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moment-of-the-wolf · 7 years

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Healing to the Hurt

“Isn’t there anything you can do Doctor? She’s my daughter!”

“Yes...There’s one last thing I can try...but you’re not going to like it...”

Canon Divergence 1x13 - 2x1 Nine/Rose, shades of War Doctor/The Moment. Part one of The Space Between Stars, a series of long one shots

Jackie Tyler was Christmas shopping, Rose had disappeared with the TARDIS weeks ago with no word yet whether she had succeeded in saving the Doctor, but Jackie was looking for a present for her anyway. For them. If Rose succeeded, well, the Doctor got points for sending Rose back to her to begin with. That was worth a Christmas present, even if it ended up just being a mug.

What do you get an alien for Christmas? Did he even know what Christmas was?

Her mobile phone rang. Rose had insisted she let the Doctor tinker with it because he had upgraded her phone to be able to call her from across space and time, it would be much more convenient for Jackie to have her upgraded too so she could answer whenever Rose called. She still hated the thing, and couldn’t figure out her answering machine, but at times like this, when the screen read “Rose calling” Jackie was glad she had it.

She picked it up with a smile on her face, and tears threatening, “Well, it’s about time then, Mickey and I were just this close to making a wager about whether or not you made it.” The other end of the line was silent, and stayed silent for far too long, “Rose? Rose, are you alright, darling?”

Finally there was an answer, but it wasn’t Rose, Jackie’s heart froze when she heard the Doctor’s voice on the other line, “Help me.”

And just like that, no other words, the called ended. Jackie stood there in the middle of the street asking the Doctor to explain, even though she knew he wouldn’t answer. Then she heard it, that sound that his ship made. The sound had come to be one that made Jackie happy, it meant Rose was home. Now, with the Doctor’s cryptic call, she only felt dread as she dropped her bags and ran toward the sound.

As she turned the corner, Jackie saw that she wasn’t the only one drawn by the noise, Mickey Smith was running down the street opposite her. He had a smile on his face, excited to see Rose again- the look didn’t last when he saw the terrified expression on Jackie’s own face. The pair of them had become pretty close the last few weeks, she’d never been too fond of the boy, but in Rose’s absence Jackie had started to treat him more like a son.

“What’s going on?” Mickey asked as they approached the TARDIS together.

“I don’t know.” Jackie replied and banged on the door of the Blue Box, “Doctor? Doctor!? What’s happening? Where’s my Rose?”

It took a few minutes, but her question was answered when the TARDIS opened up and the Doctor came stumbling out, Rose dangling limp in his arms. The Doctor looked horrified and held her closer to him, “Help me get her to your flat!” He instructed, “Quickly!”

“What happened?” Jackie gasped, “Oh! Rose, Rose! Wake up!”

The three of them made their way to Powell estate, the Doctor didn’t really need any help carrying Rose. Pretty much all he needed was for Jackie to unlock the door to the flat and let him in so that he could take Rose to her bed. On the way, the Doctor tried to explain. “She looked into the Time Vortex, no one is supposed to do that.”

“Looked into the what?” Jackie shook her head, “What does that mean?”

“It’s the heart of the TARDIS, all of time and space running through her head. That’s too much power, she should be dead.”

“She’s dead!?” Mickey gasped.

“No!” The Doctor corrected, “No, she’s alive, she let go of it before it burned through her but that’s the thing! She shouldn’t have been able to hold it as long as she did. It should have killed her!”

After he laid Rose on the bed, the Doctor took out that weird alien screw driver of his and flicked a switch to run it over Rose’s body. “No internal hemorrhaging. Cellular structure is intact. Pulse is good. No fever.”

“What’s wrong with her, Doctor?” Jackie asked.

“I don’t know!” The Doctor blurted, “By all accounts she’s fine, perfect health, but she should be dead!” He ran his screwdriver over again, “If it were me I would be dead. No one is meant to see the Time Vortex, I have no idea why she’s like this, I have no idea why she’s still alive.”

But he was relieved she was, that was plain as day on the Doctor’s face.

Jackie helped get Rose settled in the bed, wrapping blankets around her and fluffing her pillow up. “It’s like she’s sleeping… or in a coma.” Jackie mused, “Maybe she’ll be waking up soon.” She dared to hope.

The Doctor pulled a chair up next to the bed, and brushed Rose’s hair away from her face. “Maybe…” He replied, but he didn’t sound confident.

“Shouldn’t we take her to a hospital, then?” Mickey suggested.

