I'm sorry it's been a while since my last update, but personal problems in my life meant I couldn't update. Anyway, I'm back. Also, I'm going to start uploading exclusive previews of my stories on pat-reon before uploading them on Fanfiction. Please visit pa-treonDOTcom/timetraveller2022.

A/N - The reference to Marpling refers to the Eighth Doctor novel Eater of Wasps, where an amnesiac Eighth Doctor, Anji, and Fitz travelled to an English village shortly after the Doctor was able to return to his travels in time and space after a century of exile on Earth after the destruction of Gallifrey.


A Plan!

Rose wasn't sure what was more painful for her, the long-overdue conversation she was having with her father or the fact that in an ideal world she wouldn't be having this particular conversation with him to start off with.

When she had realised the Doctor really did have a time machine, she had wanted to see what the TARDIS could do, and she had loved every moment of her time with the Doctor in that old box, and it didn't take her long to realise that the TARDIS could do what she'd always wanted to do.

See her father.

Growing up with only a single parent had been hard for Rose. It had been hard on Jackie, too; but where her mother refused to embrace what the TARDIS could do, Rose wasn't as terrified. Okay, the incident with Adam had made her realise that the Doctor wouldn't stand for her meddling with her own past. And it wasn't as if she were going to actually save him, to begin with, but when she had asked the Time Lord to take her back again, well, things happened and she had taken advantage of the Doctor's gift.

He would come around, Rose decided to herself even though he had been giving her the cold shoulder since this mess started, but Rose knew the Doctor, he was so lonely that it was almost pathetic. But truthfully she was enjoying her time with her father; after witnessing the horrible row between her parents (God, it was hard to believe there was a version of Jackie who didn't have a clue who she was; time travel did sometimes do her head in), Rose had been disappointed.

It took a moment for Rose "I'm a dad. I mean, I'm already a dad, but Rose grows up and she's you. That's wonderful. I mean, I suppose I thought that you'd be a bit useless, what with my useless genes and all. Well, I mean, how did you get here?"

Rose suspected she should have expected that question to begin with. But she was surprised he even needed to ask it; how else could she have come back to 1987 without a time machine of some form? "Do you really want to know?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"A time machine," Rose explained; perhaps there would be time to explain more about how the TARDIS worked later, but right now this was the most basic explanation as any.

"Time machine?" Pete repeated, gazing sceptically back at his adult daughter; she was a little disappointed that he was having a hard time believing her considering it was the only way she could have come back here.

"Cross my heart," Rose promised.

"What, do you all have time machines where you come from?" Pete asked.

"No, just the Doctor," Rose answered, knowing she was telling the truth when it came to the Doctor, who was now the last of his people, but she didn't know if the TARDIS was unique even among his people.

"Did you know these things were coming?" Pete asked.

Rose suspected the question was logical once her father learnt time travel was possible. "No," she replied truthfully.

"God, I don't know, my head's spinning," Pete rubbed his face; Rose didn't blame him since she had dropped a number of bombs right on her father's head right now.

"What's the future like?" Rose mentally snorted as she compared this year to 2005. "It's not so different," she replied.

"What am I like? Have I gone grey? Have I gone bald? Don't tell me I've gone bald. So, if this mate of yours isn't your boyfriend and I have to say, I'm glad, because being your dad and all, I think he's a bit old for you. Have you got a bloke?" Pete fired the questions at Rose so fast that the young woman barely had time to process them until he was finished, but when he was finished with his last question her breath hitched in her throat.

How do you tell your father that he died when she was too young to properly remember him and had to listen to her mother's stories about him? Rose shook her head, deciding not to reply to her father's last questions - they delved into territories she would rather did not exist. "No, I did have."

"Mickey!" Jackie's voice called, making Rose and Pete stand up at once even before a little black boy rushed in; Rose's eyes shot open when she saw the younger Mickey Smith rush in and wrap his arms tightly around Rose.

Pete obviously noticed her reaction, "Do you know him?"

"I just didn't recognise him in a suit," Rose shrugged casually, hoping her father didn't ask any more questions; she didn't know what her father would do if she told him this kid was going to be her future boyfriend. "You have to let go of me, sweetheart. I'm always saying that." Jackie walked in, making a face as she took in the scene. "He just grabs hold of what's passing and holds on for dear life. God help his poor girlfriend if he ever gets one."

