Chapter Text
“How can she be Rose Tyler?” Yaz gestured wildly towards where Susi was lying on the Tardis floor. They’d limped their way onboard, carrying Susi and Graham over their shoulders, and now with the Okay that they were safe, Yaz felt comfortable confronting the Doctor. “We’ve met Rose, and Susi looks nothing like her!”
“She must have regenerated.” The Doctor murmured, sitting about a meter from where Susi… Rose was. She would have sat closer, but the Tardis wouldn’t let her. Every time she tried to reach out, it sent a hum of electricity through her body. “Remember when I said I used to be a white-haired Scotsman? Well… Rose must’ve…” Rose… The Doctor trailed off.
“You said Rose was human!” Yaz’s whole body was practically vibrating with tension.
The Doctor didn’t say anything for a good long while before she stood. She moved slowly, like it hurt down in her bones. “She used to be.”
“Used to be-?”
“Is she gonna be okay?” Graham interrupted. “What’s she doing?”
“Healing coma.” The Doctor whispered. “Something Time Lords can do when we are severely injured, but not enough to need to regenerate. Our body temperatures drop below freezing and our heart rates will-“ She realized she was rambling and shut up.
“You can become a Time Lord?” Yaz asked, staring at the Doctor. Her arms were folded, but her heart was in her eyes.
The Doctor couldn’t look at her. “No. It was a one-time deal. The circumstances in which Rose became a Time Lord would be impossible to replicate. And even the way it was… She barely survived it at all.” She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Yaz.”
———
It had been hours with no sign of Rose waking. The group had eventually calmed down, though maybe that was the wrong word. It was more like they were exhausted from the events that had gone on earlier. Graham had gotten the all-clear from the Tardis’s scanners, and he’d gone to bed, as well as Ryan, who still wanted to keep an eye on his grandad and make sure that he was really okay.
Yaz had left to take a shower and change into clothes that weren’t covered in blood, and when she came back to the control room, the Doctor was still there, continuing her vigil. Yaz watched for a while before giving in. “Okay.” She said, settling next to where the Doctor stood leaning against one of the rails. “I’m not mad.” The Doctor gave her a look. “I’m not! Really. If you think that Susi is Rose then… Well, can you just explain it to me how that’s possible? Cause you kind of lead me to believe that she was human and that she died a long time ago.”
“I didn’t lie to you on purpose.” The Doctor said, rubbing at her neck. “She was human when I met her. One day, things were looking pretty grim and I had to send her away to keep her safe. Should’ve known nothing would stop her…” She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy one. “She cracked open the Tardis and looked into the Time Vortex. It brought her back to me but… It was killing her. You can’t have that kind of power without consequences. I near died taking it out of her. Thousand years later, I still don’t know how I survived it.
…Maybe it’s cause I didn’t get all of it out of her. I missed something, and that little piece of the Time Vortex grew and grew, slowly turning her into a Time Lord. But then she died.” For a second, the Doctor’s eyes looked hollow. “She was able to regenerate but It was before she could make the transition all the way, she got stuck halfway, and… I found out you can’t be human and Time Lord. It kills you. She would have died, and it would have been permanent. I… the person I used to be… He couldn’t stand the thought of her dying, so he… I stole her memories and all the bits of her that were Time Lord and trapped them in a locket, and then put her in an alternate universe where she should have been safe. She should have lived a human life, the one that she was always meant to have.”
Yaz stared. “Doctor…”
She gave a bitter smile. “I know. After what I did, she might want to kill me. Can’t say I’d blame her.”
A voice spoke up from the other side of the control room. “Kill you? No.” They both turned, and Susi looked at the Doctor with eyes that Yaz didn’t recognize. Rose Tyler’s eyes. “But we do need to talk.”
———
Rose stood inside her old room, stretching her neck. Her body still hurt from the Grief Beast’s attack, but she could tell that the damage was repairing itself. That said, she was perfectly fine enough to take a walk around.
