"A message," the Doctor repeated, his eyes flicking around the cluttered interior as if expecting to find a letter inscribed with 'the Doctor' on display.
In this he was disappointed. Tea tables, clocks and various nicknacks there were plenty of, but not a single letter or letter like thing could be seen. He spun around to give the place a second look. Nope. Definitely nothing. Although, having said that, that painting of a Denorian siren could be promising. People - humans and aliens alike - in his experience often hid important things behind pictures. He glanced at his host and froze mid-way through reaching for the offending object. Gheheris' expression was glacial.
For a species whose facial expressions were limited by their reptilian ancestry, the Erixian's displeasure was radiating loud and clear. Almost without thinking the Doctor shuffled back a step, then another. The questing hand firmly clamped to his side.
Gheheris' eyes thawed slightly, furious orange fading to a more mellow amber. "I would ask that you keep your appendages to yourself," she said with a pointed look at the trail of destruction he'd left over the other side of her shop. "Especially as the message you seek is no corporeal item for you to find."
"What?" The Doctor spluttered, once again feeling wrong footed.
"My lady would not be so foolish to put in writing what must be conveyed to you. Though there are safeguards in place, such an item could be stolen, tampered with, or misplaced."
"Then where is it?" The Doctor crossed his arms, clenching his hands into tight fists as he tried to restrain the desire to rip this place apart until he found what he was looking for. His temper – which he had to admit was particularly explosive in this body – was stretched almost to breaking point and he yearned to let out the tumultuous storm of emotions rocketing through his nervous system.
Any patience he might have had left after Demon's Run had been thoroughly destroyed by the torment of Rose being dangled in front of him – a Rose shaped promise he knew had to be a lie – and there was none left for playing mind games with a six-foot lizard lady. He was fed up. Enough was enough. He glowered fiercely at his opponent, feeling the oncoming storm in his mind gather strength.
Gheheris raised an imperious brow, orange eyes glittering with complex emotions. "Foolish Lord," she chided. "It is a message within my mind. Sealed until the one it was intended for arrives to open it."
The Doctor choked on his breath. Whatever he'd been expecting that hadn't been it. He must have heard wrong. It couldn't be. Memory messages had been considered a deeply controversial method of information sharing on Gallifrey, before the darkest days of the war had forced them to get increasingly creative with how to share information. He could still remember being trained in how to encode or unlock one and the revulsion he'd felt at what the war was turning his people into.
It might have been a secure way of passing information that even the Daleks couldn't hack their way into, which ensured messages reached their intended destination without any chance of being shared, lost or forgotten in transit, but it was also rife with its own problems. Problems he'd witnessed firsthand.
It was deeply intimate way of passing on information requiring both the consent of the message holder, the sender and the recipient. Telepathy on that sort of level was not a common thing for his people – far too familiar, far too personal for the increasingly apathetic Time Lords – and then there were the risks associated with it. As Reinette had shown him all those centuries ago – a door once opened could be walked through from both directions. To leave a memory message required the leaver and the holder to make themselves vulnerable to each other on the deepest level. It was why it was so contentious and tended to be used only in the direst of situations or with critical information. All it took was trusting the wrong person and everything could go to hell in a handbasket. Leela had nearly died during the war because a rogue Time Lord had tried to leave a trap for the Doctor by using a Memory Message.
As if having to deal with the unpleasant memories Gheheris' bombshell had dredged up wasn't enough for his increasingly fragile mental state to cope with that's when the realisation hit him with all the force of a claw hammer to the face. Devastation rushed through him, raw and terrifying as he felt hope being wrenched away from him yet again.
The message wasn't from Rose.
It couldn't be Rose, because his Rose was psi-null like most humans.
Stupid, foolish Doctor! Even though he'd known it was impossible from the start still his foolish hearts had tenaciously clung onto a kernel of hope.
He'd known it couldn't be true, that it wasn't possible. He was the universe's whipping boy; the Time Lord equivalent of Prometheus. He didn't get a happily ever after or third chances. Yet, still part of him had hoped that maybe this time…
He drew in a shuddering breath as he tried to shove to the back of his mind the crushing desperation and grief that threatened to overwhelm him.
Hope could be a curse as well as a blessing, and it looked like the universe wasn't done punishing him yet for his latest failure.
"Will you hear it, Lord?" the Erixian asked, gesturing at a small table set towards the back of the small shop in a clear invitation.
The Doctor paused torn between his need to run and his ever present curiosity.
All the time he left it where it was, un-listened to, it was like Schrödinger's message; it both could be and couldn't be Rose. Once he entered Gheheris' mind that would be it, game over. He'd know, and that final tiny bit of stubbornly resistant hope that just wouldn't let him be would finally die. It would be like losing Rose all over again.
Could he live with that? He'd gone through it twice already: the first time he'd nearly killed himself destroying the Racknoss; the second he'd become the Time Lord Victorious and nearly destroyed Time. What he'd do this time was… questionable.