The Doctor never took his eyes off Rose, “No, cause they’ll want to know how she ended up like this, and I can’t even begin to tell them.” He replied, “And they can’t give her any proper care unless I can tell them exactly what’s wrong with her. Without that information, they may try some brain surgeries or medicine or whatever other primitive practices you’re still using in this century and probably make her condition worse.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Jackie demanded, “Just sit here and wait?”

“I don’t know!” The Doctor snapped, “Nothing like this has ever happened before!”

“Stop shouting!” Mickey ordered, “Both of you! Just…Just calm down.”

Jackie bristled, ready to give Mickey a good slap, but the Doctor said nothing and just reached to brush Rose’s hair again. He was plainly stressed from worrying about Rose. “I’m sorry.” Jackie said, and found her own chair. She watched her daughter’s chest rise and fall, “What exactly happened out there?” Jackie asked.

She barely knew how to work her mobile phone, she doubted she’d understand a word of the Doctor’s explanation, but Jackie needed to ask for Rose’s sake, and for the Doctor’s. Perhaps if he spoke out loud about it, he’d remember some detail he was overlooking while worried about Rose.

The Doctor was silent for a moment, “I don’t know how long Rose has been gone for you…” He said, “But it’s only been…less that fifteen minutes total since she arrived with the TARDIS.”

“It’s been weeks now.” Jackie informed him.

The Doctor nodded, “I wasn’t exactly putting in proper coordinates, as long as we arrived in a time I could get your help…” He trailed off and continued his explanation, “When you opened the heart of the TARDIS, Rose absorbed the Time Vortex, it’s a power source of sorts, encompassing all of time and space, by absorbing it Rose became…”

“Became what, Doctor?” Mickey asked.

“Bad Wolf…” He replied, and started to explain the mysterious and continuous appearance of the two words, as if following them across time and space, how neither he nor Rose had given it much thought until fairly recently.

That was the part the Jackie understood, but as the Doctor explainedsomething about Rose being part of something he called a 'looped ontological Paradox', absorbing the Time Vortex and sending the words out herself, as a message to lead her back to the Doctor, she became confused. “But how could Rose have become this Bad Wolf and sent the words out so that she would look into the Time Vortex? What would have inspired her to look and put them out to begin with if not the words? There had to have been a first time.”

She expected the Doctor to get angry, or at least annoyed or maybe just laugh at the poor stupid apes that didn’t understand, but the Doctor simply looked at Rose. He had one hand to his face, knuckle brushing his lip as if he were going to gnaw on it, “No, there doesn’t.” He said calmly, “It’s a paradox, Jackie, a self contradicting impossibility. Not even the Gallifreyan High Council would be able to explain it.”

“Gallifreyan?” Mickey quirked an eyebrow.

Again the Doctor was silent for a moment, this time biting his lower lip and flexing his fingers, “Me" He clarified, “I’m Gallifreyan.” He didn’t seem to want to say anything more than that, however.

And both Jackie and Mickey were quickly out of questions. They sat in silence around Rose’s bed for a long time, with no change. Soon enough, however, the two humans remembered that the world still turned, even with Rose in the state she was in. Mickey needed to get back to his own flat, and Jackie had to go back to the street and see if her bags happened to be still there and undisturbed.

She doubted it.

Mickey walked with her to pick them back up. They were moved, and she found only one item- a pocket watch- missing. It had been what she planned to give Rose, set to London’s time so that Rose would always remember that they were waiting for her back home. Jackie frowned, that was the most expensive thing she bought this year, and she wouldn’t be able to afford a replacement.

The two humans parted ways at the corner, “Call me if there’s any improvement.” Mickey said.

“I will.” Jackie promised, “I’ll call you immediately.”

Within a few minutes she was returning to her flat, Jackie found the Doctor exactly as she’d left him. Still watching over Rose with the same worried expression, knuckle still at his lips and his free hand twirling his screwdriver around like he was resisting the urge to scan Rose’s condition again. Jackie stood in the doorway for several minutes, but the Doctor never acknowledged her return.

She started to get hungry and began working on dinner. Jackie was not in the mood to cook so she put in a microwave dinner, and then as a added thought, heated up a second one for the Doctor. She still wasn’t sure what he ate, but surely he had to eat something.

Finally she came back in and sat down at the chair she’d occupied earlier. The Doctor still hadn’t moved.He also still didn’t acknowledge her until Jackie spoke to get his attention. “I’ve heated up some dinner.” She announced.

It seemed to take the Doctor a minute to realize Jackie meant that she made some for him as well. He shook his head and turned his attention back to Rose, “No, thank you.” He said simply.