Maybe it was the regeneration, or maybe it was that she had been living an alternate life rather than taking time to adjust to the new person she’d become, but it felt almost like there were two people inside of her. Rose Tyler, the Time Lord with so much anger and grief and pain. And Susi, a scared human with no idea who she was.
When she looked at the Doctor, she saw both with Rose Tyler’s eyes and Susi’s. Her memories of the Doctor when she was Susi felt more like Deja Vu or a dream then something she had actually experienced. “Does it go away?” She asked abruptly, the first thing she had actually said to the Doctor since they’d gone away to talk. “The feeling like I’m two different people?”
The Doctor startled. “Eventually. Yeah, the person you were and the person you are now will come to terms with each other. In my experience it’s easier to adjust if you don’t have any regrets from the life before.”
Rose’s voice got dark. “Any regrets?” She asked.
“More than I can count.” The Doctor looked her right in her eyes. “Rose… I have spent the last thousand years regretting what I did to you, I would never do anything like that again, I swear-“
Rose held up a hand. “Just… tell me you’re sorry.”
“I am. I’m sorry.”
She put her hand on the Doctor’s face. Thousands of years and who knows how many lives separated them, but the second the skin of her hand touched the Doctor’s face… It all melted away. For a moment, she was the spunky human kid she’d been when she first met the Doctor.
Rose broke into the most wonderful smile, accepting that honest regret completely. “Okay.”
The Doctor was bowled over by this, but before she could even blink Rose had pulled her into her arms. The Doctor closed her eyes, melting into the embrace. “Are you sure?” She asked, almost afraid to ruin it all, but she had to know.
Rose didn’t pull back, so the Doctor felt her let out a laugh. “I’ve had a long time to be angry with you, Doctor. Over a hundred years, or a few thousand if your counting the time I spent in the void-“ The Doctor tried to pull back at that in confusion, but Rose held tight. “One day I’ll tell you about it. About how I got back, and the things I’ve done since.” She finally let the Doctor go. “I’m not the same girl you used to know, and it isn’t just regeneration. You might not like the person I’ve become.”
The Doctor looked up into Rose’s eyes. She remembered that she had once been scared of what Susi might have been before loosing her memories. Judging by the look in Rose’s eyes, the darkness, the rage… Maybe she was right to be worried. The Doctor whispered. “You were there for me when I was at my darkest. I’ll be here for you at yours.”
———
Rose had been loathe to cut the conversation short, but they could have spent a thousand years talking, and the one person who she really needed to talk to didn’t have a thousand years to wait.
She was almost surprised that the door was open, or even that she could have found it at all. “Yaz?” She asked, giving a light knock on the door frame. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” The voice responded, though Rose couldn’t tell exactly how Yaz felt.
She very slowly opened it all the way, and she saw Yaz sitting down at the long couch, a book in her lap that she didn’t look like she was actually reading at all. “Bad Wolf Conspiracy,” Yaz said, tapping the title. “Who’d have known? Well, you would, I suppose.” Right, that might have been a little bitter. “I don’t know what to call you. Susi? Rose? …Was it all a lie then? She just someone you made up?”
Rose’s hearts broke a little. “It wasn’t a lie. Susi, everything she… I said. It was real. Susi is as much me as Rose Tyler is.”
Yaz finally looked up at her, and seeing Rose’s face and watching her friends face look back at her… She deflated. “This is just so weird for me.” She finally said, exasperated. Rose sat down on the couch next to her. “I always thought of Rose Tyler as this sort of idealized martyr that the Doctor used to be in love with… Only to find out that she’s been living inside of my friend’s head this whole time. It’s bonkers.”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have lied to you on purpose.”
“It’s just…” Yaz gave a humorless laugh. “Your the love of my life’s love of her life…”
“I’m not going to ask her to choose me.” Rose said abruptly. “It’s been so long, I don’t even know if it’s possible for us to start over again. Or if I want us to. And believe it or not Yaz, I care about you, too.”
