Authors note: I am skipping Blink mostly because the Doctor was barely in there so what else could have Rose done differently? But also I'm eager to get Jack in.
"Cardiff!"
"Cardiff?"
"Yep, Cardiff!" Rose nodded flicking a switch down "you see the thing about Cardiff is that it's built on a rift in time and space, which just bleeds out energy. So I land the TARDIS here, open up the engines and let it feed, bit like putting petrol in a car. It's been a while since she had some fuel, last time we went here…"
Martha watched Rose who was now deflated and no longer cheerful. They had only just got the TARDIS back from the Weeping Angels and everything was light and happy…now Rose seemed lost and sad.
"Rose?" she whispered.
Rose shook her head "sorry it's just the last time I came here I was with my men. The Doctor, Jack and Mickey…they're all gone now"
"Who are Jack and Mickey?" Martha asked.
"Jack is…well a flirt, but he was a brother to me…he's dead now. Mickey has been there all my life, we dated for a bit but I never…fell in love with him, it was more of a sibling love there as well, he's stuck in a parallel world with the Doctor…and my Mum"
"Oh Rose" Martha whispered, Rose had never fully talked about her life. Martha knew odd bits like this Doctor bloke of hers but not much. She held Rose in a tight embrace which Rose pulled away from almost immediately and wiped a few stray tears of her face.
"Come on then, let's get this thing into the vortex and I'll make us a cup of tea yeah?" she pressed a few buttons and then pulled down the lever, never looking at the monitor. If she had looked at the monitor she would have seen someone running towards the TARDIS.
Suddenly the TARDIS rocked harshly to the side sending the two women onto the floor.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING?" Martha shrieked.
Rose climbed back up to her feet, holding tightly to the monitor as she read it "we're accelerating" she gasped.
"Accelerating where?" Martha said through gritted teeth as she held on tightly to the railings.
"Into the future" Rose said reading the screen. "Year one billion, five billion, five trillion, fifty trillion…year one hundred trillion…oh my god we're going to the year one hundred trillion"
"What happens there?" Martha asks not liking the tone of voice Rose was using.
"We're going to the end of the universe!"
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
They zipped up their jackets as they exited the TARDIS, the air was freezing and the sky was pitch black. No light or life could be seen. They were surrounded by cliffs of dark coloured rocks and they stood upon gritty sand just as dark as everything…there was nothing else apart from a body.
"Oh my god!" Martha said running towards the body, her medical instincts kicking in. she ran over and began to check for signs of life.
"Martha I think he's dead" Rose said walking up to them; suddenly she heard a huge gasp and Martha scream.
"Hello" came a very familiar American drawl "I'm Captain Jack Harkness and who are you?"
Rose froze and stared at Jack in shock who was still flirting with Martha, she felt something niggling in the back of her mind saying that he was wrong, that Jack shouldn't be there but…but it was Jack! She ran up and flung her arms round him, almost throwing him off his feet.
"Urgh!" he groaned.
She buried her head into his shoulder and he picked her up twirling her up in the air chuckling, she giggled and bit and they pulled apart.
"Your hair is darker and a bit shorter" Jack commented.
"Yours is lighter" Rose said "and you styled it differently, it looks better"
"So where is he? Mr Big Ears?" Jack asked.
Rose looked down at her shoes, furiously blinking the tears away "gone…he's gone. It's just me and Martha now"
"Yes we met" Jack said raking his eyes up and down Martha's body.
"Stop it" Rose said causing Jack to chuckle.
"Come on Rosie, you used to flirt and dance just like the rest of us, so don't you go and act all might like the Doc did"
Rose rolled her eyes "Captain Flirts-a-lot has entered the building" she muttered.
"And he's not leaving" Jack said wrapping an arm round Rose's waist "come on Rosie let's explore!"
Martha watched Jack and Rose walk slowly together and she couldn't help but grin, she has never seen Rose so happy before, she can only hope that Jack stays with them.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
Jack and Rose were now walking with their arms linked as Jack started to retell how he ended up here with them.
"Well I woke up alone on that game station, covered in dalek dust. The TARDIS dematerializing right before me, leaving me alone"
"Oh Jack" Rose gasped "I'm so sorry, I was unconscious at the time, if I knew…" she trailed off when Jack shook his head at her grinning.
He held up his wrist and waved it before her eyes "but I have this, don't I? My vortex manipulator"
"Vortex as in time vortex?" Martha asked.
