I want to thank you once again everyone who took time to review or/and are following this story. I'm very happy to hear your feedback =)
Also, a special thanks to Ophelia Meadows who helped me proofread it ^^
"Right then, Rose Tyler - you tell me, where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time. What's it going to be?" The Doctor was asking Rose while playing around with a part of TARDIS in his hands.
"Forwards. Definitely forwards." She grinned.
"How far?" Rose was sure that the Doctor was expecting something big as her answer, but she just couldn't help wanting to tease him a bit more.
"One hundred years," she just stated with all seriousness.
As she expected, the Doctor was a bit surprised by that. Disappointed? Maybe a slightly bit. "Only one hundred?" He raised an eyebrow. "Alright, you should get that." He hit a few buttons and switches, and the TARDIS began pulsating and echoing, the sound of the universe ringing throughout the console room. And soon, with a bump, they landed.
"Step outside. It's the 22nd century," he said.
"You are kidding," Rose said, smirking.
The Doctor frowned at her. "You surely don't believe that I can't do better than that, do you?" Desperation to show what he was capable of was clearly visible in his voice.
"You think you are so impressive." Rose told him teasingly.
"I am so impressive," the Doctor sounded like a lost puppy.
"You wish." Rose shook her head with a grin.
"Oh, you have asked for it." He pointed a finger at her. "I just know the right place for you." He gave her a manic grin. And soon enough, he was all over the switches; pressing and pumping everything he could see. Or it looked like that from aside. And with a ding on the bell, they had landed.
"What's out there?"
Rose could barely hold her legs in place so not to run outside. She knew exactly where they were. But luckily the Doctor just pointed to the door for her to look for herself. And she didn't waste any time. She ran outside the door, and soon found herself 5 billion years into the future.
As she looked around the familiar surroundings, despite the obvious joy, she knew she had work to do. Maybe she couldn't do much about living plastic, but Cassandra had caused too many casualties here. She had to stop it. She slowly moved to the glass window where she saw her planet - Earth, so close to death once more. Shortly after, she felt the Doctor stand by her.
"You lot," the Doctor said softly. "You spend all your time thinking about dying. Like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take the time to imagine the impossible. Maybe you survive." The Doctor paused a bit. "This is the year 5.5/apple/26. Five billion years in your future. And this is the day… hold on…" He looked at his watch and Rose smiled. "This is the day the sun expands. Welcome to the end of the world."
The Doctor looked at her, but what he saw in her expression was only a half-sad smile and understanding.
An announcement about guests rang over the intercom.
The Doctor was about to say something with his mouth already half open, when Rose interrupted him.
"So when they say...guests. Does it mean people?" Rose asked him carefully.
"Depends what you mean by people. Aliens on board," he announced all happy.
"So, they go, have fun, while the worlds explodes?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Pretty much, yeh," he agreed like it was the normal thing. Which, as he did not know, was way too normal for Rose too.
"Let's go explore then!" Rose beamed at him while starting to skip around. When she noticed that the Doctor was not following her, and only looking at her with an intense stare, she started to get nervous.
"Doctor? What is it? What's wrong?" she asked slowly.
He darkened his gaze a bit. "I'm just thinking, if I did not take a mental person with me." Still staring at her. Rose was about to say something, but the Doctor was faster.
"Oh, well. Let's us go. Come on," he urged her and gone ahead.
Mental person. "Great, first impression of me is perfect," she cursed under her breath.
As they went further into the room, Rose spun around while grinning and absorbing the feeling of 'home'. She finally felt like she was home and so alive, that she just wanted to share her joy. And although, she knew that this regeneration of the Doctor still had too much darkness from the Time War, she just wanted to make him better. Even if it was only by taking little steps. She came to a stop from spinning around, and was walking backwards while facing the Doctor, when she crashed into someone.
"Look out," the Doctor warning her at the same time.
She spun around to face the source and found the blue Steward glancing at her in confusion.
"Oh, please excuse me. I was too absorbed in my...admiring of the place." Rose waved her hand around. Steward seemed not to buy it. She sighed. Why sweet talk only works for the Doctor?
"Who the hell are you?" The Steward glanced at them frantically. "How did you get in here?"
