Author's note:
Frustrating chapter. Wrote three different versions, and although this's not my favorite of the three, it is the one that takes the plot in the direction that I want. The reference to the TARDIS sharing a dream with Rose comes from the BBC Doctor Who novel "The Nightmare of Black Island."
Hope
Had the TARDIS allowed it, Rose Tyler might have ended up walking the streets of Idun for weeks using the same fruitless, ineffectual methods of searching for the Doctor.
Not that the girl's diligence or determination could be faulted. Definitely not. For thirty-six hours since she had scribbled the note to the Doctor and launched herself into the unfamiliar city in search of him, Rose walked her feet off, showing images of the Doctor on her phone to anyone who would look, describing him to anyone who would listen. She drifted to wherever large amounts of people could be found, pubs, hospitals, markets, shops, intersections. She even asked about any strange happenings or natural disasters or explosions or any spectacular and unusual happenings that had occurred in the area at any time in recent memory, knowing that such things could have had the Doctor in the middle of them.
But, nothing. It seemed that Idun, Argonne, was a very dull place. That in itself was disheartening. Unsettling. Because anywhere the Doctor lingered, there was bound to be a memorable incident of interest or two.
When Rose returned to the TARDIS, the old ship predicted her movements to the letter. It was Rose's intention to drink a warm cup of tea to take away the chill of the weather, take a short, hot shower, sleep for just a few hours to get back her strength, and be right back out on the streets. All of this could be told in the simple way her set jaw clashed with her weary footsteps as she first made her way to the kitchens, even if the TARDIS had not grown to know the girl so well.
While Rose sat drinking her tea, the TARDIS began to hum a little more loudly. Just enough to tug at Rose's peripheral awareness. Patiently, the TARDIS waited, keeping up the gentle, persistent tugging.
In the shower, a warm water shower that both Rose and the Doctor seemed to prefer over the alternatives to getting clean such as sonics, the TARDIS deepened the hum just a little more, making the tug at Rose's awareness even stronger.
The girl was almost psi-null, but Rose had just enough empathic ability that once the TARDIS had been able to share a dream with her before. Just barely; as it was, when compared to the Doctor, his mind was like a massive ocean with all the life and movement above and below the surface, and a young woman like Rose was a drop of water. Except, the TARDIS had been watching this drop of water, and this one small, drop was complicated with the trace minerals found within, spectacular with the way she could seem to change into a flake of snow or, most of all, amazing in the way she could merge with the vast ocean the Doctor created and yet still separate herself as her own, individual drop of water.
The TARDIS was exceedingly fond of Rose. More fond of her than maybe any other companion the Doctor had cared for in the past, and more than any of the companions whose shapes could be picked out in the possible futures that she could see.
But the TARDIS loved the Doctor, and she would not trade him for Rose. Rose needed a push in the right direction and besides, there was a terrible pain and fear that the TARDIS was going to share with her. Something that even the endurable old ship did not want to bear alone. Something that would give Rose the push she needed and spur her on.
It was the moment that the TARDIS and Rose had, without the Doctor, disappeared from Idun's little street and reappeared in the same spot forty-eight years later. The moment when the TARDIS, displeased with the unexpected disruption with the bond she shared with him, reached out to brush his mind.
That was what she had to share with Rose.
It might have been easier for the TARDIS to wait until Rose sought out a short nap, but she didn't want this to be a dream this time. Without the Doctor there to realize otherwise, Rose would simply wake up, and believe it was a dream born from her fear and worry and not heed it as a truth the TARDIS was trying to give her. It would have been frustrating and counter-productive. It would have wasted time, and the last of the Time Lords was running out of it.
It had to be done while Rose was awake and aware.
The shower was the best place to begin, as the warm water relaxed her muscles. When her mind began to drift under the soothing sensations of the spray of water, the TARDIS stopped tugging at Rose's mind and gently poured the painful memory she had been holding at ready into Rose's head instead.
The TARDIS's humming took on apologetic notes as Rose sagged against the shower wall, eyes open wide but not seeing the well-lit shower room.
