Disclaimer: I have no claim to the wonderful world of Doctor Who.
A/N: Well, this is it! The last chapter of Fury of the Wolf. It's been great fun writing this story, and I want to extend a very big thank you to all of you that have been reading it! I am so glad that I've been able to share this with you. Just so you know, there will be a sequel that will be posted as soon as I've had sufficient time to complete its planning stages. Until then, thank you and farewell.
Chapter 12 – Farewell
Rose stared morosely through the glass floor around the TARDIS console, idly examining the cables running underneath it. The Doctor rested against the console next to her, shifting his limbs about awkwardly as he tried his best to be patient and allow Rose her silence. The young woman barely noticed his restless movements, her gaze focused on a bright yellow wire just below the surface of the floor as though it held the answers to all of her problems. Her mind whirled frantically, filled with a million different thoughts, all swirling about like eddies in a tumultuous ocean just before the storm hits. Focusing on a single thought proved to be too difficult. As sorrow spread paralyzingly through her limbs, Rose felt as though she had been lost to that angry sea, her body pulled every which way by the furious currents as she slowly sank further and further into the depths of confusion and despair. She didn't know what to do with herself, how to act around this Doctor that wasn't her Doctor anymore, or how to fix the feelings of loss and emptiness that filled her heart.
Unable to bear the silence that encouraged her melancholy, Rose said aloud the first thing that came to mind, "I can't go back."
Still staring at the floor, Rose missed the look of empathy that crossed the Doctor's young face.
"What happened, Rose?" The Doctor asked solemnly. "I don't need to know everything, but the curiosity is killing me over here. I'm not exactly a patient man, in case you hadn't noticed."
"I'm the Bad Wolf now. Again," Rose tentatively looked up, meeting the Doctor's eyes to see his surprised reaction. He had assumed as much, but her admission still shocked him. She continued in a deadened tone of voice, "I remember the Game Station. Some Daleks from there slipped through to our universe looking for me, for the Bad Wolf. They attacked our Torchwood, and we fought them off as well as we could, but we couldn't hold off an entire Dalek ship. He died fighting the Daleks, trying to save me and everyone else on the planet. This power manifested in me then, but...I was too late to save him."
A wave of grief overpowered Rose, and for a moment she thought that she'd be consumed by tears again. Instead, she grabbed at the tokens on her necklace for support and found the sharp corners of the circuit board biting reassuringly into the palm of her hand.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said sincerely, as though he appeared to share Rose's own grief with her. "What can I do to help?"
"Actually," Rose said with renewed vigor as a thought occurred to her. She hurriedly took off her necklace and removed the circuit board from it, extending it towards the Doctor. "Could you help me figure out what this is? He left it for me."
The Doctor carefully took the tiny, square circuit board from Rose's hand with deliberate motions as to not actually touch her in the process. He whipped out his new sonic screwdriver and scanned it for a moment before replying, "Ah! It's a recording. A holographic message. The TARDIS could play it for you."
Rose nodded her consent, so the Doctor pulled out a couple of wires from a compartment in the console and carefully hooked them into the small circuit board.
He looked up at her before connecting the final wire and said, "I'll just...leave you to this, then."
She nodded again, so he hooked up the final wire and left the console room. A moment later, Rose gasped as a figure appeared, ghost-like, right next to her in the TARDIS. Her Doctor, the human-Time Lord metacrisis in his brown pinstriped suit and blue chucks, stood right before her eyes. He was wearing the exact same thing as when they fought the Daleks, except that his clothes had not yet been tattered by the battle.
The metacrisis Doctor was pixelated and slightly transparent, simply a hologram. Not actually there on the TARDIS, but looking off in the distance at something that didn't exist in this universe. Rose walked around his image reverently, drinking in the sight of him. It calmed her shattered emotions at the same time that it caused her to start trembling with both grief and anticipation.
After a moment, the image of the Doctor focused on Rose. He smiled the smile that he reserved just for her, saying in a familiar, warm voice, "Rose Tyler. We've got a battle with the Daleks approaching, and the way things are looking, I'm fairly sure that I'll have to do something drastic to stop it. Welll, if you're seeing this now, I've already done that something drastic. Hopefully I didn't just trip over a brick or something."
He paused for a moment to contemplate that before his eyes snapped back into focus and he continued quickly, "Anyway, I'll have to make this goodbye quick. I only have a couple of minutes, which I suppose is fairly familiar territory for us. Regrettably."
Rose's heart dropped at the realization that this was just another one of the Doctor's goodbyes. Her Doctor was still dead, his body burned to ashes in the dead of space within a universe not his own. This hologram would be the last time that she'd ever see that him.