"Oh, we are the guests." The Doctor made his way to the Steward. "The Doctor plus one. I'm the Doctor, see." He showed his psychic paper. "And this is Rose Tyler. She's my plus one." Pointing at Rose. He leaned near her ear and introduced the psychic paper's abilities to her.
"As he says," Rose agreed with a nodding smile. The Doctor glanced at her again like facing an alien. Which she was, considering that humans ARE aliens to him, but she was more alien to human race than to him. Or so he thought at that moment.
She just talked to an alien in such a long time. And it was brilliant! But then she remembered that she talked with the alien in English, which should be odd for a human her.
"He speaks English," she said in a fake unbelief.
"No, you just hear like that. It's the TARDIS. It gets inside your head and translates all the alien languages."
"So, she is telepathic?" Rose said and at once cursed herself that she let herself slip by regarding TARDIS as a she.
The Doctor seemed to notice that too. "How did you know the TARDIS is a she?" he asked her in suspicion. "And she is sentient."
Rose struggled to find the right words. "Well..." She started slowly. "The TARDIS is a time machine. And machine is feminine. So, I just thought..." She shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant.
The Doctor paused for a moment, trying to analyse her, but then it seemed like her answer was good enough for him and he didn't ask further.
The guests were then introduced. When the Trees came, Rose made a note to save Jabe from her fate no matter what. Rose was glad to see the Face of Boe again. She wondered whether she could have a chat with him some time. And then came the last human. Rose's face twisted at once. She couldn't help feeling angry at the things she did. Part of her felt pity to her, and she didn't like it, because at today's events she did, or will do, nothing to be pitied about.
The Doctor seemed to take notice of her reaction.
"How does it look?" he asked her lightly. "The last human. Don't you look similar?" The Doctor snickered at her.
Rose gave him a look. "She's just skin," she stated with an empty face and hollow voice. Which made Doctor wonder why the sudden seriousness.
"Oh, no need to hate your race just so soon. What did she do to you?"
Rose glanced at the Doctor and just sighed. Not like she could explain any of it to him. Which made the Doctor all the more puzzled. He was getting quite way too much confused about this one particular human and in a relatively short time, which troubled him. There was just something...off about her. Not that she was a potential threat by any means, no. But it was like she said less than she knew.
As the Tree woman named Jabe approached the Doctor and Rose, they exchanged greetings. The air of my lungs considered being intimate gesture, of course, made Rose grimace. She blamed herself for not remembering this detail to put it the other way. But now it was too late for that.
"Okay then. I'll be off to make some...acquaintances with faces...or black furry species..." Rose tried deliberately to sound dumb. The Doctor just smiled at that.
"Look, I know you are all, madcap-y and all, but try to not to start a fight." The Doctor beamed at her.
"Madcap-y." Rose looked at the Doctor in bewilderment.
"That's right. Your nickname," the Doctor exclaimed like it had been the obvious.
"Since when do I have a nickname?" Rose narrowed her eyes in question.
"Since I gave you one." The Doctor grinned at her all happily.
Rose just shook her head. Somehow she was making more changes than she thought she would. And in such a short time too! She wasn't sure, whether to feel happy or nervous.
What made her unable to do anything the last time, was the fact that Cassandra held her captive. Obviously, Rose had pissed her off with her remarks about her "skin image". Good thing Rose knew that now. So, she noted that it would be best to avoid Cassandra.
As she was about to make her way to the Face of Boe, some other guests approached him and Rose was left standing. Then a voice came behind her.
"Good fellah. Face of Boe is," the Doctor started the conversation with her. "And wise too. They say his age is of millions. Nobody knows exactly, though." He talked as they slowly exited the room and were heading to where they once parked the TARDIS.
"Yeh." Rose just made a longing smile while facing in Face's direction.
"Do you know the Face of Boe?" the Doctor asked her, knowing full well, that it was impossible, but her reactions were far from normal.
Rose was taken by a surprise when he asked her that. She knew that she was acting oddly and she had to pull herself together, or she would fail them all. She feared the Doctor would throw her out, either because she was suspicious or just too mad.
"'Course not. How could a mere human like me know such a divine creature?" Rose tried to defend herself.
