Disclaimer: not my intellectual property, desafortunadamente.
Rose Tyler shouldered her big, red pack and looked up into the night sky. She could feel it as much as see it. The stars vanishing, one by one, before her eyes. Her hand, inside her pocket, was clutched around the smooth egg of the remote.
"Good bye." She whispered to the crowded street as she followed River's next instruction.
Get out.
And the empty, sky blue walls of her room in the Tyler Mansion materialized around her.
It didn't look quite the same as she had left it. The top of the vanity, the bedside tables, the desk, which Rose had left empty were now scattered with things. The bed behind her was draped with clothes. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough for Rose to understand. Even when she'd been in her home universe and they had so little money, when she was away with the Doctor, Jackie would do the same thing. She'd see something at a shop that Rose would like and she'd buy it. For Jackie, it was, Rose thought, a way to convince herself that her daughter would return. For Rose though, it was a sign that she was loved and never forgotten. She shrugged out of her top and put on one that Jackie'd left on her bed.
The big house had that empty feeling to it. She checked the clock, it was three-thirty on a Tuesday. If Rose was calculating things correctly, it had been about two and a half years since she left. Which meant that Jackie was probably picking Tony up from school and Pete would be at work. They'd be home soon enough, she reasoned. She set the backpack down in a corner of the room and toed off her shoes. It felt odd, she thought as she padded softly through the halls, that this place should feel like home and not at the same time. It was more like being at Shireen's house, her best friend growing up. She was comfortable there, knew she could help herself to anything in the fridge, and could put her feet up on the furniture, but it wasn't quite the same as her own home. The Tardis was home and always would be. Rose settled down in the living room on the big, squashy sofa with a stack of photo albums. Jackie's camera seemed to be permanently attached to her hand and she loved to take photos of nothing so much as her family. The first few albums were from when Rose was there. Pete and Jackie's wedding, Tony's birth, Rose's graduation from Uni, birthdays, Christmases, New Years', parties. Pictures of Rose, Mickey, and Jake in their Torchwood gear or at home, Mickey with his gran. Rose skimmed through those and lingered over the ones she'd missed. Tony, outgrowing his toddling stage, entered school. Mickey and Jake still showed up frequently.
Rose was still poring over the albums when she heard the front door crack open and the rapid babble of her baby brother followed quickly. Tony's stories about his school mates were punctuated by Jackie's responses, mainly gasps and affirmatives. His stories very quickly diverged from factual into fantastical and aside from a few chuckles, Jackie indulged his fantasies. Rose could hear their passage through the house.
"I want to be a Slitheen for Halloween!" Tony exclaimed as they walked close to the living room, "Do Slitheen have claws?" He asked his mum.
"Yes, Tony-baloney." Rose called from the couch, "Big, long ones."
Outside the door of the living room was a loud gasp, followed by a thunk as Jackie dropped her purse on the floor. She flew into the room and nearly tackled Rose. Tony added his growing weight to the pile.
"Mum! I can't breathe." Rose mumbled as her face was smothered by kisses.
Eventually, Rose was able to sit up. Jackie's arm was still wrapped around her shoulders and, frankly, Rose was okay with that. It had been a long year and a half and she wanted her mummy. Slowly, then all at once, she broke down into tears on her mother's shoulder.
"Shh, shh, sweetheart. It's okay, you let it all out." Jackie murmured, rubbing soothing circles on her daughter's back.
"Mummy? Is Rose alright?" Tony asked after a while.
Jackie turned to smile at her son. "Yes, little man. Why don't you go play in your room for a bit?"
The boy nodded his fiery head solemnly and ran off.
Rose's sobs shuddered to a halt and the comfort of having the strong arms of her mum wrapped around her soothed away the burdens of her mission.
"What happened, Rose? What did you have to do?"
"I can't, Mum. I just can't." Rose choked.
"Alright then, you just forget about it and we'll have a nice time. You just forget about everything."
Rose gave her mum a watery smile and sniffed. "Thanks, Mum."
