Last night was crazy. I typed up two whole chapters and it was for the episode I hated doing more than anything. How's that for awesome?! So this chapter includes lots of Rose! Yay! And terrible cliches, but, you know. Cliches and me go way back. So enjoy, the next chapter will be up in a few days. Trying to create buffers for when I'll be too busy to write.
And...one more thing I was gonna say... Ugh. I keep forgetting stuff!
"We found a body, sir. Over," a young soldier spoke into the radio he held in his hand. He fidgeted from foot-to-foot, as if he regretted even thinking the words, let alone saying them. And who could blame him, in another universe he would have been the one to give his life to help the Doctor save this world.
"Is it him? Over," the voice on the radio spoke up, the young solider, Harris, shifted again as the ambulance personnel brought the body over on a stretcher, a large orange-red blanket covering over what had once been the Doctor.
"I think so," Harris replied, trying to sound as detached from the situation as he could. It was hard, to be the one to tell others the Doctor was dead. He had heard the stories, they all had. The man who had saved the Earth too many times to count, and who had always escaped with his life. "He just didn't make it out in time."
Donna slowly walked around one of the vehicles, looking at the scene in curiosity. Doctor? That sounded familiar, so, so familiar to her...but why. She had known lots of doctors in her lifetime so why should this one be making her anxious. Doctor who?
As the stretcher was lifted into the ambulance Donna watched as an arm dropped out from under the blanket, a strange and glinting, metal device dropping from the man's hand and onto the ground. If she had remembered who the man in front of her was she would have known it was the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.
"The Doctor is dead," Harris continued. "Must have happened too fast for him to regenerate." The man fell quiet as the sonic screwdriver on the ground slowly came to a stop. Donna couldn't help but think that the device looked so wrong without it being in a person's hands, a person who she couldn't remember. "Escort the ambulance back to UNIT base," Harris called out to the two personnel, putting his radio up as he did so.
This was a sad day if the Doctor was indeed dead.
Donna slowly walked away, feeling as if she should be remembering something as she watched a blond woman who looked hardly twenty came running towards her. The woman stopped in front of her before looking towards the ambulance and looking frantic.
"What happened? What did they find? I'm sorry, did they find someone?" Rose tried to be civil, really she did. She was just having a hard time of it when she was now so close to finding a Doctor that coincided with her timeline. The last time she had almost ended up causing a paradox, and she wasn't too interested in repeating that. She still had nightmares about the Reapers from the first time she had messed with history.
That had been a bad day all around.
"I don't know," Donna replied, sounding confused. She felt as if something was wrong but she wasn't quite sure what. "A bloke called the Doctor or something." Rose half-smiled at that. She was close...now she just needed to find out if this was her Doctor.
"Well...where is he, then?" Rose asked, sounding impatient as she looked back towards the ambulance the same time as Donna. She noticed the older woman's sad and pitying look as the feeling that something was wrong seemed to solidify. A brush against the back of her mind made her tense up before she was looking back at Donna.
"They took him away... He's dead," Donna said sadly, looking into Rose's eyes as she said so. She was surprised by just how much pain she saw there. It looked as if she had just been told her whole family had been killed. "I'm sorry, did you know him? I mean," she tried to help this young woman in front of her as the girl quietly looked away as she walked past her. "They didn't say his name. Could be any Doctor."
"This is wrong...this is so, so wrong..." Rose whispered quietly, looking up at Donna with a steely glint in her eyes. "This whole universe is wrong...if the Doctor's dead then it's wrong." Rose didn't believe for a second that this was the right universe. Something was going on...something was wrong and whatever it was ended up causing this universe to lose it's Doctor.
Like hell she was going to stand for that.
"It, it could be anyone," Donna quietly tried to reassure the girl, not quite sure what she was talking about. The universe was wrong? She knew it hurt to lose a loved one but she didn't think the girl would blame the universe, she looked too smart for doing something as childish as that.
Pushing her pain away for the moment Rose looked back over at the woman in front of her. She didn't know how but she knew that this woman was the key to what was going on here. It was an instinct in her head, and she had longed learned to trust her instincts, especially when they concerned the Doctor.