"I thought as much," the Doctor agreed. "But you are way too weird, you know that, Madcap-y?" He put his eyebrows together while sneering at her.
"Shut it, you." She hit his arm playfully. The Doctor rubbed his arm while making an ow sound. After they entered the room he continued.
"So what do you think?" he asked her expectedly. He patted the spot next to him, gesturing her to sit.
"Great!" She beamed at him and soon realised that a bit too much, when it made the Doctor jump slightly. "They are just...so alien," she said, a bit calmer now. "In a good way. You go all over the world to meet different people, different races and never think that maybe there's just a lot more out there. That you can meet different species too." They both laughed a bit at that. She tried to approach the next subject carefully.
"Where're you from, by the way?" she asked softly.
The Doctor's smile seemed to fade and Rose felt a lump in her throat. The last thing she wanted to do was make him uncomfortable, but she knew that it was the only way to make him talk and to learn that she was there for him.
"From all over the place." He tried to dismiss it.
"Okay, but from what planet are you from?" She locked her gaze to his for a while, but he soon looked away.
"Not like you would know it," he said more sadly than bitter now. And for that, Rose was very glad. She was way too much aggressive the first time, as she was scared and so far away from home, but now she knew a whole lot more.
"Can't I at least get a name?" she asked hopefully. "I mean, you come to my planet, then bring me to the day of its explosion, and you don't even tell me your own planet's name? That's a bit unfair." She knew that it sounded awful, but not like she could say I know about Gallifrey.
He stood up at those words and came to the window. There was a huge silence and Rose understood that he would not break it first, so she joined him to stand near the window.
"Alright. As my mate Shareen says - no arguing with the designated driver." She could hear him chuckle as she pulled her phone out of her pocket, trying to make it look like a search for a signal. "Besides...not like I could call for a taxi. There's no signal here. We're out of range!" she exclaimed. "Just a bit..." And soon the Doctor took her phone from her.
"Tell you what. A little bit of jiggery-pokery..." The Doctor was already pulling insides out of the phone.
"Is that a technical term, jiggery-pokery?" she asked him teasingly.
"Yeh, I came first in the jiggery-pokery," he told her affectionately. "What about you?" He tried to sound nonchalant.
"Nah, I took hullabaloo." She couldn't help but laugh at that.
"Ah." And with that he put her phone together and handed it to her. "There you go." He looked at her to try it out.
She was very thankful for that the other time. And she nearly jumped at him, but suppressed it, as she couldn't have known what to thank for just yet. Rose pressed the button to call her mum and had a short conversation where she tried to hint her mother that she may be late home, late as in a month or so from now and not as in later today. Sure enough, it made the Doctor make a questioning look at her once more, but she didn't care. She had to make her mother's worry at least a bit less this time.
"That was billion years ago..." she said with a distant voice after the call. "I don't know what you did, but thanks." She smiled fondly at him. He smiled back at her, making a short, but not awkward pause.
"Gallifrey," he said. Rose nearly jumped at that.
"What?" She looked at him, puzzled.
"My home planet." He looked at her. "I'm a Time Lord."
"So you control time and go about it?" Rose tried to form a stupid human question.
"Not controlling it, looking after it. So that it would not get messed up. And we can't just go anywhere we want. There are timeliness to be preserved and you cannot cross your own. That being said, you can't come back here tomorrow at this exact moment because you would cross paths with yourself and that would create a paradox." He pointed a finger at her.
"Alright, I get it." She nodded.
"Good." Was all he said, when the room shook. "That's not supposed to happen." He grinned with excitement.
"Is there any trouble in time we got to fix?" Rose asked him innocently.
"Let's find out." He grinned at her and grabbed her hand. They ran back to the main room.
After a few hints of Bad Wolf here and there, like the Moxx of Balhoon talking to the Face of Boe about it, they stopped to talk with Jabe about the situation.
"Where's the engine room?" the Doctor asked.
"I don't know… but the maintenance duct is just behind our guest's suite, I could show you and… your wife?" She gestured to Rose.
"Oh, she's not my wife." The Doctor ended with a half smile.
"Partner?"
"No."
"Concubine?"
"Nope."
"Bride of the Wolf?"
"N-" The Doctor began to say, when Rose got in between.
