Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Nine The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Eighteen ( Chapter 18 )

[ A - All Readers ]

So here it is, the parting of the ways, as Rose finally makes it home. Thanks for reading, I hope you've enjoyed my take on what went on in between the bits on TV and in the books.

Non Anime: Doctor Who Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.13.2016 | Pages: 29 | Words: 10.8K | Visits: 353 | Status: Completed

Time Lord regenerations were similar to the biological process of reproduction. In reproduction, DNA from the parents was recombined to form a new individual, who retained features of the parents.

In regeneration, the memories, beliefs, and aspirations of the Time Lord were usually retained, and a new personality (along with a new body) superimposed on the old one, creating a new individual with old memories.

In the Doctor's case however, his previous regeneration had been forced on him by the Sisterhood of Karn, and it was a cold blooded killer that sat upon the memories, beliefs, and aspirations of a healer, someone who made things better. That was never going to be a good combination.

And when the warrior came to the cold, logical conclusion that the Time Lords couldn't win the war, the only logical thing to do to save the universe from the savage annihilation by the Daleks, was to eliminate both protagonists, so that's what he did.

And when the bone weary, ancient warrior was convinced he had succeeded in destroying Time Lord and Dalek alike, not out of fear or hatred, but because there was no other way, there was no more need for a warrior.

No more.

And so a new regeneration started, a proper one, except this one was built on the memories and realisation of what the warrior had done. This new regeneration was full of guilt, shame, and remorse and it had taken the compassion of a young, human female to ask him what he was turning into, to stop him from becoming that which he most despised.

And now, a regeneration was happening again.

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Rose's head was buzzing with a billion facts; her thoughts were both sharp and fuzzy at the same time. She knew she knew everything there was to know, all she had to do was recall it. She'd knock spots off them at the pub quiz in the King's Head. Forget the pub quiz, bring on Mastermind.

Hang on, somebody had kissed her, and it was fantastic. Talk about the Earth moving, she'd felt the universe move. If that was Mickey, he'd been taking lessons. Cheeky git, fancy stealing a kiss while she was asleep, I mean, it wasn't even like they were a couple anymore, was it?

[`Isn't it?'] Her inner dialogue asked.

`Who's there?' she asked the darkness, no, it wasn't dark, it was a golden light.

[`You know.']

`Bad . . . Wolf?' She remembered the name.

[`Yeah, now, isn't it time you told him?']

`Yeah, but he's such a nice bloke, I don't want to hurt his feelings.'

[`You'll hurt him even more if you don't tell him, and that is not a good foundation for a relationship.']

`Yeah, I suppose.' Rose thought about this. `What is a good foundation then?'

[`Hah! Ask me an easier question. Okay, how's this sound. Truth, you have to be true to each other, in word and deed.']

`Yeah, I can see that . . . go on.'

[`Blimey, y'don't want much do ya. There's attraction and desire, respect and forgiveness, all mixed up together.']

`And what about love?' Rose asked quietly.

She could `feel' a warm smile. [`Love is the sweet, sticky honey that binds it all together. You can respect your love's point of view, but still question his motives or methods. And no matter how perfect he thinks he is, he can still make a mistake, and you can forgive him.']

`I don't think Mickey would ever think of himself as perfect,' Rose laughed.

[`Who said anything about Mickey?']

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Rose found herself lying on the floor grating of the TARDIS near the console, staring up at the domed ceiling. `What happened?'

The Doctor was leaning against the console, watching the Time Rotor pump up and down. `Don't you remember?'

She propped herself up on her elbows. `It's like there was this singing.'

`That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.'

Wow, hold on, that confused her. `I was at home. No, I wasn't, I was in the TARDIS, and there was this light.' The Doctor looked at his hand; the veins were glowing under the skin. `I can't remember anything else.'

She looked over to him, he seemed to be concerned about something, but she didn't know what.

He gave her that grin, and his motor mouth started up. `Rose Tyler. I was going take you to so many places. Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. You'd love it. Fantastic place. They've got dogs with no noses. Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny.'

She smiled at his terrible joke. `Then, why can't we go?'

`Maybe you will, and maybe I will. But not like this.'

Now, she was starting to get concerned. `You're not making sense.' Had the Daleks hurt him in some way?

`I might never make sense again. I might have two heads, or no head. Imagine me with no head. And don't say that's an improvement. But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with . . .' He suddenly doubles over in pain.

`Doctor!' Oh my God, they've poisoned him or something.

`Stay away!' he shouted. That hurt her, because she wanted to hug him and comfort him, she wanted to help him.

`Doctor, tell me what's going on,' she pleaded, he was scaring her.