Yaz stared. “I believe you.” She sighed. “I’m not gonna ask her to make a choice, either. Doesn’t seem fair.”
Rose bumped her shoulder into Yaz’s. “Still friends?”
Yaz bumped back. “Still friends.”
———
Rose held the gun in her hands, staring down at the creature with a snarl. “I’m tired of things whose names end in ‘beast’ trying to kill me.”
It hadn’t been their first adventure since finding out that Susi was Rose, but they’d still been testing each other, trying to see how dynamics had changed. Rose was having a hard time dealing with the way the others tended to stare at her. It irked her, which was especially weird, since she knew the person she’d been wouldn’t have been bothered by it. So, when the gang had split up to look around, she’d volunteered to go on her own.
Rose wasn’t an amateur, she’d found the monster immediately.
Another god-forsaken Time Beast.
It snarled back at her, it’s voice long since past human enough to be understood. Rose pointed the blaster right at the center of the things swirling mass. “I don’t want to kill you, you don’t want to die. You get one chance. Stop hurting people, get on with your business, or I will stop you.” It shrieked again, and she pulled the switch, listening to the hum of the blaster as it charged up. “You may think you can’t be killed, but I’ve killed another Time Beast before. Read the Vortex, you’ll know I’m telling you the truth. Please.”
There was a pause as the Time Beast looked, searching the Time Vortex for it’s lost brother. Of course, there was nothing for it to find. It quailed, giving something equivalent to a nod. It would stop.
Rose closed her eyes and let out a breath of relief. She really truly didn’t want to kill it. She opened her eyes, getting ready to lower the gun…
But that’s not what the Doctor saw when she came into the room. All she saw was a terrified creature, and Rose, with her gun pointed straight at it. “Rose!” She shouted, and both of them turned to look at her as she ran into the room. “Stop!”
Rose raised an eyebrow, and the Time Beast disappeared. She gave the Doctor an impassive look. “What? It had surrendered. I wasn’t gonna hurt it.”
She came to a halt, her mouth gaped open in horror. “You’re not Rose. You can’t be. Rose would never have pointed a gun-“
“Oh don’t act so sanctimonious!” Rose snapped. “As if you have never used a gun. You forget, Doctor, I know you!”
And just like that, they were in a proper fight. Didn’t even notice the rest of the group enter the room, though they stayed back, almost afraid of these two beings, absolutely alien in their anger.
“I’ve changed, Rose, for the better! You were part of what changed me, and what about you, what the hell have you changed into? Who are you!”
Rose’s anger flared. “This is who I am, right here, right now, all right?! This is me!” She stepped forward, towering over the Doctor, who looked up into her eyes, defiantly. Yaz, all of a sudden very aware of the blaster that was still in Rose’s hands, moved forward, her heart beating out of her chest. “I am who you made me, remember? ‘You take ordinary people and you turn them into weapons.’” She dropped the blaster and it clanged loudly on the floor.
The Doctor looked like she’d been slapped. Rose’s voice didn’t gentle, but her hands were as she put them on either side of the Doctor’s face. “You want to know who I am?”
Yaz’s stomach dropped. She was sure she was about to watch the woman she loved kiss another, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
But they didn’t kiss. Rose pressed her forehead against the Doctor’s. And for a moment, the Universe slowed.
———
———
———
Run!
And what about you, Doctor? Who are you turning into?
I want you safe, My Doctor. Protected from the False god.
My head, it’s killing me.
How long did you know that you were changing, Rose?
———
How long are you gonna stay with me?
Forever.
———
I’ll figure out how to get back. I’ll do it, I’ve got hundreds of years to figure it out.
But you can survive, right? You can live indefinitely with one heart.
Yes, but it hurts. More than you could possibly imagine.
———
You need to warn the Doctor. Just two words. Bad Wolf.
———
No, no. I just got you back.
How many have died in your name?