"A what?" she asked in disbelief. That was not mentioned the previous time.
"Bride of the Wolf. Some species call their trusted one's mates like that. I just assumed since I don't know your species all that well..." She pointed to Rose, who just blinked at her repeatedly.
"Oh, she's human," the Doctor answered her simply.
"I wouldn't fully agree...-" She began to say, but Rose decided to hear no more.
"So then, should we head off?" she asked suggestively, pointing at the doors. The Doctor seemed to want to ask something, but decided to drop it.
Once back from their little inspection, they confirmed that the little pets, as the Doctor called them, indeed, were sabotaging with the engines, and that they were all over the platform. Cassandra still tried to put the blame to the Face of Boe, but the Doctor heard no more.
"Here's an easy way of finding out. Someone brought a little pet on board. Let's send it back to master." He put it on the ground and it soon stopped at Adherents of the Repeated Meme. Cassandra was already sighing in relief, when Rose, not having enough patience, stormed to them and pulled one's arm off as they crumbled to the floor.
"You got something against hands, don't you?" the Doctor exclaimed to her in amusement and confusion. Rose only shrugged her shoulders. "But that's right. Those there only an idea. The real mastermind is someone else." He gave a light nudge with his foot "Go on, Jimbo. Go home." And it soon found his way to Cassandra.
"At arms!" the last human shouted.
"What are you going to do? Moisturize me?" the Doctor asked her with a mocking voice, his hands on his chest.
"With acid," Cassandra threatened, but soon fled the scene with her teleporter, announcing how her "pets" have destroyed the safety systems just before that.
When the three of them came back to the engine room, Rose went deep in her thoughts about the conversation she heard her Doctor and Jabe have while they were here the previous time.
"What about your ancestors, Doctor?" Jabe asked him delicately. "Perhaps you could tell a story or two... Perhaps a man only enjoys trouble, when there is nothing else left. I scanned you out there. A metal machine had trouble identifying your species. And when it did, I couldn't believe it." She shook her head. "I know, where you are from," she said softly. "I just want to say...how sorry I am." As she put her hand on his arm.
It broke Rose's heart to see her Doctor like that. But she remained silent, looking from behind, suppressing the urge to bury him into her comforting arms. "It should have been her, not Jabe", she thought. But she knew that she was way too far behind to act upon her feelings. So, she just closed her eyes and remained quiet the whole road ahead.
"Rose?" The Doctor's voice shook her from her thoughts.
"Yeh? Sorry. What was it?" She sounded still a bit dazed.
"You alright?" He sounded concerned. "If you feel unwell you can wait in the main room, I can handle this here."
What was she doing? She was losing her only chance to help by having her silly thoughts. Even feeling what she felt, she knew other priorities came first now. She couldn't lose herself.
"No, I'm fine, really," she answered firmly. "I'm ready to help." She gave him a reassuring smile, which relaxed the Doctor a bit. "Besides, it's a bit hot in here." She picked on her clothes to make some wind. "You shouldn't be here, Jabe. I'll take over. You go." She looked at Jabe with deep concern in her eyes.
"No, how could I leave you two here..." Jabe protested.
"Rose's right, Jabe." The Doctor's voice was serious. "Rose, put that lever down while I walk to the other side." He pointed to her. "And you." He was looking at Jabe softly. "Go back to the main room and help to make things go under control there. We need you there." His gaze was too intense for Jabe to protest any more.
When the Doctor stood ready to go further and Rose near the lever, Jabe came to her to whisper. "Be careful. Even if you are not exactly human, there is still too much heat for your skin here."
Rose was lost for a moment. The Tree woman kept talking about her not being fully human and that bothered her a lot, but she also came to a realisation that, indeed, her body won't be able to hold down that much of heat either. However, she was too determined to back down now. She would never back down when her Doctor was included.
With Jabe leaving the room, Rose pulled the lever down and quickly experienced just how not alright she was going to be in the upcoming minutes. The Doctor was halfway through, when the heat started to make its way around Rose and the metal lever was getting extra hot. She tried to hold her breath in, but failed. She let a sound of pain escape as she winced.