`I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex; and no one's meant to do that. Every cell in my body's dying.'

Oh God, it was her, she'd looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and it was her fault! `Can't you do something?'

`Yeah, I'm doing it now. Time Lords have this little trick; it's sort of a way of cheating death . . . Except it means I'm going to change; and I'm not going to see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go . . .'

`Don't say that,' she snapped, she didn't want him to go, she'd only just got back to him, saved him from the Daleks, and now he was talking about going.

`Rose . . . before I go, I just want to tell you . . . you were fantastic . . .. Absolutely fantastic . . . And do you know what . . .? So was I.'

Rose smiled at him uncertainly, not knowing what to say or what to do. He looked at her one last time with those eyes, a sad smile on his face, before his head snapped back and he looked up at the ceiling with his arms wide. Golden light burst out of his body, as the regeneration energy overflowed and started to rewrite his cell structure. This was not going to be easy for him.

Time Lord regenerations can be influenced and affected by contamination with alien DNA and various energy sources, and right now, the Doctor had a significant amount of Artron energy that wasn't his.

Although he had discharged the energy from Rose, back into the TARDIS, there would always be a residual amount left behind that would take time to disperse, and time was one thing the Doctor didn't have.

The energy he absorbed from Rose was not the same energy that she absorbed from the TARDIS. Bad Wolf had been created from it, and she had transformed it to suit her needs. The Doctors regeneration was now being influenced by Bad Wolf.

Although his soul would still be the Doctor, his personality was being rewritten by the passion and humanity that was Rose Tyler; he was becoming her soul mate. A pure Gallifreyan with an undercurrent of human emotions that would lie dormant for a while, until slowly and silently they would crawl out of the dark recesses of his mind, and seek out the light.

Rose was crouching by a coral strut when the blinding light ended. There standing in front of her was a tall skinny man, wearing the same clothes that the Doctor had been wearing.

`Hello . . .. Okay . . .. Ooo . . . new teeth. That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right. Barcelona.

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48 Bucknall House, Powell Estate.

Friday 15th September 2006.

Jackie was sitting curled up on the sofa, sipping her rum and coke, with the photo album on her lap, and a box of tissues nearby. She was gently stroking the smiling face of her dead husband, who was grinning up at her.

`What am I gonna do, Pete?' she asked the eternally grinning man. `It's been over a week now and still no word. Last year she was just off travellin', an' I still didn't know if she was alive or dead. This time though, she said the Doctor was gonna die, and that means she was goin' into danger.'

She grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes again. `I don't know if I can carry on like this Pete, I really don't . . . Mickey said she'd sent herself some kind of message, and that must mean she's alive to be able to do that . . . but I don't understand all that stuff.'

She leafed through some pages of the album and found one of Rose from Jericho Street Junior School which made her sob. She was beaming a proud smile with a bronze medal around her neck.

`Oh Rose, where are ya? Please come home,' she sobbed. She hadn't reported her missing this time around, what was the point? She doubted that the police would keep a missing person file open for two hundred thousand years. And would they even have police then? She'd seen the science fiction films, people would be micro chipped and they'd have Robocops.

She downed her drink and poured another one. As she did this, the pages flipped over, and when she looked, it was a picture of Mickey and Rose sitting with their arms around each other in Trafalgar Square, in happier days.

Jackie remembered that photo was not long after they'd gotten back together after that Jimmy Stone fiasco. What was wrong with Rose, why couldn't she just be happy with what she'd got? Mickey was a lovely lad, okay; he'd had a rough start with his father running off, and his mother not being able to cope with him. But his grandmother was the salt of the Earth, and she'd turned him into the decent lad he is today. He'd got a trade; he was loving, honest and dependable.

Oh, and human, she added as an extra proviso, he was human. She'd got one up on all the other mum's around here, who were worried about their kids running off with a `bad one', at least they didn't have to worry about them being alien as well.

Jackie flipped the pages back to her favourite photo of Pete, and she looked longingly at his face. `The trouble with your daughter is that she's too headstrong,' she told him. `I don't know where she gets that from.' Pete just continued to grin at her from the photo.

`And the Doctor sent her back, he must have realised that she was in danger and he sent her away. Why would she go runnin' back into danger for a man she's only just met and hardly knows?'

The answer to that question was staring her in the face . . . Literally. It was probably the rum and cokes, but she was sure Pete was grinning at her because he knew the answer. She remembered the first time she'd seen that mischievous grin, the twinkle in the eyes and the chat up line, `My names Pete Tyler, remember that name, because one day I'll be a millionaire'.