"What's your name?" Rose asked, sounding curious and determined at the same time. This woman couldn't be...surely not? Although...it would explain why there was something strange about her. Just standing near her gave Rose a sense of calm, and responsibility. She had to keep this woman safe, and alive, although she didn't know why. Yet.
"Donna. And you?" Donna asked, trying her best to be polite to the strange girl in front of her. Rose's eyes widened a fraction of an inch at hearing the name. Donna. Could it be... The woman who was the most important person in all of creation. Who all the timelines converged on.
Shaking her head clear Rose spoke up, "Oh, I was just passing by. I shouldn't even be here...not really..." At this Donna noticed the girl sounded like those words were ones she hated more than anything. Then she noticed the girl was glancing at her back. "This is wrong...this is all so wrong...and maybe that's why... Sorry, what was it? Donna what?"
"Why do you keep looking at my back?" Donna accused, sounding irritated. Everyone seemed to look at her back and she was getting sick of it. Rose looked away, feeling slightly guilty that she had gotten caught so easily. Usually she was better at hiding things like this, and observing without getting caught. She had to be to do what she did.
Jumping through time and space wasn't as easy as the Doctor made it look. Not by half.
"I'm not," Rose denied, trying to sound like she was surprised that Donna had accused her of it. She was probably doing a pretty poor job since the woman didn't even look slightly convinced. The Doctor had probably had his hands full dealing with her on a regular basis...oh...that was something she wold have liked to seen.
"Yes, you are," Donna argued back. "You keep looking behind me. You're doing it now! What is it? What's there?!" she asked, frantically looking behind her to try and see what it was that everyone else seemed to be able to see on her. "Did someone put something on my back?" she demanded, turning back around to glare at the strange girl she had just met.
Only to find her gone.
::
Rose let out a sigh as she landed from her dimension jump, not even bothering to get up as Mickey and the others swarmed around her and asked if she was alright. She was used to that part, what she wasn't used to was hearing that her Doctor was dead.
"Rose, babe, are you alright?" Mickey asked, kneeling down to look at the girl, who had yet to move from where she had landed. Rose looked over at him blankly for a few seconds before burying herself in his arms, trying not to break down. Mickey seemed to know something was wrong since he shooed the scientists away, Jake helping until it was only the three of them left in the room.
"Rosie...what's wrong?" Jake asked, Rose shaking her head while still buried in Mickey's coat. "Did something happen? Wrong time again? Wrong universe?" Mickey and Jake shared a look as they looked at the shivering blonde in front of them. Both of them forgot just how young Rose was sometimes. She could act like she was an adult all she wanted but in the end she was just a girl trying to get back to the man she loved.
"Rose, you're gonna have to talk eventually," Mickey murmured as Jake sat down on the floor beside them, the two managing to get Rose into a sitting position. Rose looked up at them, tears threatening to fall even if she was doing her best to hold them back. "What happened?"
"The Doctor died," Rose choked, a tear slipping past before she furiously rubbed at her eyes. Mickey and Jake shared a shocked look before looking back at the girl who was trying so hard not to break down.
"Rosie, are you sure?" Jake asked. The Doctor he knew didn't sound as if would die that easily. In his opinion that alien was too badass to die. He had sent the Cybermen and the Daleks to hell for crying out loud! How could someone like that suddenly die?! "I mean, maybe it was someone else or something?"
"How many people do you know who go by the Doctor," Mickey snorted before wincing at Rose's broken expression. Jake rolled his eyes before hitting the man on the arm. He winced but didn't complain, he had probably deserved that.
"That universe was wrong," Rose muttered, trying her best to stop her shaking as she looked at her two best friends. They looked back confused, Mickey raising an eyebrow and Jake giving her a look for her to continue. "I don't know how to explain it guys, it just felt like something was changing that universe... Something interfered with Time," Rose hissed, the two flinching back from her.
Her eyes had shined golden.
