Disclaimer: I have no claim to the wonderful world of Doctor Who.
A/N: It seems as though I need to apologize for another large delay in posting. Life has a tendency to interfere with those things that I'd rather be doing. I've also been rewriting and rewriting this chapter and the next one (which will definitely be the last) for a while now, trying to improve upon my writing skills and to perfect the story to the best of my ability. Please let me know what you think! The next and final chapter will be posted shortly.
Chapter 11 – Choices
Rose took her time composing herself, focusing on the comforting hum and new-found music of the TARDIS in an attempt to soothe her fragile emotions. She was forced to relinquish her ripped and charred clothing from the other universe in exchange for flared jeans, a simple vest, and a dark pink hoodie of the style straight from her past. The clothes no longer fit her quite right and the fabric rubbed unpleasantly against the nerve endings of this newly-changed body, but no other options easily presented themselves from within her old room of the TARDIS.
Unwilling to venture out of the safety of the once-familiar room towards this unknown Doctor, Rose sluggishly examined the objects in her old room, inspecting the pictures on the walls like windows into her old life. Once upon a time, she fought with every ounce of her being to return to that life of adventures, saving the universe side-by-side with the Time Lord Doctor. Now, those amazing sights and extraordinary situations paled in comparison to the brilliant (if somewhat domestic) life that Rose and the metacrisis Doctor had shared.
Rose clutched at the trinkets on her necklace like a lifeline, her Doctor's wedding ring snug within the palm of her hand. Grief clawed at a spot just behind her chest, making it a struggle simply to breathe. When she closed her eyes, Rose could still see memories of them playing against her eyelids. With each passing second, the visions faded slightly though. Details forgotten, sounds unheard, pieces unseen, emotions skewed by ruthless doubt. Rose's broken heart ached for reassurance that the memories were more than just a fanciful illusion. It would be almost comforting to be surrounded by the familiarity of their home on Pete's World, with the ability to crawl into her own bed and properly grieve the passing of her husband, surrounded by the scent of him that still clung to their sheets. The blissful photos on the walls of their home would anchor her memories to reality. A modest funeral would properly mark his passing in an attempt to gain closure, and Rose could be wrapped up tightly in her mother's comforting embrace as she wept for the brilliant future that would now never come to pass.
And her Mum! Rose's mum, dad, and brother were still within that other universe. She didn't even know if they had survived the battle. Even if they had, days would pass in that other universe with Rose and her Doctor's names plastered across lists of the missing. Rescue efforts and even Jackie Tyler's sheer force of will would produce no results in finding them. Eventually, her family would be forced to accept the fact that Rose and the Doctor died on that Dalek ship, defending the Earth for one last time. The difficult task of putting together a funeral would fall to Rose's mum and recently-found father. They would bury empty coffins, the nonexistent remains of their own child and her beloved husband. Rose's brother Tony, too young to fully comprehend the finality of death, would spend weeks asking after them, a constant reminder of grief to her parents. Or possibly, he was just old enough to be haunted by the realization of death's presence for years to come. The innocence of his childhood corrupted by the untimely demise of the big sister that took care of him like a second mother and the Doctor, his big brother that told the best bedtime stories in the universe.
Rose's knees painfully hit the ground as her own muscles gave out from underneath her. Her family, if alive, suffered these consequences due to her own childish decision to hop universes. Just to yell and scream at the original Doctor, at whom she barely even recognized any more.
"Take me back," Rose brokenly whispered to the Wolf in her mind, her words spoken aloud to the empty room.
"I can't," The Wolf replied within her mind. "You made your choice to come back here. I sealed up the last crack between the universes as you came through it."
Tears leaked from Rose's eyes as the finality of her decision passed over her. Still, she replied defiantly, "No. That can't be it. My family thinks I'm dead! I have to go back! I have to let them know I'm okay. I've crossed over this many times, I can do it once more!"
"There's nothing that can be done now. They will think that you died a hero's death, saving the world. Isn't that what you humans would consider to be glorious?"
"I don't care about that! Take me back!" Rose shouted, pounding her fist against the ground for emphasis.
The Wolf did not reply again, but a wave of pity not her own washed over Rose's mind.
The silent response sparked a fire within Rose. She was the Bad Wolf. She alone controlled the power of time. She should be able to bend and shape the universes to her will.
The anger triggered a switch in her mind, and Rose's body was consumed once more with golden tendrils of time. The power raced like wildfire through her veins, painfully boiling her blood at the same time that it fondly caressed every inch of her. In this new body, the golden fire became intoxicating instead of solely painful. This body was built to harness the power of Time.
Rose closed her eyes, anger momentarily forgotten as she embraced the power of the Wolf. Brilliantly-glistening vein-like images fanned out on the back of her eyelids, and Rose's breath caught in her chest at the amazing sight.
"Timelines," the Wolf whispered.
Multiple different timelines spread out before her, each a different color and all with different beginnings. Potential choices created an enormity of forks in the lines, branching each off into dozens of different possibilities. Each line intersected at some point with the timeline directly in the center of her vision. It started as a bright pink at the beginning, then slowly morphed along its line until it glowed a magnificent golden color, tinged just slightly with a pinkish hue. While the other lines were fairly easy to focus on, this one faded in and out of focus, constantly rewriting itself as Rose watched. It stretched out farther than most of the lines, and just trying to make sense of its enormous amount of shifting branches threatened to give Rose a pounding migraine. A few of the other lines wrapped so tightly around the golden one that its color almost winked completely out of existence, but the shortest line of all, a pale blue one, melded perfectly with it for the briefest amount of time before completely disappearing.