Rose saw darkness. Rose felt the absence of sight, her mind knowing not images, but a memory of minds touching.
The TARDIS's mind, many hours ago, when Rose had been holding the newspaper and receiving her own shock at the date, had met the Doctor's.
It was like he was encased in glass. There was a shield. Something blocking the bond so that the TARDIS could only brush at his warmth.
Yet, it was enough to let him know she was there, and when he tried to touch her back she drew back slightly in horror.
His mind was not the vast, living ocean. It was instead a vast desert with its small points of breathing life tattered by endless, freezing night and harsh, battering winds. His soul had been like a being of light and color, but now it was like a frightened, beaten animal huddling in a swinging gibbet, exposed to the elements but kept out of the light. His spirit and thoughts were fettered, slow, and heavy. His life signs were crushed with weakness and the lack of will.
He felt her, pressing himself against the glasslike block that heavily muted their bond. He had felt her withdraw in her shock, and weakly reached out. Not with the desperation that his frayed and shredded spirit should feel after the impossible stretch of emptiness and isolation and deprivation, but with the well-deep sadness and hurt of a man slowly dying and believing it was only a dream that had come to keep him company.
Please don't leave me, he whispered raggedly, and when he reached out the TARDIS knew that he was not reaching out for her. He did not realize she was really there. He was reaching out for madness, for the escape madness would offer, and was restricted by the glass. It had stripped him bare, but also held him together, and the TARDIS's entire being cried out with rage as she slammed her mind against the glass armor, wanting desperately beyond thought to surround his failing spirit with hers, to hold him close and protect him.
This time, she felt him draw back in surprise, felt his shock, and then another shock layering upon the first one as he realized she was real. Then he, weak and trembling, scrabbled at the force keeping them apart, clawing at it with his mind, the desperation that had been missing before growing in him.
Please don't leave me!
He cried, his sobs resounding in the heart of the TARDIS, and she sobbed with him.
And so, too, did Rose, kneeling in her shower with the water beating upon her back. The TARDIS withdrew, leaving a soft, trembling song of apology…I beg your pardon…I beg your pardon…I beg your pardon…
But deep in her own expansive mind, the TARDIS was not entirely certain whether she was apologizing to the her human or her Time Lord.
Some time later, Rose walked slowly into the control room. She was awake and dressed now, though her eyes were still red and haunted even after her brief nap.
Rose ran her hand over the consol. "I…" she began, stopped, swallowed slowly. "I was so busy thinkin' about me that I didn't think about how you would be feelin'," she whispered. "God, is that what's…? Can't you tell me where he's…?"
But she stopped, suddenly knowing better. The TARDIS could feel that he was alive and in distress, but of his exact position, that was something else. It was up to Rose to find him and bring him back.
"And I've been goin' about it all the wrong way," Rose murmured aloud, her hand still on the consol. "I've been lookin' in the wrong places. I understand now. I…I think I know what I have to do. At least, I hope it's right."
She picked up the Doctor's coat, left behind because he had not needed it in the comfortable early spring weather when he had first arrived. She pulled it around herself, and it was too long, of course, but it had his familiar, comforting scent on it and it gave her strength and determination.
"I'll bring him home," she promised the TARDIS, and once more she stepped out onto the street. Hiking up the doctor's coat a little so it wouldn't drag on the ground, she turned her steps toward the little place that had once been an Italian restaurant, but was now a law office.
The TARDIS watched her, and saw it was the right direction. She tried to send the feeling to the Doctor through that which blocked their bond, the feeling that someone was searching for him. But she couldn't. She could only make him feel her presence. He clung to the sense of her with all the strength he had left.
He was completely undone. Alternately laughing and crying, feeling both intense joy and deep shame, holding his thin arms across his narrow chest as though he might shake apart if he didn't try to hold himself together. She was frightened that maybe that was exactly what might happen.
But he held on. He was holding on with everything he had left.
The hope the cold, dark desert could crash and flow with power and life and light again. His strength. Rose's cleverness. All was lost if it wasn't enough.
So it had to be enough.