“Come on, now, Doctor.” Jackie told him, “It won’t do Rose any good if you don’t take care of yourself while waiting for her to get better.”

“I’m fine.” He replied quietly, “I’m not human, Jackie. I don’t need to eat, or sleep. Not as often as you lot, at least.”

“Doctor.” Jackie said, a little more sternly, “I’ve heated up some dinner. Would you please eat it?”

More than anything, Jackie just wanted the Doctor out of Rose’s room. The waiting was making her nervous, like watching a pot boil, maybe Rose would recover when they weren’t looking. It was probably just a silly human superstition, but it would put Jackie at ease if she didn’t have to see that look on the Doctor’s face, just a few minutes of distraction.

The Doctor seemed to acknowledge this and finally nodded his head. “Alright.” He said and stood up, but not without brushing Rose’s face again. There was no hair to be brushed out of the way, but the Doctor was quick to say “Still no fever.” As if that were some kind of cover, he wasn’t touching her long enough to notice if there was a fever.

That was an affectionate stroke.

Jackie led the Doctor out and turned on the telly to watch a little crime mystery while they ate. The Doctor figured out the killer long before the show was over, and barely touched the mashed potatoes and beef until Jackie reminded him she wanted him to eat. “So..” Jackie said, “You said that if it’d been you that absorbed that Vortex thing, you’d be dead?”

She was still hoping that if they talked about what happened to Rose, the Doctor would have some kind of epiphany about her condition. The Doctor nodded, “The Time Vortex is unlimited power, having it in your head gives you the that same unlimited power, but only for a few minutes, then it’ll burn you up. Not even a Time Lord can resist it.”

That was only a little different than what he’d told her before, Jackie tried to press for more information- anything that could help her daughter, “So it’s happened before? You’ve seen it?”

“Not personally, but I’ve heard of it. They used to say that a Time Lord that looked into the Time Vortex would momentarily become a vengeful God, with power over time and space until it destroyed them within minutes.”

“Why?” Jackie asked, “Why is it so deadly?”

“It just too much power, even for us.” The Doctor explained, “If Rose hadn’t let go of it when she did it would have caused every cell in her body to die, like radiation poisoning. I’ve been monitoring her condition and her body is fine… That means that her mind is probably what’s in trouble.”

He started to sit up straighter, Jackie did the same as she realized that talking about it was working, the Doctor was starting to figure it out. “What about her mind?” She asked.

“Since it didn’t kill her, all of time and space running through her head, Rose’s mind is simply be lost within herself.” He started to smile, relaxing slightly as he concluded. His expression dropped again, “But I don’t know how long it will take her to find her way back. And she’s human so her body won’t last long without her mind functioning right.”

His eyes darted back to Rose’s bedroom, and his mouth twitched. Clearly he had an idea, but was now hesitating for some reason. Jackie reached over and touched his arm, ““Isn’t there anything you can do Doctor?” She begged, Rose’s life was at stake, surely this alien with his superior knowledge and technology had some way to help. “She’s my daughter!”

“Yes… There’s one last thing I can try ” The Doctor replied slowly, “…but you’re not going to like it…”

Jackie’s stomach flipped with dread, but she squeezed his arm. If it brought Rose back to her, she thought she’d let the Doctor do anything, but his comment unnerved her. “What is it?”

“Gallifreyans were a telepathic species.” He explained, “When something like this happened all we’d need to do is enter a shared dream state and lead the lost one out.”

“But…?” Jackie felt her stomach knotting even tighter.

“But humans aren’t telepathic.” Jackie wanted to hit him for giving her false hope when he continued, “There’s only one way for me and Rose to establish a shared dream state.”

“Do it.” She told him, standing up, ready to make whatever preparations he needed..

“You don’t even know what I need to do.”

Jackie through her hands in the air, “For god’s sake, Doctor! What is it? What’s so dangerous!?”

The Doctor frowned, “Well, for starters, I could end up lost in Rose’s mind too and we’d both be trapped there. But that’s not the part you’re not going to like.” He said, and took a deep breath, steadying himself for whatever he was about to tell her, “For a telepath and a non telepath to enter a shared dream state we need skin-to-skin contact…the more the better.”

Jackie stared at him with her jaw dropped for a moment, waiting for him to say he was just pulling her leg. When he didn’t, she started to get angry. “You…” She started to growl, “You want to sleep… with my daughter…naked?”