You can’t start human and get stuck halfway without consequences,
I have a way to save you, a way to save both of you.
But you’ll have to forget me.
———
I think I want to be a Doctor.
———
very very slowly, she started to pry the locket apart…
She looked at John, and all she could think was that it was the wrong face.
She’d forgotten something about herself.
I am the what?
Bad Wolf.
It wasn’t your choice to make!
———
Thousands of years in the void. The yawning endlessness, alone.
———
I need your face. It makes a statement. Do I have your permission?
Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?
———
It’s time to go home, Rose Tyler.
Do you want him snuffed out of existence entirely, nothing but a memory for you to look back on? Would that fill your belly with revenge, World-Killer?
Do not let the Doctor see you until then.
It’s in your name, Bad Wolf.
———
Would have visited you if I could, trust me.
What did he do?
I’ve got a party to attend.
Maybe it’s time you went home.
I bet you’re gonna have a really great year.
You leave broken people behind everywhere you go.
I made the choice, because no one else could. It’s what I always do! Make the choice!
———
Burning on the pyre.
———
What happened to the boy?
If you don’t stop, I will stop you.
All moments existing as one perfect point.
I see your future, I know what you desire. The Doctor. You will die before the Doctor ever sees you again. They will not even recognize your corpse.
The better to eat you with my dear.
I am one of the most dangerous weapons in the universe, you are another.
———
The bad wolf must die.
———
I’m going to see the Doctor again.
———
———
———
The Doctor pulled away. Rose’s memories swimming around her head. They hurt. An actual physical pain, rattling around her skull. Her right heart struggled to beat. Burning in her legs. A sharp stabbing in her chest. She hadn’t just given her memories, she’d given her feelings.
Beauty. Loneliness. Divinity. Betrayal. Hatred. Love. Pain.
Pain pain pain pain.
The Doctor opened her eyes, she could feel snot and tears running down her face, and she tasted salt on her lips. The tears that Time Lords generated didn’t taste like salt. These were human.
Rose was staring down at her, and the Doctor almost laughed. Things change. She lifted her arms and put her hands on Rose’s face, mirroring what Rose had done. A thousand years ago, she was so full of grief and anger, and a silly pink and yellow human, full of kindness and courage had saved her from herself. Now the situations were reversed.
She would save Rose, no matter the cost. “We change,” The Doctor whispered.
Those cold dark eyes widened for a moment. And her voice was hoarse, like she’d forgotten how to speak. “But feelings stay.”
———
Yaz was walking side-by-side with Rose down a hallway that was pulsing a very gentle blue colour. It had been nearly three months since Rose had ‘come back’, and after the debacle with the Time Beast, the rest of the gang were very careful to make sure that there was at least one of them with her whenever they split up to take a look around. Tempers may have cooled, but none of them could forget the way it felt when they realized that Rose and the Doctor weren’t just anatomically different, that they actually were alien.
And to be honest, none of them wanted to be reminded of it again. So they kept a watchful eye on both of them.
Despite all of this, Yaz and Rose were still actually maintaining a good friendship. Yaz had been so very terrified that things would change between her and the Doctor, but Rose had kept her promise. She hadn’t asked the Doctor to choose her.
Yaz loved her dearly for that.
“What do you think this place is?” Yaz asked, running her fingers along the wall. The light shimmered and changed as her hand brushed it, like it was responding to her body temperature. “A space ship?”
“Maybe,” Rose said, and seeing what Yaz was doing, went to do the same. For her, the light didn’t change, which proved Yaz’s theory. Time Lords had a much lower body temperature than humans. “Though I don’t feel any engines going. So it’s either parked or decommissioned. Might be some sort of hospital.”
“Yeah, has that sort of feel, doesn’t it?” Yaz murmured. She spotted something ahead, maybe a door. “Rose,” She pointed, and they walked over to it. Just next to the door was a glass screen, glowing a steady blue, same as the walls. “It’s one of those hand-scanners. Think I should?”