His head tilted as he watched Gheheris go through the ritual of preparing tea, apparently content to let him work through his emotional crisis in peace.
On the other hand, could he walk away knowing this mystery wouldn't be solved, ignoring a message specifically meant for him…
It was a Doctor shaped dilemma.
His blank gaze found the mural that had started this whole thing: the Mother, the Daughter and the Champion. What was the worst that could happen? Well, his brain could melt like Leela's or he could go fully insane, like Drax.
It wasn't like his life could get much worse, was it. If the message turned out to be a trap he'd welcome it. At least that way he wouldn't have to face the future he could see hurtling towards him with horrifying clarity. A future he didn't want and which terrified him in equal measure. A future in which he continued to change; growing further and further away from the man who'd set out from Gallifrey millennia ago to see the universe. The man River said could turn whole arms around at the sound of his name.
Decision made, the Doctor bounded over to the small table in six graceless steps. Flinging himself down in the chair opposite the Erixian he lifted the cup clearly meant for him and took a fortifying sip. If his mind was about to be destroyed than the least he deserved was a last cup of tea and chocolate biscuit.
"Right, let's do this, shall we?"
~*o0o*~
Entering Gheheris' mind was, as always, the easy part when it came to telepathy. With his fingers pressed gently against her temples, he'd found it oh so very easy to slide into the foreign mindscape. The Erixian's mind felt cool and strange against his own; slippery, almost, as he followed the quick-silver thoughts in an attempt to find the memory message.
"If there's something you don't want me to see or find, just imagine a closed door," he murmured softly. There was a flash of displeasure from Gheheris' mind, along with a feeling of irritation. Oh, right. Erixian. Gheheris would be well versed in mental disciplines, which would be why he was chasing thoughts and not finding any memories. He tried a different approach. "Can you direct me? I can't find it."
"That's because you are looking in the wrong place," Gheheris' mind whispered to his, gently steering him in a different direction entirely. Finally, he found a golden door engraved with the same three figures as on the clock.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, the Doctor reached out and touched the vault-like door, pressing his mental signature against it as he'd been taught. There was a momentary pause followed by a whoosh that felt like falling down a long tunnel. Black swirled around him, thick and viscous, but before he could do more than feel sick, it vanished, and he was left standing in what looked like someone's living room. The clock from the shop stood in one corner. In the centre of the room there were comfy chairs and sofas set in a rough C shape around a fire pit, facing a blank holo-screen.
And there, sitting on the sofa facing him was Rose.
His impossible Rose.
~*o0o*~
Memory Rose grinned at him, wide and familiar. "Hello, Doctor."
She looked the same. She sounded the same.
What?
How?
What?
This was impossible. Should be impossible. Yet here she was, blonde hair up in a pony tail, wearing a blue jacket over a black polo neck, giving him that tongue touched smile he adored so much.
"You should sit down," memory Rose continued, nodding at the plush caramel coloured sofa opposite her own seat.
His knees, without any conscious decision on his part, buckled and he found himself perching on the edge of the cushions.
His fingers itched, yearning to reach out and touch her, to prove to himself that this – and Rose – was really real and not some figment cooked up by his dying mind.
As if reading his mind Rose smiled at him sadly and shook her head. "Sorry, Doctor, no touch. I'm just an image in a memory." She took a deep, tremulous breath, amber eyes glassy.
"You know, it's funny. I had this whole speech prepared, but now I'm here and this is really happening I can't think of what to say."
"Me too," the Doctor croaked, his amazing, fantastic mind numb with shock. "I – Rose, is this real, precious girl?" Recent events must have finally tipped him over the edge into insanity, there was no other explanation for what he was seeing; and certainly no explanation for why he was trying to talk what clearly had to be a hallucination created by his unravelling mind. Still, there were worst ways to die than with the ghostly presence of the one you love.
His hallucination failed to answer him. Instead, Rose's grin wobbled and she wiped a tear away with an angry gesture. "Well, here it goes. I don't have much time and there's a lot I need to say. The first thing, I suppose, is to say that I'm sorry. I've seen a lot while dimension hopping, Doctor. So much. I've seen your beginning… and your end, and I've seen the path you're on – where you're heading. I know right now you're hurting and angry over Demon's Run. I know you feel betrayed; and I know you're scared." Here she paused to take another deep breath and the Doctor felt his own hearts shudder in protest both at the pain in her voice and the wave of unpleasant memories her words summoned.
"I also know that right now you're running from it all. You think if you can just run fast enough, far enough, that you can outrun what's coming, but you can't. The Timeline's set and it's gonna play out."
The Doctor felt a sharp stabbing pain in his chest at her words and wondered if he was experiencing a double cardiac arrest. Rose knew. She knew what he'd done; the monster he'd become. Some days it felt like he'd only been able to continue putting one foot in front of the other because of the comfort of knowing that at least he'd spared his precious girl this, that at least she wasn't there to see how far he'd fallen from the man she loved.