"Me and Rose were just talking," Pete said.

Rose tried her hardest not to cringe at the look her mother was sending her, and she cursed her father's big fat mouth; she knew her mother well enough to know where her mind had gone, and it made her want to be sick.

"Oh, yeah? Talking? While the world comes to an end, what do you do? Cling to the youngest blonde," Jackie sneered while she sent a scorching glance towards Rose. Come on, Mick," Jackie took Mickey and left the room Rose turned to her father. "You can't tell her."

Pete frowned. "Why?" Rose could see the thought behind the question. Why shouldn't he tell his wife their daughter had travelled back in time? Surely he knew what mum was like? "I mean, I really don't want you to tell her."

"What, do you don't want people to know?" Rose sighed. "Where I come from, Jackie doesn't know how to work the timer on the video recorder."

"I showed her that last week," Pete replied confused, but that gave Rose the excuse she needed to send him a pointed look. "Point taken."

X

In another part of the Church, the Doctor was talking to baby Rose in her carrycot by the choir stalls. He had to admit the little baby was adorable, but at the same time, it was marred by what the girl would grow to become. He hadn't spoken more than 5 words to Rose since this whole mess began and when he had gotten them to safety in the Church.

The Doctor had scanned the Church walls, partly to look for any minute cracks or entrances that the Reapers would have little trouble taking advantage of to break inside. But luckily there were none. The good news was it had given the Doctor the time he'd needed to think about the possibilities.

Unfortunately, there was only one realistic reality.

Pete Tyler had to die.

But the Doctor was hesitant; while he viewed his immediate prior two lives with contempt for what they had done, he had to admit with his new persona which wanted to get over that terrible time while he was in the Time War, some of his eighth self's attitudes towards life had seeped through to give him a new appreciation for life.

But would he do it? This was a situation not unlike the time he had hesitated to shoot Davros and spare the universe more pain, where he had the chance to stop Charles Rigby on that train during that mess with those Time Agents who'd been sent to 1930s Marpling and only later endangered Liam Jarrow and caused Anji to wonder if he could actually do anything positive, and when he had refused to leave Lucie to the clamps of the Ice Warriors after the Monk had dropped her there as part of his sick plan to change history. "Now, Rose you're not going to bring about the end of the world, are you? Are you?" The Doctor said seriously to get him out of his current funk where his depressing thoughts were overwhelming him to the little girl, who just stared at him wide-eyed. Hearing footsteps, the Doctor turned and he saw Rose walking up to him. "Jackie gave her to me to look after," he explained neutrally before he snorted at the irony, "How times change."

Rose smiled. She had seen herself as a kid loads of times, but it was so eerie seeing herself as a baby while she was here as herself. But she looked hopefully at the Doctor, hoping that he was going to forgive her. "I'd better be careful. I think I just imprinted myself on Mickey like a mother chicken," she chuckled while she tried to play off what she had done to get them into this mess. Somehow she didn't think it was working since the Doctor was ignoring her.

Rose reached out to pick her younger self up….but the Doctor grabbed her hands and squeezed tightly. "No. Don't touch the baby. You're both the same person. That's a paradox, and we don't want a paradox happening, not with these things outside. Anything new, any disturbance in time makes them stronger. The paradox might let them in," the Doctor looked away from Rose and glanced down at her baby self.

"Can't do anything right, can I?" Rose again tried to play it off.

Angered by her nonchalant attitude, the Doctor turned around, pleased for the opportunity to dish out some abuse. "Since you ask, no. So, don't touch the baby. Do you think you can handle that?" Rose glared back at him. "I'm not stupid."

"No, I'm the stupid one. I'm the stupid one for bringing you back in the first place because I fell for the similarities between us. But in truth the difference between us is I know what would happen if you changed history," the Doctor glared at her, his expression so stormy that it took the argument away from Rose.

"Doctor, I am sorry," Rose tried.

"I don't believe you. I saw your smirk when I came running back for you before you realised what was going on. Another reason I brought you here was to see if you could be trusted do not to make the same kind of mistake that Adam made. But what I am really angry about is how you took advantage of my trauma and you found something that you could take advantage of," the Doctor said.