"Well, how do you know something was causing it?" Jake asked, sitting back and leaning his arm against one of his knees. Rose looked up at him before she grinned and tapped the side of her head, looking delighted.
"I heard her...when I was there. It was faint, and brief, but I heard her..." Rose chuckled, sounding delighted before her sad smile slowly returned. Mickey and Jake looked shocked, at the chuckle more than anything. The Rose they had come to know the past few months hadn't done much smiling at all, let alone laughing.
"Who did you hear?" Mickey asked, already having an idea on what she was talking about. He slowly grinned along with Rose. "Or should I be asking what you heard?"
"The TARDIS," Rose laughed, "She was there. And she...well...she didn't actually tell me but I understood the feeling," Rose explained, sounding excited again as she slowly stood up, Jake helping her. "Someone messed with time, and that means that the Doctor isn't supposed to be dead! He's still alive somewhere!"
"Okay...so how are you gonna fix our universe then?" Mickey asked, sounding confused. He and Rose had learned a lot about time and space travel since they had joined the Torchwood in Pete's world but he still didn't know enough about how to set a universe right.
"Donna Noble," Rose smiled as Mickey joined them in standing up before raising an eyebrow, not knowing what she was getting at. Jake just looked confused as he titled his head to the side.
"You mean that woman who the timelines were converging on?" he asked, Mickey looking at him and Rose in surprise before looking miffed.
"Whoa, wait, when did you two learn that?!" he demanded, Jake chuckling while Rose just shook her head.
"Maybe if you attended the meetings every once in a while," Rose teased with her tongue-touched smile, the one the two boys hadn't seen since she had been with the Doctor. Mickey couldn't help but grin back, even if the two were, well, in lack of a better phrase, taking the mickey out on him.
"Yeah, well someone has to make sure this cannon thing doesn't blow you to bits," the man muttered back before shaking his head and scratching the back of his neck. "So you really think you can fix everything? Cause according to those four-eyes up there we don't have much time left..."
"I know I can," Rose grinned determinedly while stretching her back out and looking towards the equipment eagerly. Jake seemed to catch it since he stepped in front of her and glared his best big brother glare.
"Don't even think about it," he muttered, Rose raising an eyebrow and trying to show an expression that she had no clue what he was talking about it. "I know you Rosie, and there's no way you're going back on another jump so soon."
"What?! Rose! You gotta be kidding!" Mickey jumped in, looking like his friend had finally snapped and gone crazy. Rose rolled her eyes before crossing her arms and looking at the two determinedly.
"Really I don't know what you two are so worried about. The cannon isn't that bad-"
"Isn't that bad? The first time you used that thing you almost got torn to bits!" Mickey shouted, Jake nodding in agreement. Rose winced at that part, she had hoped they had forgotten that by now, she knew she wished she could. The first travel with the cannon, well...that hadn't been pleasant. At all.
"Just...wait a few hours at least... I know you're eager to get back to the Doctor but you can't just rush in," Jake explained gently, Rose softly sighing before slightly nodding her head in agreement. She supposed she could at least wait a few hours. "And I mean, if something happened to you and he found out he would rip the universes apart to get here, just so he could kill us!"
Ah, and the truth will out.
Rose snorted in amusement as Mickey slapped Jake on the back of his head, the latter looking contrite as he rubbed his head. "Yeah, well, you know you wanted to say the same thing." Mickey decided not to answer back to that. "Now come on Rosie, let's get some food in you...and maybe freak out the newer recruits with your perfect emotionless face," Jake snickered, Mickey chuckling along with him.
Rose rolled her eyes but followed them anyways. They were right, she could wait a few more hours for the next jump if she had waited this long. She was just thankful she had her two boys, otherwise she never would have made it even this far. She would have given up after she had met her first Doctor when traveling.
Oh that had taken some explaining...
::
Rose tried not to fall flat on her face as she stumbled out of what looked to be an alleyway, running to keep her balance. She was going to slap that scientist when she got back. He said they had fixed the launching and running issues.