"Yep! Rosie and the Doc weren't the only ones that can travel in time"
Rose spluttered indignantly "that is not time travel! It's like…like I got a sports car and you got a space hopper"
"So I bounced" Jack said shrugging. "Besides I think the TARDIS wouldn't like being compared to a sports car"
"No she wouldn't" Rose agreed heatedly "she's not anyway, she's home"
"So anyway, I got the times wrong" Jack said sheepishly "landed in 1865, I spent the next 140 and so years waiting for the Doctor in Cardiff knowing full well that the Doctor would stop at some point to refuel"
Rose smirked for a moment but it disappeared when Martha said "but you look so young!" Martha was right, Rose couldn't put her finger on it but she knows there's something wrong with Jack, she knows that she is the cause…she's linked to him somehow.
"I know you wouldn't believe my real age if I told you" Jack said winking.
"Stop it!" Rose said tiredly.
"Oh come on Rosie Pose lighten up!" Jack pouted.
"I thought I told you to never call me that again?" Rose said narrowing her eyes.
"Well I think it's an adorable nickname for my little sis" Jack said.
"Call me that and there will be no chance for me to be an aunt" Rose shot back.
"Guys!" Martha snapped "we're at the end of the universe and you two are…acting like my family, can we leave the domestics alone?"
That caused Jack and Rose to roar in laughter, the pair clutched to their sides and leaned on one another giggling.
"Sorry Martha" Rose said in between giggles "inside joke"
"You sounded like our esteemed Doctor, Mr No Domestics" Jack chortled.
Rose froze at the sight behind Martha and both Martha and Jack looked at what she was staring at in awe. It looked like a city just made of rocks, bendy pathways running in all directions.
Jack let out a low whistle "what do you think it is?" he asked.
"A city or a hive or a nest, maybe even an conglomeration" Rose said shrugging.
"There used to be life here" Martha whispered "but it's all gone…what happened?"
"Time" Rose said flatly "just time. Everything is dying now. All the great civilisations gone" she pointed up at the sky "this isn't just night, all the stars have burnt out and faded away. Into nothing"
If Jack hadn't spotted the mob chasing someone he would have worried about that fact Rose sounded so old…so much like him, so much like the Doctor. "What's that?"
"Don't know but it looks like a hunt" Rose said "come on!" she ran down the hill with Jack and Martha hot on her heels.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
The three raced along the cliff side, keeping their eyes set on their target down on the low flat lands. A grooved path of some sort of wheeled vehicle served as a path in the low light.
Jack laughed loudly "Oh I've missed this!" he shouted.
Rose reached the flat area of land first, but it was Jack who caught the terrified and dirty dark haired man. "I've got you! I've got you." When the man struggled in his arms, Jack handed him off to Rose and pulled out his gun as the man screamed and yelled.
"Jack, don't you dare." Rose shrieked. Turning, to look over at Rose, Jack paused and mouthed sorry before raising the gun. Firing off a shot, he watched as the hoard before them stopped at the noise.
Swallowing, Rose looked over the forms of the future kind nervously, "What are they?"
"There are more of them," the strange man shouted, "We've got to keep moving!"
"My ship will be alright. It's safe," Rose told him, "its right over there." They all turned to look back the way they came and saw another group of the vicious hunters running down the same path, "Maybe not"
"We're close to the silo," the stranger informed them, "If we get to the silo we're safe."
Rose turned to the others "silo?" she asked.
"I vote for silo" Jack said.
"Me too, silo for me" Martha agreed.
At the votes, the strange man took off running in the opposite direction. Running after him the three companions found themselves by a large gate with blinding lights shining in their eyes.
"It's the future kind!" the strange man screamed to the men manning the gate only a few yards in front of them, "Open the gate"
"Show me your teeth!" one of the guards yelled as they reached the high metal gate.
"Show me your teeth!"
"Show him your teeth." The three of them did.
"Human!" The guard yelled suddenly, "Human let them in, let them in." The heavy gate opened just wide enough for the rest of them to slip inside. "Close it! Close the gate!" The guards threw their weight against the gate and the head guard opened fire on the ground in front of the future kind. Rose took a step back as the future kind growled at them from beyond the gate. "Go back to where you came from," the head guard said firmly.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
Moving the piece of wire through his fingers, Yana sighed at the soft hum of the machines around him. He had built all this from nothing and yet it was again nothing. It could not fulfil its purpose, could not grant humanity one last chance. Sighing, he made a few unnecessary adjustments. All of his work meant nothing, now all it was good for was giving a tiny spark of hope to others, but there was no one who could help him or give him hope. He barely heard Chantho moving around the lab, but he could feel her worried eyes on him. The loudspeaker overhead pulled him from his thoughts.