Rose shook her head in denial. "No, you've got it wrong," she protested, but it fell on deaf ears.

But the Doctor didn't want to hear it. He had far more important problems on his mind. "I haven't got a plan. No idea. No way out," he said, deciding to not fix on his personal issues, and in this incarnation, he had thousands of them that he could very well have done without, and in truth, he would rather be talking about what he couldn't do in this mess. It was better than fixating on the mess between him and Rose.

"You'll think of something," Rose replied although he could tell she was still shaken by what the Doctor had just said to her. The Doctor shook his head and listened to the Reapers outside the Church.

"You don't understand what you've done, Rose. The entire Earth's been sterilised. This, and other places like it, are all that's left of the human race. We might hold out for a while, but nothing can stop those creatures. They'll get through in the end. The walls aren't that old. And there's nothing I can do to stop them. There used to be laws stopping this kind of thing from happening. My people would have stopped this. But they're all gone. And now I'm going the same way. But there is a way out."

"Then why haven't you done it?" Rose demanded, surprised; one minute the Doctor was saying he didn't have a clue what to do, and the next minute he was saying something like that.

The Doctor looked squarely into her face solemnly. "The echo of the actual timeline where your father died, it's still out there. That car that hit Pete is appearing at intervals while the timeline tries to repair itself."

Rose stared at him for a moment. It took a few seconds for her to work out what he was saying and she was instantly shaking her head in denial. "You can't be serious? That's my dad, Doctor, he can't die when I've just gotten him back-!"

The loudness of her voice made the little baby whimper. Instantly Rose shut up while the Doctor quickly took the baby and rocked her back gently to calm her down. When the baby version of Rose was settled, he looked back up into her face, his expression grim.

"Rose, it's the only option that there is. I honestly don't have anything else. The TARDIS is gone. I have no help coming."

"If I'd realised. I am. I'm sorry," Rose interrupted, making the Doctor turn to her, annoyed by how Rose just took everything and made everything out to be about her.

"No, Rose. I don't think you're sorry. Oh, I think you're sorry that you made this happen, but I don't think you care about what you did; something tells me you'd do it all over again if you could, but you're not going to get the chance, and I won't let you rip history apart again." The Doctor put the baby back down on the pew, and he folded his arms….and then his face crinkled before he reached into the inside pocket….and he threw something small and glowing to the ground, wincing as if he had just touched a piece of red-hot metal.

"What was that?" Rose asked.

The Doctor ignored her and headed for the glowing object. "It's the TARDIS key!" He slipped off his jacket, and he used it to pick up the glowing key. "It's telling me it's still connected to the TARDIS"

X

Outside, the car repeated its brief drive around the corner. Inside, the TARDIS was still fading in and out. Rose shifted awkwardly in her seat next to the Doctor. An hour ago (it was impossible for Rose to tell the time, but it felt like an hour ago for herself), the Doctor had used the mobile phone battery from Stewart's phone and used some kind of Time Lord wizardry to bring the TARDIS back. It was like the TARDIS was coming through from wherever it was through some kind of magical effect; where the police box had been a vague shape before, the finer details were becoming more evident all the time.

However, Rose was thinking about the brief conversation she'd had with Pete before the Doctor had performed his little act of magic to bring the TARDIS back.

Okay, she might have given her father a glamorised image of what she wanted their lives to be like rather than what it was, but what hurt the most was how Pete had denied it, saying the father she had described, the father she had always idolised, the father whom she had always felt she deserved, was not him.

How could he doubt the person that he could be?

But what worried Rose the most was how, no matter what, no matter what she said or did, it only made Pete Tyler more suspicious of her real motives for coming here. It wasn't as if asking the Doctor if the mess they were in was her fault hadn't attracted his attention, Pete had even confronted her about what she'd meant, for fuck's sake! She hadn't exactly been quiet when she'd asked the question to the Doctor, and then there were her vague answers whenever he'd asked her about what life was like for their family.

But at the same time, she was horrified by what the Doctor was going to do when he got the TARDIS back since he had told her in no uncertain terms the only way to stop this was to put Pete back in front of that car.