"Blimey! Are you alright?!" Looking behind her and seeing the woman she had come to find Rose figured that the scientist had escaped her slap yet. He had gotten her next to Donna after all, even if the entry has be rough. Again. Well at least this time she didn't land on top of a younger Doctor. "What was that, fireworks or-"
"I don't know," Rose lied expertly. She was staring to feel guilty she could lie so well, but when you traveled between universes that was one of the first things you learned. That and to never trust the scientists when they said you wouldn't be running away from huge, slimy aliens. "I was just walking along. That's weird."
She tried to suppress her smile, she really needed to work on that, along with the amusement in her voice. Usually she wasn't this bad but she was starting to feel giddy now. So close. So very close to seeing her Doctor again.
"You're the one," Donna pointed at her accusingly, "Christmas Eve. I met you in town."
"Donna? Isn't it?" Rose grinned, happy that things were starting to go right for once, even though Donna looked at her stunned, and a little confused. Now if she could just keep Donna safe...and it wasn't just because this woman was instrumental in getting the universe back right. It was because she was a future companion, and she wouldn't dare let one of his companions get hurt.
The idiot would just blame himself.
"What was your name?" Donna asked. Luckily Rose was good at deflecting that question, she had to be what with what she was doing. Hm...she wondered if the Doctor would be too happy at seeing her to yell at her over destroying worlds and universes, and herself, just for the sake of getting back to him.
Probably not.
"How're you doing?" Rose asked, "You're looking good..." There. Something on Donna's back that shouldn't be there. Something that was causing Time to go wrong. Her eyes hardened at the thought. "How's things, what've you been up to?"
"You're doing it again," Donna glanced at her own back before glaring back up at Rose, who was startled at how quick the woman could sound angry.
"What?"
"Looking behind me. People keep on doing that, looking at my back," Donna explained, her voice sounding hard and accusing. Rose couldn't help but think that her and the Doctor must have had a lot of fights- Oo... She could just imagine this woman meeting her first Doctor, back when he had worn leather and had that northern accent.
"What sort of people?" she asked, getting back on track to what she was here to do. Blimey she was getting as bad as the Doctor, rambling in her own thoughts.
"People in the street," Donna explained quietly, "Strangers. I just catch them sometimes, staring at me. Like they're looking at something. And then I get home, and I look, and there's nothing there!" Rose watched as the woman's head whipped around and she looked behind her, trying to get a glimpse at her back as if she had heard or felt something. "See?! Look, now I'm doing it!"
"What are you doing for Christmas?" Rose asked, mind racing through what she knew was going to happen and what she knew she had to do. She couldn't let Donna stay in England for Christmas, that would...that wouldn't be good.
"What am I what?" The girl couldn't help but grin at the tone of voice. Oh yes, she very much would love to see her and the Doctor butt heads, as soon as she got him back.
"Next Christmas. Any plans?" Besides being killed by a space version of the Titanic. Oh she hadn't quite believed it when she had learned about that. She also couldn't help but rub her eyes and wonder why the Doctor attracted so much trouble.
"I don't know. That's ages away... Nothing much, I suppose. Why?" Donna asked, sounding confused as to why this girl would even care what she was doing months from now.
"Just..." Rose trailed off, struggling to find words she could say without freaking the woman out. Glancing at her coat she slightly picked at the sleeve, feeling a surge of strength go through her. When she had been ordered to choose something to keep her warm during jumps she hadn't even thought before she had picked up the blue leather jacket. How could she not?
She knew that all the Doctors were the same, but she still missed her first Doctor at times, and the leather helped her remember what she was searching for, and where to find her strength. The fact it was blue like his eyes had been was just a bonus. "I think you should get out, you and your family. Don't stay in London. Just leave the city." Even though she sounded as convincing as she could she also couldn't stop her fidgeting, which she had probably also gotten from the Doctor.
"What for?" Donna asked, although it was sounding as if she was asking why she should even be listening to the girl in front of her when she didn't even know her.
"Nice hotel... Christmas break?" She really did need to learn how to come up with excuses better. She was too dependent on the psychic paper by half.