Rose grinned. “The Doctor would.”
Yaz grinned back, but when she put her hand on the screen, nothing happened. “Nothin,” She stepped back. “You wanna have a go at it?”
“If it didn’t work for you, it probably won-“ Rose rolled her eyes as the door slid open. “Or it’ll just make a liar out of me. After you.” She gestured grandly, making Yaz giggle.
The room they stepped into looked like the waiting area of a hospital, minus the chairs. The lights were brighter in here, but not unbearable. On one end was another door, and on the same wall as it, was a massive window, like a viewing area. The two of the peeked through the window, but it was just another room, completely blank with no furniture or lights, only illuminated by the the room they were currently in. “Keep expecting something to pop up at me,” Yaz said, using the flashlight from her phone to try to get a better look at the other room. “But there’s nothing. Kinda boring.”
There was a sudden whooshing noise, and they both yelped, spinning around. Rose stepped in front of Yaz and whipped something out of her pocket and pointed it at what made the noise.
“Is that a banana?” Yaz asked, dumbfounded.
Rose’s nose was scrunched up in annoyance, but her cheeks were dark with an embarrassed blush. She shoved it back into her coat. “Yes it is. I’m so gonna get her for that.”
“What?”
Rose opened her mouth to explain, but the alien that had scared them beat her to it. “Bananas are good,” It said, it’s voice light and airy with almost a welsh-sounding accent. “Good source of potassium.”
Yaz saw Rose’s shoulders tense, but she couldn’t understand why. The alien that stood in front of them was anything but threatening. It was bald, it’s skin a pale lavender, to match the eyes, which were human except for their colour. It’s face and body were otherwise human, and despite the fact that it was clad elegantly in what looked like a ballgown, it radiated calm, almost maternal vibes.
Yaz thought belatedly as it approached them, that maybe the appearance was some sort of trap to make people unwary, but it’s voice was just as kind as it’s appearance when it spoke again. “Hello, my name is Faltencio of the Yvel Trosk. Are you here to help us?”
“Help with what, exactly?” Yaz asked.
Faltencio tilted it’s head at her and gave her a kind, if confused, smile. “Did you not get our distress signal? I thought that is why you are here.” It’s words were stilted, the way you talk when you’re speaking a language that you don’t quite know.
Yaz and Rose exchanged a look, and Rose relaxed almost imperceptibly. That would explain why the Tardis had been drawn to this strange place. It could never resist a good old-fashioned call for help. “How can we help?” Yaz asked. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”
The alien sighed, and walked past them, towards the observation window for the other room. “There are few of us left. Our planet, Trosk, was rapidly becoming over populated, so my people, the Yvel, volunteered to take this ship and seek out another planet that we could survive on. But we have been on this mission for nearly two hundred years without finding a habitable planet. Our power supplies have dwindled to nearly nothing.” It looked at them. “Sacrifices have been made.”
All of the tension that had left Rose’s body promptly returned. “What kind of sacrifices?”
“We need a new power supply in order to continue,” Faltencio said, ignoring Rose. “Luckily you have brought one to us. And for that, we thank you.”
“The Tardis?” Yaz asked, horrified. But even as the words left her mouth, she remembered that the Tardis was impenetrable. They wouldn’t have been able to get to her power source if they tried for a thousand years.
“No,” It’s eyes turned to Rose. “You.”
All of a sudden, the lights in the other room flickered on. Yaz grabbed Rose’s hand as they both looked through the window. It was just a blank white room, nothing particularly interesting about it.
Except for the man.
“No,” Rose whispered. And when Yaz turned to look at her, it wasn’t the Rose she was friends with, it was the one she’d first met. Short, blonde. An incredible amount of fear and pain in her face. She surged forward, towards the door, and Yaz narrowly caught her before she could grab the handle, which hadn’t been there before. “Doctor?” She said, her voice trembling, just narrowly not a shout.