Rose looked awkwardly at the Doctor. The Time Lord had barely moved, barely spoken in all the time since he had sat down. He seemed to be going out of her way to ignore her existence despite how close he was to her.

But Rose wondered if there was some way she could do something to stop him. Maybe there was a way of getting through to him, make the Time Lord see she was the only one who could help him. "When time gets sorted out," Rose had barely started asking her question before she stopped, unable to bring herself to say it. The Doctor's expression was cold as he turned to her. "Everybody here forgets what happened. And don't worry, the thing that you changed will stay changed."

Rose almost smiled. Perhaps he had mellowed. Perhaps he wouldn't find a way of killing her father after all…

Her smile was quickly wiped off of her face when Pete, who'd been overhearing them, bitterly said, "You mean I'll still be alive, though I'm meant to be dead. That's why I haven't done anything with my life, why I didn't mean anything."

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, the response already on his lips. It doesn't work like that. But he thought better of it. "Everyone is important," he began, but Pete interrupted him with such scorn even the Doctor shut up. "Rubbish. I'm so useless I couldn't even die properly. Now it's my fault all of this has happened."

"This is my fault," Rose looked at her father, not seeing the Doctor's cold, hard expression. Pete stared at the older version of his daughter with such love, devotion, and trust. "No, love. I'm your dad. It's my job for it to be my fault."

The Doctor was struck momentarily by the wisdom in Pete Tyler's voice, remembering all of the mistakes he had made with Adric, Victoria, Susan, and Dodo when Jackie came over clutching baby Rose to her chest. Judging from the expression on her face, Jackie had heard enough to be suspicious and surprised. "Her dad? How are you her dad? How old were you, twelve? Oh, that's disgusting."

The Doctor groaned in his head. He wasn't in the mood for this. He had made his mind up. He was going to restore the TARDIS and the original timeline, and then he was going to take Rose back to 2006. The girl could look after herself. All of this domestic rubbish was exhausting. He stood up, anything to get away from the arguing. "Jacks, listen. This is Rose," Pete introduced their older daughter.

Despite being a bit of a distance away from the arguing married couple, the Doctor was relieved he was not the only person who was getting worried. Rose had been travelling with him long enough to know how many people just couldn't grasp time travel, and this was no exception. How could Pete explain Rose's presence when there were two of them? Jackie, logically enough, jumped to a wrong conclusion. "Rose? How sick is that? You give my daughter a second-hand name? How many are there? Do you call them all Rose?"

The Doctor shook his head, just as Pete lost patience. "Oh, for God's sake, look. It's the same Rose!" With that, Pete took baby Rose from Jackie and handed her to Rose, who held out her arms….

The Doctor rushed over. "Rose! No!" But the Doctor was too late snatches her away too late, but was in time to take baby Rose away and handed her back to Jackie. A Reaper appeared in the Church.

The sight of the time-devouring creature made everyone panic, but the Doctor quickly regained control, "Everyone, behind me!" He ordered before he regarded the Reaper, weighing in his options. Perhaps if he offered himself up, the Reapers would be satisfied with the amount of temporal energy he possessed, and leave. "I'm the oldest thing in here," he said as he stepped forwards. "Doctor!" Rose called in shock, but the Reaper rushed for him… only for someone to shove him to the ground, making the Reaper twist on itself and fly off towards the TARDIS.

The Doctor lifted his head just in time to see the Reaper and the reforming TARDIS touch before they both vanished. The key, the only physical object there, fell to the floor. The Doctor walked softly towards the key. He bent down and picked it up, hoping desperately for the connection with the old girl again. But there was nothing. The key was inert. Meanwhile outside, the sky darkened as the wound in time grew larger. "It's cold," the Doctor's voice was as cold as a piece of ice sharpened by a whetstone, and he looked up at Rose.

"Oh, my God. This is all my fault. Both of you. All of you. The whole world," Rose whispered in horror.

The Doctor just stared coldly back at her, blaming her for everything that had happened; this whole mess, and now the loss of the oldest friend he had. "This is it. There's nothing we can do. It's the end." The creatures started scraping at the stonework outside. The Doctor lifted his head, a cold, determined look in his eyes, and he squared his shoulders. He stood up and walked to the doors of the church.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Rose asked, horrified when she caught sight of the look in his eye.

