It's almost funny, that the Doctor really thinks she won't follow him.
But unfortunately, as the Tardis told her back on that beach, even though she didn't believe her, her story with the Doctor? It's done.
Her key led her astray; her dimension cannon didn't manage to follow the smallest gaps left behind by the Tardis' departure.
Rose doesn't know if she connected to the wrong Tardis – there had, after all, once been Time Lords across universes – or if her Doctor had, once upon a time, touched down in this world but left long ago.
What she does know? This isn't her world. Not her Earth – not the one she originated from, not the one she lived in with Pete and her mum for the last few years.
Now she's stranded, in a new world, a new universe. Only this time there's no alternate version of her Dad and her Mum there to cushion the blow, no Mickey to support her.
It's not the first time in her life Rose has been alone, but it's the first time that she knows there is no hope of a reunion. Not anymore.
The stars are not going out anymore.
The walls between the universes are shut – she might be able to tear them down, but doing so would condemn the universe, would turn her into one of the things, one of the people, that the Doctor had to come in and stop.
And that was a line she couldn't bear to cross, someone she couldn't allow herself to turn into.
Rose blinks away the tears in her eyes and starts walking – there isn't much else to do. She needs to find a way home – well, a way to get some money and then get back to the UK, at least – somewhere familiar in all this mess.
The runestone behind her only gets a passing glance before she does a double-take and steps closer to read the inscription; apparently it's about Fenrir – the Big Bad Wolf from Norse mythology. The Tullstorp Runestone.
Does that mean she's where she was meant to be?
Did she foresee this, even then, back when she was Bad Wolf, when she absorbed the Time Vortex?
Rose reaches out and touches the snout of the wolf carved deeply into the stone. Is this another sign from herself?
A moment, that's all she allows herself, before pulling away. She has to move on.
There is no other choice.
As much as she wants to scream and cry and fight against anything and everything holding her here, she doesn't have that luxury, not now.
So, she moves on, finds a town – she's in Sweden, apparently, as it turns out. Luckily, the Tardis translation works as well as ever and she has no issues communicating or understanding, or she would be completely sunk. Now she's only just managing to keep her head above water.
Rose has no money. Her bank account doesn't exist here – the card she does is have, is utterly useless to her now. Her outfit was geared for fighting, for running – not for the debacle she managed to get herself into now.
The bracelet, gifted to her by her new Dad and adorned with charms given to her by Mickey and her mum, ends up being the thing she has to sell to get enough together for food and a roof over her head for the next few days while she looks for a job.
Or at least that's the plan – the bracelet is sold, but instead of spending even one night at a motel or bed and breakfast, she is stunned to find herself confronted with a car accident and the Police believe her to be the deceased couple's daughter, the one who tried and managed to scramble her way out of the car but drowned in the attempt to rescue her parents.
Rose had managed to get a rather spectacular scrape from the sideview mirror when she jumped to escape the vehicle headed towards her and hit her head on the tree, leaving her dazed and rather out of it when she scrambles to try and save the people in the car.
She doesn't manage to save a single person from the car and ends up being rescued herself by the paramedics.
It's the nurse at the hospital who informs her of what happened in the interim, how she's an orphan and that the cops will be by in the morning, wanting to talk to her. Apparently, the Police believe her to be Molly Hooper, who was on a holiday trip with her parents in Sweden before she was to leave for university. The same Molly Hooper who drowned in the ocean. The same Molly Hooper Rose failed to rescue.
She thinks about telling them her name, about telling them of the third body they hadn't discovered because she'd left the car; it would be the right thing to do, she thinks. But, well… There is no Rose Tyler here. Not anywhere, in any universe…
What does the Police do when they cannot find record of her existence? What does their government do? How does Rose explain this? How is she meant to pay for things? Are you meant to pay for hospital in Sweden? The doctors and paramedics and ambulance rides?
Rose winces.
She doesn't know.
By the time dawn rises, Rose has made her decision. She will be Molly Hooper, at least long enough to leave Sweden and return to Britain.
Molly Hooper remains; Rose slots into medical school without even raising an eyebrow, letting the dye in her hair fade out until the colour is back to the old (boring) brown – perfect for blending in. Rose from the estates in London had wanted to stand out, wanted to be different – it's funny how life brought you full circle and now she needed to be the opposite of what she'd wanted then. Rose couldn't afford to be Rose Tyler, dimension and time traveller. She needed to be innocuous, unremarkable, pass beneath people's notice and sight.
It worked – the only attention she received, even once she left University, was for her rather exemplary work which garnered her a position at St. Bart's.
But it's also when trouble first arose.
