A/N: Hello everyone, and welcome to my fanfic! My first Dr. Who one I'm writing. I'm writing it for me, but I thought I would post it here in case anyone else likes it : ) Any trigger warnings I will post before chapters, otherwise I'm going to try to keep the A/N's to a minimum. If you enjoy the story, please feel free to leave a review and follow it for chapter updates! I'm going to try to post ~2-3k word chapters every 1-2 weeks to keep it realistic until the story is told. I don't own Dr. Who. Anywho, Allons-y!
Air currents around me feel electric, swirling around me as the Tardis begins to whiz and hum, a hollow excitement filling the tension. Terror fills me, radiating from my heart and burning me with ice,
"Doctor? DOCTOR! Doctor no!" Rushing to the door, I push, but my human strength is no match for a time lord, or for the strength of the Tardis. It stays closed as we rush away through time and space, away from my doctor, my love. A hologram appears, my doctor, appears. He looks towards the Tardis door that still will not budge as we fly. I feel the sadness radiating from the soul of the Tardis, from this beautiful ship who loves him as much as I do. She longs for him, for her doctor.
My doctor, or an image of him, speaks to me, through me: "This is emergency programme one. Rose, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape."
I feel the hologram stealing my hope, my heart. "No!" Any confusion I've had morphs, morphs to a blinding, angering pain as he continues.
"And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The Tardis is taking you home."
"I won't let you." I hear myself but can't feel the words as they're released.
"And I bet you're fussing and moaning now. Typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The Tardis can never return for me. Emergency programme one means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on their machine. So, this is what you should do. Let the Tardis die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one'll even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world'll move on and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose Have a fantastic life."
He has the nerve to fade away. To leave me here. He's sent me away.
"You can't do this to me. You can't. Take me back! Take me back! No!"
Breath stolen from my lungs and I'm thrown to the ground by the jolting, jerky movements.
As quickly as it started the Tardis silences, and the controls silence. Scrambling to my feet I rush to the circular puzzle which only my doctor usually plays with, the controls. I push wildly, begging my brain to function, to work, to remember what he pressed, what he would do. "Please! Please help me, let me go to him!"; my plea to the Tardis is only returned by a comforting wave of calm which isn't welcome. At some point tears began forming, and now flow down and are caught under my chin. A knocking startles me.
Cautiously I walk to the door, the door that if you're close enough just looks like a door. If I close my eyes tight enough, I can imagine He's behind me. I try the door, which opens easily.
London. We're back in London. Cloudy, Doctorless London. Mickey's face is in front of mine, my mother's close behind him.
"Rose! You're back! We heard the Tardis and came rushing, but you're not due back for another month!" My mother's smile could light up the world, but at this moment I'm sinking, falling, to the deepest pit of sorrow that I've ever seen. Their expressions break as they see me and realize that there's no bubbly walking encyclopedia behind me. My arms fly around Mickey and I can't find my feet. He's strong, supporting me and helping me to a sitting position safely in the small dining room of the Tardis. Somehow, I find the strength to recount the events of the past… day? Hour? Week? I start from landing on the spaceship, the one my doctor still faced, and work forward. Somber silence fills the Tardis where we sit, my mother, sitting in my doctor's chair, is the first to break the silence.
"Rose, my darling, but in the end, he's gone and done the right thing. He's sent you back here, back to me. Back home." I can hear the words she doesn't say. How he's given me a pathway to a normal life. I don't think she'll ever understand the need, the hunger I have for the universe. How the doctor has changed me. How I can't live this life without him. How I was to be travelling with him until the end of my days.
"Mum, you don't understand. The doctor, he's good. More than good. He's fantastic, he's the best thing that's ever happened to me," I flinch as the words come out and I see Mickey out of the corner of my eye pretend not to care, and fail. He's gotten the shortest end of the stick here. Even now, he's sitting on a chair he's had to grab from another room, falling apart at the seams and just... not reliable. It's sobering to realize that this chair, this sad excuse for a chair, is what I've become to Mickey. My expression hardens, I can't feel this too. "Mum. The doctor, he's always been there for everyone else. We wouldn't be here now if it weren't for him. It's time for him to know that someone else has his back, too."