“Jackie Tyler.” The Doctor stood up, “Your daughter is the way she is now because she crossed time and space doing the impossible to save me. If there were any other way to help her, I would have done it already.”

She wanted to slap him so hard he was sent back in time- or forward in time- or whatever. She very nearly did, but Jackie also didn’t doubt him, if there was any other way to save Rose, this man would do it in a heartbeat. It still bothered her that he didn’t object to wanting to.

Jackie had one last question for the Doctor and she supposed when the measures were this kind of desperate, it was the only question that mattered. "Do you love her?" She asked.

The Doctor was startled by the question and he swallowed nervously, as if he feared there was no correct answer to that question. In a way there wasn't, Jackie was sure to have his head if he said yes, and to hound him about 'why not?' until he couldn't take it any more. The best way to answer was with the truth, "'Til the end of time." Technically this was a yes, but it remained vague enough to pass under her radar, as he could always say he meant it platonically.

They both knew it was romantically.

“Do it. Before I change my mind.” She relented, though her tongue felt like lead as she did.

He stood there a moment longer in silence before he nodded again, “Just…Make sure we’re not disrupted,” He said, “Shared dream states are fragile enough between two Gallifreyans.”

And with that he was off to Rose’s room. Jackie felt sick to her stomach, and against her better judgement started after him. “I’m warning you, though Doctor, any unnecessary touching and I’ll take those hands off of you.”

The Doctor pulled the blankets away from Rose, “If it makes you feel any better, Jackie, we don’t need to be naked,” He said, as he started to shrug off his jacket, “I said the more skin contact the better, but if you’d be more comfortable-”

“For god’s sake, just get you both under the covers and get this over with!” Jackie hissed and helped pull Rose’s clothes off, making herself feel even more sick as her daughter laid unconscious in her naught but her knickers while the Doctor pulled the blankets over them before taking off the rest of his clothes. Was he even wearing drawers?

After that came the uncomfortable manner of positioning so that they had the most skin contact possible. Jackie wasn’t sure if she was more uncomfortable watching or if the Doctor was more uncomfortable being watched. Finally after a few minutes of shifting, turning and curling their arms together the Doctor was resting on his back with Rose sprawled half on him with her arms draped over his chest and his around her. Jackie couldn’t be sure with the blankets over them, but she was sure the Doctor had their legs entwined too. Again, was he wearing drawers?

“How long does it take for you to fall asleep?” Jackie asked, trying to take her mind off their state of undress and focus on this shared dream solution. It wasn’t working.

“Quicker if you don’t talk.” The Doctor replied and shut his eyes, “Now remember, don’t let anyone or anything interrupt, I don’t know how long this will take…”

He didn’t speak again, Jackie stood over them getting more and more uncomfortable as she looked on. The longer she was there the more she wasn’t sure she believed the Doctor’s telepathy story or if this was just some ploy to touch Rose. Jackie shivered and forced herself out of the room, and shut the door as quietly as possible. For Rose’s sake she had to trust him…For Rose’s sake…

The Doctor relaxed immensely once Jackie left the room. It was hard to fall asleep when he was wondering if Rose’s mother was really going to let him do this or if she was going to smother him while his guard was down. The worry remained, even when the door closed, but at least she wasn’t an immediate threat. That and it felt way less creepy when he wasn’t being watched.

After that it didn’t take long at all for him to begin drifting off. He’d told the truth earlier, that his species didn’t need to eat or sleep as often as humans did, and while he could still go several more days, maybe a full week before he needed to sleep the Doctor could use a little time to recharge.

The dream started like he was walking. Walking through the Time Vortex instead of flying the TARDIS. The edges of his vision were black, not quite fully asleep yet, but he risked calling out, Gallifreyans had excellent mental control, he doubted he’d accidentally wake himself up. “Rose? Rose? Where are you?”

A loud shout in the dream world was nothing more than a breathy whisper in the waking world. And if Jackie were still in the room to hear, it would have been several agonizingly long seconds before there was a soft reply “I’m here.”

Back in the dream, those long seconds passed much quicker. No sooner than he had called out, the Doctor heard Rose’s voice, right in his ear as if she were standing right next to him. Before he could turn to look, however, the Doctor found himself falling through the Vortex, out of it, passed stars and planets. Light above him started to vanish as he slipped further and further into oblivion.

Blackness.

A soft sound beckoned him back, like the winding of a clock. He opened his eyes, not to Rose’s bedroom, but to a more familiar sight. The Doctor’s hearts ached to recognize the tattered ruined barn that had once been his childhood home. Funny, nine hundred years old and the sight of this place still stirred a such a boyish joy in him, even when he felt like it had been so much longer since he’d been a child.