The image of the metacrisis Doctor paused to look darkly down at the floor for a moment. Then, he took a deep breath and looked back at Rose. "There are some things that you need to know, Rose. Things that you probably shouldn't know about yet, but I'm the only one that knows them and so I have to pass that knowledge on to you now.
"Rose, these Bad Wolf occurrences haven't just been happening today. I've been seeing those two words a lot recently. Didn't want to worry you. But it's more than that, 'cause I think it has something to do with you this time, not some danger. You've been-" he cut off abruptly with an awkward pause, his hand ruffling his gorgeous hair, leaving it sticking up strangely in places. "Welll, you've been sort of glowing in your sleep. Not all the time, but often enough and increasingly often, at that. And it's a golden glow, almost reminiscent of regeneration energy.
"We discussed the events of the Game Station earlier today, so I'll be blunt about this. I think there may be some residual vortex energy in you. Some sort of link that wasn't fully severed at the Game Station. Now, I have no idea why you're still alive if that's the case, but something's been happening to you, Rose. Something's changing you. You probably haven't noticed, but we've been living in this world for five years now, and you three years longer than that. Time has been passing. Significant chunks of time to humans, in which visible aging should have been occurring. I've even been aging, but not you, Rose Tyler. And as beautiful as you are, I don't think you can chock that all up to good genetics. And when was the last time you've gotten sick or seriously injured for long? You haven't, not since I've been here, at least. Which, when you think about it, is really quite remarkable considering how much trouble we get into on a daily basis...
"Now, this may have nothing to do with Bad Wolf. It could be residual effects from the dimension cannon—which, by the way, you shouldn't have been able to survive. Trust me, I looked at the schematics for that dreadful machine. And really, you're lucky you weren't dissolved into tiny little bits the first time you went through it—Anyway, the medical equipment at Torchwood isn't sophisticated enough to accurately analyze what's happening to you. I've been trying to piece some machinery together, but what I really need is the advanced equipment on the TARDIS."
He shifted from foot to foot anxiously for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly before continuing, "Which brings me to the next part of this conversation." The ghostly image of her husband looked Rose directly in the eyes from where she had wondered over to lean against the railing in the console room.
"Rose, I need you to promise me something. I know you haven't forgiven him, but if I don't make it through this, promise me that you'll find him. Me. The other Doctor. If anyone can cross the Void without destroying all of reality to find a single dimensionally-transcendent ship in all of time and space, you can. Find him. I know you don't believe me when I tell you that he didn't want to leave us behind, that he thought he was doing what was right for you and that he will always love you just as much as I do, but it's all true, Rose. And as much as I hate giving you to some other man—well, he's not just some other man. He's me. And I want you to be happy, Rose Tyler. So do that for me, please. Find him, forgive him, and have a fantastic life."
Rose stared at his image with watery eyes, mouth open slightly. For a brief moment, she didn't see the pinstripes, gorgeous spiky hair, and emotive brown eyes. She saw another man in her mind, a soldier in harsh leather with cropped hair and big ears, staring compassionately at her with his beautiful, ice blue eyes.
And then she protested.
"Oh no you don't, Doctor." Rose replied stubbornly, advancing on the image with a glare and a pointed finger.
He knowingly waited for her to finish her rant, rocking back on his heels with a smug grin, his hands clasped patiently behind his back.
"You are not pulling this one on me again, saying goodbye with a hologram. And telling me to go be happy with your other self? You're lucky you're just a hologram right now or I'd probably smack you for that. I'll make my own choices, thank you very much!"
Rose glared at the image of her Doctor, breathing heavily with anger.
He waited silently for a second more, then said, "Now, are you finished?"
Rose stared sheepishly at the ground for a moment. He knew her too well.
"I bet you're just furious with me now, for going and dying and leaving you with this sub-par goodbye and a final request that you don't want to uphold. And it's okay if you don't want to find him. I, of all people, am familiar with the fact that Rose Tyler does what she wants. To be honest, I wouldn't want you to be any other way. But I think that you will someday. Want to find him, that is. And if someday you come to terms with it all and you find him and can forgive the both of us for leaving you so many times, then I want you to be with him. Just...remember that. I want you to be happy, Rose. And honestly, he deserves to be happy, too."
He looked off to the side for a moment, most likely at some device or another. Then, he returned to stare longingly at Rose, saying halfheartedly, "Now, I really should be going. The Daleks are advancing and I've got a teleport device to start building. But I want you to know that this has been the best single life that I ever could have had, even if it hasn't been for very long. 'Cause stuck with you, Rose Tyler, isn't bad at all."
The Doctor shot Rose a cheeky smirk that she couldn't help but return with a watery smile of her own.