Rose's eyes were fixed on the floor like it held all the answers to the universe; it felt like a condemnation to the Doctor. Rose couldn't bear to look at him even in a hallucination.
But then between one breath and the next, the blonde lifted her head, whiskey eyes blazing with golden flecks that burned into his soul.
"But that's why I'm leaving this message for you. Because this isn't right. The universe needs a Doctor and Time needs her Champion. So I'm here to you a choice. One last chance."
That… didn't sound like something a hallucination would say – certainly not one of his, anyway. If this was his dying mind creating a comforting environment for his last moments then surely there would be more comfort, more contact, more something, not whatever new hell this was; because there was no choice for him, was there, his future was set – Rose had even said as much only a few moments before.
But if this wasn't a hallucination then that would mean it was real. That Rose had really left this message for him. That there really was a chance for him to fix the mess he's made.
"W-what…" the Doctor croaked and swallowed hard, hearts thundering against his rib cage as the blonde's words finally sunk in. Rose couldn't possibly be saying what he thought she was saying. He must have misheard her.
The Rose expression changed, becoming determined and fierce. "I can't stop this from happening, not completely. This Timeline started when you met River Song for the first time in The Library. In that moment a circular paradox was both completed and started. The only way you can change your future is to stop that paradox."
But that was impossible. There was no way to stop the destination trap he was caught in – he'd looked and looked for an answer once he realised what was happening and had come up with Nada. Zilch. Zero. Paradoxes were paradoxes for a reason.
Rose's hands twisted into tight, pale balls of suppressed emotion in her lap. "The only way to change a paradox is to stop it starting in the first place; and the only way you can do that is if you're married before you meet for that first time in your Timeline. If you have a bond before you meet in The Library then River can never be your wife. It will force Time to take an alternative path, breaking off from the paradox you're living through now. It may not change a lot, or it may change everything, I can't tell you what the result will be. What I can give you is a chance to chose who you walk this path with.
The Doctor groaned theatrically, forgetting for a moment that Rose wasn't actually before him. It seemed marriage really was an inescapable part of his future.
Proving how well she knew him, phantom Rose shook her head with a fond smile, "I bet you're fussing and moaning about that, but marriage doesn't mean domestic, Doctor." Her smile faded as her eyes darkened.
"The choice is simple: you can leave Shan Shen, forget this conversation happened and choose the future with River Song…" The Doctor sat forward, hardly daring to breath as giddy excitement rushed through him. "Or you can take a onetime offer to rewrite your personal past and choose a different path."
"and choose you," the Doctor breathed, torn between incredulity and desperate hope, because that would be the only other option. The only person in his incredibly long life that he'd even come close to bonding with was Rose.
Then reality came crashing down. "But… but… that's impossible," he stammered. "What you're suggesting would rewrite hundreds and hundreds of fixed points. No one can alter fixed points, let alone this number. It's the First Law of time." And oh how that knowledge burned, sitting like acid in his stomach and mouth. There'd been a time when for a brief moment he'd thought the laws of Time didn't apply to him. He'd been wrong then and it had taken the death of a good woman to prove to him that, no, he was a servant of Time, not her master.
Memory Rose grinned, tongue caught between her teeth in that smile he knew and loved so well. "An' I bet you're going to tell me I'm wrong. Just a stupid ape, what do I know about the Laws of Time. You're a Time Lord, you know better, yeah? And normally you'd be right, but not this time, Doctor. This time you're wrong. The Time Lords got it round the wrong way when they called temporal knots fixed points; they're only fixed points because of where you're looking."
"See, timeline implies straight and linear, progressing from A to B to C in order. Which is true in the most part, but not for time travellers. Fixed points are knots in the time line; a big old jumbled mess you can't unpick, and if you try to cut it out then time line breaks causing a wound in time. The key is to avoid it. If you change the timeline before you hit the knot that makes following sequence of events inevitable then you change that future without creating damage to the fabric of Time. That's how the Daleks were able to mess about with human history during what should have been the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire." her grin faded into a scowl, "or what you did to Harriet Jones. Don't think I've forgotten that, mister! Harriet Jones should have gone on for three successive terms in Government, heralding in a new golden age for Britain. Whole swathes of fixed points changed right there the moment you decided she shouldn't be in office anymore. If fixed points weren't relative then the reapers would have come after what you did."
The Doctor he tried not to cringe. He couldn't deny Rose had a point there. A point that completely changed things, didn't it. What she was suggesting was mad. Mad, bad and almost certainly dangerous for his health and yet he was so, so tempted.
Rose's eyes found his with unnerving accuracy. "I'm sorry I can't do more, that I can't give you more of a choice, but this is the best I can do. Gheheris has a letter for you. Once you've made your decision, she'll give it to you."
"But listen yeah," Rose finished, her eyes full of unspoken emotion. "Do one thing for me, just one thing. Whatever you choose, Doctor, have a fantastic life." Before the Doctor could blink, the memory world vanished, and he was back in the small cafe with the Erixian.