The timelines abruptly vanished as Rose's eyes flew open with surprise.
"But that's..." Rose said aloud with some amazement.
"Yes," the Wolf replied sadly. "That is your metacrisis Doctor, and the golden line is your own."
"But it's all fuzzy and keeps changing! Why can't I just see what my choices are?"
"No one should know their own future with such certainty. But, since you are so adamant about having your way, I will make one path clear to you."
Rose's eyes snapped shut once more, almost as if forced. Panic rushed through her for a brief moment, and then the shining timelines appeared once more behind her eyelids, spreading out like brightly colored pathways amongst the darkness of space. The image zoomed in to a small portion of the fuzzy, shifting golden line and a single branch slid into clear focus. Rose's choice to either burn through this new-found power in an attempt to return to Pete's World or to simply leave it be and stay in this universe. The result of leaving well enough alone still blurred uncomfortably within her vision, but the other path remained perfectly clear. It flared brightly, then ended suddenly as though its end had been sucked straight into a vacuum of nothingness.
"And that's exactly what will happen," the Wolf replied firmly. "You would burn through this power so quickly, trying to crack into that other universe while your atoms linger in a state of limbo without a way to return, until you had no other option but to fling yourself into the Void without an escape route, lest you destroy the entire multiverse with your attempt."
Rose slowly opened her eyes with resignation. The boiling in her blood dulled as though her very veins were suddenly filled with ice water. The golden hues surrounding her body gradually faded into nothing, accompanied by a depressing sensation of loss from having held onto something so wonderful. It suddenly became a terrifying fact that it would be so easy to become addicted to this power, even Rose had never wanted to hold it in the first place.
Morose, the young woman slowly stood up from the floor. As she looked around her room, the bright pink walls seemed to be screaming at her, rapidly boxing her in as the pictures along the walls mocked her inability to return to those that she loved. A piercing anxiety steadily built within her chest, her heart racing and lungs constricting until Rose was forced to throw herself out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her. Leaning against the door to her past, she closed her eyes, focusing on taking deep breaths to calm herself.
Once her breathing had calmed somewhat, Rose set out with determination to explore the TARDIS. The Doctor taught her long ago that the best cure for grief and anger was to distract yourself with adventure and to indulge in curiosity. She wandered down the corridors, her hand trailing aimlessly along the walls to receive an appreciatively comforting hum from the TARDIS. The orange hallways barely resembled the more organic ones that she knew and the rooms had definitely been rearranged, but Rose still managed to find the pool, the massive library, and even accidentally wandered into one of her favorite gardens. Even the rooms themselves had shifted and morphed, though. Her own room was quite possibly the only one that had remained unchanged throughout the years, preserved as though it was trapped within its own little time bubble.
Rose may have been slightly trying to avoid the Doctor as she roamed the TARDIS hallways. There were too many complications associated with him. Although he looked and acted differently, he was, in essence, still the same man that she had fallen in love with when she was only nineteen. The same man that taught her of her own strength, courage, and importance in the universe. However, this was also the same man that decided he no longer wanted to travel with her, stranding her in another universe with another version of himself just to get rid of her. She fell in love with his half-human, metacrisis self, similar to how she once had to fall back in love with his tenth version after he regenerated. But the metacrisis was his own person, separate from the original Doctor no matter how much they each argued against it.
The TARDIS hummed angrily in Rose's mind, protesting against her current train of thought about the Doctor. Rose suddenly walked straight into the console room, whereas only a second ago she had been standing in the middle of a hallway. The blonde woman glared at the ceiling with annoyance at her "punishment" before the sight of the room stopped her dead in her tracks. Massive in size, the entire console room resembled a brightly-lit, orange-colored, spindly, magical world. Rose had once thought of the TARDIS as a magical machine, and this décor definitely held up to that description. It looked as though it belonged in a fairy tale, complete with its mad magician spinning around the console and happily flicking switches. It hardly resembled the console room that Rose once knew by heart, the one that had been her home and had once filled her dreams on a nightly basis. She had never even considered the idea of the TARDIS being able to change the beloved room, and Rose felt a pang of grief that the room she loved so much had changed so drastically while she'd been gone. It mirrored the changes that the Doctor had gone through, and Rose wondered if the Doctor had really changed this drastically as well.
Rose took a few deep breaths as she processed her feelings about the new room, then slowly made her way down a set of stairs to a shiny glass floor that surrounded the console and time rotor. The Doctor spun around to face her, his arms swinging out wide as his footing slid on the glass floor, causing him to lose his balance slightly. This regeneration obviously had some coordination problems.
"So," The Doctor gestured around himself with a wide grin. "New console room. What do you think?"
"You redecorated," Rose commented as she looked around. The bright colors and whimsical feel grated unpleasantly on her currently-fragile mood. "I don't like it."
The Doctor's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, before replying with indignation. "Oi! The old girl's just as good as before, I'll have you know. Besides, that's my line."
Rose ignored his comment and continued to examine the room, looking everywhere but at the Doctor. She walked around the console, gently caressing it to earn a pleased hum from the TARDIS and a reverent look from the Doctor that went unseen. She'd almost forgotten how much she missed this place.
When Rose had walked full circle around the time rotor, ending up next to the Doctor, she glanced tentatively up at him to see that he was intently, if curiously, watching her.
"So, what now, Rose Tyler?"The Doctor asked with a contemplative look.
Rose's heart panged painfully in her chest when she realized that this new voice of the Doctor didn't pronounce her name in the same, warm and lilting tone that used to send chills down her spine. But he did pose a good question. What does one do with their life when presented with a new start? Rose had no idea.