Title: Deus Ex Machina
Author: kenzimone
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Character: The TARDIS
Rating: PG
Summary: In the beginning, there is nothing. And then, then there is love.
Note: The Parting of the Ways coda. I just started watching the show a couple of days ago, and finished the first season (2005) yesterday. In other words, please forgive me of my butchering of canon (which I am so going to regret once I'm not a clueless fandom newbie anymore). Also, thanks to the LJ community allthathopping for the episode transcript used in writing this.

In the beginning, there is nothing. And then, then there is love.

It's like she's done this all of her existence. Like there has been nothing before. Nothing prior to this hurtling through space and time, nothing before his hands and his voice, nothing at all.

She loves him. She loves him with all she can, loves him through the years and the changes, and she carries on simply because she believes that he loves her back. He must, or all of this would crumble into dust – ashes scattered by the passing of time – all his sacrifices and all her pain.

Because she does feel pain, feels it deeply and strongly – feels it now, as he sends her away carrying precious cargo. She can save him, but not on her own.

Oh Doctor, my sweet, sweet Doctor.

She trusts in his Companion to help her see this right. Help her find her voice.

Please let me deliver you.

...

She bares her soul, and then she is reborn. One, yet two. Merged, one heart, one mind – one goal. She is her, and her is she. And she's never seen him so terrified, never so horror-struck as this; "What've you done?"

"I looked into the TARDIS. And the TARDIS looked into me." I looked into my own soul, and saw myself.

"You looked into the Time Vortex – Rose, no one's meant to see that."

Oh, but can't he see? Why can't he see? her heart cries, and Rose weeps through her.

The cries of the Enemy are like the sound of dry leaves sweeping against her sides;

"This is the abomination!" – "Exterminate!"

So insignificant. They cannot touch her.

"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words... I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here." To save you.

"Rose, you've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now. You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're gonna burn."

Oh, Doctor, can you not see me? Can you not sense your Companion of Companions, I who have stood by you all these moments in time? "I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false God." Alive.

Again the rustle of leaves, the brittle scratches against her soul:

"You cannot hurt me," the Enemy says. "I am immortal."

No. "You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space – every single atom of your existence, and I divide them." I destroy you, as you have desired to destroy him. "Everything must come to dust... all things. Everything dies. The Time War ends."

"I will not die. I cannot die!"

This much she can do for him.

"Rose, you've done it. Now stop. Just let go."

And something twists inside of her, coils and expands and crushes against her being. "How can I let go of this? I bring life..." Life; all dead will live. She exhales immortality.

And her Doctor, her lovely, kindhearted Doctor, cries out. "But this is wrong! You can't control life and death!"

"But I can. The sun and the moon... The day and night. But why do they hurt...?" Grows and twists, wanting out. Help me, Doctor. See me.

"The power's gonna kill you and it's my fault," he says, and it is untrue. Not saving him will kill her, this... this will simply make her cease to be.

"I can see everything. All that is... All that was... All that ever could be." Omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscience. She feels. So much more, there is so much more than she ever thought.

And he understands, her Doctor. "That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"

"My head..."

"Come here..." His voice, so soft, so gentle. His hands, grasping hers, his skin on hers – it's unlike anything she's ever experienced before. Love in a physical touch, so warm, so different from the intimacy of palms gently stroking cool metal.

"It's killing me..." It is. I'm sorry, she tells the Companion. I'm so, so sorry. But would you not have wanted the same? Do you not feel what I do?

And then, his words grace her ears and his lips touch hers. Love. Nothing but love, and she cannot fight the pull, cannot cling to this body as she is sucked into him.

Love, she tells him. Touches his mind and tries to imprint her soul upon it. I love you, Doctor, my Doctor. Forgive me.

And then he exhales, and she is torn from him.

...

She takes them away, falls through the Vortex and feels his heartbeats grow weaker. She knows this process, knows the pain. Knows that she will weep for the man she will lose, yet love whoever he becomes.

Faithful, always. 'Til the end of times.

And when it happens, she can feel it. Can feel him surround her, go through her, can feel something stir – something new, in the bottomless recesses of her own self. Something that wasn't there before, that clings to her.

Doctor, she says, My Doctor. Did you not expel me? Did I not get torn away? Is not all of you lost?

And then she can sense him, and finally – oh, finally – he can see her.