A/N: Well, this is awkward. You know how I was apologising for taking so long to post in the last chapter? Well, it's 4 years later, so I guess I take back the previous apology and add a few more hundred apologies to it and call this chapter 5, eh?
It's been so long since I worked on this story I actually forgot I'd already uploaded it, so I uploaded it again. I then realised my boo boo, deleted it and am now updating the one I actually started. That's how you know you really dropped the ball, when you forget that you picked up the ball in the first place. .
I don't blame anyone for not coming back to this story. It's been 4 years – you can declare someone legally dead after that amount of time in most countries, right? Anyways, I'm very sorry for my lapse and have every intention on completing this story in the coming days/weeks. I have a month off work, so really shouldn't have any excuses.
I've made a couple of subtle changes to the previous chapters, so if you're reading this for the first time, never mind, but if by some miracle you're coming back to this story, you may want to re-read what I've done. Or not. I feel like I've imposed enough on your good graces already.
So, with one last mea culpa, I'll leave you to read the next chapter in peace…
CHAPTER FIVE
The Doctor's lips were still pressed to Rose's ear when suddenly the monitors that had been keeping dutiful watch over her went crazy, buzzers and alarms going off all over the place. The Doctor straightened up, his brow furrowing in concern at the sudden change in Rose's condition.
"What is it, what's wrong?" cried Jackie in horror.
The nurse had reached over and hit the emergency button beside Rose's bed as soon as it started and already people were appearing from all over the place.
"I have to ask you to leave, Mrs Tyler, Doctor Smith," said the nurse as she quickly dropped Rose's bed down flat so the crash team that was rapidly assembling could begin to work on her.
"Oh my god!" said Jackie in stunned horror. "Rose, NO!"
"Please, Mrs Tyler, we need room," said the ICU doctor that had now taken charge of the room. "Please just wait outside; we're doing all that we can for your daughter."
The Doctor grabbed Jackie, responding better to the instructions then Jackie and practically dragged her out of the room. They watched helplessly from behind the glass window as the medical staff raced desperately to get Rose's heart beating again before it was too late.
"This is it," said Jackie in disbelief. "I'm going to lose her, I'm losing my Rose…"
The Doctor looked down at Jackie and then back at Rose, gritting his teeth as they began the brutal work of resuscitating her. The 21st century was so archaic in its medical practices he thought, watching with revulsion as they shocked her with electricity and pushed poisonous chemicals into her veins. Again and again the crash team administered the brutal treatment in what was an increasingly obvious vain attempt to save Rose's life. Jackie was right. This was it. They were watching Rose Tyler die. The line on the monitor remained stubbornly flat. Rose's heart was refusing to beat again. He couldn't let this happen to her, it was too much.
Before a coherent thought had formed in his head, the Doctor was already halfway back to the TARDIS, running at an even faster speed then the journey to the hospital. Once inside he set the co-ordinates and threw the switch before he let himself think about what it was he was contemplating.
"Doctor?" Neris' quizzical voice cut through his fog. "What is wrong? Where is Rose Tyler?"
The Doctor remained hunched over, a white-knuckle grip on the edge of the console and lips pressed together in a tight line.
"Doctor?"
The TARDIS made her familiar take off noises, the Doctor able to feel her movements through his feet. The same way he felt every event swirling around him all the time. Time and motion wrapped around him in a never-ending bombardment of his senses. It was all linked and he was a part of that tapestry. Maintaining its flow. Protecting it. Always protecting it. The Time Lord.
"Doctor?" Neris was unrelenting. "Where are we going? What are you doing?"
The centre console blinked at him, telling him they'd arrived at their destination. He wasn't breaking all the rules. He was breaking the rule. The only real rule. Every cell of his body was screaming at him not to do this. But his hearts drown it all out. Let the worlds burn. As long as he was holding Rose's hand when they did, nothing else mattered. This time he got to be selfish. Surely he was owed this, after all the long years of service to all those universes? Surely this long life of his had taken enough from him? The Doctor couldn't think about this anymore. He couldn't think beyond a dying Rose. He wouldn't let anything else matter.
"I'm getting Rose." The Doctor heard the hoarseness in his own voice. "I'm bringing her home."
"Did you not just leave to do that?" asked a confused Neris.
The Doctor stared unseeingly into the green glow of the control centre. He was fighting a Herculean battle within himself over what he was about to do. Every bit of sense and reason told him he couldn't do this but no matter how loudly they shouted their arguments at him they were drowned out by one thought and one thought alone.
Rose.
He had to save her, somehow, someway he could make this right. It drove all other thoughts out of his head, leaving him only with the image of her struggling for life in the near future. The Doctor gritted his teeth and threw the leaver that opened the TARDIS doors and strode through them purposefully.
The Colane Estate spread out before him from where he'd parked the TARDIS on top of a nearby hill, overlooking the playground area that had been the place of Rose's accident. Or rather, was about to be. He looked around at the various children playing in the distance, wondering which one was the ill-fated Brianna that Rose would be coming along any minute to save. The children were running around and calling out to one another in that carefree way that only children had and the Doctor watched them silently from his vantage point.