And that, was largely due to the Time War…

The joy of seeing this old barn drained out of the Doctor when he realized that the barn was not truly the place of his childhood, but rather a more recent memory. A terrible memory. This was the place…and the time…

The soft whirring sound hit his ears again, this time a voice accompanied it, “This is where you did it.”

The Doctor twisted around and saw her. Rose was there, thank goodness he didn’t have to dive too deep into dreams to find her. Yet, even the joy of finding her so quickly was snuffed out when he saw how she was seated, back straight, legs apart and elbows on her knees, on top of a small box decorated with Circular Galifreyan warnings.

He knew that box far too well.

Immediately the Doctor was on his feet, rushing to pull Rose away from it, “Don’t sit on that!” He gasped, as he yanked her to her feet and stared at the box in horror.

“Why not?” Rose asked.

He pulled her closer to him as if to protect her from it, “Because it’s not a chair! It’s the most dangerous weapon in the universe.” He might have elaborated, Rose had a certain charm about her that loosened his tongue about his dark secrets when they were in the right time and place.

But an odd sense of Deja Vu suddenly had him blinking. Wait…why did this feel so familiar? Not the barn, and not the weapon, but that exchange. He turned to Rose in confusion, and noticed something was very odd about her as well.

“Why can’t it be both?” She asked. It was very definitely Rose he was talking to, he knew those eyes, he knew those lips, but there was something about her that was very definitely different. She looked older, not Jackie’s age by any means, but older than nineteen, that was for certain.

Golden light flashed in her eyes, and the Doctor knew what he was looking at. She'd called herself the Bad Wolf when she absorbed the Time Vortex, but the entity Rose had become was a young one, an inexperienced one that had accidentally made her friend into an immortal fixed point when bringing him back to life. Here she was again; the Bad Wolf, thorugh only a few hours of sleep, now fully matured into one of the most powerful beings in the universe. Did she still have a piece of the Time Vortex in her mind?

Instead of answering her question about the box, the Doctor shook his head, “I came to get you.” he told her.

“I know. I’ve been waiting for you.” She replied, “I want to show you something.” The Doctor started to object, wanting to take her back to the real world immediately, but she pressed a finger to his lips and her eyes flashed with gold again.

Rose pulled away from him, opened the barn door with a mere glance, and beyond it was not the wastes of a war torn Gallifrey as the Doctor expected, but a thick blackness that Rose stepped into with no fear. He approached the doorway after her, Rose had vanished into the depths of the nothingness beyond, deeper into dreams, invisible beyond it. Curiosly he reached forward, and that was when he noticed that he was no longer the Doctor that he thought he was.

He knew this hand, this had had belong to him, the Regeneration previous to this one. He found himself shuttering, he tried so hard not to think of this man as the Doctor, it was a coping mechanism he hoped one day he would be recovered enough to stop using, but for now it made the pain just bearable to distance this form from his identity as the Doctor. How long had he been like this? He was certain that he had been in the incarnation Rose knew when they spoke, she wouldn't have recognized him otherwise...

Of course, with the power of the Vortex that was still in her head, it was possible that she knew more than she let on. Far more.

He put his hand into the blackness beyond the barn, there was an odd sensation of touching something that was somewhere between a solid and a liquid. Like sticking his hand in pudding, the Doctor noticed how the blackness ate all visibility and stuck his arm further in. Rose had gone in, he had to go after her.

He stepped through, a chill went through him with every step. Odd, from the outside the blackness seemed to be complete, taking all of him into it's depths, but inside it, he could see himself perfectly. And Rose too. She was waiting for him on the otherside, both of them perfectly visible in the black.

"What is this place?" The Doctor asked, his voice carried around them, but he heard no echo.

"This is the universe." Rose replied, "Or at least it's what would be left if you hadn't ended the Time War."

She reached up and stroked his face, a sorrowful look graced her features. The Doctor felt his knees weaken at her touch. He felt as empty as the space around him, "Why show me this?"

She didn't answer, her eyes flashed again and dots of light started to fill the blackness around them. He saw the outlines of shapes around them, and soon they were standing on a beach together. The scent of salt air stung his nostrils. It was an Earth beach, he was certain of that, but the night sky above them was not Earth's. He knew those constellations better than any across time and space. That was Gallifrey's sky.