"Professor, we've got four new humans inside," looking back at his work, he dismissed the voice, four more humans hardly mattered to his work
"One of them…Rose Tyler called herself a scientist"
"Oh! A scientist! Oh my word," he nervously handed the parts to Chantho, suddenly unsure of what to do with himself, "I don't know!" shouting up to the speaker as he moved for the door, Yana grinned, "I'm coming!"
DWDWDWDWDWDWDW
"What did the psychic paper say?" Jack asked "it better not say you're single, you have a habit of letting that slip onto paper"
Rose glared at Jack "I was overwhelmed at the time" she said defending her actions when she was a young naive girl.
"I know I'm a very overwhelming person" Jack said grinning.
Rose elbowed him in the ribs "if you must know it said that I was a scientist" Rose said snottily.
"Oh a scientist" Jack mock swooned "how posh!"
"Shut up Harkness" Rose growled.
Martha bit her lip from giggling, the antics of Rose and Jack reminded her so much of Tish and Leo that she found it amusing. Though she had to squash a small part of her that felt a bit like a third wheel, she hadn't seen Rose so happy in a long time, so she should be happy for her.
Suddenly a voice shouted out "Rose Tyler" repeatedly. Rose turned round and held a hand up in the air bouncing up and down on her feet.
"That's me!" she called out.
An old man about roughly seventy came forward; he wore a smart black waist coat and bowtie with white shirt and black trousers. He eyes Rose in disbelieve before beaming "good, good, good, good, good" he said before gesturing her to walk after him.
"Apparently I'm good" Rose said grinning. Jack and Martha chuckling behind her as they followed the man.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
They were lead into a laboratory, the old man leading Rose straight to a wall that looked like an old oven with a CD rack on it, power cables falling out of it everywhere. It looked a lot like one of the Doctor's inventions that he made when he was bored…they usually ended up on fire if Rose remembered correctly.
"Now, this is the gravitismal accelerator. "It's powerless, but it—"he explained.
"Chan, welcome, tho," a blue alien woman bowed her head to Martha and Jack.
"Hello I'm Martha" Martha said holding a hand out to the blue woman.
"Chan, Chantho, Tho," she took Martha's offered hand meekly and smiled.
"But we can't get it to harmonise," the old man's voice rose from across the room.
"Captain Jack Harkness," Jack offered Chantho his hand, grinning at the woman, who quite obviously blushed on her blue skin.
"Stop it," Rose called across the room, automatically.
"Can't I say hello to anyone?" Jack protested.
"Jack, hello is practically an invitation to bed with you" Rose said absently.
"Chan, I do not protest, tho," Chantho fluttered.
"Maybe later blue," Jack winked at Chantho, "So what have we got here?" he offloaded his backpack, and then clapped his hands as he walked off to the middle of the room.
Martha, being her usual curious self stepped towards the backpack and tried to peek through the gaps only to see something shimmer, she could almost hear bubbling sounds.
"And all this feeds into the rocket?" Rose asked wonderingly.
"Yes…" the old Professor said uncertainly. "Except without a stable footprint the thing won't ever achieve escape velocity. If only we could harmonise the five impact patterns, and unify them, well we might yet make it," he turned away from the machinery. "What do you think, Rose? Any ideas?"
"Well," Rose gulped. "Uhm. Basically. Sort of," she looked around. "Not a clue."
"Nothing?" the Professor asked quickly, shaking his head in confusion.
Martha was now slowly peeling the backpack top off while Rose looked a bit guilty. "I'm not from around these parts; I've never seen a system like it. Sorry," she explained.
"No, no," the old man stuttered, "I'm sorry. My fault, there's been so little help."
"Jack! What the hell?" Martha shouted jumping away from the bag.
Jack moved toward her. "I said I had a Doctor-detector," he picked up the jar, drawing it out of the pack. A hand bubbled away inside it, waving at her. Martha couldn't remember anything in Jack's story about a hand.
"Chan, is this a tradition amongst your people, tho?" Chantho asked uncertainly.