"You just stay here and relax, I'll take care of everything." Jackie said, hopping up from the sofa and running for her phone.
A few hours later, the party was in full swing. Rose's old Torchwood team was there, and Mickey, Jake, and Pete of course. Rose sipped her drink happily, taking in her family and friends. They were all so brilliant.
"So, where have you been?" Lucy asked, dropping into a chair next to Rose.
Rose smiled at her friend. "Traveling mostly. Went all over the world. Stayed in Cardiff for a bit."
Lucy wrinkled her nose. "Cardiff? Whatever for?"
Rose laughed. "Just to see an old friend."
"But now you're back. You coming back to Torchwood?"
"No, I'll only be here for a few days."
"And then what?"
"Back to traveling the world, I suppose." Rose said with a slight smile.
Lucy looked at her carefully. "No. There's something else. You lived and breathed Torchwood. You're not cut out for a normal life. Even one traveling. You have to have something more exciting than that."
Rose laughed softly, "I'm not saying that there weren't aliens."
"In Cardiff."
"You'd be surprised." Jack seemed busy and Rose had been to Cardiff twice with the Doctor.
Lucy reached over and laid a hand on Rose's. "Come back, Rose. Whatever you've been doing, it's hurt you. Come back to Torchwood, you were happy there."
"Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness and love." Rose quoted, a glazed look in her eye.
"What?"
"Sorry. It's just, sometimes, the bad stuff is worth it. Some things are worth the monsters."
"But you haven't found it yet, the thing that's worth the monsters." Lucy probed.
"Oh, I have. Then I lost it. But I'm about to find it again."
The hope in her voice was staggering and Lucy could find no words. So she stood and squeezed Rose's shoulder before walking away.
With the exception of Tony, who was sent with a pout to bed early, they were all up late, with Rose and Pete staggering to bed just before three as Jackie snored softly on the couch. Rose was out the moment her head hit the excessively fluffy pillows.
Jackie Tyler was content for the first time in years. Though it wouldn't last, and she knew it wouldn't last, she had both of her children in the house. She knew that Rose was safe, if only for a few days. So, humming absently to herself, she prepared a tray with tea and crumpets to take up to her daughter, still asleep after the party.
"G'morning sweetheart." She said as she nudged open the door and carried the tray in to Rose's room. "Rose!" She cried and rushed to the side of the bed.
Rose lay in the bed, her blond hair forming an unearthly halo around her head, with the sheets twisted around her. She shivered under a sheen of sweat. Her breathing was ragged and uneven. With a whimper, she clutched at the handful of bedding twisted in her hands.
Jackie set down the tray and shook Rose's too hot shoulder. "Rose, sweetheart, wake up. Wake up, sweetheart. Please wake up."
Rose gasped into consciousness and sat bolt upright. "It's started." She rasped.
"What has? What's started?"
"The unraveling of time." She said and fell back onto the pillows. "And it hurts!" She cried.
Jackie took a deep breath. "Stay awake, Rose, I'll be right back." She turned and half-ran out of the room.
"Right then, paracetamol. And a big glass of water, which you will drink every drop of." Jackie helped her daughter sit upright and propped her up with pillows before handing her the medicine. "Strange, I remember doing something similar for himself." Jackie said, sponging Rose's forehead with a cool cloth.
Rose croaked out a soft laugh. "I'll be fine, Mum. Just a little bit longer."
"Then you have to go again." Jackie's voice darkened at the thought.
"Yes." Rose answered.
Jackie sighed. "Well, I s'pose I shouldn't argue with you when you're sick."
Jackie spent the rest of the day mothering Rose. Chicken soup at lunch and dinner as the weary traveler slipped in and out of lucidity. She had terrible dreams. She thrashed about and cried out. Rose cried for the Doctor, which wasn't so surprising, nor was it as Rose cried out for her family, Mickey, and even Jack. But she also screamed out the names Martha, Sarah Jane, and Luke. Those were the dreams she couldn't be roused from and Jackie maintained the dreadful watch. Just after eight o'clock in the evening, the fever died suddenly, Rose opened her eyes, and sat up.