The Doctor was puzzled, but the question on his tongue was silenced by the arrival of Rose's lips against his. He whimpered into the kiss, realizing for the first time just how much he needed it. The Time Lord had long been aware of his growing feeling for Rose, but had always kept them back. He knew in the end that Rose would only be part of his life for a brief span of it, either she'd leave on her own terms, be killed on their adventures, or worse grow old and expire before his eyes. Those thoughts of losing Rose had always kept him at bay, thinking that if he didn't allow himself to get too attached, then maybe it wouldn't hurt as much when she was gone.

But now...

Rose kissed him and he couldn't contain those feelings any more. He returned the kiss with a feverish passion that blew like a storm. He wrapped his arms around her and tugged her closer to him, breaking the kiss only to suck in a quick breath and kiss her again. He only broke away when he realized his form was still that of the age Warrior who had killed so many.

The universe was worth it, he had known that when he used the Moment, and he was willing to pay the price of survivial...Or at least that was what he told himself. The Doctor began to weep, "I killed them all, Rose...They're gone..."

"I know." She said, and kissed his cheek, "I know."

"I don't want to loose you too." Tears were freely falling from his eyes now, he felt a stinging sensation across his skin, through blurry eye he recognized the glow of regeneration- or degeneration, perhaps, as the Doctor found he was back to his eighth incarnation now. This body had a lot of fond memories from before the war, yet now he looked at his hands as if they belonged to a traitor. This was the man who had given up being a doctor to be a warrior and he couldn't quite bring himself to...well, forgive himself for that choice. Yet at the same time he couldn't blame himself, either.

She was right to show him the empty universe, the non existance that would have been. In his hearts he always knew that he'd done the right thing, all of creation was worth more than his people, and certainly worth more than the Daleks.

"That's not why I showed it to you, Doctor." She said, taking him by surprise. Rose didn't bother with an explaination, hell, with the power she had, the Doctor shouldn't be surprised that the Bad Wolf could read his mind. "Look around you."

They had changed places again, the sky above them was Earth's now, but they weren't on a beach anymore. They weren't even on the planet. He recognized this place, it was Satalite Five, only now things seemed to be right. He could see it, this was the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire as it should have been.

"Time is always in a state of flux." Rose whispered, "You taught me that. Second by second someone somewhere does something that changes the world, that changes history, and all of time and space. It's happening now, here with you and me."

The Doctor could see that too. Timelines swirled in his head, he saw time spliting up like the atoms of the Daleks that the Bad Wolf destroyed. In one universe, she arrived too late, the Doctor was dead and while she had enough time to wipe out the Daleks she could not release the power in time and burned. In another she saved his life, but at the cost of hers. Similarily, the Doctor saved her with a kiss to remove the Time Vortex, but the act of doing so cost him this regeneration. The Doctor almost longed to be in that universe, he could feel that Doctor's feelings, so sad to be going so soon, but also swelling with joy because he knew that Rose would live and Regenerated to his next form with a smile on his face.

Fantastic.

Fresh tears dripped down his face.

"These are just dreams." He said, "We can go back and see days long passed, but once we do we can't go back to them again. What we see and what we do, that's it, unless we want the Reapers to come back."

"Maybe that's true." Rose replied, "And maybe it isn't. Who says that our reality is the only one that matters?"

The Doctor reached up to brush his hair back, only to find the familiar feel of the buzzcut from his Ninth incarnation as the Doctor. The timelines swirled in his vision, showing him more images of things that might have been. Rose saving her father, but destorying the universe. Jamie infecting all of humanity with his nanogenes while looking for his mother. Gwenyth being too afraid to help the Gelf and joining them on the TARDIS instead.

"There's so many."

The Doctor wasn't even sure if it was Rose or himself that had spoken.

"And only one where we remain together." Rose said, her eyes were flashing gold again, "And every second we get further and further from that future." Now she was the one that was crying, but it wasn't a desperate sob. She had a smile on her face too, like she was witnessing a miracle.

He knew what she meant, he'd caught a glimpse of this future himself a few times while reading the time lines. All the things that had to happen, and to not happen to ensure they stayed together forever was near impossible, even for a Time Lord, there were too many things that they couldn't control. The choice to turn right instead of left could lead Rose into the jaws of a monster, an manufactoring error on a year old vehicle meant that the breaks wouldn't work when a random motorist tried to stop as Jackie crossed the street, killing Rose before she was even born, a fearless captain drives his ship into a meteor to stop it from destroying the Earth, but the debris from the accident still wipe out a massive percent of the population.

"Does it drive you mad?"

"Yes, it does."

