Notes: Begins after "Fear Her." Includes plot points from "Army of Ghosts," "Doomsday," "The Stolen Earth," and "The End of Time."
And It Was
Here she was back in London. What had happened in between didn't matter. She had been in a different London, a future London, watching the Olympics, but that didn't matter.
"I knew you were lying about the shot put! Papua New Guinea?"
"You didn't really want to know," The Doctor protested.
"So you lied? How often do you do that? Wait, no, don't answer that," said Rose, and she placed a finger over his mouth. "I'm going to make it a saying. 'Rule number one: the Doctor lies.' That's what you get." She stuck out her tongue.
He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to move her finger.
"Well," he started, taking a huge breath the moment his lips were free to move. "For one thing, you still haven't seen women's shot put. For another, you didn't want to know the answer and I didn't tell you, so how is that lying? In fact, one could argue, especially going by the customs of the Sphygmoms, and really we should because they are a marvelous people, although technically 'people' isn't the correct term, but whatever you call them, they do have really good methods of—"
"Nuh-uh," said Rose. "You're not winning this one. What about something I do want to know the answer to?"
"Well of course I'd tell you the truth," he said simply.
"All right, Mr. Time-traveller. I want to know what the weather's going to be like."
He licked a finger and held it up to the wind. Then, with absolute conviction he said, "Hot. Really, really hot."
That was when it started to rain.
Rose laughed, looking around at the huge stadium, the flame of the Olympic torch, and the clouds covering the sky. But he had told her, less than twenty-four hours ago. 'A storm's approaching.' That was what he had said. And she had said that nothing would ever split the two of them up, but at this moment she didn't feel so certain. She was here to hold his hand now, but what if somehow she never, ever got the chance to say what was on her mind?
It looked as if the Doctor was going to join in with the crowd of triumphantly dancing Polish fans, so Rose grabbed his hand and pulled him back to their seats at the top of the bleachers.
"Doctor, I'm going to say something."
"Ok," he said cheerfully, completely oblivious.
"I love you. Just tell me whether you love me. Please."
The sound of the crowd seemed to dim as his eyes searched hers. She held her breath.
"Rose, I don't…I can't…"
A red double decker bus zoomed past her nose. It did not matter that they had laughed at their next stop (mountain biking in the eighth millennium on mars.) It wasn't important that he had hugged her during that day trip to the top of Mount Everest. He had admitted in that cold, noisy stadium that he didn't love her the same way she loved him, and, whatever brief adventures they had in the interim, soon she found herself back in London. She had another of those feelings as she stepped out of the TARDIS. She wouldn't be stepping back into it.
He doesn't love you. He doesn't love you.
All that time wondering what it would be like to be with him the way she wanted, all those nights wondering whether that smile or that particular conversation meant they were already on their way there, she had always been moving towards this point.
The sky was a bleached pale blue. The sun came through her mother's windows more dimly than she remembered. Most of all, there was a finality to the thud of her pack hitting the floor.
Life with the Doctor was flighty. You just had to hold on and go because they were time travellers and time never, ever stops. She knew that that life was ending because everything was slowing down and she could hear herself think again.
A ghost floated through the wall of her mother's apartment, bringing questions and a possibility Rose was afraid to consider.
"According to the paper they've elected a ghost as MP for Leeds. Now don't tell me you're gonna sit back and do nothing," she said. She was trying to hide it, but she felt like a terminal patient who had just been given hope for an extra month.
"Who ya gonna call?" said the Doctor in a mad impersonation of the Ghostbusters. Everything had sped to full throttle again.
The most important fact of Rose Tyler's life was that she had to hold on. Daleks were shrieking as they were sucked into the breach, and even as she adjusted her grip a heavy metal body came inches from smashing her skull in.
"Rose, hold on!"
As she felt herself slip, she probably should have shouted to him, cried out how she felt at this last chance. But she had already done that. So she just couldn't let go. She needed a chance to fix things with the Doctor, her Doctor, and it would take a lot of words to repair the damage of those three little ones. I love you.
She tore through space and was snatched from the universe.
20 July, 2006
I hear whispers in my dreams. They say my name, and then I think they're going to say more, but they fade and I wake up. My section of Torchwood is growing and I'm proud, but I'm impatient. I'm scared they won't let me stay long enough to do what I need to do. There are good people here who bring me down to earth long enough to remind me I'm being impatient, and tell me that it'll be all right, that I'm not alone. I'm still scared.
21 June, 2008
I met the woman today, Donna Noble. She's not quite what I expected, but I wouldn't have expected her to be, knowing him. Still can't figure out why it all centers on her. I hope she got the message to him. Things were so much simpler when I only had to worry about saving my own universe. And I know I shouldn't say it, but if everything goes right and we save everyone, it still won't be enough. Even if we save everyone and I find the Doctor it might not be enough. He doesn't love me. What do I expect to happen?
Mum says I only look alive around Elsie. 'I never knew a girl so happy to babysit her little sister.' But Elsie's proof that at least one good thing came of universes sliding together and being forced apart again…and Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth, doesn't have time for a diary.
The Doctor paused, smiling at the nickname Rose had given to herself, but the smile soon faded. He felt hollow, with a dull horror clutching his insides at each new journal entry. What had he done to her?
Only one page left.
1 June, 2008
I'm writing this because I can't see things changing much in the future, or at least, I don't want them to change. Which means this is the end of my story and I should record it somewhere, even if no one ever sees it.
Here the Doctor stopped. He couldn't relive everything he had put her through, not now, constricted with guilt as he was. But he had to finish.
It was odd reading about these emotions he was so familiar with, but now having to imagine that he was the cause. Her pain at seeing him dead, even in a timeline she knew would be erased when she helped Donna. Her fear when, after everything she had done, it looked as if he would truly die, struck down by a Dalek just before he could reach her. And then he found what he needed, what he had been looking for all night.
Believe me, we didn't look like much, those who called themselves the Doctor's friends. Three of us in the TARDIS helpless while he died, and a few more in even greater danger. But then he got to his feet, looking the same as ever, and it didn't matter what had been said or not said before we were separated. I understood something, felt it. Everything was going to be all right.
"And it was," said the Doctor.
He thought of the metacrisis for the first time without regret or bitterness. The TARDIS landed at the coordinates he had set so many hours before. It was a journey he hadn't bee ready to undertake, but he had found courage in Rose's story.
He traced the handwriting with his finger one last time, shut the book gently, and walked to the TARDIS doors. On the other side was the planet of the Ood, and his song was ending. He forced a smile and kept it there until it felt real. The door opened onto swirling white and a crystal sky full of song. Everything would be all right.