Greg Lestrade, telling her of a detective and of meeting the brother of said detective and the amount of political power he likely held.
Sherlock Holmes was real. As was Mycroft Holmes – and the Diogenes club really existed!
But more than that – Sherlock Holmes was real!
What Rose wouldn't give to have her Ninth Doctor meet Sherlock Holmes. It would have been hilarious, them showing off to each other – just like when they met Jack.
It also lends more meaning to the tattoo she found on her body shortly after coming here than she had expected. Rose had attributed it to a drunken night with Mickey and figured they'd done something stupid in their drunken haze (it wouldn't be the first time).
When she was informed about soulmates in this world, she'd ignored it – she wasn't from here, it wouldn't matter.
Well, suddenly it mattered a great deal.
Because the soul mate of Rose Tyler? Sherlock Holmes. Not the fictional character from a book, but apparently a real-life version running around and being a 'consulting detective' with, of course, Detective Greg Lestrade.
Her soulmark, at least, was well hidden. Some had them on their faces, hands or wrists, spots difficult to conceal.
Not Rose's, luckily.
Hers was up high on her upper thigh, not visible even in most mini skirts and easily obscured day-to-day, although she often wore a bandage to cover it up just in case.
Her new life was more sedentary, less adventurous – and less dangerous – but Rose still remembered how often her clothes would end up with tears, rips or stains to feel completely secure not even trying to cover her soulmark.
That night, the night she finds out it's a soulmark, not a tattoo, and just who her partner is, she allows herself to sit down in her dark, empty flat with a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates.
Because she knows, she knows, she can never tell, never approach him, never let him know.
Because he is Sherlock Holmes.
A man so clever and brilliant, that she knows if she draws his gaze, he will figure out there's something off about her. And while Greg didn't tell her much about Mycroft, it was enough of a warning to send a cold chill down her spine.
She remembers Harriet – the woman who huddled inside a cupboard with them. The woman who became Prime Minister. The woman who thought it was alright to shoot down aliens when they were fleeing, when they had been warned away.
Harriet had had a lot of power.
The Doctor had dismantled her with six words.
Mycroft, she thinks, is rather the like the Doctor when he's angry, like the Oncoming Storm. Not quite as powerful, probably not quite as clever, but as close to it as is humanly possible.
And she doesn't doubt that Sherlock is under his protection.
Anyone close to him will draw his gaze and attention.
And Rose Tyler doesn't exist. Molly Hooper died years ago, along with what remained of her family and having left behind no friends that Rose had ever met.
She remembers the decoy pig, the mermaid, being dissected. Remembers Torchwood.
No, she can never draw Sherlock's – and therefore Mycroft's – attention to her.
The plan doesn't come to fruition until she meets Sherlock for the first time – it's alright, he doesn't even notice her, focussed on the body on the slab and pointing out his deductions to Greg with the same frustrated tone her Ninth Doctor often had, the one that said you stupid apes without even verbalising it. Not that Sherlock – or her Doctor – had, all that often, had enough filter to not verbalise it. Sherlock's the same, insulting people left and right without even realising, at least half the time (the other half she's sure it's intentional).
It's just incensing as it was then, but also rather amusing. Rose has seen more, travelled further than any of these people here, had to wrap her head around concepts that would likely even boggle Sherlock's mind.
But it's that very reminder, that connection, which creates the plan – because if there's one thing she knows how to recognise by now, it's a socially awkward genius.
Sherlock's brows furrow when he notices her blushing, her frequent glances, playing with her hair. He notices the infatuation, the crush – and, as Rose expected, she is dismissed as a timid little mouse. He's seen her challenging Greg or countering other morticians, but as she folds like wet paper when Sherlock asks her for, well, anything, she still remains in that innocuous little box in his head where the Molly Hooper she plays, belongs – unremarkable. A silly little girl with a crush. Useful – but unremarkable.
The Holmes' brothers classify her as a non-threat due to her obvious crush on the younger brother and she doesn't even get to meet Mycroft (rather a good thing, she suspects, as he would not be as unsettled by her obvious feelings as the younger brother and pick up on the inconsistencies). Rose slides under their radar beautifully.
It's not even difficult to fake her crush because, well, Sherlock Holmes is rather pretty. Clear blue eyes, curly, messy hair, prominent cheekbones – frankly, if it wasn't quite so dangerous, Rose would be rather tempted to seduce him for a tumble in bed.
He could be asexual, but Rose thinks it's more likely he's just rather focussed, much like her Doctor, and finds any other kind of distraction from said focus inconvenient and to be ignored while he solves the mystery.
