Due to pretty much everyone who reviewed requesting it, there is now a second installment to this story! However, this is probably the last part of it. I really don't do very well with long-range stories. Even if I plan them out completely to the end, I usually end up losing interest and abandoning them, because I've already figured them out. I'm kind of heartless that way.
Also, I would like to thank Ria Dalrado for pointing out that Rose is normally much less serious than I made her out to be in the last chapter. It really made me look at what I wrote with a critical eye and helped me develop a plot for this installment. You'll notice her attitude actually doesn't change all that much, in fact she's more serious here than the last chapter, but there's a reason for that and it's (hopefully) made clear here. Thanks, Ria Dalrado!
Sorry for this taking so long. I've been focusing on other things lately. College auditions are in a year or so and I need to start preparing now, so yeah. Plus, you know, general laziness.
John stood a bit off to the side as he normally did, somewhat unsure of how to proceed in such an unusual situation. Sherlock hadn't been the only one called to this case, and now he was forced to work with someone. He knew from past experiences that his friend didn't play well with others. Oddly enough, Sherlock simply strode into the room and began to examine the body as he normally did, instead of attempting to completely dominate the crime scene. Rose moved slightly to the side, gazing at the corpse critically as well with her head tilted and her tongue peeking out between her over-wide lips. After that, they had worked in seemingly professional tandem together, which of course was in itself a miracle for Sherlock, but even more so with Rose. She was...different. She smiled a lot, but not with her teeth, and was seriously dedicated to her job, possessing extraordinary discipline. There was something about her, a kind of light that seemed oddly unfocused.
Now, the case was finished, and John was curiously watching the two of them interact. Sherlock appeared lost in thought and Rose glanced up toward his face, leaning on one of the squad cars.
"Sorry about being so harsh on you earlier," Rose murmured to Sherlock. The detective looked up at her despite himself and noted how she wasn't looking at him. Her gaze was firmly on the body being loaded into the ambulance, on her work, but it didn't mean her mind was.
"You said what you had to," Sherlock said dismissively.
"Doesn't mean I couldn't have done it more politely," Rose insisted with a furrowed brow. "But I had to test you."
"And what purpose did testing me serve?" He was curious, but his curiosity wasn't strong enough to overcome his vague sense of annoyance at her making small talk after the case was finished. Really, being forced to work with other people on cases was so tedious.
"Curiosity. And because I know you're not quite what people seem to think. Geniuses of your caliber rarely are. First impressions can be just as misleading as lies. But I'm used to dealing with geniuses who forget that other people don't move quite as fast as them. They forget that it doesn't mean other people can contribute. Anyway, I just wanted to apologize, even though I know you wouldn't be inclined to." She had not looked him in the eyes once, and her tone had remained low and almost consistently monotone.
A question burned on Sherlock's tongue, and he opened his mouth for the cool air to release the heated words.
"What ever happened to you?"
"Sorry?" Confusion etched lines around Rose's eyes and mouth.
"You know more than you should, and...your eyes."
"My eyes?"
"Yes…" Sherlock wasn't used to being so inarticulate, but he found that he could not, in fact, find the words to describe what he had found in Rose's eyes. He fought for them anyway. "You're kind, but not as kind as you used to be. You're intelligent, but much of your knowledge comes from experience. You're a people person, but you're alone." A mask had slipped into place on Rose as Sherlock was talking.
"Got all of that from your deductions, did you?" Her bitter tone was enough to make Sherlock pause in realization.
"You've lost someone," he said plainly, without any of the usual malice he would normally reserve for manipulating people with these kinds of deductions.
"Tell you what," Rose said abruptly, turning to face the detective. "Fair trade, we'll call it. Since I told you all about yourself, you can do the same to me, but not here. Tomorrow night, Angelo's, seven-o-clock." Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked away. She reached a hand up to wipe her eyes, then withdrew it and clenched it in a fist at her side. Sherlock let her go.
The next night, Sherlock made his way to Angelo's. Sherlock abruptly and unabashedly sat down in the seat opposite Rose, who looked up upon the sudden intrusion.
"Mr. Holmes," she greeted neutrally, only briefly glancing at his face and chewing studiously on a chip.
"Miss Tyler," he returned. Two could play at this game. "Bad Wolf." It was a title he had heard in association with her, but only in whispers, and that was what Mycroft had told him her code name was.
"Been doing research, consulting detective?" she shot back. "The only one in the world. Too bad."
"Too bad?"
"Well, I knew one other person who could have been called a consulting detective. In fact I could be called a consulting detective. Or perhaps, in your case," she now fully gazed into his eyes, with a smile he could not fully read into, "a consulting therapist."
"You told me nothing that you couldn't have found out from other sources," Sherlock dismissed, although not altogether convincingly.
"Please," Rose scoffed. "Don't lie to me over chips; it's very unbecoming. Anyways, there must be questions you're dying to ask me."