Externally he might appear calm as his fingers dropped from Gheheris's face, but inside he was a riot of conflicting emotions: Anger and joy, excitement and terror, all raced through him until he felt like he might be about to burst from it all. Not a hallucination. Not a delusion of his dying mind. Rose – his Rose, and she had been here, had left him a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. Even now centuries after he last held her hand, after he'd abandoned her so cruelly on that cursed beach, she was still trying to save him.
Her selflessness was humbling.
Profoundly humbling.
It made him want to cry, to fall on his knees and beg for her forgiveness – her absolution – even as he knew he didn't deserve it, would never deserve it even if he dedicated a thousand years to it.
Instead of that though, his mind fixed on a different problem – how had she done this. It shouldn't have been possible. Even ignoring Rose's knowledge of the future (which she definitely shouldn't have, and which was troubling enough on its own), how had she been able to record the message in Gheheris's mind. Only a telepath, and a skilled one at that, should have been able to leave that sort of memory message, and then there was his host. Erixian's were known to be exceedingly insular and family orientated; most never even left their own planet. For one to be so far away from not just their home planet but their family as well, was almost unheard of. How had Rose convinced Gheheris to stay here in Shan Shen just on the off chance that one day he would come sauntering through.
Except… except it wasn't chance was it. Rose had known about Demon's Run, she had known what sent him on the run and had known he would come here. It was yet another question to add to his growing list.
"She… but how?" The Doctor croaked, hands balled into fists by his side as he struggled to contain the maelstrom of emotions and questions running amok through his brain. That had definitely been Rose – he'd know her unique mental signature anywhere – but what she was offering was impossible.
Gheheris looked at the distraught Time Lord and shook her head. "You ask the wrong questions, Lord of Time," she murmured, pouring them both another cup of the fragrant tea. "One does not need to ask how of a god - they are a god."
"But see, here's the thing," the Doctor growled darkly, staring at his host with menacing green eyes. "I've met mad gods, bad gods, demi gods and would be gods. Not one of them could do what Rose is offering. Not one. Not even the Time lords at the height of their powers would be able to restore the fabric of Time after messing with so many fixed points - and my people basically invented time."
"Then still you do not see," the woman said, her grey skin flushed purple, radiating her irritation. "Such arrogance. Such conceit, to believe that your people invented Time. Her chosen Lords you might have been, but not her creators. She is greater than all, and her daughter is of her. You are beings created by Time, gifted great powers and responsibilities to be her protectors, but you exist in Time, as strands within a loom, woven together to create the fabric of life. The wolf is of Time. She is a weaver on the loom, but she is also a string within it. She is both OF and IN Time."
For a long moment the Doctor was still, mind caught in the frenetic whirl of thoughts. "But Rose – my Rose – was human," he said at last, green eyes locked on Gheheris's orange ones. "She was wonderfully, fantastically human. As human as they come. She was born to Pete and Jackie Tyler of Earth, I know, I was even at their wedding."
Gheheris tilted her head to one side, her expression considering. "What is it that unsettles you so, Time Lord. That my lady was born human, or that she became something else." And that wasn't an disturbing suggestion at all.
"Time moves in mysterious ways. Her daughter was a gift a long time in the planning. Does it surprise you that you do not know everything?"
"The Time Vortex," the Doctor breathed, his face ashen as the realisation struck home with all the force of a crow bar to the face. "But I removed it from her. I took it all. Cost me a regeneration to do it as well; not that I didn't think it a fair trade – I'd give every regeneration I have to keep Rose safe."
Gheheris's expression was hard and unforgiving as she stared at man before her. "Did you not wonder, Lord Doctor, why such an experience did not kill her as it did you, a Lord of Time. It should have, indeed it would have if she had been anyone else."
"No… that's not… that's impossible."
"You say that so often I wonder what your basis for comparison is. Impossible just means it hasn't been done yet, that is all. Once it would have seemed impossible for the Time Lords to fall, but they did."
The Doctor looked down, feeling the reprimand. "Forgive me, I'm having a bad week, and this has been a shock."
Gheheris shook her head, "your apology is unnecessary, Time Lord. Men are strange, irrational creatures, it is to be expected that you would act in such foolish ways."
"What is the question I should have asked?" The Doctor said after a moment spent digesting Gheheris's less than flattering representation of his gender. "You said how isn't the question."
"Is not the right question," Gheheris corrected.
"Then what is the right question?"
"Why," the Erixian replied.
"Why what?"
Gheheris sighed, looking distinctly fed up and put upon. "Why is the question you should be asking, Time Lord. Why you, why now."
"Oh."
"Then why?"
"Because you are loved, and though you do not deserve it, that love has granted you a gift. A once in a lifetimes chance - a boon from Time to her Champion. A chance for the Doctor to change what will be, to break the First Law and alter his personal past, and in so doing become the man he was meant to be. Not this hollow facsimile."