"It's stopped." She said. "And tomorrow my work begins."
The next morning, Rose dressed carefully in comfortable, sturdy Torchwood black pants and the Tardis blue leather jacket her mum found while she was a away. Breakfast was a somber affair, no one really knew what to say. Even Tony, usually so buoyant and talkative was out of his depth with the woman he hadn't seen for a third of life and had somehow changed.
"Right then," Rose said as she finished eating and stood, "I've got to be going."
Jackie stood too and hugged her daughter tightly. "Go," she said, "We'll be here, waiting."
Rose nodded and eased her thumb onto the red, threatening button of the remote and vanished.
Rose hung in the vortex and searched for the spot that was 'wrong'. River claimed that Rose would be able to feel the disturbance. The rest of her advice was not comforting.
Go quickly, and remember that this place is wrong and not real, no matter how much it hurts.
But… right there! The flow of time seemed distorted, odd, and wrong. Rose flung herself into that moment.
She appeared on a cold, dark street in London. She broke into a run as she saw a mass of people and vehicles down the street. Where there was chaos like that, there was also the Doctor. As she was running, she saw the bright ginger head of Donna Noble. Official looking people were moving to clear a route out for an ambulance. Rose stopped short in front of Donna, who was just turning to walk away from the scene.
"What happened? What did they find?" Rose asked.
Donna replied automatically, "I dunno, they said something about some bloke called the Doctor."
"Well where is he?" Rose asked, chances were that he too could feel what was wrong with time, if she could just get to him. And why didn't Donna know the Doctor? It was too big of a coincidence for her to be there before she met him.
"They took him away. He's dead."
Rose lost control of her thoughts for a moment as they swirled in terror and dread.
"I'm sorry," Donna said, concerned, "Did you know him? I mean, it could have been any doctor, they didn't say his name."
"No, that's not possible. I've come so far, and this is wrong. It's all wrong." Rose said. Then something caught the corner of her eye and she studied Donna.
"Why are you looking at my back?" Donna demanded.
"I'm not." Rose said quickly, hoping to escape without setting off the redhead's temper.
"Yeah, you are!" Donna insisted, "Is there something on my back?" As she turned to look, Rose hopped back a few blocks, vanishing from view.
Rose sat on a park bench feeling numb. The Doctor was gone, dead. Was there a point anymore? She shook her head quickly, of course there was, she just had to fix it. With renewed determination, she set out to find the date. She groaned when she did. Why was it always Christmas? But 2006, before he'd met Martha. She checked her journal. All River had to say was that things were going to get bad and she should arrange a raffle ticket for Donna to get out of London the following Christmas as things might take a while. Rose shuddered. She'd been at Sarah Jane's when the space replica of the Titanic plummeted towards London. Rose Tyler set off to learn about Donna Noble, as she was somehow connected to what was going on. Rose suspected she was supposed to have met the Doctor that night and saved his life.
Donna's life felt very familiar to Rose. Though her family was a bit better off than Rose's had been, Donna was living the same sort of life that Rose did before she met the Doctor. Donna had a job, not a career and didn't suspect that she could do anything more. Her mum though, wasn't supportive like Jackie, but nagged her daughter constantly.
Rose started working more seriously on reading timelines and started tracing Donna's back from the tangle of wrong that was Christmas. She also looked forward to plan out her next meeting with Donna and discovered, with a jolt, that the other woman would be laid off the same day the Royal Hope Hospital transported to the moon. In this altered world, Rose found that only one thread of the thousand that went up to the moon would return, and it wasn't Martha. That wasn't something she was okay with. Logically, she knew that none of this timeline was real, it would all vanish when she fixed it, but her stubborn heart wanted to save the woman she'd spent a year protecting. So, she thought, two raffle tickets: one for Donna and one for Martha's family. Or maybe not a raffle ticket for the Jones family, Martha was a lot less likely to use it than Donna. She'd have to find some other way to get them out of the city.