Step Right

by Nytewing

There's a reality where Rose fell and the Doctor watched. (This is not that reality.) There's a reality where no one fell, where Rose and the Doctor were safe and celebrated with a fancy dinner on Barcelona. (This is not that reality.) This is the reality where the Doctor fell and Rose is left with a grieving TARDIS and the Universe calling for help from a man who cannot answer.

1. On Reality In Reality For Reality

A/N; A short one to get the AU established before we jump into the action next chapter! I'm really excited about this story, I've been thinking about it for a while and am looking forward to playing with the canon events and a few of my own plotlines I think folks will like.

TW: there is a mention of child death in this chapter, it is brief and not graphic

Chapter 1: On Reality In Reality For Reality

The funny thing about time travel is that alternate realities are a dime a dozen. Every choice made, every step taken, every single breath creates a new reality. Fractals spiraling outward created by ants and kings and gods and little girls choosing between the green teddy or the purple alligator. They are all equally divergent. The changes typically start small, but in the vast expanse of time they propagate rapidly.

The ant goes left instead of right and is not eaten by the tapir, it makes it home to the nest with a load of leaves and the colony survives just a bit longer than they might have. That colony eventually spawns the ant which will bite the ankle of the soldier just as he is about to fire his gun, throwing off his normally impeccable aim and saving the life of the man who will one day father the first human to take a breath on Pluto.

Sometimes the changes create temporary worlds, the products of choices which are not important enough to last; the little girl chooses the green teddy and three days later she dies in a tragic zeppelin accident. The purple alligator would not have saved her life and both stuffed animals brought equal comfort in her last moments. This is a tragic example but a vital one; these changes are not a simple good-or-bad dichotomy. There is very often no 'right' choice, no single path of decisions that leads to the best of all parallel worlds.

There are only the choices we make and must live with. Alternate realities- parallel worlds are created in multitudes in every moment of every day (and double that on Thursdays).

Most choices are small, the color of stuffed animals and where to find the best leaves for the colony.

Most.

The rare few, the crystalline points on which the most magnificent fractals are spawned, are big enough to change the very path of stars.

What do those choices look like? The answer is perhaps disappointing; these universe altering choices appear remarkably similar to any other. They happen with as little fanfare or note as any other.

This one happens on the top floor of a nondescript building on Canary Wharf, owned and staffed by the Torchwood organization on the inherited orders of Queen Victoria. Torchwood has been experimenting with forces far beyond their understanding, manipulated by an ancient enemy of all that is unique in the Universe.

In one world, in a familiar world, the Doctor hands Rose Tyler a magnaclamp and watches as she crosses the room to attach it to the wall. Then, he watches as she abandons her own safety, her own security and future beside him, to let go of the clamp and reactivate the shifted lever. Then, he watches as she falls and screams and as she is lost to him forever.

Rose takes the clamp.

One reality spins into existence, the edges are brittle, made fragile by the Time Lord Victorious and the misery he will carry with him until the end of his days. It makes him cruel to those who only wish to help, alternately capricious and cold or jovial and fey. The Doctor never recovers from losing any of his friends, he is never the same man he was before. There are many worlds like this one, shaped by the hurt of an ancient being with more hearts than the average to be broken.

But, there is another world, a world exactly the same as the first in every way save one; there the Doctor picks up the clamp and walks across the room himself. In this world it is the Doctor's lever that fails and his safety that is abandoned without a second thought. In this world it is the Doctor who falls. The immediate result is the same- Rose Tyler is lost to him, or rather, he is lost to her.

The Doctor takes the clamp.

A second reality shatters into place. It is the early days yet in the world without the Doctor. There will be no Time Lord Victorious and no cruel words spoken thoughtlessly by a man who does not see how they dig into his companions' hearts.

There will be no last words spoken on a windy beach. No final tearful goodbyes or promises of attempts to be happy, no promises to live and to smile.

What there will be is a young woman determined to ensure that Universe remembers the man who gave his life to defending it. There will still be the TARDIS, though she is grieving and lost without her Thief.

There will still be Rose Tyler.

(Very far away and very close, locked behind walls now closed forever, there will also be the Doctor. He is cut off from the last of his telepathic connections, the TARDIS excised from his mind swiftly and completely in a way no Time Lord has ever before survived.

The Doctor is nothing if not stubborn, and perhaps a little bit mad. He makes a habit of surviving the things no other Time Lord has.

Pete's World has never had a Doctor before, much less a madman without his Box.)