They were kissing again, this time they were naked together on Rose's pink bed from the Tyler flat on Powell Estate. No, they weren't awake yet, the Doctor knew their undergarments had been left on for decency's sake, but more imporantly, the bed was Rose's but the room around them wasn't a room. It was his barn on Gallifry again.

Her power was incredible.

"Have you figured it out yet, Doctor?" Rose asked, a tiny half smile played at the corner of her mouth.

He nodded and kissed her neck, "The reason you survived absorbing the Time Vortex is because you've never been quite human. At least not human as I understand them to be. You've always been a self created paradox, you willed yourself into being so that one day you would create yourself, the first and only one of your kind."

"Something like that." Rose replied, that half smile grew into a playful smirk. There were deeper mechniacs at work than even the Doctor could comprehend, but if Rose understood the nature of her own existence then perhaps he need not even worry about trying to understand himself.

The Bad Wolf, Rose Tyler, both were one and the same.

"I have other names, too." She added, "And you already know one of them."

The Doctor swallowed hard, this was the part that was most difficult for him to face but part of him had known as soon as he saw her in the barn the first time, "You're the Moment." The Doctor said, "The weapon that I used to destory Gallifrey. I remember you now, at least, flashes of you." He wondered why he didn't remember her in full. Rose was quick to answer this unasked question

"I've sealed off your memories." She said and looked away sadly, "I want you to remember, I do. I hate seeing you suffer this way, but you were right, if the Time War had gone on the whole of creation would have been at stake."

The Doctor's hands started to tremble, he felt like a monster, he wiped out two species- his own people to end a war and even used a woman he didn't even know he loved to do it. He felt like he had violated Rose somehow, even if he hadn't known who she was...But at the same time, something didn't make sense, well even less sense than a paradox that existed in all time and all space.

The first time he had seen Rose Tyler, not even knowing who she was, he'd felt insinctively drawn to her, almost like he had known her for years. If it were true that she was the Moment, wouldn't and imprinted memories of her have left him feeling terrible for all the things he had done, shouldn't he have been repulsed by her?

Suddenly the Doctor felt her hands enfold over his, cupping them in her gentle touch. "I told you. I sealed off those memories. I didn't tell you why." She smiled at him and craned her neck to kiss his cheek, "That was the day it was impossible to get it right, and there's no shame in that. But what is a paradox, but a way to make the impossible possible?"

"What do you mean?"

She was biting her lower lip, and pulled his hands up to her breast so he could feel her heart beating beneath the skin. For a brief second, he fooled himself into thinking she had two hearts, but was quick to correct himself, it was still a single heart but it beat twice as fast as a normal human's. A different sort of alien.

"Time is in flux. Nothing is what even you think it is." She answered, "And when you're ready to see what really happened that day, I will show you."

"Rose?"

He blinked, the barn was back to normalm the bed was gone, and both of them were clothed. Rose sat on the Moment.

This dream was bouncing around like crazy, the Doctor inwardly scolded himself. They needed to get out of here and back to the real world or Jackie would never let him live it down. Rose shifted her seat, and the box beneath her groaned with the clockwork inside it. The most deadly weapon in the universe, and also the woman he cared about most.

"I'm ready to go home now." Rose announced, "Are you, Doctor?"

She must already know the answer, but he held his hand out inviting her to stand and take it, "Come with me." He whispered.

Rose's delicate hand slipped into his, he hadn't even see her stand up and cross the barn, she was simply there, taking his hand. "What a pair we make." Rose mused, entwining her fingers into his long calloused ones. "One paradox is odd enough, but two...My, how the universe likes to throw the oddities at each other."

He quirked an eybrow, "Two?" he repeated.

She squeezed his hand, "A great man from another world who was inspired by the best of humanity." Rose replied, "But who inspired the best of humanity, eh, Doctor?"

In a flash he was opening his eyes. The Doctor blinked a few times, waiting to see if the scenery around him changed to reveal they were still in the dream. The sun had risen, they must have slept through the whole night. Rose looked back at him from across the pillow, aged back to her normal nineteen year old self. A slight glimmer in her eyes was the only indication that anything was out of the ordinary. Well, that and the fact that their largely naked bodies were entwined together with Jackie moving around in the other room.

The events of the dream were fading from the Doctor's mind, whether because of the usual failure to remember dreams or because Rose was once again sealing away his memories of the encounter. He found himself unable to keep from smiling. His Rose was safe, was there any better reason to smile?