"So," he continued, "No regrets, okay? Saving the world is a brilliant way to go, if I do say so myself. And I wouldn't have changed our time together for anything in all of the universes. But I am so sorry that it couldn't be the forever that we'd hoped for."
The Doctor looked at her regretfully before taking a deep breath and continuing, "Now, if it's my last chance to say it, there's something that I need to tell you. Rose Tyler, I love you."
"I love you, too, my Doctor," Rose whispered to the image with a small, teary smile.
Compassion flowed from his eyes and he held Rose's gaze for a moment with a small, regretful smile before turning to the side and reaching for some button that was no longer there. And then, his image faded into nothing.
Rose stared solemnly at the spot where her Doctor's image had been, her mind frantically scrambling to process everything that had happened. An invisible weight seemed to press down on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. Gasping for air, she had the distinct feeling that something was clawing its way painfully into her chest, digging out her very heart as it went. It was then that the walls she had been tenuously holding up around herself collapsed. Rose began sobbing hysterically, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso to physically hold herself together when she couldn't do so emotionally.
Instantly, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her. The floppy-haired Doctor pulled her close to his body in a tight embrace. Rose curled up against his chest, her hands nestled under her chin and her head pressed against his body. The steady thrum of his two hearts reverberated through her and she found it to be an old, familiar sound that she could take comfort in. It was a strange sensation to take comfort from essentially the same person that you were grieving for and mad at all at the same time. But in her fragile emotional state, Rose couldn't protest. She didn't want to. She needed all of the comfort that she could get, any lifeline that she could grab a hold of to reassure herself that she was still here, still alive, and still a functioning part of the universe.
The Doctor held Rose tightly to him as she grieved, rubbing her back comfortingly and unwilling to let her go. He reveled in the sensations of being able to hold her once more. Had it not been for the pain she was in, he would have chocked it all up to being a happy dream. But she was actually here, back in his universe and practically immortal to boot. And yet, he couldn't be happy about it. Not in these circumstances. He couldn't bear to see Rose hurting like this. Couldn't bear to see this grief and anger in his once-joyful pink and yellow human. He recognized that she blamed him for her situation, but he would gladly take the blame if it helped her. He had convinced himself for years now that enough time had passed, that he no longer pined after the fantastic human known as Rose Tyler and that this new body no longer yearned for her. But even after all of these years apart, despite his new body and her new changes, the Doctor's hearts still beat inexplicably for Rose. He had been a fool to think that the passing of time or even a regeneration could change that fact.
The greenish glow of the time rotor washed over them as Rose grieved, and she barely noticed the differences between this version of the Doctor and the last. They fit together differently, her head no longer tucked neatly underneath his chin, but it was not uncomfortable. With the double-beating of his hearts in her ear and the caring way that he embraced her, Rose realized that it would be so easy to just let this Doctor back into her life. He was still the Doctor, after all. It would be almost simple to adapt to this new incarnation, to travel with him in the TARDIS and live a fantastic life with him like her husband had suggested. And if she really had stopped aging as they thought, she could actually be with the Doctor forever this time. She would just merge back into her old life with him and after many years of adventuring, she'd eventually forget about the little blip that had been her life with the metacrisis in the other universe. After such a long life, he would be nothing more than a passing dream, the memories foggy and skewed with doubt that said it had ever even happened. But that was the last thing that Rose wanted to do. She had been through so much and had earned her happy ending with the Doctor that had died aboard that Dalek ship. It would be a wrongful affront to her Doctor to just forget about him and their wonderful life. So, as easy as it would be, Rose couldn't let herself be absorbed back into this world. She would just have to be strong and find her own way in this new life that she had been unwillingly presented with.
Taking a deep breath, Rose gently backed out of the Doctor's embrace, wiping the tears from her blotchy eyes. He let go of her, looking awkwardly at the floor for a moment as he ran a hand through his hair.
"Doctor..." Rose began hesitantly.
The tone of Rose's voice caused the Doctor to look up alarmingly at her. She was going to leave him again.
Rose opened her mouth to say something, but he quickly cut her off, rambling suddenly, "I've got these companions now. Amy and Rory. The Ponds. They've been traveling with me for a while, off and on. They're not here now, but I was just about to swing by and pick them up. Heard word of some nasty business going in the Isop galaxy, thought maybe we'd check it out. You could, I dunno...you could come with me?" He shrugged, trying to look nonchalant while his two hearts worked double-time, waiting for her response as though the fate of the universe depended on it.
A spark of anger lit up Rose's eyes, and the Doctor backtracked quickly, "I don't have to pick up the Ponds. It could just be us for a bit. We don't even have to go to the Isop galaxy, it can wait. Time machine, you know. We'll go somewhere else, anywhere you want. Anywhere in time and space. Just you and me. The Doctor and Rose Tyler. In the TARDIS."
