"Tony," she called out into the red dusk. "Time to come in!" Her voice echoed across the shifting waves of grass to a small plot of dark, black ground. Tony looked about him at the small seedlings that surrounded him, splashes of green in the red sea of grass.
They'd not known which Gallifreyan plants they could safely eat when they landed here so Rose had taken on a systematic approach to testing the plant life that surrounded the small home they had made out of a cave. While their supplies were sufficient for a year's worth of food, and she didn't intend that they should be there longer than a few months, she felt it best to learn which plants on this planet they could eat safely. Tony had also started a small garden from seed packs he'd found in her old survival kit which had been packed away in their bag, both as a way of keeping occupied and to supplement the inoffensive but largely tasteless Quorosi rations, and the small amount of Earth food that remained in their original supply.
Her TARDIS rucksack contained a number of things John had designed in this universe before he died. While the books of his notes were, entirely for her benefit, actually written in English, the settings on the sonic screwdriver he'd built soon after being dropped off in this universe, flashed across the small display in Gallifreyan. John had taught her some very basic interpretation of his peoples' beautiful written language so that she could identify the most useful settings, but she was still not adept at translating it. She held the sonic reverently in her hands, as she always did, and ran her finger along the side to change its setting.
In the short time they'd had together before he'd gotten sick, John had tinkered a bit, trying to increase the rate of growth of the TARDIS coral, but the urgency of his research increased exponentially after Gwen Davies had informed him that he was dying. He had become obsessed, and spent much of his remaining time shut up in the workshop room in their flat, scrawling book after book of notes. Books that now rested on the edge of her workbench.
Rose had been so angry with John for his withdrawal from her, for robbing her of their remaining time together. Rose furiously wiped tears from her eyes with her thumb, angered that she'd let the memories get to her.
She knew, now, what his aim had been, and was still not sure whether to love him more or be angry with his memory for it. He had sacrificed what little time they had left together to try to find her a way home. She thumbed the spine of the thin blue notebook that held pride of place beside the sonic on her desk. His graduation present to her, which she had forgotten to open in the rush of his stroke and final deterioration. She'd felt it almost blasphemous to open it after his death.
It was not until after they had escaped Earth and left everything else behind that she had finally slipped the shiny blue paper off the small package he'd handed her all those months ago. She'd sat by the porthole of the Judoon ship, reading his words to her and sobbed silently in the night, not wanting to wake Tony. She set the sonic down and reached now for the book, opening it to the first page, her fingers running over the beloved words, letters sharp and jagged from the shaking of his weakened hands, for what must be the hundredth time.
Her eyes skimmed the paper, roving over the pages, taking in the words she knew from heart, the ones that most kept her going this whole long way, only reading snippets of the missive.
I love you. Don't forget. Don't ever doubt that. I know things are hard right now, and they'll get harder soon, but never forget that you are my forever…
I think I can send you home. I have spent the last three years working on this and I didn't want to tell you until I was sure, but I don't think I have enough time to be sure, Rose. I don't want my last promise to you to be one I break, because by all that is good and great, you deserve more than that.
…if I'm right, and I usually am, the time's not long off that you aren't going to be safe here anymore and more than anything, I want you safe. And you'll be safest back where you belong…
The other me is still out there.
…he needs you. I need you. … He is me, I am him, and we need you more than ever.
I have done everything I can to make it possible, but I can't take you the rest of the way. You have to do that on your own.
Remember, if I believe in anything, I believe in you.
I love you.
The entry ended with his name, scrawled shakily in Gallifreyan. She only recognized it because the same symbols were engraved on the ring she never took off. The only time she had ever spoken his name had been as his emaciated body was consumed by flame. She replaced the book in its spot, her hand brushing the cover reverently, for once the tears held at bay.
She reflected, not for the first time, on how lucky they were that she'd had as much warning as she did before they had had to flee Earth. Those few days had allowed her to pack her TARDIS rucksack before she had met up with her parents and Tony in London for what would be the last time.