“Doctor?” Yaz asked, looking up at the man. He seemed to have noticed them at the same time that they had seen him.
“Rose!” He rushed the door on the other side, pulling something from his pocket. When it caught the light, it was silver and blue and… Yaz’s breath left her chest. It looked like a Sonic. The Doctor’s Sonic. Except… He was tall, with bright blue eyes, big nose, even bigger ears.
Yaz was aware of regeneration, knew that Rose had done it, that the Doctor had done it. But this was the first time she’d had to deal with the reality of what it meant.
This was a Doctor she’d never known.
“Doctor!” Rose struggled against Yaz’s grasp, desperately trying to get to the door. Had it been the Rose that Yaz was used to, Yaz wouldn’t have been able to hold her back, as her new regeneration was a good eight centimeters taller than Yaz, and designed to be a fighter. But this other Rose, the one in her arms was short and soft. And crying, with mascara lines trailing down her cheeks.
“Rose!” Yaz shouted. “Stop it! He can’t be real, you know the Doctor! Okay, she’s changed since then, she’s the real Doctor.”
“But this could be real,” Faltencio whispered from behind them, and Yaz turned to look. “You could let her live here, live out her endless years with this Doctor that she first loved, happy. You could let her go, and have your Doctor all to yourself. Is that not what you desire?”
Yaz paled. “Why are you doing this?”
“We were visited…” It’s head tilted, and it stared intensely at the struggling woman in Yaz’s arms. “By a Time Beast… One who has survived her. It informed us that as she once came in contact with the Time Vortex, which since it is eternal and all encompassing, she will always have a part of the Time Vortex inside her. Which means that she will act as a channel to the greatest source of power in this universe, allowing us to utilize her to power our ship for eons…”
“No.” Yaz whispered.
“Do you not want your love? Unburdened by memories of past heartaches?” The alien tilted its head, finally looking at her. “You could hold the Doctor’s heart.”
Yaz’s grip loosened, just for a second, as she looked at the other Doctor. He was fumbling with the sonic, looking at Rose through the glass, heart in his eyes. It was so easy to believe that he was real. That one second was enough, and Rose darted forward, her hand on the handle, turning it…
But Yaz swept her into her arms, dragging her backward and away. “No, no no.” Rose cried, beating her fists against Yaz as she was pulled out of the room. “I can’t leave him! I’m not leaving him!”
But Yaz ignored her cries, ignored the cries of the illusion as he called out for Rose. She closed her eyes, and she felt the door shut behind them. Only once she was sure it was safe did she open them again, and there was her Rose, the same as she was before, except she was sobbing, clutching onto Yaz’s jacket.
She started to collapse, and Yaz slowed her, so they slid down the wall together. “Shh,” Yaz whispered, smoothing down Rose’s dark hair as Rose cried into her neck. “It’s gonna be okay… I’m here. It’s all right.” Even as she said that, she wasn’t quite sure. Faltencio was still somewhere in that other room, and who knows how many other allies she had on this ship. They were far from out of danger.
“Yaz? Rose?” Ryan’s voice called out, and when Yaz turned, she saw him, Graham, and the Doctor sprinting towards them. “What happened?”
Yaz stood up, taking Rose with her. “Nothing. We need to get out of here.” She met the Doctor’s eyes. “Now.”
———
Once on board the Tardis, Rose crossed her arms, once again cool and collected, and looked at the Doctor. “I need to see Jack.”
Her voice was so stern that it brooked no argument, and no one said anything as the Tardis crashed through time and space, or even once it landed. “Do you want us to come with you?” Graham asked finally as she stepped out of the door.
She turned and gave them all an unreadable smile. “No, this is a conversation I need to have alone. But thank you.”
———
Rose walked down the hallway leading to the heart of Torchwood, the memories of who she was long ago, and the memories of Susi, walked with her. She looked through their eyes as much as her own as she stepped through the building, ignoring the techs that she didn’t know, who skittered out of her way.
