happy before she –" they both flinched from the word. "An' stop thinkin' so badly of us. You don't give us the chance to be supportive. You always choose to hide what you're doin' because you think the worst of us when all we want is for you to be happy an' loved. You did it with the Doctor an' you're doin' it now."
Zoe stared at her, taken aback. "Who's the Doctor?"
Rose laughed, a dry, cracked sound. "It doesn't matter. Not really. You know who he is out there in the real world. In here I – I don't know what you are. Are you made out of my memories or are you somethin' else?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm dyin'," Rose told her. "An' I don't know how to stop it. I don't know what this place is or why it's been created. I thought it was somethin' else at first. Somethin' someone had done to me but now I don't know. Momo, she developed a whole world around her out of people's memories, makin' it so she had somethin' to do an' maybe I've done the same thing. Maybe I've made this world for me but I don't know why I'd make it without the Doctor an' Jack."
"Rose –" Zoe reached out and touched her hand to her forehead. "What's going on with you?"
"I've told you, I'm dyin'," she said, taking her hands and holding them tightly. "An' I may not get to say goodbye to you. Not the real you. An' there's so many things I want to tell you like I'm so happy for you. I know I was a bitch about it at first but you found love again, Zo. After Reinette I was so worried you wouldn't, that the pain of it'd be too much for you but you were so brave with the Doctor because we both know how that's goin' to end an' I'm sorry I won't be there for you when it does."
"Stop talking like this," Zoe said. "I don't like it."
"It's okay though," Rose said, smiling. "Because Mickey an' Jack are goin' to be there. When it's over, they'll make sure you're okay an' they'll help love you back to strength."
"Nothing's going to be over because nothing's happened," she replied. "Rose, what you're talking about isn't real."
Rose freed a hand and covered Zoe's mouth with it. "It's okay. It's okay. I haven't always been the best big sister to you an' I'm sorry for that. God, I'm sorry for so many things. Mainly the things I'm not goin' to be here for but I want you to know that I love you so much an' I wish this would make a difference to you. I wish I knew that you knew this but this is all I've got because I don't know how to stop dyin'."
"Okay, enough." Zoe pulled away from her, wiping at her eyes. "Please, stop. Isn't it enough that Mum's lying in this hospital bed dy – dying without you doing whatever this is? There's only so much I can take before I break, Rose. So, please, stop."
Gold flickered in the corner of her eye and she knew what was coming. Seizing her moment, she grabbed hold of Zoe by the face and dragged her in close, forehead pressing against hers.
"I love you," she whispered. "Never forget that."
"Rose?" Her voice twitched with worry. "What's happening?"
Mouth stretched open as the pain slammed into her, her hands flew from Zoe's head as she fell to her knees and convulsed. It was worse than before, more encompassing, and her back arched as she screamed, something thick filling her throat. Zoe's worried face appeared above her and she focused on it, wanting the last thing she saw before she died to be the face of her sister.
Be happy, she thought, desperate. Please.
Zoe froze, her mouth shaped around Rose's name, and the woman crouched next to her, eyes burning with gold, features clear for the first time since she had appeared. A long finger extended, hovering over the space between Rose's eyes, and she paused.
"There's no other way."
Pressing the tip of her finger to Rose's skin, darkness fell.