"Such as?"
"Who I am, why you can't get any records on me past three years ago, and what I'm doing here, for a start. Well," she sat up, plucking another chip from the basket in front of her and munching it purposefully, "I'll tell you what I can. My name is Rose Tyler, which you know. You can't get any records on me because I didn't exist here until three years ago. And in a different time, I knew a person very much like you. And I'm here because even if it's just for a brief moment, you need me now."
"Why would I need you?" Sherlock asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Because you're arrogant, Sherlock Holmes," she smiled, indicating it was a bit of a joke, though her eyes were still deadly serious. "Tell you what," she said, leaning across the table. "You deduce me. I'll fill in the gaps afterward."
"You're certain there will be gaps?"
"Positive." She leaned back, ready to have all of her secrets (or so he thought) to be laid bare before his cold, calculating gaze. She cocked an eyebrow in a challenge, munching continually on her chips. Sherlock privately wondered how she managed to gorge herself on them so.
"You're an only child," he began. "You were born into a working class, single parent family, but you seem to have two parental figures now. You were in a long-term relationship that unexpectedly broke off. You're trained in diplomacy and some forms of combat, run a lot and have traveled extensively. You have worked for the government for the past several years, mostly in...investigating foreign anomalies-" He was interrupted here by Miss Tyler applauding him, seemingly with equal parts candor and sarcasm.
"Well done, Mr. Holmes," she said, staring at him with unreadable eyes. "You have managed to summarily describe my entire life without actually saying what happened at all. And that is quite impressive, considering how much has happened to me in the last few years. So," she said, leaning forward, "let me fill in the gaps for you." Her tone brooked no argument, and though Sherlock had never been one to heed a warning, he couldn't run the risk of missing what she was about to say.
"I'm not an only child, but I was raised as one," she continued. "I was born into a working class home, yes, and I worked in retail for a few years after I dropped out of school. I had a boyfriend who I was happy with. And then I met a man. He travelled with me all over the known universe and to some parts that weren't known. To save the world, we were torn apart. It's always something with him, I suppose. He can never live quietly." She laughed unexpectedly. Her smile was wide and her teeth were too, and Sherlock blinked. Had he ever seen her actually smile? "And I suppose I can't either!" she chortled. "Once you get a taste for adventure, I don't think you ever quite go back."
"Why, exactly, are you telling me all this?"
"To help you. And to apologize again for earlier."
"How does this help me?"
"Well, if I'm going to keep an eye on you, you might as well get to know me."
"Why would you keep an eye on me?"
"You remind me of someone."
"The person you lost."
"Yes."
"Are you insinuating that you already know me because of this?" Disappointment filled Sherlock in with a bitter taste; if sentiment was her only reason for pursuing him, he wanted nothing to do with it.
"Oh, Sherlock." Rose leaned back in her chair with what looked like a genuine smile. The light that seemed to emanate from behind her eyes was suddenly brighter, like she was slipping back into the person she was always meant to me. "Sherlock, I have seen the turn of the earth and the the death of the sun and the wastes between the stars and I have scattered the atoms of thousands of malevolent beings to protect a single life. And when I did that, I saw everything in the universe and time and space for a single moment, and I saw you: how you are integral to a thousand million universes, how in mine, you were written hundreds of years before I was born just so I could have a hint of what was to come. You burn like the core of the hottest star and encompass entire other universes, and you have burned at the back of my mind for years before I knew I would meet you. Oh, Sherlock, how I know you."
The man in question sat, utterly transfixed, on the woman before him, his mouth slightly parted and eyes sparkling, trying to wrap his head around her mysterious words. Suddenly in front of him was the entire world; Rose had her very own gravity well, trapping him into orbit, but he couldn't say he minded all that much.
He was broken out of his stunned state by Rose. She was laughing.
For a moment Sherlock felt offended, but he soon realized that there was no malevolence in Rose's laughter, only pure joy. Despite himself, he smiled back.
He could have sworn that the brightness around Rose, the brightness that always seemed to be at the edge of his periphery, grew ten times more luminous. In that moment, Sherlock swore that he would never let her light go out again.
"Are you coming?" she asked. She had gotten up from the table and was holding out her hand.
"Where?" he breathed, willing to follow wherever she led. Her smile was a star birthed from the nebulae of her eyes.
"Wherever you like."
Aaaannnddd another terrible abrupt ending. Heh, maybe I'll do a third installment. Who knows? At this point, I think this story's never going to be properly finished. Rose and Sherlock never seem to be properly finished, I suppose. I have a vague idea pertaining to the possibility of a third installment, so...yeah. Might be happening, might not.
In case you didn't pick up on it, Rose is more serious here than she normally is because she's still upset about the Doctor, and she kind of needs Sherlock to bring her back to herself again, but she took everything into her own hands when she pulled the Bad Wolf thing out of thin air. It's a weird kind of destiny.