As the Doctor heard that, he quickly turned around to face Rose, but by that time she had already had a stone mask on her face, not showing any pain on her face, only gripping the lever even harder as she felt it slipping from her grip.
"Go on!" she shouted at him. "Don't waste time, Time Lord." She grinned at him and that was enough for him to get back to work.
Rose could feel her flesh burn and it nearly made her gag at the smell and she began to worry if she would survive this. No. She had to survive. There was no ifs here. She came too long of a way to fail here. It was only the beginning. As her conciousness began to leave her, neither of them saw, that just for a moment she was surrounded by a golden light.
"Raise shields!" She heard the Doctor shout.
When Rose opened her eyes, she saw herself still at the lever. As she withdrew her hands from it she shook her head in surprise. Her palms were barely burnt! She looked at the lever and saw blood stains covering it, even though her palms were quite clean. Once she heard steps approaching, she quickly placed herself in front of the lever to hide it from the view.
"Everything alright?" the Doctor asked.
"Yeh." Rose nodded nervously. "Just a graze."
At that the Doctor took her hands to check them out. He frowned. "We'll fix them up, once we are in the TARDIS." He gently put his hands around her shoulders to lead her out of the room.
Back in the main room the Doctor was furious. "I'm bristling with ideas." He sounded more angry than excited. "Idea number one - teleportation through 5,000 degrees needs some kind of feed. Idea number two - this feed must be nearby." He made his way to the ostrich egg and smashed it hard.
"Idea number three - if you're as clever as me, then a teleportation feed can be reversed." He spun the button on the teleportation feed device and Cassandra soon appeared. Everyone started arguing.
"Someone had died Cassandra. You murdered him… Tried to murder all these people here," the Doctor accused.
"That depends on your definition of 'people'," she said smartly. "And that's enough of a technicality to keep your lawyers dizzy for centuries. Take me to court then, Doctor! And watch me smile, and cry, and flutter-"
"And creak?" the Doctor said in an uncaring voice.
"And what?" she said in confusion.
"You are creaking," the Doctor announced like it was the obvious.
Rose knew what was coming and it was hard to watch. As Cassandra was creaking more and more she couldn't watch it anymore.
"Help her," she whispered to him.
"Everything has its time and everything dies," he said harshly.
Rose was taken aback by that. She couldn't believe that she couldn't change his mind at all on this. And if Cassandra survived she could have been brought to court, then maybe the meeting with her on the New Earth would not have taken place.
As Rose watched the end of the Earth outside the glass window, she didn't notice how small tears fell down her cheeks. "The end of the Earth," she said sadly. This was the year 5 billion, so far away from her own time of 2005. She understood that the power of the Sun was not something she could mess around with, so she didn't cry for that. She grieved for everyone out there, back in 2005, who weren't aware in the least that they soon would experience something so similar to the end - The battle of the Canary Wharf.
The Doctor gently pulled her in for a comforting embrace, which made Rose jump a bit, but soon she was crying hard. She hugged him tightly while sobbing and never wanted to let go.
When they landed on the Earth of 2005, Rose found it hard to control her insides scream. She wanted to yell so everyone would hear. To warn people, to tell them to hide, to not believe in ghosts. And it tore her insides apart. She didn't dare to look at the Doctor. If he saw her face now, so full of horror and pain, she would not be able to go without explanation. She felt how her body shook.
Once her body relaxed, she sniffed the air around. "Chips. Do I smell chips?" She turned to face the Doctor after a long while.
"Yeh." The Doctor sniffed himself. "Yeh! Let's us take a bite?" He grinned at her.
"Absolutely," she said with a wide smile. "And I guess it is on me. Doubt you got any money on you." She looked sceptically at him.
"Yep, no money." He smiled all happy. After a pause his expression became serious. "My planet is gone. It burnt just like the Earth." He locked gaze with her.
"What happened?" she asked softly.
"There was a war. And we lost." He looked away. "I'm a Time Lord. But not just any. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They are all gone." He faced her with a face full of sorrow.
Rose shook her head. "You are not alone," she told him tenderly. "There is me. And always will be. I'm not going to leave you." Her eyes burning intensely.
The Doctor was speechless. After such a long time, for a moment he understood the weight of those words. And for a minute he felt that he was not alone.
to be continued...