Still, idle daydreams do work in her favour when Sherlock takes notice of reddened, bitten lips, high blush and the slight glaze in her eyes when he interrupts her thoughts – Rose has just, no doubt, sunk even lower in his estimations due to her apparent distraction.
As if she couldn't focus on two things at once.
His mind is astounding, though.
Charles had been impressive, when she met him. But Sherlock? He was on another level entirely. The ease and speed with which he deduced and correlated seemingly insignificant details was something even her Doctor had never done (or maybe not even capable of).
There are plenty of people who don't have soulmates, or whose soulmates are platonic or whose soulmates passed away. It's easy enough to find dates and one-night stands. Rose is hiding too much to feel comfortable entering a relationship when people could so easily pressure her boyfriends for more than she gives them – or put them in danger should someone find out.
Rose is intrigued, however, when the new guy from IT approaches her – ostensibly, he has a crush on her. His acting is exceptionally good – but his emotional responses are off. Just a beat, just enough to tell her it's his brain telling him how he needs to sound, what to say, how to act – it's not his heart. He reminds her of many of the people she met on her travels with the Doctor – the ones they were there to stop. The ones who didn't care.
It's dangerous – but it's the only danger she's allowed herself in quite some time. Their dates are chaste – Rose plays it off and Moriarty likely thinks she's reluctant due to her crush on Sherlock. She's lucky to fall beneath his radar so far, that his attention is solely focussed on Holmes, rather than on the mousy mortician with the obvious crush. He's dangerous, like Sherlock is, in breaking apart the façade she wears – and also, most likely, to her life.
Three dates – dangerous, hair-raising, heart-racing dates which culminated in Sherlock meeting Moriarty and dismissing them both with nary a glance. It's both frightening and hilarious.
Rose hesitates on whether to intervene or not.
He's in danger and she's not sure he's realised just how much danger he's in. But she also doesn't know how to help.
Well, no, that's not true. She knows how to handle a rifle – Jack taught her that, against the Doctor's wishes. And there's still a bit of Bad Wolf in her – she can handle him, she's almost sure.
But she also remembers the Doctor.
Coward. Any day.
At the pool, a location she just barely figured out in time, there's a red light pointed right at Moriarty, even when all the others are on Sherlock and John. Dressed in black, hood up, eyes glowing golden as everything is brimming just beneath the surface, and yet all that is in her hand is a laser light. They don't need to know that, of course. The expert gunmen of Moriarty's are, ironically, much closer because they might actually need to aim and shoot. She can afford to be quite a distance farther out, as she only needs to be able to point a light at him. Just a threat, a warning – back off Sherlock Holmes.
Things settle.
John is out of the bomb jacket. Sherlock and Moriarty are unscathed.
Rose's hands shake as she makes her way down alleyways and backstreets, camera-less, the glow in her eyes fading, slowly, as she ambles her way down to the rougher areas, the ones with fewer cameras and even less eyes. No one wants to notice things here.
Blending in is easy, here. It's familiar.
Mismatched, old, rough clothing, make-up too bright and she fits into the stereotype.
No one would ever guess, or need to know, that the reason Rose had chosen her apartment? It's because it was connected, underground, with a series of small escape tunnels, remnants from the War, to other houses. Escape hatches.
The bar she enters is just one among many on the road. The hatch in the bathroom, while larger than most, doesn't garner any more attention. It's easy to slip her way through this entrance and enter the tunnels. From there it's a rush to get back home at a brisk run – she needs to be seen by one of Mycroft's cameras at home, just in case he thinks to check.
She doesn't think he will, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.
Would her Doctor be proud of her, she wonders, or would he be disappointed? Proud she bluffed, as he so often did – or disappointed that she was ready to use her powers to erase Moriarity?
Rose sighs as she hops into the shower.
It's fruitless thoughts – they won't go anywhere, they never do.
She's stranded – no materials to get anywhere, go anywhere. To meet her Doctor. Ever again. Bad Wolf told her so, back when she was at that memorial.
The new tattoo on her skin.
Rose knows how to understand the signs the universe – that she, herself – has given her.
This is her world now.
No going forward.
No going back.
She still monitors the stars, uses the telescope she's had since university – the star charts released to the public, monitoring – watching.
But her Doctor has already stopped the stars from extinguishing, it appears. The universe is stable.
It's another sign she knows how to read, how to interpret, no matter how little she wants to.
Nothing changes.
Rose is still under everyone's radar and she has every intention of remaining there.
At least until there's a news broadcast. An interruption across channels.
An unidentified flying object landed in London. In Hyde Park.
Rose runs.
Author's Notes: Will probably have two or three chapters. Please review / comment and let me know what you think :)
I hope you enjoyed it - it's been stuck in my head for some time now :)