"I'm letting them in."

Everyone screamed in fear and panic, but the Doctor didn't pay them any attention. Rose ran after him in terror when she realised he meant it.

"No, you can't-!" Rose grabbed hold of his leather-clad arms just as he reached the doors.

"Rose, let go of me," the Doctor glared at her with such a look of burning hatred that she recoiled.

"Sarah's pregnant," Rose reminded him, knowing it was low to use Sarah like that, but she couldn't help herself. She had seen the way the Doctor had spoken to Sarah, and she had seen him with her baby self. The baby was her, but he treated her differently, but baby Rose was not responsible for this mess, neither was Sarah. They didn't deserve to die.

"Get out of my way-!"

"Doctor, we can find another way to solve this-!" Rose tried again.

The Doctor's glare was so scornful Rose almost took a step back. "I was trying to stop this, you stupid ape! Why do you think I was excited to get the TARDIS back? I saw the way you took your baby self, Rose Tyler, the girl from 2006, come back in time to see her father die in a hit and run! I told you taking baby you would be a paradox, and it would let them in. But what do you do? Instead of proving you're intelligent enough to listen, you instead prove my point the human race is nothing more than a bunch of stupid apes, drumming rocks with sticks! You're stupid!"

"Okay, I'm stupid, but you can't do this!" Rose tried again, gasping at the insults being thrown into her face.

"Then what else do you suggest I do, Rose? Go on, tell me, little miss know it all," the Doctor challenged, but he pulled himself away from the doors, folding his arms tightly to show his annoyance. "The TARDIS is gone. There is no way I can stop this. There is no other time machine I can use to go back and put the timelines right. There are three options; we can either wait here for the Reapers to get in because they would have gotten inside one way or another, or I can end it now by opening the doors and letting them in. The last option you know, but you're not going to like. Pete Tyler has to go and die. He is in the eye of the storm. The car that nearly killed him earlier, its trying to get through. I was tempted to throw him outside and reset the timeline."

Rose stepped away from him, gazing at him in heartbroken shock. The Doctor wasn't bothered by her emotions any more than he was bothered by how everyone was overhearing this, including Pete Tyler himself. "What?" She whispered. "I can't believe you would do that, to me."

"Rose, we can either let the Reapers in or your father dies again; it's that simple. Either Pete Tyler dies again, here and now, or we do and we let the whole world fall with us," the Doctor said so coldly and uncaringly that even he was surprised, and even horrified. The cricketer and the Edwardian gent would have been horrified the most by what he was saying without any kind of compassion.

But he didn't care. The Doctor had been through a lot over the centuries and that didn't even touch the alternate timeline created by the Faction which resulted in the destruction of Gallifrey the first time around, the century he had been exiled to Earth without any of his memories while he'd waited for Fitz and barely had much time with him during that mess with the Kulan before travelling with Anji. Even back then his eighth incarnation had known there were moments where sacrifices needed to be made.

But he was surprised he sounded like a Time Lord, trying to preserve history. It was very rare his emotions came out like that.

"I can't believe you'd do this to me! You know I lost my father when I was a year old!"

The Doctor ground his teeth together in frustration when he was once more confronted by how manipulative and egotistical Rose Tyler happened to be. "You think I want this to happen? You're forgetting; I lost everyone I loved in the Time War. But you seem to think everyone and everything revolves around you. Rose, it's either him or the world. What is it going to be?

X

The Doctor and Rose were so drawn into their argument they had almost forgotten everyone, including the subject of their argument was there, listening to every word. Most of the crowd in the church were frightened, confused. They had been confused when the TARDIS had begun to appear, and they were frightened now. Many, if not all of them, were confused by the implications of what the Doctor and Rose were arguing about.

This blonde girl…. Was Rose? Jackie and Pete's Rose, grown-up from 2006, and had travelled back in time?

Pete was meant to be dead?

The subject of their argument had been listening with paternal worry, wanting to go over and sort the Doctor out, but Pete hadn't. Not only did he have to be close to his wife and baby version of Rose, but he was shaking with what was being said. He had listened to everything they had argued about. So, he was meant to have died.