Rose's eyes widened, "Not exactly. Jack, that's the Doctor's hand? The one the Sycorax chopped off?"
Jack nodded, shrugging.
Rose blinked "how the hell did that track down the TARDIS?"
Jack shrugged "that TARDIS must still be covered in the Doctor's DNA or maybe the Doctor's hand is connected to the TARDIS how should I know?"
"Chan, it is rather creepy, tho" Chantho said edging away from Jack as far as possible.
"Yeah it is" Rose said "Sorry, what was your name?"
"My assistant. And good friend, Chantho," the old man ushered the alien girl forward. "A survivor of the Malmooth. This was their planet, Malcassairo, before we took refuge," he explained.
"The city outside that was yours?"
"Chan, the conglomeration died, tho," Chantho replied sadly.
"I'm sorry" Rose said placing a comforting hand on Chantho's shoulder.
"Chan, most grateful, tho."
"So what about those things outside," Jack crossed his arms, changing the subject and addressing the old man. "Beastie boys. What are they?"
"Ah, we call them the future kind," he seemed to come back to reality, turning away from the hand in a jar on the coffee table. "This is a myth in itself. But uh, it's feared they are what we will become. Unless we reach Utopia," he nodded.
"An'…Utopia is?" Rose prompted.
The old man laughed. "Oh, every human knows of Utopia, where have you been?"
"Oh, you know," Rose waved her hand. "Here an' there."
She turned back to the old man, who motioned to her to follow him, and then walked back toward the centre of the room.
He lead them to a black screen, with a blue map on it. There was a blinking red light in the top right corner of the monitor. Above the screen were the words, "Gravitational Field Navigation System".
Rose leaned her hands on the console, staring at it.
"The call came from across the stars," the Professor began to explain. "Over and over again. 'Come to Utopia'," he sounded distant for a moment, and then pointed at the red dot. "Originating from that point."
The Professor looked far away with a dreamy expression in his eyes, well no dreamy really more like distant.
"Professor?" Rose urged softly.
"Oh, um, right, that's enough talk," the Professor dusted off his waistcoat. "There's work to do, now if you could leave me, thank you."
"You all right?" Rose asked biting her lip nervously.
"Yes I'm fine - and busy."
"Except…" Rose faltered. "That rocket's not going to fly. Is it?" she said sadly. "This…footprint mechanism…thing. It's not working."
The old Professor paused, closing his eyes. "We'll find a way."
"You're stuck on this planet. And you haven't told them, have you? That lot out there, they still think they're going to fly."
The old man sat down. "Well it's better to let them live in hope," he held up his hands helplessly.
"Everyone lives in hope; this is probably the best they have" Rose said "Professor…?"
"Yana," the old man supplied.
"Professor Yana," Rose stepped up to one of the metal consoles in the middle of the room, "this new science is well beyond me – well actually most are, I only know things because I was forced to learn by my ship, but all the same, a boost reversal circuit in any time frame must be…a circuit which reverses the boost, so, I wonder what would happen," she took a cable in her hand, and began to sonic it. "If I did this," she said, between her teeth, pulling a small lever that joined the cables together.
There was a powering up whine, and lights began to flash. Professor Yana was still standing, mouth wide open in shock, looking at the controls powering up around him.
"Chan, it's working, tho!" Chantho called from across the room.
"But…how did you do that?" Professor Yana was still gaping.
"All guess work really" Rose said "bit of Time Lord Knowledge mixed in with good old human gut instinct"
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
Everything was going to plan, they were prepared for lift off and the TARDIS was now placed in the very room they were in. Yana peered at it admiringly when suddenly an alarm started.
"Chan, we're losing power, tho!"
Suddenly one of the panels on the side of the wall started issuing sparks, and Jack jumped towards it, punching keys furiously. Rose jumped to the other side punching in the keys just as furiously. Martha hit the reboot button recklessly to try get the picture back.
"The radiation's rising!" Rose called from across the room.
"We've lost control!" Jack called, almost at the same time.
Professor Yana hobbled his way to a third panel, near Rose and Jack. "The chamber's going to flood!"
"Jack! Override the vents!" Rose called urgently.
The picture faded up on the screen, and Martha saw Atillo motioning furiously from the porthole.
"We can jumpstart the override!" Jack shouted.