Jack must have done a lot of hiring after she had left, she thought.
When the big room opened up in front of her, she scanned the room, took in faces that she recognized and ones that she didn’t. “Where is he?” She asked one that she knew, but at the wary stare in his eyes, she belatedly remembered that he wouldn’t know her new face. “Wyatt?” She added, raising her eyebrows at him.
It took him a second. “Rose?” He asked, his eyes flickering down to the watch on her wrist, and a big grin split his face. “Hey, long time no see, kid. Like the new face, it looks good on you.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Guys, simmer down, it’s Rose!” Wyatt announced happily to the others, who had formed a loose circle around them, a few with hands on their weapons. The ones that had known her before stepped down immediately, the other ones took a bit longer.
“Nice to see you, too, Wyatt.” She smiled back. “How long’s it been?”
“Bout two years,” He said after thinking about it. “Not all that long, really. But… Well, you’re not here for me are ya? Jack’ll be back in just a bit. Went out to grab everybody coffees. Why don’t you wait in his office for him? I know he’ll be happy to see you.”
“Right,” She said, giving him a nod before making her way to Jack’s office. It was a lot less organized then she remembered, filled with odd knick knacks that hadn’t been there before, his ‘active mission’ pile was stacked up on his desk so high that it nearly reached the top of her head. Idly, she leafed through a couple of the open files on his desk, noting that alien and other supernatural appearances had skyrocketed in the last few years.
“Hey,” A voice said from behind, and Rose spun. Jack leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed. “Think you can just come in here and rummage through classified information?” His voice was stern, but Rose saw the corner of his mouth twitch just a little bit.
“Nice to see you too, Jack.” Rose said, a big smile on her face.
After a beat, Jack grinned back, and with a laugh, they threw themselves at each other in a massive, spinning hug. “Welcome home, Miss Tyler.” He said, letting her go so he could have a good look at her. “Didn’t get a chance to say the last time I saw you, but I love the new look. Tall dark and dangerous.” He wiggled his eyebrows, making her giggle. “Sexy. How’d it go with the Doctor?”
“Decent,” Rose sat in the Captain’s chair and spun around in it. “Once I got my memories back, thank you for that by the way, here’s your watch.” She took it off and handed it to him. “But it’s been weird, for one, the Doctor doesn’t really appreciate the new me’s philosophy of do-what-needs-to-be-done,” Jack gave a nod. He was well familiar with the Doctor’s self-righteous tendencies. “Also, she’s completely smitten with Yaz. You remember her?”
He grinned. “Yep, I remember. You got yourself in a love triangle?”
“No,” Rose shook her head. “We’re adults. We’re not doing that sort of thing. Besides, Yaz is my friend.”
“Ah. I remember, you and the Doctor used to call each other ‘friends’.”
“Oh don’t go there,” She warned, shaking her finger at him.
“Hard not being the sole object of the Doctor’s affections, yeah?”
“Mm. It’s definitely different.” She paused. “But enough about me, what’s been going on with you?”
He grinned. “Well, since you up and left me on my own in the middle of an alien invasion, we’ve been up to our eyeballs in sightings, both real and fake. I’ve had a hell of a time sorting between kids with weather balloons and actual contact. Plus now we’re the officially unofficial delegates between the UK and the Galgamorians, so I’ve had to bring on a whole crew of more ‘diplomatic’ types.”
“Ah. The kind who’ve never thrown a punch in their lives, let alone shot a blaster?”
“Training’s been it’s own special circle of hell.”
Rose laughed, but suddenly remembered what she had come here to do, and her face became serious. “Unfortunately Jack, I didn’t come here just to catch up.” She stood up and closed the door so they were alone without any prying eyes. “We need to talk.”