Gheheris's eyes were dark, almost accusatory, as they held his. "You were named Time's Champion long ago, but you have forgotten who you were and what that mantle means. Too much loss. Too much pain. This has changed you. And you will change yet more if you continue upon this path."
The Doctor shivered, feeling the power and truth in the Erixian's words. He hated this feeling, like he was being laid bare before the world. The enforced vulnerability made him bristle, something which must have been apparent to Gheheris as her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms, annoyance creeping into her tone.
"My lady has left you circles in the sand, a path to follow if you wish to change your fate, but you must be quick, Time Lord, for the tide is fast approaching and will soon wash it away."
"Away? Don't be ridiculous, I can go back and forwards through time, I could leave in the Tardis now and be back in a second.
"Not this time. We are in a bubble, one held by my Lady's power. Once you step outside these doors the countdown will start. Even the Daughter of Time cannot hold Time forever. You must choose."
A snappy retort was on his lips before the tingle in his mind stopped him. His time sense was whispering - almost shouting really - that what the Erxian said was true.
But that was impossible, wasn't it? He stretched his senses out, feeling along what he'd thought was a Time distortion field. Except it wasn't. It was something new, something almost unique, something that reminded him of the Time bubble he'd found surrounding the Other's resting place. Clearly not impossible then-
"Your continued doubt is tedious, Time Lord." Gheheris' disgruntled words interrupted his thought processes sending them screeching into a brick wall. Was that what he was doing? Well, yes, okay he was. But could anyone blame him for his doubt. The Rose he'd known and loved hadn't been a goddess of Time, she'd just been Rose; his pink and yellow girl. Suddenly discovering otherwise would send anyone into a bit of a spin, even without adding in the mind boggling choice she'd given him.
He observed his host. Erixians as a general rule were a calm, courteous and friendly species, but there was something about Gheheris' behaviour that didn't sit right with him, something that seemed off; an irritable undertone to her words that was only absent when she was talking about Rose.
Which led him to an inescapable conclusion: Gheheris didn't like him. She'd been cordial enough to begin with, certainly, but something somewhere had changed.
"You don't like me, do you?" he challenged her, eyeing her keenly, "and it's more than me being a doubting Thomas and questioning things."
The Erixian was as still as a statue, unmoving and silent. Her reptilian features aloof and disinterested.
"Why?" The Doctor asked after a long awkward silence, rocking back onto the heels of his boots.
Gheheris looked coldly at him, expression severe. "Because," she said finally, "you have proved yourself unworthy; yet no matter what you do, nor how you hurt her, you are my Lady's choice."
It's as damning an answer as it is a revealing one, and it makes the Doctor pause; turning the words over and over in his mind.
"Then why did you come here if you disapprove of me?" He remembered the words she'd told him earlier, the story of how Rose had rescued her people and the favour she asked for in return; but why Gheheris and not someone else.
Gheheris looked away, fixing her gaze on one of the many clocks littered around the tiny tearoom. "It is not for me to approve or disapprove of my lady's decisions. You are her choice."
"But you think I don't deserve her," the Doctor poked further, oddly enthralled by the cold dislike radiating from the Erixian.
Gheheris' eyes narrowed as she considered him. "No. But you are her choice and the choice of the Mother. Perhaps in another life you will be deserving of this boon she is giving you. Assuming you have the courage to take it. Your hubris is what has led you here, Time Lord. Hubris and conceit. You have fallen far indeed from the man who Time proclaimed her Champion." She looked him up and down, thin purple lips twisted in a sneer, "little though I think you realise the part you have played, nor how you have harmed her. Still, though, her heart is true. That is why I gave my Time freely when she asked. Not for you, but for her. I would see her protected."
Each word the Erixian uttered was like a knife stabbing him with deadly precision in the hearts. His chest hurt, his mind hurt, even breathing hurt. What did she mean 'protected'? What did Rose need protection from? Him? Preposterous! And yet what other conclusion was there.
Clearly he was missing something.
Why did his host feel that Rose needed protection? His mind spun in a hundred different directions, his neurons working overtime chasing white rabbits down tunnels and across star systems. Think, man, think! It felt like the answer was on the tip of his tongue, like it was something he should have known and yet hadn't realised until this very moment.
The way Gheheris phrased it made it sound like Rose was cleaning up the mess he'd made; which, fair enough, that's sort of what her offer was about, but there was more to it, wasn't there. There was a puzzle piece missing from her explanation. The Erixian said she'd given up her Time – how much he didn't know, nor did he care to ask – not to help him but because she'd wanted to protect Rose. Which suggested Rose could be hurt by what he chose here today; but in his timeline Rose was safe in Pete's world with his former hand living the life of Riley. Safe from the ever evolving cluster-fuck that was his life.
Unless she wasn't.
It would be just like his pink and yellow girl to try and spare his feelings, to want to give him as free a choice as she could by leaving out important information that could sway him one way or the other.