John had died mere months before she and Tony had left Earth. The political trap which would destroy her parents and her life in Britain was already set, waiting to be sprung, by the time he'd written the journal for her. He had been the first to prove her suspicions about Gina Johns and the president were not unfounded, and he had gathered information through his own channels. Information that had saved her and Tony's lives with the advanced warning she had. He had helped lay the groundwork for their escape from Earth, had been able to give her enough lead time to ensure they had the things that would enable this daft experiment to go ahead. His very last act, reaching back from the grave, was to save her and Tony's lives and give them a future.
Nearly six years ago, when the Doctor had left her and his human-ish duplicate on that accursed beach in Norway, her despair had been drowned under a conflicting flood of hope. That beloved voice in her ear had finally confirmed what she long knew. He gave her his forever. It was supposed to be their forever – decades.
But his unstable biology simply could not hold out. He'd been ravaged by what Gwen Davies could best describe as a cancer. His cells proliferated too quickly, wavering uncertainly between human and Time Lord biology. They could not function normally. His blood was poisoned by the fact of its existence. All of who he was had faded. The life died from his eyes long before his single heart stopped beating.
It had almost killed Rose to see him die, but she had stayed with him. While her work and his illness had aborted their attempts at crafting the relationship they both desired, he had died as the person she loved most in all the worlds, save one.
And he would have loved it here. The sonic in her hand whirred weakly, fusing two components on the table. She glanced out the window, seeing Tony tidying up his makeshift gardening tools, and smiled sadly.
The planet that the Doctor had loved beyond reason was her own home now. She felt closer to him here than she had in the weeks before he died. It was as if the essence of him could be found in the red grass and orange sky. She felt him in the morning breeze and in the heat the suns-warmed stones radiated into the cooler Gallifreyan night.
The stillness of this planet, devoid of any sort of animal life, had been a balm on the souls of the two Tylers. Tony had spent their months after leaving Earth constantly distracting himself. It was only when they settled here that they finally had time to grieve.
While nought remained of her parents, she and Tony had crafted a small memorial to Pete and Jackie. She had carved their names as best she could with the sonic on a large slab of the soft, black stone that made up the walls of the cave they had made into a home. Tony had added a drawing of Jackie and Pete to the memorial, and regularly refreshed the flowers there. Rose could smell the lilac-like blooms from where she sat, their sweet scent wafting in on the light breeze into her workshop.
Rose placed the sonic back on the soft cloth she had folded as a resting place for it, precious as it was to her, and rose from the hard bench to see about supper.
She walked out to the small kitchen they had made, and found Tony peeling open a ration packet. He leaned against the table they'd fashioned from some wood and slate-like stone from nearby. She was yet again taken aback by how much he had grown in their two months here; gone was the baby fat that padded his cheeks and the soft roundness of his arms, they were replaced by angles and wiriness from the hard work on the land. He still spoke with a little boy's voice but Rose couldn't help but wonder how much longer that would last. "So, how's it going? Got the vortex flux stabilizer assembled?"
"You're nine," Not for the first time, Rose marveled aloud at the boy's precocious nature. "When are you going to learn to stop talking like that?" She took a packet herself from where they were stacked on the table and opened it.
He shrugged. "Never. 'M ten next week," he said by way of clarification. As if that explained his understanding of John's notebooks. "Anyway, I found something at the beach this afternoon. Thought you might like to come see."
She looked up quickly, alarmed. "You haven't been near any of the tourists, have you?" They were the only humanoids residing on the planet, but the ship that had originally brought them here made monthly trips back to this system as part of its normal route. For a brief moment, she worried they had arrived early.
He shook his head, his scruffy hair flopping about at the exaggerated gesture. "No, nothing like that. But you might want to bring the sonic – I think it's something John wrote about. It's just to the north."
His eyes clouded a bit at the mention of the man he'd looked up to. John and Rose had been a large part of young Tony's life and Rose attributed most of his precociousness to the erstwhile Time Lord.