Her breath caught in her chest as the realisation hit her like a physical blow. She'd seen another mischievous grin recently, a twinkle in ancient blue eyes, and Rose had probably heard a chat up line something like, `I can take you anywhere in time and space'.

Tears splashed harmlessly on the plastic coated grin of her dead husband, as she realised her daughter was in love.

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Rose was trying to make sense of what had just happened.

The tall, skinny man ran around the console as though he knew what he was doing with it. `6 PM . . . Tuesday . . . October . . . 5006 . . . On the way to Barcelona!'

Rose was really scared as the stranger grinned at her. Why was he grinning like that, what was he going to do to her?

`Now then . . . what do I look like?' he asked.

`No, no no . . . no no no no no no no. No. Don't tell me,' he said, holding up his hand. He seemed to be some kind of idiot; Rose couldn't help smiling at his odd behaviour.

`Let's see . . . two legs, two arms, two hands . . . Slight weakness in the dorsal tendon.'

Rose noticed that he seemed to be taking an inventory of his body, as though he'd never seen it before. Suddenly he reached up to his head.

`Hair! I'm not bald!' he exclaimed, startling Rose. `Oh, Oh! Big hair!'

Sideburns, I've got sideburns! Or really bad skin. Little bit thinner . . . That's weird. Give me time, I'll get used to it.'

He stopped talking, and looked at Rose which made her nervous again, what was he going to do now? He seemed a little unstable.

`I . . . have got . . . a mole. I can feel it, between my shoulder blades, there's a mole.

Rose was getting concerned; this stranger seemed to be delighted that he'd discovered a mole on his back, a mole that surely he must have had most of his life.

`That's all right. Love the mole,' he said with another grin.

Oh this poor man, what had the Daleks done to him? Because Rose was convinced that the Daleks had taken the Doctor, and somehow put this unfortunate, mentally ill person in his place. Maybe they'd wiped his mind or something; that would certainly explain his behaviour.

The man straightened himself and faced Rose. `Go on then, tell me . . . what do you think?'

He was now focussing on Rose, and she asked the burning question. `Who are you?'

The man seemed hurt by her question. `I'm the Doctor.'

“Oh, this poor man, they've brainwashed him into thinking he's the Doctor” Rose thought, why would they do that?

`No . . . Where is he? Where's the Doctor? What have you done to him?'

`You saw me, I, I changed . . .' he said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. `Right in front of you.'

`I saw him sort of explode, and then you replaced him, like a . . . a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or somethin'.'

This seemed to stun the man into silence. Rose edged towards the man and pushed his chest to see if he was real.

`You're not foolin' me,' she warned him.

The man didn't react, he just rocked backwards, seemingly disappointed by Rose's reaction.

Rose needed this stranger to realise that she wasn't just some naive know nothing. `I've seen all sorts of things. Nano genes . . . Gelth . . . Slitheen . . .'

The spiky haired stranger reacted to Slitheen, if he was Slitheen, she was dead. `Oh, my God, are you a Slitheen?'

He could see that she was distressed, and tried to reassure her `I'm not a Slitheen.'

Rose was desperate now. `Send him back. I'm warnin' you; send the Doctor back right now!' she shouted.

`Rose, it's me,' he pleaded. `Honestly, it's me. I was dying. To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but . . . it's still me,' he said, smiling kindly at her.

`You can't be,' she whispered, nearly in tears.

`Then how could I remember this? Very first word I ever said to you. Trapped in that cellar. Surrounded by shop window dummies . . . oh . . . such a long time ago. I took your hand . . .' He gently reached out and took her hand. `I said one word . . . just one word, I said . . .'Run'.'

Rose felt it, as she'd always felt it, that tingle up her spine when he held her hand. `Doctor?' she sobbed uncertainly.

He grinned at her lovingly. `Hello.'

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48 Bucknall House, Powell Estate.

Christmas Eve 2006.

Jackie was sitting in the living room, putting the final touches to the Christmas decorations, hanging the last bauble on the tree. She picked up the presents to put under the tree and stopped.

`To Rose, Merry Christmas, Lots of love, Mum x', she'd written on the label. She felt tears stinging her eyes as she looked out of the window, wondering where her daughter was, and whether she would ever see her again. It had been three months now, and still no word.

It was the not knowing that was the worst. She had seen it on the news, many times before, where families pleaded on camera for information about missing relatives. She never thought she would be in that position herself, and wondered how those families coped, because she didn't think she could take much more of this. The thought of spending Christmas alone was breaking her heart, and her soul.

