After a moment, she answered his question. "I help where and when I can. That's how I roll."
"And you're, what, here to help me? Help me with what, exactly?"
She felt her smile fall as realization crested through her. "Oh," she said, quietly.
In all the other timelines, the first twelve, she had never specified that she'd been here to help him. He'd simply taken her underwing because he'd been so dead set on making sure she wasn't a threat to the universe, and by the time that he realized she wasn't, she'd burrowed herself so neatly into his hearts that he didn't mind having her around.
Now, though, she'd made the mistake of specifying that she was here for a reason.
But, she was here for a reason. Besides with, she'd dealt with 12 different Turn Left versions of him, as well as a 13th that wasn't. In the very first timeline, she'd shared a bed with him. She wasn't saying that he was the same man as he had been in all those other timelines, but she had no reason to fear him, or his answer.
"You're grieving," she started, and that made him snap to attention, though she herself was the epitome of relaxed. "And, while I may not be able to fix the reason that you are, I can help you in other ways. So, Doctor," she said. "What can I help you with?"
He eyed her carefully, though the suspicion she was sure he thought she wasn't able to feel dripped off of him in the same waves that carried his grief. A moment later, he spoke to her.
"Got a signal on the console. You can help with that," he told her, and she started to follow after him when he turned on his heel. He shouted back to her. "Stay there a mo! Need to change."
He picked up his pace, not liking the idea of leaving her on her own in the Tardis but knowing that he had to if he wanted to change out of the clothes of the War Doctor. Besides which, he was apparently more amiable to believe she was an all-powerful being and therefore knew there wouldn't be much of a point in monitoring her twenty four seven. She would do what she wanted. At least, that's what he thought, anyway.
Still, she abided him, sitting down in the hallway where he'd directed her.
It wasn't long until she heard the familiar scream from the wardrobe room, and she curled in on herself, trying to subdue the grief that was once more all around her. It was potent and it ached her to her core, and she cried, not just from his grief, but from her own at the fact that she'd failed thirteen Doctors before this one, each one dying because they had to, in order to keep time moving as it should.
It took her a few hours to stop crying, but she knew from experience that it would take the Doctor a week to emerge from his mind being shattered as the black hole that the time lords had left behind finally caught up with him.
/
As predicted, she heard him about a week and an hour later, though she was surprised when he was grumbling.
"... decency to show up on my Tardis, the least she can do is still be there when I- oh."
She saw him round the corner and look down on her, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
"Have you been there this entire time?"
"You said not to move," she pointed out.
He looked astounded at her before he opened and closed his mouth. Unsure of what to say, he simply let an errant, "Okay," fall from his lips, before realization crossed his eyes. "You didn't move at all?" he asked.
She shook her head.
He crossed his arms, and it was in this moment she took note of the fact that he'd changed. "So you don't need to eat or sleep then, I take it?"
"Don't need to, but I can if I want to," she informed him, standing. She stretched, disappearing the book in the process as she heard and felt the pleasant pop in her back.
"Who wants to sleep?" he asked, sounding incredulous.
But what do you want to sleep for? he asked her, and the memory filled her with both laughter and pain. Instead of answering the way that she had done (while fully aware that it technically hadn't been her that had lived through it, a different Anna having done so), she gave him a polite smile.
"I do," she said.
"I see you also have a corporeal form."
She bit back the smile at that. "Hard to exist in the universe without one," she pointed out, crossing her arms. "You said something about a signal."
He seemed surprised by how abrupt she was, and it seemed to trigger something within him. He got downhearted, more sulky as he nodded, leading her to the control room. Or, what she assumed was the control room, anyway.
"This way," he said.
What else was there to do but what she had done the past twelve times, and follow after him?
/
All throughout the next twenty minutes, she kept finding herself checking to make sure that she'd landed in the right universe. Anna 1's Doctor had made the brilliant suggestion to come to a timeline where Turn Left didn't exist, and while that had implications that she hadn't even thought of yet, it also meant that she- or rather, another Anna would never have to suffer through being in a timeline where the Doctor would inevitably end up dying because he was so grief stricken at the thought of losing Rose that a simple mistake would cost him his life.
Grief welled up in her at the thought of all those Doctor's who had done exactly that, memory of all twelve times she'd lived through the two years, but she straightened herself out, standing up tall as she reminded herself she'd made it to the right one.
Her senses confirmed that she had, but the fact that she was checking every now and again meant that she was distracted from the Doctor's questions.
It wasn't like she didn't know what his questions were. She basically had this conversation memorized, which meant she could be distracted as he asked her for the thirteenth time.
"Do you know what the signal is?" he asked her.
"Yes," she replied.
"Well?" he asked. "Care to share?"
"Theoretically I already know what the signal is," she corrected herself. "I know everything," she told him, and despite the pain it brought her, she pushed through. "Doesn't mean I have to know it all the time."
"Well, I'm asking, so it would be mighty helpful if you would tell me what it was," he told her.
She raised her eyebrows. "What you're doing is testing me to see if I'll just do what you ask without a thought to the consequences of the universe, and you're doing it with something small and insignificant because it means that the risk is lower. Nice try. Try again."
He did throw her for a loop with his next sentence, surprise drawing her out of her unnecessary paranoia (though not undue, mind).
"If you're not actually going to be helpful, then what're you doing here?"
She raised her eyebrows at that, looking towards him, unable to truly feel hurt because she knew he was grieving, but it still cut her all the same.
She furrowed her brows before she let out a breath. "Right," she said. She produced a coin from thin air, flicking it up like it was a coin toss, but before she had a chance to explain it's purpose, he spoke.
"I didn't mean that," he said. "Just frustrated is all. You don't want to tell me, you don't have to."