A sound, quite like a lightening strike, rang through the laboratory, and Martha jumped to her feet, tearing her eyes from the monitor, seeing Jack raising a couple of live cables toward each other. It happened quickly Jack screamed out in pain as he was being electrocuted, he soon collapsed letting go of the cables. Martha ran to his side and began to perform CPR.
"Martha leave him" Rose said quietly. "Professor Yana you said that no one can enter that room without dying right?"
"Yes" Professor Yana said.
"Well…" Rose turned to look at Jack who sat up gasping causing Martha to scream. "I got you just the man for the job"
"Did someone just kiss me?" Jack asked.
Rose sighed "time and place Jack, time and place"
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
Jack practically ripped his shirt off, Rose stood there coolly raising an eyebrow up at him "the radiation doesn't effect clothing" she said.
"I know I just want to look good" Jack said winking, Rose rolled her eyes. "I'm going in"
Jack ran into the room and immediately started to work "how long have you known Rose?" he asked quietly.
"Ever since I saw you lying there in Martha's arms" Rose admitted "I felt something wrong about you. I think that's why the TARDIS brought us here; she was trying to throw you off"
"Thanks" Jack muttered sarcastically.
"How long have you known?" Rose asked.
"Earth. 1892. Got in a fight on Ellis Island. Man shot me through the heart. Then I woke up. Thought it was kinda strange. But then it never stopped," he paused. "Fell of a cliff, trampled by horses, world war one, world war two, poisoned, starvation, a stray javelin."
Rose winced "I'm sorry" she said.
"Last thing I remember…when I was mortal" Jack said quietly "I was facing three daleks, death by extermination. What happened?"
"Me"
"The Doctor sent you home"
"Oh like I was supposed to sit round and eat chips while my men were dying out there in battle" Rose snapped.
"Rose what did you do?"
"Me, Mum and Mickey…we opened the heart of the TARDIS up with a yellow truck" Rose smiled to herself "weird I know. I looked into the heart of the TARDIS and she looked into me…we merged, became one. I became powerful, if the Doctor did it he would have become a vengeful god…but I was human and young…I didn't want you to die Jack not ever"
Jack smiled weakly "could you change me back"
"NO!" Rose snapped furiously "I refuse to lose you, selfish I know but…"
"But?"
"You weren't the only one who got effected by my actions that day. The Doctor…he kissed it out of me and it killed him, he had to regenerate, you would have loved the next incarnation of him, cheeky, handsome, fun…he was more alive." Rose sighed "and me? I mutated…slowly. My DNA slowly altered itself until I became like the Doctor, all because I looked into that power."
"Where is the Doctor?" Jack asked changing the subject quickly.
"Trapped" Rose said "Battle of Canary Wharf, we were there. He got pulled in; about to fall into the void, gone forever…but a parallel version of my Dad saved him. The Doctor is living the life he thought he could never have, trapped in a parallel universe…"
"I'm sorry"
"Yeah…"
"I used to visit the estate" Jack said suddenly "watch you grow up from a distance. Do you know how much I wanted to punch Jimmy Stone?"
Rose smirked "maybe we should take a little trip so you can fulfil that desire"
Jack grinned back before finishing off the last canister. Just as he exited the room Martha came barrelling down the corridor.
"ROSE!" she shouted panting "oh Rose you won't believe this! Professor Yana has a watch, a watch just like yours when you made yourself human! He's opening it now!"
Rose stood there frozen for a moment, could Yana be the Doctor? Or was he someone else? She shook her head, it didn't matter who it was, she still had to explain them the Time War. She ran after Martha.
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
The Time Lord was in her TARDIS and he locked the doors from the inside so she couldn't get in. she could see Chantho's dead body on the floor and she knew that this man was not as good as his human self. She banged on the doors hard.
"Please let me in!" she shrieked "the TARDIS is all we have, please!"
"Sorry Miss Tyler but this is the Doctor's TARDIS and it's a sweet revenge to go off with it" there was a pause "oh, oh new voice! How fantastic is that? Hello, hello, hellooooooooo! Well then Miss Tyler, Captain and Dr Jones. End of the universe, this is the Master saying bye, bye!"
Rose pulled out her sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the TARDIS quickly before it dematerialized. She stood back with tears on her face as she lost her home. Jack and Martha were holding the door shut as the future kind attempted to get in.
"Rose we need your help!" Martha shouted.
But what could Rose do? There was nothing she can do, not after losing her home…