If she knew about his future than she likely also knew what was waiting for her: that almost as soon as she made her way back to him his former self was going to dump her straight back in Pete's world, this time with a Doctor-Donna hybrid as a keepsake, and yet she'd made no mention of it at all.
The Rose he'd known – thought he'd known – had just been a simple human. Incapable of understanding Time the way she clearly could now and someone who could never have created this beautiful masterpiece of a Time bubble. The Rose he'd met in Gheheris' mind could clearly do both of those things - and more - if his hunch was right.
Which raised the question: what else had Badwolf done to her? Because if Rose could now see and control Time the way he thought she could, then what else could she do.
He'd assumed – erroneously, it now looked like – that he'd taken the Vortex from her before she could be irreparably effected by it. But what did he know about the Time Vortex and what ingesting it could do to someone. It's not like there were studies on Gallifrey exploring this. The closest they got to studying the Vortex was looking into the Untempered Schism (from which they were said to have got their unique powers) and that was done at a distance and through only a tiny crack. Rose had actually merged with the bloody thing.
And then there was River to consider. If being conceived on the Tardis while in the Time Vortex had been enough to change little Melody's DNA and give her Time Lord like enhancements – including an incredibly long life – then what was the probability that actually becoming one with it had done something similar to Rose. Because, as he was rather belatedly realising, it had clearly done something. Gheheris had even spelt it out for him; but dim-witted idiot that he was he'd tossed the implications to one side, more interested in proving that he was right.
How old was Rose in that memory? Older than she looked, certainly. Older than the early 20's he'd thought her to be. Could it be that Rose wasn't aging? Pete's world ran ahead – years ahead - it's how they'd known about the stars going out, yet it hadn't occurred to him until this moment that the Rose on the Dalek Crucible had looked identical to when she'd travelled with him.
Gheheris called her the Daughter of Time. Until now he'd sort of brushed that name off as quasi-religious nonsense incorporating the person who had saved them into their religious mythology – after all, there was no way his very human former companion could be the fabled (and feared) immortal Daughter of Time. Except it was looking more and more likely that this was exactly who his Rose was: a being born human and remade by Time herself. The prophecy of Time's child given form.
If this was true, by dumping her back in the parallel universe he'd doomed her to a long and lonely existence. Worse than that, though, was the danger he'd unthinkingly put her in. What would others do to get the power Rose held? Rassilon had spent centuries searching for the fabled daughter precisely because he'd wanted to harness the power it was said she could wield. Rassilon and his cronies might be safely locked away where they couldn't get to her, but there were plenty of other Time sensitive aliens who would be able to sense her connection to the vortex – just as the Erixians had. And that was without accounting for the danger humans could pose to her.
If Rose wasn't aging then how long would it be until someone recognised this and got interested? Humans were, in his experience, a species obsessed with turning back the clock and extending their life spans. Even in Rose's home time billions every year were spent on trying the latest cosmetic solution or fad diet said to reverse the effects of aging. What would someone like Dr. Lazarus do to his precious girl if they could get their hands on her.
A horrified shudder ran through him. Suddenly, Gheheris' antipathy towards him made much more sense.
What the fuck had he done?
~*o0o*~
The Doctor thought furiously as he paced the length of the shop in angry strides. The offer was so very tempting and yet he was terribly afraid. Could he really do it? Could he really break the First Law and rewrite his own personal past?
The giddy excitement he'd felt in the memory had faded, leaving behind a seething torrent of uncertainty.
He knew what he wanted – but was it right? Could he really put his personal desires above upholding the Laws of Time. What Rose was offering was the answer to his prayers and his deepest, most secret wishes, all rolled into one. It was too good to believe, too good to be true. There had to be a catch.
Gheheris had all but called him a coward – and she'd been spot on the money there. Always a coward, wasn't he, especially where Rose had been concerned. Always running because he dare not stop lest his sins catch up with him. And now he was repeating the same mistakes with Amy and Rory… and River.
He so desperately wanted to take the choice Rose offered. Everything inside him screamed that he should grab it with both hands and not let go this time, and yet still he hesitated. Could he really condone such an act of selfishness: things might be better, yes, but they could also be worse. What if he got Rose back only to lose her again. What if he was wrong and Rose wasn't immortal. What if by changing her past he messed up somehow. What if choosing Rose was the selfish choice; that instead of saving her he'd actually deprive her of the wonderful life she could have led with her parents and his clone in the other universe. What if, what if, what if…
The what ifs, might-bes and may-happens were driving him close to breaking point.
Could he really give up Amy's friendship for the promise of a future of unknown length with Rose. Could he really change all their lives just because he longed for a redo. Could he really be selfish this one time.
Could he. Should he. Would he.
Around and around his thoughts whirled until he wanted to scream.
It was the same old story. His mistakes, paid for with the blood, tears, and sometimes lives, of his companions. What if this was just another mistake. He felt paralysed with indecision. Left or right; stay or run.