She felt surprise filling her, both at the fact that he'd given in so easily at the look on her face and the fact that he was sensitive to it at all.
And then, she realized that he thought she was the wrong kind of being of power, who would smite him at a moment's notice.
She started to correct him, but she felt the ship lurching to the side and she quickly grabbed onto the console.
"Right, hang on, this might be a bit bumpy!"
The Tardis felt sick. She always felt sick when Anna first appeared, and truth be told, the hours before he met Rose were her least favorite parts of this (though having to relive it at all wasn't something she particularly enjoyed either). He always softened up basically as soon as he met Rose, not as sharp with her as soon as the blonde stepped into the picture. Perhaps because he was reminded so simply of the bright and brilliant humans he traveled with, and was able to remember who the Doctor was.
But, the Tardis would feel sick for another week, through their first three adventures. She'd formulated this theory about three timelines back that her feeling sick was the reason she'd landed nearly a year late and had landed in Cardiff instead of Italy. Fighting in the biggest War of creation would do that to any being, but especially a time ship still reeling from the effects of the War, even if she knew that nobody had actually lost anything.
She was surprised, then, when a feeling crowded in, telling her that she could help heal the sick Tardis.
She wasn't sure what that would mean for the Doctor getting the date wrong, or if they didn't end up in Cardiff, which was why she hesitated for about a single moment before she threw caution to the wind. If she could help the Tardis, there was nothing more she wanted to do than that.
She quickly healed her, and the ship instantly steadied out with a rough jerk before she settled completely, flying smoothly through the Vortex.
"There you go," she said out loud without thinking, petting the console.
The lights instantly began to brighten up, and the knot in her chest started to release, the nausea vanishing.
"What did you do?" the Doctor asked, after a moment, and she raised her eyebrows, having momentarily forgotten where (or perhaps the more accurate phrase was when) she was as she looked down at him.
"I- erm," she started, not really sure how to explain it. "The ship was sick," she quietly explained, careful not to use her name, for fear that he would find out that she'd done this before (though it wasn't until that moment that she'd realized she was afraid of that). "I sort of..." she felt a gentle nudging from the Tardis not to say anything.
It was in that moment she realized the Tardis remembered.
It wasn't just this timeline. This Tardis remembered every timeline that had been and ever would be, and right now, being in that present moment, she was wrapped around Anna so tightly that they were almost one in the same.
The moment passed as she felt the Tardis slip out of the present moment, leaving behind the gentle reminder that she couldn't tell him what he shouldn't know.
"Fixed... it," she finished, almost lamely.
"How?"
There wasn't any anger in his voice. She would've called it wonder, if the emotions hadn't made his voice sound so raw.
She shrugged. "I just... did," she told him, uncomfortably.
"You don't have to words small words or anything," he told her, looking down at her with this look in his eyes that wasn't annoyance but was almost it's second cousin. "I can understand complicated."
"Well, I'm very happy for you," she told him. "Still not explaining it."
"Why not?" he almost demanded of her.
After a moment of silence, she spoke.
"Don't we have a thing to do?" she asked him.
Apparently, he was keen to test the limits on what she would allow before she threatened to smite him (or perhaps he was hoping she simply would, and wasn't that a thought that she hated).
"Where are you from?" he asked.
"A different dimension," she answered him, because she doubted he would accept an, or something like it, to be honest, I haven't checked.
And then she realized that the conversation was different, for the first time in twelve timelines. Of course, it would be, she rationalized a moment later. She'd just healed the Tardis, something that she hadn't done in any version of reality. They were bound to shift off course a little bit.
Or a lot, considering the look on his face.
"How'd you get here, then?" he asked.
She struggled with the words for a moment, knowing that he was now looking for answers and wouldn't stop until he had them.
"I... wanted to be here, and I was."
"Because you felt my- grief," he said, barely tripping over the word, though he may as well have stumbled over it, being who he was, "and wanted to help me."
"That's the sum of it... Yeah," she finished, realizing that wasn't the truth at all.
But, there was no part of her that wanted to explain what had actually happened. It wasn't that she in any way thought that he wouldn't believe her. It was the fact that she'd have to explain that she failed all those Doctor's, and no part of her wanted to see the look on his face when she did.
She knew he didn't believe her. It was written all over his face.
But, instead of calling her out on it, he nodded a moment later. "Okay," he said. "Best get a shift on. Like you said, thing what needs doing."
She couldn't help the relief that crossed her face or that flowed through her, and knew that he saw it. No part of her cared. Mostly because he gently caressed the Tardis console a moment later and knew that she had eased some of his grief by fixing the Tardis.
For now, that was enough.
/
"You've checked the building for life signs?"
"I've triple checked, do you want to do it?" he asked her, and she looked at him impatiently.
"Maybe you should check again," she told him.
He was downright annoyed with her as he finished setting up the device on the roof. The relay wasn't at all guarded, and that more than confused her as it had always done. If the Consciousness was transmitting, wouldn't it make sense to have it guarded?
She didn't know why things were so drastically different here than they had been. Maybe because she wasn't focused on reassuring herself that it was the right timeline, stressed that she'd managed to end up in the wrong one. She was already nearly a thousand percent sure that this was the right timeline, so she was less distracted with the thoughts of failed Doctors pounding through her mind.
The point being that it allowed her to realize that the Consciousness really didn't recognize this as a Level 5 planet, which meant that it didn't think the inhabitants were smart enough to recognize the signal, let alone have the need for something like a guard.
The revelation washed away from her as easily as water to be replaced with an annoyance at him as he stood, calibrating the sonic to, apparently, once again search for life forms.