My mum looks at me, and it is as if this is the first time she's seen me in years. It's the look you have as you search for something that you've known isn't there for a while, but you've not given yourself permission to believe it until you must. Until you need it, right now, and it's not there to deliver. It's the look you give your only daughter, born unto you and your late husband of nearly twenty years, as she tells you she has to go and likely die, to save a man you can't sort out your feelings for, and knowing you could never, never tell her no. Gears are turning in her head and I can feel her thoughts as she works to formulate them, try to conjure up the words to say no.
I look down toward my hands. The hands that held the face of the doctor this morning, marveling at how one time lord could be so utterly brilliant. I can't bring my gaze to her face as I continue. "Mum, I have to try. He would do it for me."
"Rose… You're going to die, Rose. You're going to die for him? You'll leave me, and Mickey, your family." Looking up, I shift between her face and Mickey's. I don't need to reply for her to know the answer.
"I'm sorry, Mum. Mickey. I am sorry. But I have to try." Standing shakily, I take one of their hands in each of mine. Sometimes, when it all gets too hard, all you can do is the next right thing.
I speak softly now, trying to sound as kind and sincere as possible. "Tardis? I - I need your help." Reluctant humming fills my head. See, the Tardis can communicate. Quite clearly. All you have to do is listen carefully. I take small determined steps out towards the control room, where I've spent so much time. After a quick squeeze I drop their hands. I can't bring myself to look at them as we walk, them just a step behind me. "I know that you aren't going to like this, but we have to help him. We have to." I feel the engine hum softly. She's had her orders; she knows what she's meant to do. But you can sense that her love for the doctor is stronger than the bonds that hold her power. Her reply that echoes is calculated, cautious and urging me toward the screen to receive a proper reading.
Rose, are you certain?
"Of course. I have to help him."
It is possible, but I do not know how it will affect you, Rose.
"It does not matter. Only he does now." I can almost feel my mums' chest constrict as she holds back a sob. This maybe it. I could be leaving now, forever. There are no more readings on the screen, only a satisfied humming reverberating throughout my skull. "What do I need to do? I must get back. I have to get back to him." A pang of sorrow washes through me from the Tardis as she bends the winds inside to her will, encompassing my mother and Mickey, carrying them out of the Tardis and shutting the door. I gasp and feel moisture threatening to crash over my eyelids but stay quiet. I can't let her change her mind. I hear a click as a grate on the floor opens barely a centimeter. Golden shimmering threads weave out of the crack, swirling around the Tardis and through me. One passes through my arm and I can feel it, or see it? It feels like the warm chocolate chip cookies we would make before Christmas, served with hot chocolate. Served with hot cocoa around the tree. I'm living the memory again and it's shocking. Even more jarring is the voice in my head, female, but undistinguishable, she could be anybody and everybody all at once; "Rose, I cannot take you back to the doctor. He's specifically programmed me not to. But I can help you. I can guide you. I can give you power, should you be willing to host me." She's never spoken to me like this before.
"Anything. Anything for him." The words sound confident. Never in my life have I been more sincere.
"Rose, look unto me. Look into my heart. Open your mind. Feel the power, channel it. Picture the ship. Picture our doctor, and go to him. I will take care of the rest." The floor rises further, revealing a swirling golden ball of energy. I stare. I stare into the gold, all the strings of the fates, tangled, messy. Threatening to snap at any place. I feel the strands weaving into my mind, my very soul. The knowledge is almost unbearable. I feel myself expanding as the essence of the Tardis latches onto me. I close my eyes tightly, trying to focus on the here, the now. I open them and move to the controls, my mind moving a quadrillion miles per hour. I focus my energy onto the thread from the ship. I feel the Tardis whirr to life as I think of the doctor, unmoving as he pushed me onto his ship to save my life, only half an hour ago yet not for two hundred thousand years.
The engines roar with determination, as we move as one, the Tardis guiding the need of my own willpower as I retie the golden strands of fate.
It's silent. I can feel him. He's outside the door, working on the spaceship. Working to save all the universe. My doctor. The wisps float me to the door as I desire it. The door opens and I step out, unblinking, my focus on keeping the walls of my mind from imploding. I see him. My doctor. He looks back at me with amazement. I am golden. I am one with the Tardis. We are here.