"Can't afford it," Donna spoke back, like it was obvious.
"Well, no, but you got that raffle ticket," Rose suddenly remembered, grinning slightly.
"How do you know about that?" Oops...giving spoilers was something she needed to learn to control...usually she had the Doctor to keep her from saying something too stupid.
"First prize, luxury weekend break. Use it, Donna Noble."
"Why won't you tell me your name?!" Donna shouted, her voice sounding harsh as Rose just stared at her silently. "I think you should just leave me alone," the woman muttered lowly, circling around the girl before walking off resolutely. Rose sighed before walking forward and calling command back.
With a flash of light Rose Tyler was once again gone from the universe.
::
"Good jump?" Mickey asked, steadying Rose as she came flying back into the room. He only had to take one look at Rose's glare before he gently let her go and stood behind her, it was way safer back there than to stand in her path. "Rose? Babe, you okay?"
The rest of the room watched the young Tyler woman stalk over to the scientist in charge of inputting directions before every single one of them was wincing in phantom pain. Mickey couldn't help but think that Rose's slaps were sometimes worse than her mother's.
"What was that for?!" the scientist whined from his spot on the floor, holding a hand to his now flaming red cheek. Rose just turned her full glare on him before letting out a low growling sound, the scientist making an undignified whimpering noise before Rose walked out of the room, Mickey following after her.
"So...wanna talk about it?" Mickey asked, not too worried about any slaps that may come his way. He knew it was just Rose's way of dealing with stress without killing anyone. Besides, she always went easy on him and Jake. Rose glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes before sighing and leaning against his shoulder as she walked.
"I'd rather just drown my sorrows in ice cream," the girl muttered, feeling childish again. Really she had no clue where the ice cream addiction had come from, she just had a very distinct memory of someone buying her ice cream when she was hurt and little and the habit had just stuck.
Actually...thinking back on it now for some reason now she could almost remember a long brown coat that went all the way down to the man's ankles...over a pinstripe suit... And crazy brown hair... "Son of a bitch!"
"What? What's wrong?!" Mickey asked, tensing and expecting an alien to come flying through the window. Instead he just saw Rose looked shocked before suddenly cracking up in laughter. She was doubled over and gasping for breath when Jake came running up to them with a folder of the latest jump data.
"Um...do I even wanna ask?" Jake looked towards Mickey, who just held up his hands and shook his head. He had no clue what was going on. The two men watched Rose as she slowly calmed down, her breathing almost under control as she looked back up at them with a tongue-touched smile and flushed cheeks.
If they thought the world was ending for a second, well, you could hardly blame them.
"I just figured out who to blame for my ice-cream addiction," Rose chuckled, still trying to get air in her lungs. "Oh that little hypocrite. Goes off criticizing me for changing time and then he just pops up all throughout my childhood," she snorted, Jake helping her stand up.
"Wait...the Doctor was in your childhood?" Jake asked, sounding confused. Mickey just looked surprised, even though he probably wouldn't have put it past the man, as crazy as he was. He could definitely see him going back in time to see a younger Rose, even at the price of causing a paradox.
Those two were obsessed with each other, each willing to risk destroying the universes just to get a glimpse of each other for a few seconds.
"So, ice cream then?" Mickey asked, Rose nodding as she linked arms with the two and started off towards the cafe, a small smile still on her face. The two shared a look over her head before grinning, happy that she was so close to getting the Doctor back. He half-wished he could be there when the two reunited, just to see the Doctor's expression.
It was sure to be hilarious.
So, included some information about Rose's side of things. And really? A blue, leather jacket? How could she not think about the Doctor! IT was too good...and yeah. The Doctor going back and giving little Rose ice cream when she was hurt? Admit it, it's so easy to see. Anyone know how long Rose was in the parallel world? Two years his time, yeah? Yeah...I'll just say two years. AU rewrite anyways. XD
*thinks about going towards season 5* ARGH! DAMN YOU MOFFAT! WHY MUST YOU MAKE EVERYTHING SO COMPLICATED?!