"Look at me, I'm Anna Monroe and I can't accept that lower life forms know how to do their jobs properly-" he mimed, before he stopped when the sonic gave off a beeping sound to register that there was, in fact, a life form still in the building. "Okay, you knew there was someone inside, why didn't you just teleport them out?"
She didn't understand the pain that was suddenly on his face during the second half of his question, mostly because she didn't understand his reactions. She'd lived through this twelve times, and he'd never been anything but silent up until he met Rose. What had changed, now? Was offering her help really the thing that snapped him into attention, making him ask questions that he hadn't done before?
But why wouldn't it be, though? It would make her appear as more relatable. She'd just been a being of power before. Now, she was someone who was offering their help, therefore willing to help the universe. It meant that he was testing that in a way that he hadn't been when she'd just been Anna, all-powerful being who just shows up, punching holes in his Tardis (not that she had done, even if she'd heard the spiel enough times to have the thing memorized).
Instead of answering him straight off, she skirted around the question. "Maybe if I'm not doing something, it means there's a reason?" she tried.
"What, like letting the person what's in there get blown up?" Upset was rolling off of him in waves as he pushed past her, though he hid it behind a gruff façade. "Out of my way."
Surprise was rolling off of her in waves in the meantime (not that he could feel that). "Doctor-"
"Not a word from you," he said, increasing her surprise. "I'll see you back at the Tardis," he ordered her.
She was torn between following after him and following his orders and doing as he said. When it became a feeling to simply do as he said, she cursed, running her fingers through her hair, before she cursed again and teleported back to the Tardis.
/
He didn't come back for a solid ten minutes that felt like it lasted a lifetime. When he did, he was furious, opening the door before he allowed it to slam shut behind him.
"Doctor, you have to believe me, I never-"
"Oh, do I have to believe you-"
"-let her get blown up, that's why I was so insistent-"
"So you did know that there was someone there!" he shouted at her, and she stopped, searching him. "And more than that, you knew that it was a she, which means that you know who it was as well." He searched her. "What are you really doing here?"
She was taken aback by his line of questioning, but sat back, pursing her lips as she searched him.
"I'm here to help-"
"To help me, that seems to be the party line, yeah, except the only thing you have done is heal the Tardis which, don't get me wrong, that's- I do appreciate that, yeah, but you've been pretty useless otherwise, which leads me to believe that you're here for another reason." He threw his arms out, ignoring the way that her face fell as his words once again stung her, hitting far closer to home than he'd probably meant them to. "So, care to tell us why that is, all-powerful being Anna Monroe?"
She bit her tongue, looking down at the grating before her face set and she spoke once more, not moving an inch. "I'm here to help you," she said, quietly.
"To do what?"
The fury he was presenting her with made her flinch a step back away from him, turning her face off to the side.
"Get out."
She felt surprise, full-stop, fill her up, and she looked up at him, the emotion resting in her eyes. He didn't see it as he was refusing to look at her.
"You're not gonna be honest with me about what you're doing here, then I don't need another blundering... person getting in my way," he said, tripping over the fact that he couldn't call her a 'blundering ape' because he didn't know that she was one, or didn't think she was, at any rate. "I don't need your help, and I don't need you, so get out."
It wasn't an unexpected outcome, truth be told. Hadn't she thought he'd do this exact thing when she'd first explained the full consequences of what she'd done (or at least, hadn't another Anna, at any rate)? Besides which, even when she'd first appeared in the version of his Tardis where he'd been grieving, she'd expected much the same, considering that his wounds were still so fresh.
So, instead of getting upset or hurt about it (or at least instead of admitting that she was), she raised an eyebrow before she barely nodded.
"Right," she said, before she flipped the coin in the air. "You change your mind, just rub this coin. I'll come running."
She placed it down on the console before she teleported out.
Just like that, it was over. She sat against the alley wall and thought about what a waste it had been, to lose all the twelve Doctors as she had done, just to end up getting kicked off by the thirteenth.
But, hadn't she said it already, that that was her lot in life? That she was the Turn Left version of Anna, and therefore wasn't destined to get her happy ending?
She felt surprise fill her when she felt the coin's twin burn in her pocket. It was a system she'd stolen off of Harry Potter, Hermoine's DA coins, and she quickly teleported back.
The Doctor was there, though it was obvious that he'd met Rose; the edge had been taken off. He wasn't looking at her, and the way he was looking couldn't be described as reproachful, but it was something similar to it.
"Not much up to snuff if a bit of yelling scares you off."
"What a shitty thing to say to somebody who's been emotionally abused."
She'd been leaning up against the Tardis console, and she felt surprise jolt through her. It wasn't a feeling that had prompted the words to drop from her mouth, though she felt the feeling fading as soon as she said it. They words had dropped of their own accord, falling from her mouth like they'd been waiting there- or, perhaps, waiting for this exact accusation.
Regret covered his face as he looked up at her, though as soon as his eyes caught hers, the regret disappeared cleanly behind his mask. He raised his eyebrows, searching.
"I didn't know," he said, simply. "I'm-"
She shrugged, not letting him finish, turning away from him as she felt suddenly bashful. "You couldn't have done," she said, quietly.
It was impossible to describe how it felt to have known him for thirteen versions, plus the version where she'd been with him, and yet still have him be a complete stranger.
"I'm still sorry for saying it."
She felt a thrill of surprise run through her and she looked up at him to see the sincerity that was running across his face.
"Can we start over?" he tried, and she felt even more surprise run through her. "I feel like we got a bit off on the wrong foot."
"It's my fault," she told him, quietly, for some reason not simply taking the olive branch he was extending. His brows furrowed in question at that. "I landed way earlier than I meant to, and I'm sorry for that. If I could do it differently-" she bit her lip, looking down, "But anyway."