He started to walk determinedly towards the playground, still a ways off in the distance, his jaw set as he prepared to do the unthinkable. Rose and Jackie weren't there yet but they would be in the next minute or so but the outcome wasn't going to be the same. He wasn't going to let Rose end up in a hospital bed, fighting for her next breath, no matter the cost. His long legs carried him over the distance as he waged a frantic internal war with himself.
Okay, so he was going to totally stuff up the time line here on Earth with what he was about to do. It was alright - there would be consequences but he would take Rose and Jackie and Mickey the idiot with him in the TARDIS and protect them from the inevitable fall out. Sure it might be hard in the beginning all of them living together and just because he would have more or less condemned the earth over one human life that had become so important to him didn't mean that it all wouldn't come out in the wash... right?
The Doctor stopped in his tracks then, the enormity of what he was contemplating hitting him fully. He bent over, his hands on his knees as he battled with his conscious. He was a Time Lord - the last of his people. He was charged with upholding the balance in the Universe and it had become a personal crusade to protect the helpless, do his bit for those who had no other defender. And now here he was, about to commit what would be paramount to mass murder all for the sake of one human child.
A human that had become so precious, so necessary to him, that he was willing to sacrifice so many others to ensure her safety. Rose would hate even the idea of such a thing being done on her behalf and would hate him for having contemplated it. It was impossible - whatever he did he was doomed to lose her.
There had to be a way around it, there just had to be... but nothing was coming to him.
All of the countless times his brain had suddenly come up with solutions to impossible situations, all of the times he'd been inundated with thoughts and possibilities… now all he was getting was a blank silence. He couldn't think, the image of Rose being shocked and drugged in that hospital bed in an attempt to bring her back from the brink blocking any ability he had to be able to think clearly.
The sound of familiar laughter made his head snap up from where he was still bent over, anguishing over his impossible choice. Rose and Jackie had just come around the corner of one of the buildings and Rose was laughing as she told her mother a story. The Doctor could only stare at the picture of vitality she made - so alive, breath takingly so as she threw back her head and laughed with her mother. She was so beautiful, so vibrantly in every way.
Something snapped inside the Doctor - literally snapped - he felt it in his heart - the right one to be exact. Some part of him that he'd held back, hidden for so many centuries - a part of him that reigned in the most basic of his emotions suddenly giving way. Without any more thought he was running - running towards her with only one thought on his mind - the silence finally giving way to a single thought.
Save her… save her… save her…
It was so instinctual that he couldn't stop himself, no amount of reason, no amount of fear of the consequences - nothing. He had to get to her, had to stop this from happening. But it was already too late. If he hadn't stopped originally then he probably would have made it to her in time but he had and now it was too late. Again.
The Doctor was still about two hundred metres away from the two women when the accident happened. He watched in horror as the car suddenly appeared, moving way too fast, the child running out in its path and then Rose, his brave Rose leaping out and pushing the girl out of the way only to take the full brunt of the collision with the oncoming vehicle. Her body bounced off the bonnet and there was the sickening sound of flesh impacting on metal before she tumbled to the ground, rolling into the curb by an open gutter and lying there unmoving.
The Doctor dropped to his knees, anguish tearing through his body at knowing he'd just witnessed the killing of Rose Tyler. Despite having two hearts and a superior lung capacity he couldn't breathe, he felt as though he'd just been gutted and left to die in the street beside Rose. Immediately after the accident there had been an eerie silence for a moment, everyone too shocked to react immediately. And then Jackie began to scream… and scream and scream. The sound cut through the Doctor like a knife - the sound of a mother's grief. There was no sound like it - no matter what species or life form - the sound of a mother grieving for her child stayed with you, haunted your dreams.
People began to rush to her aid, crowding around her as they all sort to try and help her. He could still hear Jackie's cries as she sobbed for someone to help her daughter. The Doctor was frozen there, on his knees, observing the horrifying tableau - unable to help but equally unable to look away. Of all the ways he'd thought he'd lose her, this was not one of them. He wasn't prepared - not for her to be lost like this and certainly not for the feelings of bitter helplessness.
He was never helpless - never.
He was the Doctor. He always thought of something, did something clever, at the last moment to save the day. Always, for all the long days of his life he'd managed to find ways, impossible ways of coming out on top in the end… or at the very least, break even. The last time he'd felt this desolate he'd watched the genocide of his people, the destruction of his home. Ever since then he'd been adrift, floating in time and space with no home, no anchor to tie him to anything. It was all gone, they were all gone.
But then he'd found Rose.
Rose with her impossible enthusiasm and the same delight in the universe that he had. In all its horrors, in all its magnificence - she revelled with him, held her breath with him and ran for her life with him. In her he'd found his centre again, finally, after all this time, he'd found his home.
And now his home was once again dying in front of his eyes. He clutched a hand to his chest, trying to stop the pain that was searing outwards to the rest of his body.