After she had eaten and cleaned up, they walked out into the fading light. Because of the planet's unique position relative to two stars, the day and night cycle was very elongated compared to Earth, with a day length of nearly sixty hours, and nights of only fifteen hours in between. The dusk would last for hours this evening, and she and Tony had plenty of time to explore before the darkness fell.
They set for the beach, about a kilometre from their home. They walked through the coral woods along the way. Rose had learned to hum as they passed, and the pinkish coral structures would hum back. She knew for certain now that this was the natural form of the TARDIS – there was nothing else it could be. In the months they had been here, their own small TARDIS coral had grown.
The lump of coral from her Doctor's TARDIS that had grown in nearly four years on Earth only to the size of a small rucksack was now nearly the size of a police box in her own right, though she had reverted to the natural coral-like state since their arrival on the planet. In the past month, Rose had started feeling a persistent sensation of a presence in the back of her mind. She'd never been particularly psychically inclined, but she'd had a connection with the TARDIS ever since her stint as the Bad Wolf. Not having the constant, warming, almost maternal presence of the timeship in her head had been one of the hardest adjustments when she had been trapped in Pete's World the first time.
The return of the TARDIS' presence in her mind had bled hope through her, though this one felt different. Less maternal and more curious. But it was there and for once, in the near decade she had spent in this universe, she didn't feel as beref as she had. Something, at last, felt a little bit right.
As she walked barefoot across the squeaking, white sand, Tony at her side, she felt a thrum in her heart. A deep beating rhythm that was not audible but she could sense in every fibre of her being. Her bones reverberated with it. "Do you feel that?" Tony asked in a hushed voice. Rose nodded. "It's stronger than it was earlier."
She looked ahead and saw nothing out of the norm on the beach. It was the normal stretch of sand they travelled regularly, edged on one side by a smattering of thick, pale red grass, and on the other by the almost silvery water. But there was definitely something. "If you felt something weird, you should've come and gotten me, Tony."
The boy shrugged. "I did come get you. Couple hours later, maybe, but still. I got you."
"You know what I meant."
"Yeah, fine. But still, come on. It's just around here."
They were soon standing beside an outcropping of rock they had both been by any number of times. Rose had come here to work on parts of the TARDIS console she was constructing according to John's notes. Sometimes she felt the need to be alone while she read his carefully written instructions. Occasionally she simply needed time to decipher his horrendous handwriting. The beauty of the Gallifreyan written language did not translate to English penmanship.
Her mind returning to the present, she could sense what Tony was talking about. There had been some shift in the rock formation. Like a cold wind had come up and was blowing through her. There was something about it which nagged at her, some familiarity, but she couldn't place it.
"Something's changed here, you're right." She wrapped her arms about herself, suddenly feeling very cold. "It feels… wrong."
Tony nodded. "It feels like a Dementor." At that, Rose let out a sharp laugh. It was a very apt description of what she felt. Tony had loved the Harry Potter books as much as she had.
"That's about right. I think we should leave it for now, until I've got the console built, yeah? The TARDIS will probably be able to help us figure out what it is."
The young boy agreed and, together, they walked back to the small cave they'd turned into functioning living quarters. Settling on the chair pads they had pulled out of the shuttle and lain on the floor as a sort of makeshift couch and sleeping area, Rose settled down with Tony to tell him a story she'd read in the library of the TARDIS so many years ago. A book of Gallifreyan children's stories – one of the only pieces of literature from the Doctor's home world that the ship would translate for her. She had read the book a number of times, hungry for any knowledge of what life was like on the world he'd so deeply mourned. The words came to her easily, as if burned into her mind those years past and brought to the fore by the endless orange sky above them. Tony curled up against her side and for a moment, Rose could almost forget the previous months of heartache. She stroked the boy's soft hair and looked out at the darkening, burnt orange sky.
"In the time of Rassilon and Omega, when the stars burned bright for Gallifrey, there lived a petty king…"