"The fact that you're here at all says something about who you are," he said, and she looked up at him, eyebrows barely raised. He held up his hands placatingly, nodding encouragingly. "But only in a good way."
There was a way the Doctor acted when he found out about her abuse. He was always softer with her, easier to be around. The one thing he never did was question how a being like her had ever been abused in the first place, and she'd never questioned him about it.
"Why aren't you asking about the emotional abuse?" she asked him.
Well, until now, that was.
He frowned at that. "Sorry?"
She frowned as well, shaking her head. "I just mean..." she started to say that he'd never asked about it, before she shook her head again. "I'm a supposed all-powerful being-"
"Alleged," he corrected her, and she rolled her eyes, not missing a beat as she continued.
"-and you just... don't even point out that I could've not made the emotional abuse happen."
He frowned deeper at that sentiment. "In what sense?" he asked, though the frown had transformed after a moment.
She shrugged, looking away uncomfortably as she shifted, her hands deep into her pockets, folded over on herself as much as she could be without consciously realizing it. "In the sense that I could've stopped them," she said. "Because I'm all-powerful, and everything," she pointed out, tacking it on.
There was barely a moment between them before he spoke. "You also could've prevented them from doing it at all, going back and rewriting it so that it never occurred."
She felt guilt buried deep within her. "The thought had crossed my mind," she admitted what she never had, before she straightened up. "But, that's not who I am and it's not what I do," she told him, searching him.
He had a look of puzzled... wonderment that rested on his face. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the plastic arm was laying forlorn on the console and catalogued this information away for later. "What they did to you, however they did it, whoever they were, that wasn't your fault." she felt a knot of some kind release in her chest, and she blew the tension out in a breath. "You don't control other people's actions, and with you, that's apparently more literal, though I'm not quite sure I understand why." She frowned at that. "The only thing you control is your reaction. And, you've decided, in your all-powerful wisdom, not to hurt them or to change them. You've chosen to be the bigger person, despite the fact that there is no universal reason for that to be true."
He measured her with a long look.
"What're you doing here?"
She straightened up before she straightened out, tugging on the hem of her shirt as she looked down.
"Because I want to help you."
"But why?"
She was thrown for a loop when he asked why instead of what as he had previously (though she still wasn't really sure how to answer that question, the answer she'd given before not automatically popping to mind. It didn't have to, now).
"Sorry?" she asked, looking up at him.
He shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry for," he told her, and she frowned before realization flashed through her and something like relief flooded through her in the next breath. It wasn't that he was mean before he found out. It was that he had sharper edges that he was less careful with, having every right to have them. He'd softened those edges, even if that deep grief and pain still lingered behind his mask, deep within the eyes she'd found herself getting lost in more than once.
A brief flash of the conversation she'd had with the Sparkles Jack, about her waiting for permission to love a man she already loved, came to mind, but she pushed it aside as The Doctor continued to speak.
"I'm not saying that I don't want you here, or that you were wrong to come here. I'm just asking why you want to help me."
She didn't even hesitate, though she was confused, and that reflected in her tone.
"Because it's the right thing to do."
"What do you care about that?" he asked her. "Assuming you're not just an alleged being of power, you have the ability to turn the universe inside out with a snap of your fingers," and a brief thought of the 'snapture' came to mind. "What do you care about what's right in the universe?"
She shrugged, starting to feel a discomfort creeping through her. She didn't know how he knew, but she saw him shift down.
"I'm not saying that you're wrong for doing just that, for caring about what's right in the universe. I'm marveling at the fact that you do." Her eyes snapped up to meet him, searching him, to see the earnestness resting about his face. "Do you have any idea how incredibly rare that is? A being of power who wants to help, rather than do what I've just said, turning the universe inside out with a snap of their fingers?"
She hesitated for a moment, before she barely nodded.
"I do," she said, quietly, hesitantly. A feeling ran through her when she didn't immediately say it, and she worried her bottom lip before she spoke, though her words were more confident than she let on. "It's why I'm so marveled by you, Doctor."
Surprise snapped through his eyes. "Me?" he questioned, before she barely nodded.
"Yeah," she said. "Because you've got time travel and instead of using it to royally fork up the universe," and at her 'fork' his eyebrows barely flicked down, "You use it to... be kind. To show people the universe and to right wrongs and that is just..." she bit her lip, looking down and away. "I'm sorry that this horrible thing happened to you and that I couldn't stop it," she let the words out in a rush.
"Not being entirely honest about how it happened to me. Something I made happen."
She flinched before she nodded, letting out a breath. "All the same," she said, quietly. "I'm sorry. But, I'm here to help now, if-if you'll have me."
She looked up at him to see that he was looking at anywhere but her. She felt like she was physically climbing a slippery slope, now reaching out for any hand hold. She'd made a mistake, she could see it all over him and he was about to-
"You want to stick around, that's your choice," he told her, his words gruff, his posture tense. He worked with quick hands as he piloted the Tardis. "Just don't get in the way, if you can help it."
His eyes barely flicked over to her, speckled with regret, but it faded as quickly as it had come as he piloted the Tardis to their next destination.
/
"Oh, bloody hell."
The words were mumbled as he spoke, and she glanced over at him, trying to force a rhythm between them that wouldn't come.
"Something wrong?"
"The blonde, this is the third time I'm seeing her. Saving her life, technically, too," he considered, some of the tension easing off of him now that he was distracted with the mystery of Rose Tyler. "Wonder what's so special about her."
"I've never met anybody who wasn't important," she felt the words flying from her mouth before she could catch them, and he shook his head.
"No, but there's something different about her- oh, hold on, trouble."