"And you, Doctor?" Her beloved voice echoed in his memory, "what are you turning into?" His precious girl, right as usual. Because that was the question, wasn't it. Who was he becoming and was it someone he wanted to.
The answer was a resounding NO.
His thoughts quieted. Condensing down to one question, the only question that really mattered at the moment: where had it all gone wrong? When had he stopped being the Doctor he'd always sworn to be.
They say that madness, like chaos, is a slide. If so then he'd started his decent centuries ago when he'd beaten his fists bloody against a stark white wall, screaming at the universe to give her back. He'd always been aware of the darker aspects of his personality - a darkness that earnt him the name the Oncoming Storm – and of his propensity to overstep lines that should remain inviolate. But after he'd lost her he'd stopped caring about controlling those baser impulses. There was a part of him that simply wanted to watch the world burn.
Martha had helped quiet those voices for a time, reminding him of his promise to Rose, but she'd never been able to silence them entirely. It had felt gloriously cathartic punishing the Family, forcing them to live forever in a twisted parody of their own desires. He'd felt righteous. He'd tried to be kind, and the slaughter of innocent people had been his reward. It taught him a lesson he'd not forgotten since. No second chances.
Things only got worse after they accidentally travelled to the end of time and found the Master.
That year was the only time he'd ever been grateful that Rose had been taken from him. She, at least, was safely away from the insanity. It had been the one thing he'd desperately held onto to anchor him through the torture of that year. No matter what happened to him, no matter what the Master did, no matter who else was hurt or killed, at least his precious girl was safe.
Saying goodbye to Martha shortly after he'd lost the Master had nearly sent his already precarious mental state spiralling but then Donna had come along. Brilliant, brave Donna, who'd seen all the darkness swirling inside him and said 'not today, sunshine,' as she pulled, pushed, shouted and cajoled him back towards who he ought to be. It had worked. With Donna he'd started to pull himself from the encroaching madness of his grief and together they'd run and laughed across the stars, helping where they could, and for a brief time he felt like he was finally starting to heal and move on.
Then the Daleks started stealing planets and everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.
He'd been overjoyed, initially anyway, when he realised Rose had come back to him. Overjoyed, ebullient, delighted. Then reality had returned with a crow bar and an evil expression that promised only pain. He couldn't keep her, could never keep her. He didn't get a happy ever after. He didn't get to keep those he loved, he only lost them. Whether by time, accident, illness or misfortune, he lost everyone: it was his one universal constant.
But then the metacrisis had happened, and he'd seen an escape. A way to hit two birds with one stone. He could give Rose the happy ever after romance she deserved, avoid the inevitable pain of losing her in the future and leave his unbalanced, possibly genocidal, sort-of-clone with the person he trusted most in the universe and pretend it was for her benefit.
Perfecto. Molto bene. Three problems solved in one go and all he had to do was lie. And the best thing about it? He got to keep telling himself that he'd done the right thing, that he'd been the hero Rose needed him to be.
What a fool hedgehog him had been. What a monumental twat. Maybe it was all that hair gel corroding his brain. Older, possibly wiser, but far more cynical and less forgiving him knew this was all his fault. River Song had confused him. The initial mystery she'd presented had beguiled and bewitched him and he'd made terrible choice after terrible choice as a consequence; starting with the one on a beach in a parallel Norway where he'd listened to the plan cooked up by Donna and his clone and left his hearts behind screaming as the Tardis disappeared forever.
That had been one of the hardest decisions he'd ever had to make… and he'd chosen to be a coward. He'd walked away when he should have stood and fought. Fought for the bond he had with Rose. Fought for the future he craved. Fought for the woman he loved. But he'd done none of that, why? because he was a giant space coward. Donna had been right about that.
Well screw that for a bunch of bananas.
He thought of Amy's grief at losing her baby, he recalled Rory's anguish and the pain in his eyes as he understood not just the magnitude of their loss but the future his only child had been condemned too. He thought of River, the twisted beauty of her mind mirroring the twisted nature of her timelines. He thought of her smug certainty and conviction that this was right, that this was worth the price they would all pay because she would get him; that the trade was equal. He thought of the timeline that should have been and it made him want to cry and beat his fists against a stark white wall.
He thought of where it all went wrong, where he started on this journey to become the man he was now - the man who could make whole armies turn and flee, the man who hurt more than he helped, the man who was a killer and a coward; and he thought of Rose, of losing her twice - both times because of his own stupidity and arrogance - and knew that this was truly where this path he's on began. Not the Time War, as River assumed, but with a loss so great his shattered hearts could not heal from it, instead becoming colder, harder, more cynical and less kind.
Rose had healed him from the atrocity that had been the last great Time War. This tiny, insignificant human had taken his bruised and battered soul and made it better - made him better - but it had also made him afraid, so very afraid, of what the loss of his anchor, of his bond mate would do to him. So he did what he always did in the face of the things that scared him, he ran.