Somehow that was hardly a surprise for Pete Tyler. Ever since he had met Rose, gotten to know her, asked her questions, she had given him some extremely vague replies. They were red flags in themselves, but what Pete could not grasp nor understand was why Rose had come back in the first place.

At first, Pete had guessed when he had discovered Rose was a time traveller from the future, she had come back into the past, and she had pushed him out of the way of the car because he had managed to get out of the way, but he had been crippled or at the very least severely injured, and she wanted to prevent that. But the theory had not lasted long. For instance when she had told him about the kind of dad she'd had in the future….Pete had known it was all lies simply because he himself just simply could not contemplate being the kind of man she had described.

But then he had worked out the truth. He had been working it out gradually as this whole mess went on and on, but when the Doctor and Rose had their little talk before the Reapers came into the church, Pete had finally understood the truth.

He was meant to be dead. What a lovely thing to discover.

Pete knew he was a lousy husband but he had always tried to do his best, and while he had always argued with Jackie, giving her empty promises, there was no question that they did love each other. Very much.

Okay, maybe in the future, they would have the kind of life Rose described, but it didn't explain the car, the same car that tried to kill him, over and over again. Why would the driver be after him? At first, Pete had imagined the driver had come after him because he had a grudge, but now….

Slipping away as quietly as he could, giving Jackie a reassuring kiss on the cheek when she sensed him start to slip away from her while the Doctor and older Rose argue, confusion written all over her face, Pete went to the vestry window and looked out. His eyes widened when he saw the car that had nearly hit him earlier appear from a bright flash of white, and he watched the car drive around the corner again and again from the vestry window.

Always appearing.

Always driving around.

Always disappearing.

Pete let out a deep breath, realising what the car meant. He had meant to be dead He goes back into the church and over to Rose, who was now sitting on her own. The Doctor had gone off to the side, leaning against the wall with his arms folded with a dark expression on his face. Pete sent the Time Lord a look, realising from the Doctor's argument with Rose what the older version of his daughter had done. "The Doctor really cared about you. He didn't want you to go through it again, not if there was another way. Now there isn't."

Rose glanced at the Doctor, flinching when she saw his expression. No, the Doctor no longer cared about her. She could see it in his eyes.

Intrigued, the Doctor slowly began walking towards them as he overheard what Pete was saying, but Rose looked at her father, wondering what he was saying. "What are you talking about?" Pete sighed as he straightened out his rumpled suit. "The car that should have killed me, love. It's here. The Doctor worked it out way back, but he, er, he tried to protect me. Still, he's not in charge anymore. I am," he sent a look to the Doctor, but the Time Lord's expression was bleak but there was understanding in his gaze. "But you can't….," Rose started to sob as the full impact of what Pete was saying began to make itself clear to her. She had known the Doctor had planned on doing something when the TARDIS came back, but she had hoped there might still be some way of keeping Pete alive. She couldn't lose her father, he still had the potential to be the father she had always wanted. The time she had known him was perhaps one of the greatest moments of her life.

Pete sighed again, "Who am I, love?"

Rose's face screwed up as her eyes filled with tears, and she struggled long and hard not to cry even more. "My daddy."

Pete nodded, noticing Jackie approaching out of the corner of his eye but he turned to the Doctor. "Look, er, am I right in assuming if that car hits me…," he stopped, unsure of how to ask the question.

The Doctor nodded, knowing what he was trying to say. "The car is an echo of the real timeline. When Rose pushed out of the way, we had already been to that point in time, but Rose wanted to come back and try again because she lost her nerve to go to you when you were dying, so it made that point in time more malleable enough for the Reapers to come through. But if you get hit by the car, history will go back to how it was; as far as the universe will be concerned, you had just missed being hit by the car originally and by coincidence, it hit you later today."

Rose glared at the Doctor. "But does he have to die-!"

The Doctor interrupted just as Jackie appeared, too confused and worried to be her own argumentative self. "Yes, he does. Rose, I told you, your father's death was fixed. His death changed your life and shaped it, but it also affected other lives at the same time. History is like a domino effect; one event has the potential to change and affect many others. We are never alone, Rose; one person's actions affect us all, and there's nothing we can do about that."