He didn't even pause, making the fluid motion of grabbing a champagne bottle as he pushed open the door to the kitchen. One of the staff had questioned their presence there and he'd flashed them the psychic, but other than that, they hadn't had any trouble.
They were about to have loads.
Rose's reaction was always the same, but it was never less amusing than the first time she saw it.
No, that wasn't true, she realized, as the Doctor hooked Mickey's plastic head up to the console and Rose ran back out. She had been so tense the first few times that she'd seen it, due to the fact that she'd always arrived earlier than she'd meant to (and that low simmer of tension and fear that she'd felt when she kept popping into the Turn Left timelines and had found herself in yet another timeline, wondering if this was the correct one or if she would end up in another timeline where she would fail the Doctor, not that she'd consciously accepted that). It wasn't until the third Turn Left timeline that she finally found humor in the situation, watching as Rose, the woman who would one day stand up to a ship full of the Sycorax, ran out of the Tardis before she ran back in, unable to accept the vision she was presented with.
"It's going to follow us!" she finally ran back inside, making her way up the ramp.
The Doctor, who was putting off the conversation he was about to have (always put off the conversation) on the excuse that he was trying to connect the head to the console (which shouldn't have taken nearly so long or nearly the amount of concentration that it did), spoke. "The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door-" he told Rose, putting the danger level into words that Rose at this age would be familiar with.
Rose at this age. The woman who would grow to be the Defender of the Earth was still so young.
She'd never made an effort to really... Be her friend was the wrong way to phrase it, but to try to connect with her. At first it was because of the excuse that she'd never meant to be invading on their time together like this, but as time wore on, she'd realized it was because she knew that she would eventually have to lose her, and though the pain wouldn't be as fierce for her as it would be for the Doctor, she couldn't imagine that connecting with Rose Tyler on any level would make it very easy to lose her.
She wouldn't do that this time around, though. Something had shifted within her (and though she didn't notice, around her). There was a saying that it was better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all (though she only meant in the way that friends loved each other). She briefly thought about William Hill's advice and barely smiled at the remembrance of the This is Us character, who had once declared, "It is true that it is better to have loved and lost, but try not to lose the love at all."
Although that wasn't an option here (because Rose had to be lost, if only because it was something that the Doctor needed to go through in order to turn into the person he was supposed to be), she vowed to herself to try to connect better with the blonde this time around.
"-and believe me, they've tried," the Doctor finished. "Now, shut up a minute." Rose did as she marveled at her first experience with an alien space ship (well, that she knew of, at any rate. Anna didn't doubt that most humans had had an encounter with aliens at some point in their lives but had either dismissed it out of hand or were too willfully ignorant to notice it properly. Not that she wasn't human, because she was. She was just also an all-powerful being on top of it, so). After a few moments of Rose taking in the ship (her eyes flicking about and over Anna briefly), the Doctor spoke. "You see, the arm was too simple, but the head's perfect. I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source." He finally turned to look at her. "Right. Where do you want to start?"
Rose hesitated. "Er, the inside's bigger than the outside?"
"Yes," the Doctor agreed.
"It's alien."
"Yeah."
"Are you two aliens?"
"Yes."
"No."
The Doctor glanced over at her, barely frowning, before Anna spoke. "Human, though with some... things added on top."
"What's... that mean?"
"It means she's an all-powerful being," the Doctor said. He was either ignorant or didn't care about the affronted look on Anna's face, not expecting him to blurt it out like that, as he never had before. She didn't just trust that information to anybody, for the specific reason that most people didn't understand why, if she were an all-powerful being, she didn't just fix things. That had been one of the things she hadn't fully explained to Rose (even if she had explained it better to Jack, for the simple fact that it was Jack and he was charming and a trained time traveler and understood that sometimes, it was for the better to leave a situation alone than to try to poke it with a stick, in terms of being able to outright fix it. Besides which, it had just been the one time, when he'd nicknamed her Sparkles).
"What's that mean?" Rose repeated.
"Complicated. You wouldn't understand," he said. "Point is, we're alien-"
"Not alien," she said, before she realized that since she was from a different dimension, technically, she was an alien from Rose's perspective. "Huh."
The noise was soft and only the Doctor caught it.
"That all right?"
"Yeah," Rose said, not noticing the way that the Doctor's shoulders dropped an inch, relief trailing through him that he wasn't about to have a human that couldn't handle the idea of aliens on his ship.
For lack of knowing what else to say, and Anna not helping at all because she was silently fuming at him, her arms crossed, he continued, albeit a little stilted. "It's called the Tardis, this thing. T.A.R.D.I.S. That's Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."
Rose burst into tears.
Anna, now doing things she hadn't been before, quickly moved to her to comfort her.
"It's all right," she put in, before the Doctor could speak, barreling over him. "It's hard to form a copy and keep a link without having the original person still be alive. It's likely they would've kept him alive."
Rose looked up at her, a hope that she recognized sitting in her eyes. It was the one that said they were counting on you to keep their whole world together. "So, he's still alive? Mickey?"
"Oh. I didn't think of that."
She wanted to face palm and snap at him, but Rose beat her to the punch, looking around Anna to do it.
"He's my boyfriend."
The sentiment made Anna shudder. Watching the two of them, it was like seeing a younger version of a married couple that didn't know that they would one day be married. Thinking of Rose with anybody else just felt... wrong. It always did when she said that to the Doctor. It was part of why she always buried the part of herself that loved him so deeply in herself. He was Rose's. Even if that hadn't been true for a short time in a different timeline (though she remembered the wedding ring that had been sitting on Original Anna's hand), that didn't change the fact that it was true here.
Though, currently, they were having a tiff.
"You pulled off his head. They copied him, and you didn't even think?" Rose glanced back before pointing at the console accusatorily. "And now you're just going to let him melt?"