"So what happens now?" He asked, it felt a little odd to be the one that asked, but it was up to her, really. It always was. "Rose Tyler I-"

She raised a finger to his lips, smiling back at him, "It doesn't need saying." She told him, winking like she'd made a joke he didn't get. She shifted her postion on the bed, crawling further on top of him, "I'm part of the Time Vortex. Always was. Always will be. Like Gwenyth and the Rift in 1969. What happens now is that we go on. Do as you always do, be a Doctor and touch your healing to the hurt."

Rose's hand lifted from his chest to stroke his face, "I cannot keep my power confined to one body, that would rip it apart so I splintered it across time and space. Pieces of me are scattered everywhere, some in places you know, places you've yet to know and places you will never reach." She explained to him, "But remember, even if we are divided by whatever reality throws at us, that I will be there for you when you need me, even if you don't know it's me."

"Like the Moment?" The Doctor asked.

She nodded, "And in small things you wouldn't think twice about, but all the same they give you hope."

The Doctor swallowed hard, he appreciated the gesture, more than Rose would ever know (Or perhaps she would, with her power anything was possible) but he did not want to think he'd ever need them. He never wanted to think about life without her by his side. Losing companions was nothing new, but Rose wasn't just any companion.

There was a slim chance, out of countless possibilites and endless chains pulling them through time, there was a single line that kept them together. The Doctor would do whatever he could to stay on that line.

"I suppose we should get dressed and tell your mum you're safe." The Doctor said, starting to pull the blankets off to do that. He got as far as sitting upright when Rose lifted her head and kissed him, which froze the Time Lord in place. He remembered they'd kissed in their shared dream state, it had brought him to tears because he wanted it so much, needed her so much. It was different here in the waking world.

It was better.

If he could spend his life in one moment for all eternity, it would be this one. Rose's lips were soft and sweet from chapstick, the taste of her mouth had a slight saltiness to it, lingering flavor from chips, no doubt. And so human, so very human. None of that poetic nonsense about tasting like stardust and fire. Just a normal, human girl, nineteen years old and in love. The most wonderful thing in the universe.

The Doctor wrapped his arms around her, drawing her closer for a brief moment, she pushed him back, kissing him deeper. The move was a mistake, as the Doctor, focusing all his attention on her, lost his balance and fell back against the bed frame. The fall broke their contact as he hit his head on the frame and uttered a small shout of surprise that did not go unnoticed by Jackie.

Rose had just climbed off him and the Doctor regained his senses enough to be rubbing the back of his head when the door burst open. "Is everything alright Doctor? Did you manage t-" She stopped midsentance when she saw her daughter sitting upright in her sheets, grabbing her shirt from the foot of the bed. "It worked!" She gasped, tears threatening.

Rose smiled, "It worked." She assured her mother and quickly slid her shirt back on while the Doctor flung himself off the bed to redress himself. To Jackie's relief, he was in fact wearing drawers and put his clothes on as quickly as possible, while Jackie took his place on the bed, hugging her daughter tightly.

"Oh my god sweetheart! I was terrified when that box disappeared! I thought I was never going to see you again!" Jackie sobbed. Rose patted her mother's back assuring her that she was alright, "And when the Doctor brought you back the way he did! I've never been so scared in my life!"

"It's alright mum. I'm alright. I'm always going to be alright." She said, and over Jackie's shoulder she looked to the Doctor, a wolfish smile on her face. Gold light flashed in her eyes for a second. The Doctor's smile faltered a little bit. Rose had said the power of the Bad Wolf was too much to contain in a single living body, but it hadn't occured to him that she would still have it when they were out of the dream. How much power had she kept for this body?

His smile brightened again when he realized he really didn't care. Rose was alive, and safe, and the rest of that could wait.

"I was just getting started on breakfast. " Jackie said, "It'd be no trouble at all to add a few more eggs and bacon to the pan. You hungry, sweetheart?"

"Very." Rose answered. "Let me get dressed, I'll help."

"Oh...Well, I suppose I should say, no you need to rest, but you two have been out for three days. Any more rest and you might not wake up at all." Jackie informed them, and turned to the Doctor, "How 'bout you? You joining us?"

"Sure, why not? I'm sure one breakfast with Jackie Tyler won't end the universe." The Doctor surprised himself with how much he wasn't objecting to the idea of staying for breakfast. Lord knew he wasn't getting involved with domestics, but right now he didn't want to be away from Rose and if Rose was having breakfast with Jackie he certainly could put up with that for a while. "What do you mean three days...?"

#Nine x Rose #Rose x Nine #Ninepetals #Timepetals #NineRose #RoseNine

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