She'd stopped trying to phone Rose after the first week, when her mobile kept saying `it has not been possible to connect your call'. What Jackie didn't realise was, that the more she phoned, the more the calls stacked up in the paradox avoidance buffer in the TARDIS. How could she know that if she phoned once a day in Earth time, and only an hour had passed in TARDIS time, there was no way it could allow the calls to connect.

Another thing Jackie found difficult, was that there was only Mickey she could talk to about Rose. All her neighbours and friends had been told a cover story that she was still working as an au pair in France.

`Ooh, I bet Rose looks lovely in those saucy maids' uniforms they have to wear,' Grandma Prentice had said when Jackie explained where Rose supposedly was.

`No Mum, she doesn't have to wear . . . Oh, never mind. Yes Mum, she looks lovely,' she had said. And so it went on from day to day, wondering, waiting, and hoping, rushing to the phone every time it rang, and each time being disappointed.

She sighed and put the presents under the tree, before opening the few envelopes of greetings cards that had been pushed through the letterbox by her neighbours.

`Oh, that's nice,' she said as she read the card from the little old lady across the way, that she did a blue rinse for once a month. She'd write a card out after lunch and take it around, and see if there was anything she needed before the shops shut for Christmas.

She was hanging the cards on a string across the wall, when she felt something in her chest. Oh God, don't say she was having palpitations from all the stress and worry, that's all she needed, Christmas in hospital.

Then she heard it, buzzing in her head, a grinding, wheezing sound that sounded like something was trying to tear a hole in the very air itself. She knew that sound, and oh God how it filled her heart with hope and joy.

`ROSE!' she said as she ran for the door. She ran along the walkway and took the stairs two at a time down to the street, where she pushed through the security door and started searching for the source of that sound.

Clancy's Garage, Powell Estate.

Christmas Eve 2006.

Mickey, Stevo and John, were working the morning, just to deal with emergency repairs and breakdowns before they closed for the Christmas holiday and headed down to the pub for a Christmas drink. The radio was covered with a token piece of tinsel, and Slade were belting out “Merry Christmas Everybody”.

John was trying to persuade a seized brake calliper to cooperate, by whacking it with a hammer, when Mickey felt it in his chest. He couldn't have heard it, not with all the noise in the workshop. And it was like last time, when Rose came back on her own, he'd felt it then, as though his senses were finely tuned to that particular sound.

`Hey, turn that down. Turn it off, Stevo. Turn that off! John, shut up!' When the workshop went quiet, he could hear it, the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS, bending its way through time and space. He took off at a gallop in the direction of Bucknall House.

Jackie ran through the square, searching the sky, her heart soaring as the noise became more distinct. She saw Mickey run into the square. `MICKEY!' she shouted.

`Jackie, it's the TARDIS!' he told her, just in case she hadn't recognised that unmistakable sound.

She was too excited to give him one of her usual sarcastic responses. `I know, I know, I heard it. She's alive, Mickey. I said so, didn't I? She's alive!' she said, pulling on his arm to get his attention.

He put his hand up in a shushing motion, still looking upwards. `Just shut up a minute,' he said trying to localise the sound.

`Well, where is it then?' she asked him, desperate for it to appear and bring her daughter home . . . for Christmas.

Suddenly, above them, the sky seemed to distort, as though a pebble had been dropped into a pool. A familiar, wooden blue box came through the distortion and bounced off the wall of the flats in front of them. It ricocheted off another block of flats, and shot over their heads, making them dive for the floor. It narrowly avoided flattening a post office van, before ploughing into a couple of metal wheelie bins and coming to rest.

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`And we never stopped, did we?' The spikey haired man who was apparently the Doctor asked her. `All across the universe. Running, running, running,' he said as he ran around the console, adjusting the controls.

`One time we had to hop. Do you remember? Hopping for our lives?' He hopped madly up and down on the spot as Rose stood with her back against a coral pillar, watching him cautiously.

`Yeah? All that hopping? Remember hopping for your life? Yeah?! Hop? With the . . .' He was going to say “power boots”, but the look of uncertainty on Rose's face stopped him. `No?'

`Can you change back?' she asked hopefully.

`Do you want me to?'

`Yeah.' Oh she SO wanted this lunatic to change back into her sensible Doctor.

`Oh,' he said sheepishly.

`Can you?'

`No,' he said disappointedly, briefly glancing down at the floor. `Do you want to leave?' he asked sadly.

`Do you want me to leave?' she asked uncertainly, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice.

`No!' he exclaimed quickly. `But . . . your choice . . . if you want to go home . . .' He wanted her to stay with him, but he could see how upset she was. He wasn't sure she would accept him in his new body.