"Melt?"
Anna didn't turn back to look. She simply transported them to where they would end up, the dematerialization circuit fading just as soon as it had started. She walked outside, despite Rose's protests.
The door came open with a creak. She stepped out into the cool London night air, but it did nothing to ease her temper. When the Doctor stepped out, he spoke.
"Finally decided to be useful?" he asked, crisply.
Anger flared, but she didn't turn back to look at him as she stalked off.
"Hang about, where are you off to?"
She whirled around on him. "All-powerful being business to attend to," she shot at him, which wasn't something she'd ever said with as much ire as she had in that moment. At the look on his face, the disbelief resting about it, she gave him a quick finger wave. "Have fun!"
She teleported away without so much as a by-your-leave (and if that wasn't an indication that she'd been hanging out with the brits for too long, she didn't know what was)..
/
She didn't actually teleport anywhere to attend to all powerful being business (though she did save Clive with a thought). Instead, she teleported to after the autons had already been taken care of, teleporting to the moment that the Doctor was unlocking the Tardis.
He took note of her before the manic smile widened. "Look who decided to grace us with her presence!"
He didn't mean anything by it, still running off of the high of having seen a human risking their life, thereby choosing to be fantastic instead of living for their own self gain and not being fantastic. He was also running off of the high of the adrenaline coursing through his system.
It still made her angry, and it was an anger he barely took note of it, though it didn't do a single thing to dampen his mood.
"Well, don't just stand there, come on!" he told her, motioning for her to get inside first.
She did as she was told, though she wasn't happy about it, and that reflected in her posture.
She was so distracted that she forgot about the maelstrom of emotions coming from Mickey.
It was immediately obvious, like a rainstorm washing over her. She swayed, holding onto the console as Mickey came inside, though he stopped immediately, kneeling down and clutching onto the railing. It was more than terror. It was agony and pain and thinking that he was about to die and then just not understanding the sight before him. She wanted to honest to goodness puke, something that she hadn't done in the nearly... goodness, she didn't want to think about how long it had been since she'd utilized her full powers, not even wanting to think about the events that had surrounded that, especially not in this moment when she was so cross with the Doctor.
Oh. That was new. Her, actually being cross with the Doctor. She clutched tightly to the console as the Tardis shuddered, just barely riding the waves of the explosion before she landed them safely in an alley some miles away.
Anna, meanwhile, was fighting Mickey's emotions as he hung on for dear life, still not sure that he wasn't about to die and regretting everything he hadn't done and some of the things he had.
When they landed and the doors popped open, Mickey couldn't get out of there faster if he had tried. She expelled all of the emotions in a breath of relief as she heard the tinny voice of Jackie on the other end of Rose's phone, barely catching the conversation.
"All right?"
She was startled when the Doctor touched her shoulder, jerking away from him as if she had been burned. It was more than regret that lanced through her as she looked up at him, swallowing at the look on his face, the one he was trying so hard to conceal at the brief thought that of course nobody would want to be touched by a monster like a him (which wasn't something that she could feel. As bowtie had explained, standing on the beach, she hadn't been able to feel his emotions because he'd dulled those senses due to the Time War).
She may have been angry, but she never wanted him to feel like that because of something she'd done.
"Fine," she said. "Mickey's emotions were a lot, I'm fine, come on."
He frowned at that. "Mickey's wha-"
"I'm fine, come on," she said, already walking past him and out into the alley. Mickey's eyes caught her and his eyes widened before he hid further behind the pallet he was trying to unsuccessfully hide behind, though he didn't take his eyes off of her as he did so, regarding her fearfully and distrustfully. So, she looked to Rose instead, who was glancing between the two of them.
"Fat lot of good you were," she told them, and, because Anna's hackles were already raised, she felt them raise further before she remembered it was the Doctor she was cross with, not Rose.
The Doctor, unaware of this, leaned against the door to the Tardis, snapping his fingers. "Nestene Consciousness? Easy."
Rose, however, was preening, well-deserved, at the fact that she and she alone had saved the world, and their lives, in the process.
"You were useless in there," she said, standing up tall, pointing to her chest with her thumb for good measure. "You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."
The Doctor got serious, suddenly. "Yes, I would," he said. "Thank you."
Rose faltered at that a little, searching him. Some part of Anna finally realized that it was because she realized her adventure was coming to an end, and she didn't want it to.
Oh, Anna thought, quietly, never noticing that she'd said it out loud, though only the Doctor had heard her.
"Right then," he said. "We'll be off."
She frowned in surprise at the 'we', barely glancing back to look at him. He glanced at her so quickly that she only caught it because she was what she was before he only had eyes for Rose. "Unless, er, I don't know, you could... Come with us."
She turned back to look at Rose to see the look on her face.
"This box isn't just-"
"A box," Anna cut in, quietly, but he ignored her since he'd been the only one who could hear her.
"- a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."
Mickey had just been traumatized in the worst possible way, kidnapped and copied and nearly dying, nearly having to watch the woman that he loved died. And, despite this, he still found it within himself, when he recognized that the woman he loved was once again in danger, to do the only thing his poor traumatized mind could do: he moved to her and clung himself to her legs, clutching onto her to do the only thing that seemed sensible to stop her.
"Don't," he argued. "They're aliens. They're things," he spat at them.
She'd been surprised by how hurtful it was the first time he'd said it. Now, she'd heard it so many times that it lost it's wounded nature about it, especially because she'd traveled with the bloke twelve times, even if it had been for a short period each time.
"He's not invited," The Doctor said, pointing to Mickey. Anna was surprised and a little irritated when the Doctor moved closer to her. He continued to speak to Rose. "What do you think?" he asked. "You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep... Or you could go anywhere."