He ran so fast and so hard that he hurt her over and over again, Gheheris was right about that. But still she stayed. Sarah-Jane, Reinette, Mickey, black holes, secrets, and even parallel universes. He'd done everything he could to create distance, to pre-empt the pain he knew he'd feel when he inevitably lost her - and he would lose her, there was no if only when - that he denied the connection they had; the bond that had formed when he'd been big ears and leather, and his war-torn and ravaged mind had reached out, searching for something – anything – to fill the void left by the destruction of his people.
Back then, when he'd had more hair than sense, he'd thought it was the right thing to do. His ninth self would have run as well, but at least that would have been from guilt and self-loathing. His last incarnation though had been a twat. A fool. A monumental moron. An idiot greater even than Rickey the idiot. He'd run, not because he thought he wasn't worth Rose (which he wasn't) but because he'd decided she wasn't worth the pain he'd feel when he lost her.
The Doctor clenched his fists. Regrets were an inescapable part of life, and with how long he'd lived he'd accumulated a great many. He regretted resenting his people and their endlessly tiresome rules only to miss them when they were gone. He regretted how he parted from Susan. He regretted the friends he'd lost and the ones he'd driven away. He regretted that he couldn't love River the way she clearly wanted him to. But most of all he regretted Rose and the loss of what they could have – should have – had.
He'd had centuries to regret his actions, to live with this mistake hanging over him, a constant weight upon his mind: an aching absence where there should be a vibrant bond.
The first time he lost her, it had been an accident, the second time deliberate. Oh, he'd told himself it was done with the best of intentions, and it wasn't like the Metacrisis objected; Rose could have a full, happy life with him and her parents. He'd never stopped to consider though whether Rose would be happy long term with a doctordonna hybrid, or if this was what she would have chosen without his forcing all their hands.
With the puzzle of the mysterious Professor River Song hanging over him, he'd made what he thought was the best decision for everyone: Rose might be his bondmate, but the bond was incomplete and River knew his name, something he would only ever tell his wife.
He'd thought he was doing the right thing - the unselfish thing; instead what he'd done was push himself down an increasingly dark road, and he had no one but himself to blame.
He thought he was being the hero. He thought letting Rose go was evidence that he was a better man than his former incarnation who would have torn the universe apart before accepting that loss; or his Metacrisis, who'd just committed genocide and didn't seem to care. He'd even said it to her – that she could fix Handy like she'd fixed him. Make him a better man, just like she'd made him. The problem was, it hadn't occurred to him that he was only better because she was with him, his hand to hold, and that once she was gone this was who he would become.
He'd sent the Metacrisis away because he'd deemed him dangerous for committing genocide. A necessary genocide at that. What irony. How many had he killed since then? How many armies had he wiped out without a thought. There was a reason, after all, that Kovarion had been able to persuade so many of his enemies to unite against him to trap him in the Pandorica.
The Pandorica, which legend said held the most feared being in the cosmos. A prison built just for him.
The Metacrisis had at least recognised he was damaged goods. He, on the other hand, had just continued sailing blithely past all the warning signs, certain that he was a good man, and therefore did only good. Even his brief stint as the Time Lord Victorious hadn't made him question the fundamental path he was on nor his clearly terrible decision making.
The lonely wanderer, he was called in the Cassedian belt. To the Nemrixie he was the man without a home, and to the Daleks he was the Ka Faraq Gatri - the destroyer of worlds. He's had so many names over the years that he's lost count, but these were the three that stuck.
It's how he'd thought of himself since the last great Time War, since Gallifrey's destruction. The last of the Time Lords, always running because he dare not stop. A man with only a ship and no home because he had destroyed it.
Except that wasn't quite true was it. Sarah-Jane had hit the nail on the head all those years ago as they'd piloted the Tardis away from the Crucible. "The largest family in the universe," she'd said to him, and she'd been right. He had family, he wasn't alone, and there had even been a time he'd had a home – one with his precious pink and yellow girl, because wherever she was had been his home.
And he wanted it back.
Gheheris watched him from her seat by the table with unreadable orange eyes. "What is your choice."
~*o0o*~
He was tired of saving the universe at the cost of himself.
All those years. Everything that he'd sacrificed. Everything he'd lost.
He'd always said that he never set out to be the hero, but he certainly hadn't thought he'd become the villain.
It was time to change. This time he would save the universe by saving himself.
Geronimo
A/N Wooo, and that's a wrap - for Short Change Hero, at least. Next in the series will be Circles in the Sand which is likely to be a longer story where the Doctor goes back in time to set Rose's plan into action.
What did everyone think? Excited for the next instalment?
For everyone who can't wait for the next update, here's a sneak peak of CitS: Rose might have left the Doctor breadcrumbs to follow, but now it's time for him to play his part to secure the future they both deserve. Which obviously means stealing a younger Rose out from under his former hair gel obsessed self, paradoxes be damned. After all, what is the past but circles in the sand.
Hats off to anyone who can guess when 11 will be popping up in 10's timline...