He went to the console again. `Cancel Barcelona. Change to . . . London . . . the Powell Estate . . . ah . . . let's say the 24th of December.' He looked up at Rose `Consider it a Christmas present.'

Rose edged slowly closer the console.

`There,' he said as he stepped back, his arms tucked under his armpits in an almost defensive manner.

Rose looked at him, then back at the console. The TARDIS shuddered as it changed direction. `I'm going home?'

`Up to you. Back to your mum . . . it's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast.' He stopped and thought about it. `No, Christmas! Turkey! Although . . . having met your mother . . . nut loaf would be more appropriate.'

Rose looked down quickly, to hide a smile. The Doctor and her mum had never really got on.

`Was that a smile?' he asked teasingly.

`No,' she lied.

`That was a smile . . .' he said knowingly.

`No it wasn't.'

`You smiled . . .'

`No I didn't.'

`Oh, come on, all I did was change, I didn't . . . gargh!' He suddenly gagged as the TARDIS shuddered.

Rose looked at him questioningly. `What?'

`I said I didn't . . .' It happened again, more violently. He made nasty retching noise. `Uh oh.'

Rose edged cautiously around the console. `Er... is you all right?'

Golden Artron energy issued from the Doctor's mouth. `What's that?' Rose asked with concern.

`Oh . . . the change is going a bit wrong and all . . . gargh.' He gagged again and fell to his knees, his face contorted.

`Look . . . maybe we should go back. Let's go and find Captain Jack, he'd know what to do,' Rose suggested.

`Gargh, he's busy! He's got plenty to do rebuilding the Earth!'

A lever on the console suddenly caught his eye `I haven't used this one in years.'

He flicked the lever and the TARDIS shuddered violently, nearly knocking them off their feet.

`What're you doing?!' asked Rose with a hint of panic.

`Putting on a bit of speed!' he said manically. `That's it!' He turned more knobs while Rose tried to maintain a more secure grip on the console.

`My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! That's a girl!' he said, looking and sounding crazy. `Faster! Wanna to break the time limit?!'

`STOP IT!' she shouted at him, her fear making her angry.

`Ah, don't be so dull,' he said to her as though she was a party pooper. `Let's have a bit of fun! Let's rip through that Vortex!' He thrust his arm into the air.

When he saw the scared look on her face, he seemed to gain some control of himself. `The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself,' he explained, and then grimaced in pain. `Ah, my head . . .' He bent forward and leant on the console, before springing up again and acting like a maniac.

`Faster! Let's open those engines!' he laughed.

Rose heard a bell ringing and looked around in alarm. `What's that?'

Suddenly, he was in her face beside her. `We're gonna crash land!' he laughed.

Oh God, this man has the audacity to call himself the Doctor. Her Doctor would never knowingly put her at risk like this. `Well then, do something!' she admonished.

`Too late! Out of control!' he giggled. `Oh, I love it! Hot dawg!' he said as he leaped into the air.

`You're gonna kill us!' Rose shouted in fear.

`Hold on tight, here we go!' he grinned. `Christmas Eve . . .!'

The man who called himself the Doctor, held on tight to the console as the TARDIS hit something; Rose was thrown across the room and landed heavily against a coral strut, which winded her.

`Yeehah!' the spiky haired man shouted.

Before Rose could recover, there was another impact, and Rose was thrown heavily to the floor, where she rolled around, dazed and confused, as the TARDIS shuddered to a halt.

`Are you all right?' he called over to her in concern.

`Urrgh . . . yeah,' she gasped. `I think so.'

As soon as he heard that she was all right, he was all manic again, running down the ramp to the door.

`Here we are then, London. Earth. The Solar System. We did it.' He stepped out of the TARDIS and saw two familiar, if puzzled, faces.

`Jackie. Mickey. Blimey! No, no, no, no, hold on. Wait there. I've got something to say. There was something I had to tell you, something important. What was it? No, hold on, hold on. Hold on, shush, shush, shush, shush. Oh, I know! Merry Christmas!' With his important message delivered, he collapsed into Mickey's arms.

Rose shook her head and, using the handrail, managed to pull herself to her feet. She felt as though she'd been hit by a truck. She looked around the console room. `Oh God, where's he gone?' she asked herself. She stumbled down the ramp, took a deep breath, and stepped outside.

She could see the man lying on the ground. `What happened? Is he all right?'

`I don't know, he just keeled over,' Mickey said looking up at her. `But who is he? Where's the Doctor?'

`That's him, right in front of you. That's the Doctor.'

Jackie looked at her daughter in confusion, the delight at seeing her alive, momentarily forgotten. `What do you mean, that's the Doctor . . .? Doctor who?'

The End