"Is it always this dangerous?"
It was the fact that he'd been so dead set against bringing people on board that he answered the way that he did.
"Not always."
She felt a thrill of surprise run through her and she turned to look at the Doctor, wide-eyed, when he answered that way instead. He did a quick glance at her, barely frowning at the (well-deserved) surprise on her face, before he looked back at Rose.
"Sometimes, it's just about seeing new places and meeting new people and exploring new cultures. But yeah," he conceded. "Sometimes, a lot of the time, it is this dangerous."
When Anna looked back at Rose, she saw the expression she'd never seen before. A look like she wanted to say yes more than she ever had in her entire life.
Anna, meanwhile, felt something click with her, and she felt her fury at the Doctor mounting.
What if he'd only changed his answer because he knew that she wanted to help? What if he was counting on her to make it less dangerous?
What if he got angry when she, inevitably, didn't?
Anna was usually all about being calm and cool. In that moment, in a fit of fury, she spoke.
"He forgot to mention that it also travels in time."
With that, she swept back into the Tardis before she set about doing what she'd never done. Fixed things for Rose.
She sent Jackie various texts and pictures from Rose, reassuring her that everything was all right, she was just traveling and look at all the spectacular places she'd been to? She'd teleported off to a void space to do it, and was about to teleport to the police station where Mickey would be questioned about the whereabouts of one missing Rose Tyler before she realized she didn't even have to. Jackie never reported her daughter missing, even if she was worried about her going off and doing dangerous things (and asking how she was financing this and who were the pair with her, did she know them from the shop? All questions which Anna was easily able to answer).
The problem wasn't in the difficulty. The problem was that she was doing it at all. Was she really doing this because of her anger towards the Doctor? And if so, what did that make her? She wasn't exactly becoming the wrong kind of being of power, but it wasn't exactly the sort of thing the right kind of being of power that she wanted to be would undertake.
She questioned her actions the entire time she was doing it, flustered. By the time it was done, she felt regret flitting through her.
Well, guess that's that, then, she thought.
With that, she teleported back to the Tardis.
She was surprised to see a tired looking Rose heading towards the hallway, pulling her skirts up about her so as not to trip on the dress that would see the danger of the Gelth.
"Oh, hey," Rose said, a tired tone in her voice. "Where've you been off to?"
She struggled to catch up with the reality before her. It was obvious that they were just coming back from the adventure, the Doctor and Rose looking an appropriate amount of adventured out and ready to either head to bed or eat. Rose would probably change before that happened, but Rose was already distracted, walking past her.
"More all-powerful being business, I'd reckon," the Doctor noted, and she felt herself bristling without knowing why before she remembered her past anger with him.
"I need a word with you," she told him, despite the fact that she'd just rewritten one of the most important parts of Rose's life as if it were nothing.
"Sort of figured. Rose? Need anything?"
"Nah, I'll just change- actually, could we stop by home for a bit? I'd like to see my mum."
The Doctor spoke, sounding put upon but not seriously "If you insist."
"I do, ta," she said, in a teasing tone.
He waved her away, and she smiled.
"Great," she said. "I'll change and we'll head back. Thanks!" she shouted back. Anna turned back to the Doctor, about to set into him, when Rose ran back. "No, I mean it. Thanks. For... everything."
Even though she couldn't feel his emotions, she looked over at the Doctor and saw the way he warmed at that, even softening. "You're very welcome, Rose Tyler. Now, go on, change. Home awaits."
Rose's face brightened at that, and she smiled before she ran back down the hallway. Anna's eyebrows raised before she watched her run. After a moment, she turned back to the Doctor.
"You wanted a word?"
He was suddenly so jovial, already softer in the twelve hours he'd known Rose. It wasn't fair. She wanted to take her anger out on somebody, especially because it was him what needed the anger taking out on, but that wouldn't be fair to him. Not after everything he'd been through.
She dropped out of her righteous indignation and she searched him, speaking with a softer tone and words that didn't bite.
"In the future, you can't tell people that I'm an all-powerful being."
His brows furrowed and he genuinely didn't remember, having no idea what she was talking about. She let out a put upon a sigh, feeling her demeanor droop, before she reminded him.
"What you said to Rose, correcting me about my being human, which I am, by the way, born and raised," she threw in, for good measure.
She startled when she realized she still hadn't told him about the television show.
He'd always taken it with grace and good poise, but she never did it this early. It wasn't usually until after Jack came aboard that she told him. Why was she startled to realize that she still hadn't told him?
Then again, there were lots of things that were different here. The guilt finally started to creep in about what she'd done to Rose's life.
She pushed both theses thought aside before she looked at him. She was confused by the look on his face.
"You are?" he asked her. "How's that possible, then?" he searched her, carefully. "How old are you, anyway?"
"We're getting off track," she said.
"For good reason, I think," he replied.
She rolled her eyes before she shook her head. "You can't go around telling people that I'm an all-powerful being."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because it's not yours to tell, for starters."
He started to move around the console, and she was startled to realize that he wasn't taking this seriously. She felt a drop in her that she held off, not willing to accept the fact that he wasn't listening to her despite the fact that he already knew about her emotional abuse, because that didn't mean that he didn't accept it or take it seriously.
"I'm pretty sure that you performing miracles'll give it away," he told her, and she forced herself to stay exactly where she was, the anger surprising in both volume and the fact that it existed. "Even humans, as ignorant as they can be, won't be able to not notice that."
She ground her teeth together. "Is that what you think I do all day?" she asked him. The tone with which she used surprised them both, her voice low and angry, and he finally looked up at her. "Run around, performing miracles, demanding that people bow down lest they be struck down by lightning by the almighty-"
She snarled, cutting herself off.