A resounding crack echoed throughout the console room as the palm of Rose's hand met the Doctor's face in a slap that could easily rival one of Jackie Tyler's. He quickly pressed a hand against the burning skin, trying his best not let Rose see the emotional hurt that it caused him. His Rose had never once directed such ill feelings toward him, not even when he'd been a jerk with that whole Reinette business.
"Right," the Doctor said painfully as he stretched out his jaw in an attempt to alleviate the sting. "Guess I shouldn't have said that."
"No, you bloody well shouldn't have!" Rose shouted at him, her cheeks flushed red with anger. "Do you have any idea what I'm going through right now? You left me on a beach in bloody Norway in an alternate universe after I had spent years of my life and most of my sanity figuring out a way to get back to you. Then, you left another version of you in my care, waited 'til I was distracted, then disappeared! I could understand you doing that, what with your tendency to leave me behind and make my decision to stay for me. But you did so without as much as an explanation or even a goodbye when you could have made the time for it! Did I really mean so little to you?"
The Doctor opened his mouth to argue, but Rose's glare stopped him in his tracks and she continued speaking, "You left us with nothing, Doctor. Dropped us off without anything to our names. But we worked through it. We built a wonderful life for ourselves. We were supposed to grow old together and never see you again. But then the Daleks came looking for me, and we had nothing to fight them with. No sonic, no TARDIS, just ourselves. So the metacrisis – the Doctor that you left me with, the one that I married five years ago – he didn't survive. He died saving me, saving the Earth, and saving that universe. Then suddenly I had all of this power running through me and these memories of killing you and the Daleks back at the Game Station. So I did it again, and I destroyed them all. But I couldn't bring him back. And all of this just happened for me. I've been changed, I'm not even human anymore! I lost my husband! I lost my family, my home, my belongings, my universe. And you just expect us to pick up where we left off? 'The Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS as it should be'? No. I won't have any of that, Doctor. I need time to grieve and to figure out who I am now, and I can't do that with you hoverin' around, offering me adventures out of pity. I can't slip into that old life of mine and just expect all of this to just go away! You decided that you didn't want me around anymore when you left me on that beach again, and I made my decision by choosing the other Doctor to spend my life with. So no, I won't travel with you after everything that you've done to me."
Rose knew that the words were harsh, but she was furious with the situation and he was the only one here to blame besides herself. Some nonsense about hurting the ones you love the most flashed briefly through Rose's mind, but her anger quickly buried it. The Doctor couldn't bring himself to protest her words, because he agreed with them himself. He had never seen himself worthy as being in Rose Tyler's company after all of the ill deeds that he had done throughout his life. So he just stared back at her with solemn eyes.
"I'll be seeing you, Doctor," Rose said briskly as she backed further away from the Doctor.
Before he could fully comprehend what was happening, golden tendrils of time burst forth from within Rose, lapping at her skin like the burning caress of flames. Right before his eyes, her entire form split apart into tiny particles that mingled with the golden fire, before even that faded into nothing. And just like that, Rose Tyler was gone again.
The Doctor let out a sharp breath as the reality of what had just happened hit him hard in the chest. His fantastic Rose Tyler had been through so much in the span of a few days. She lost his other self, the metacrisis that had elected to stay with her in Pete's World. She fought the Daleks and won, permanently became the not-quite-human Bad Wolf – a goddess of Time. Then, she propelled herself through the void and into his TARDIS, leaving her family and life behind only to find a new Doctor, and new TARDIS to boot. And now, she had disintegrated herself, hopefully to reappear elsewhere in time and space.
Rose's last words rang throughout the Doctor's mind as he struggled to come back to his senses. I'll be seeing you, Doctor.
Not a final goodbye then, he thought with a glimmer of hope.
"Well, then!" The Doctor clapped his hands together as a small smile spread across his face. "Not if I see you first!"
The Doctor slammed a fist down on the console, did a little spin, and excitedly pulled down the main lever. The TARDIS shot out of the vortex, dematerializing somewhere in time and space.
Elsewhere in the universe, a golden glow manifested out of seemingly thin air, followed by the stumbling form of a young, blonde-haired woman within it. As the gold faded from around her, she examined her surroundings with a mild curiosity. She may have just been through hell and back again, but there was now a whole wide universe at her disposal. A new start, however unwanted it may be. After a moment, Rose nodded to herself with determination, picked a direction at random, and took off running, starting this new beginning in the best way that she knew how.
This chapter of Rose's life may have concluded, but her story is far from over.
Rose's story will continue in
Running of the Wolf