"But it's not fair!" Rose cried.

"Neither is life, Rose," the Doctor replied, "but say Pete could live, what kind of effect would that have on you and Jackie? Would you still have even travelled back into the past to save him?'

"Of course, I would!"

"Ah, but how would you have even known his life was in danger?" The Doctor pointed out before he shook his head. "This is why meddling in history is frowned upon; you can't always tell what's going to go wrong."

"What's going on? What're you talking about?" Jackie asked softly.

"I'm just telling the teenage version of your daughter why coming back here was risky," the Doctor said bluntly.

"What?" Jackie stared at the Doctor in shock; it was one thing hearing them argue, but at the time Jackie hadn't been taking it in since she was too busy being scared about what was going to happen to them. But now, she did not have that excuse. Rose and Pete flinched at the Doctor's blunt reply; they could both understand the concept of a band-aid being torn off, but surely there had been a much better way the Doctor could have told her what was happening.

Pete himself decided to explain. "Jackie, look at her. She's ours," he said, "She came back in time from the future with the Doctor to save me."

Jackie gaped at her husband and then turned back to face Rose, taking in the girl's features. That was what clinched it for her. "Oh, of course," she whispered in shocked realisation when she went to hug the weeping Rose.

"I'm meant to be dead, Jackie," Pete explained to his wife before he snorted. "You're going to get rid of me at last."

Jackie let out a choked cry. She knew she and Pete argued and threw barbs like this at each other, but she had never meant it. "Don't say that."

"For once in your life, trust me. It's got to be done. You've got to survive because you've got to bring up our daughter," Pete and Jackie shared a long, lingering kiss before he stopped it and he turned to the crying Rose. "I never read you those bedtime stories. I never took you on those picnics. I was never there for you."

Rose cried even harder. All of her hopes, all of the plans she had in mind to finally get her father back were blowing up in her face, and there was nothing she could do about it, but what hurt her them out was how much it all made sense. "You would have been."

Pete nodded, but looked sympathetically at her, trying to stop his own tears from coming through. "But I can do this for you. I can be a proper dad to you now."

"But it's not fair," Rose sobbed. Pete just smiled at her, holding back his own tears. He might have accepted what he had to do, but that didn't make any of this easier. "I've had all these extra hours. No one else in the world has ever had that. And on top of that, I got to see you. And you're beautiful. How lucky am I, eh? So, come on, do as your dad says. You going to be there for me, love?" Pete asked as Rose took a deep breath, steeling herself for the inevitable and then handed him the vase. "Thanks for saving me," he said to the crying Rose, while the Doctor watched on without any kind of expression.

Pete left his family and rushed to the doors before he ran out of the church. The Doctor and Rose followed sedately, for different reasons. They watched as Pete rushed to the corner, clutching the vase in his hand before the car hit him. From where they were standing in the doorway, both the Doctor and Rose watched the driver throw up his hands. Rose winced and cried in heartbreak when the vase shattered on the ground. All around them the Reapers vanished.

The Doctor turned to Rose. "This is your last chance," he said to her coldly. "Go to him. Quick."

Rose ran to her dying father with a heavy heart. This was wrong. This should not have happened. She should have saved him. She could have saved him. Why couldn't the Doctor, who had saved so many people during the time she had known him, save her father? Pete was lying on the ground, barely moving while he was lying on the ground. Rose barely noticed, but she was aware the driver had stopped at the scene. She knelt by her father and held onto him, and Pete died gazing into Rose's eyes.

X

"The driver was just a kid. He stopped, he waited for the police. It wasn't his fault. For some reason, Pete just ran out. People say there was this girl, and she sat with Pete while he was dying. She held his hand. Then she was gone. Never found out who she was."

X

Rose stayed by her father's side for three minutes, but for the girl, it seemed to last for a lifetime. In the end, there was nothing she could do but kiss Pete farewell before she stood up and looked up, right at the Doctor. A part of her still resented how he had not done anything to help her father, but one look at his forbidding gaze stopped her from even opening her mouth.


A/N - Coming up next... Rose goes, the timelines diverge, and someone just as familiar comes on board the TARDIS.