He held up his hands in a placating manner. "That's not what I'm saying at all-" he quickly tried.
Her previous anger flared back to life. "You had no right to tell Rose that I'm an all-powerful being!" she said, and was promptly embarrassed by how desperate her voice sounded. She bit her lip, trying to reign it in, along with the fact that she felt wobbly, her legs jelly and feeling like they wouldn't support her if the situation arose.
"Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that was so personal to you, but if I had, I wouldn't have told her," he said.
She felt the need to cry welling up within her and she immediately made it disappear.
It wasn't fair. Here he was, the Doctor, her best friend twelve times over, and he was looking at her like... she was an outsider. Like she was a stranger.
She'd grown accustomed to the feeling in the time that she'd been traveling with him. Having to repeat the same version of events twelve times over did that to a person. But this time, for some reason, it was just... different. She didn't know how to describe why that was true. She just knew that she wished desperately for the Doctor who already knew her, already knew everything about her.
It hit her that she didn't want to repeat this. Not these times. She wanted them to be solid, and set.
For a second, she just wanted things to be normal.
All at once, her excess feelings vanished. She cleared her throat before she quickly dismissed the last thought, searching him.
"I just thought it was fairer to Rose to not be blindsided when you-"
"This isn't about what's fair to Rose."
Her voice was suddenly more level than it had been this entire time.
"This is about keeping a secret that I thought you understood. If someone finds out that I'm an all-powerful being- if they find out that I can change the bad and I'm not, then they blame me, and I- it's not my fault, and I don't want to deal with that," she told him. "I shouldn't have to."
"Because you're right, it isn't-"
"Furthermore," she cut him off, before she searched for the words, simply repeating what she had done. "It's my secret, and the fact that I told you, the fact that I trusted you with it and you just gave it away like it meant nothing, that really hurt me."
She was surprised by her admission, and she quickly looked down and around.
"I didn't realize-"
"You should've done."
She'd never blamed the Doctor. Not for anything in her entire life. So, why now, when he couldn't have possibly known how much this meant to her, was she blaming him for this?
"No, I'm- I'm sorry, you couldn't have known," she said, rubbing at her face with her hand. She felt about a thousand years old (even if she was nowhere near that old). "I'm-I'm overreacting, and I'm-"
"What a stupid thing to say about someone who's been emotionally abused."
She frowned at that. "What?" she asked.
He raised his eyebrows. "What you said to me? Edited it down for language, but the sentiment is still the same." When recognition didn't fall through her eyes, he raised his eyebrows a little bit higher. "I said that you weren't much if a bit of yelling scared you away and you said that it was a, you know, stupid thing to say to someone who'd been emotionally abused?"
Realization finally crested through her. "Oh," she said, before her brain put it into the context of what she'd just said. "Oh," she realized. She looked down at the floor. "Oh."
There was silence between them for a moment. "How old are you?" he asked, softly.
She put her hands behind her back, doing some quick mental math. "Probably nearing sixty, now." She shuddered at the realization, just short of stopping herself from saying she was getting old.
It hit her, then, that she'd never had children. Never purchased a house, never gotten married, never even finished her degree. All the things she said she would do by the time she'd gotten to this age, and she hadn't done a single one of them.
It wasn't that she hadn't been fulfilled, or had a good life up to this point. She couldn't even describe why this was such a huge thing to her.
Before she had a chance to, he spoke.
"Then whoever hurt you did so pretty recently."
She shook her head. "Nearly forty years ago, now," she said, softly.
"Pretty severely, though."
She frowned. "What?" she asked, looking up at him.
"The abuse that you suffered was pretty severe," he corrected himself.
She snorted, looking down and away. "That's one word for it," she told him, quietly.
"Then you're still going to have those reactions, especially if it hasn't been dealt with properly."
"Those reactions?" she questioned.
He held his hands up, needlessly. "Like the one you just did," he told her. "Where you feel a certain way over something someone did and you react in the same fashion you would've done if it-"
"I already know the extensive psychology behind abuse," she told him, giving him a thumbs up. "But thanks for the Ted Talk. My point being is that I'm sorry for coming at you and saying that you should've known. Just... it's not something I tell people, and it's not just because of the whole, them not understanding. It's also because I don't want to get worshipped as a god," she told him, and surprise flitted through his eyes. "Because the second that people find out I can do the incredible things I can do, it's either blame or worship, and it's not what I want."
If anybody wanted proof of that, look no further than Dean Winchester and the conversation he would eventually have with God.
She was surprised by the turn in conversation when next he spoke. "You told me so casually that I thought that it didn't matter, but I understand it, now. The fact that you told me shows that you have a lot of trust in me."
It wasn't just surprise that she felt. It was also a tenseness that erupted about her, fearing that he was about to ask about just why that was.
"Hopefully, you'll stick around to see that your trust in me isn't misplaced." He shrugged. "If that's what you want."
She searched him for a moment, surprised that that was even a question.
"Course I am- do, course I do," she corrected herself, before she nodded. "As long as you'll have me."
"Okay, then," he said, before he nodded. "Good to have you aboard, Anna Monroe."
"Good to be aboard, Doctor."
She started to tell him that it wouldn't be all the time, that she would have to pop off for all-powerful being business on occasion (making a mental remind that she still had to save the people she could, both during End of the World and The Unquiet Dead).
But, a feeling came in.
Feelings were complicated things, and even she didn't fully know how to explain them. But, basically, they helped her to know if it was okay to step in or how she should step in. Right then, she had a feeling that she shouldn't tell him what she'd always told him, which was that she wouldn't always be around.
She felt a feeling warm her chest that this time, she might've actually found a place she could call her own.