———
Rose was grim when she stepped back on board the Tardis, and she met the eyes of the rest of the gang. “You alright?” Ryan asked, looking like he was worried for her.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“What’d you want to talk to him about?” Graham asked, and the Doctor shot him a warning look, and opened her mouth like she was gonna say something-
“No, it’s fine.” Rose held up her hand. “It’s just, that the Yvel Trosk said something that made me think. It said that since I once accessed the Time Vortex, and since every single moment is always happening in the Time Vortex, I thought that maybe that would mean that I’m pretty much always accessing the Time Vortex. Why I can kill Time Beasts.” For a brief second, she met the Doctor’s eyes, but she couldn’t hold the gaze for long. “But… It would also mean that anything I did when I had the Time Vortex swimming in my head, I could do again.”
“Oh,” The Doctor whispered, understanding where she was going.
“And if I know how to do something, I could undo it, too.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Which means… I had to tell Jack that I knew how to fix him.”
“Did he…” The Doctor swallowed. “Did he ask you to make him mortal again?”
The mask cracked, and Rose slowly smiled until it lit up her eyes. “He told me that, and I’m quoting him on this, he ‘once said I was worth dying for, and that I’m also worth living for’. At least for now.” It was maybe, the Doctor thought, the first time she had seen Rose so happy since they had reunited. “But if he ever finds someone that he would like to age for, and die with, I’ll be here for him.”
“But…” Rose scuffed the floor with her boot. The Tardis sent her a rush of… Something supportive through her. “I can also make someone immortal. Like what I did with Jack the first time, except now it would be on purpose.”
A pin drop could have been heard.
“Not me, eh?” Graham said. “No offense, but I’d like to see Grace again, one day.”
Before Rose could say anything, Ryan piped up. “Me either. ’s just not something I’ve ever wanted.”
Rose nodded at them and smiled. But when she turned to Yaz, she wasn’t looking at her, she was looking at the Doctor. “Doctor?” Yaz asked.
The Doctor wasn’t looking at her, instead she met Rose’s eyes, and her gaze was grim. Rose could tell she didn’t really approve of this, changing fate. But, “It’s not my decision, Yaz.” She said, still looking at Rose. “It’s yours.”
Yaz turned, staring at Rose with half-wild eyes, suddenly overwhelmed. “I can’t- I need to think about this.”
“Take your time.” Rose said gently. “You’ve literally got all the time in the world.”
———
Rose sat in her room, leafing through her little red book. Bad Wolf. She smiled. She could hardly believe it, that a thousand years ago the Tardis had given her her future. The gold gallifreyan script translated in front of her eyes as easy as if she were splitting warm butter with a knife, as opposed to when it had refused her because part of her was still human.
It was a detailed history of the Time Lords, going farther back than Rose would think their memories could have, to the origins of their god, how they built their first cities. Rose was inclined to believe that the book was not actually written by the Time Lords, but rather by the Tardis.
Abruptly, she put the book down and slumped down against one of the bed poles until she was sitting on the floor. “And what do you think of this?” She asked, patting the floor.
A rush of emotions and all sorts of feelings hit her, shooting up through her hand like she’d touched something electrically charged. Affection, worry, friendship. Love. Bad Wolf. The Tardis whispered, and the door flung open.
Rose stood up, staring at the door. Through her feet, the Tardis urged her to move, showing her exactly where it wanted her to go. She may have hesitated a bit, but she started walking.
Slowly, as she moved down the corridor, the walls changed, peeling away like layers of paint, until it was a Tardis she recognized. Rough walls like sandpaper, glowing lights spaced evenly between pillars sticking up at an angle to the high ceiling. Rather than a solid floor, it was metal, with enough holes in it that she could see wires and circuitry running underneath it.
Rose’s heart was in her throat. This was the same Tardis that she had first stepped onto. Eventually, when the hallways started to split, she knew exactly where to go, muscle memory dragging her through the endless labyrinth.
Finally, she stood outside just a regular looking brown door, the kind you’d see in any normal persons flat. She closed her eyes, opened the door, and waited until she was inside until she opened them again.
Her eyes trained on the ground, she slid against the door until she was sitting against it, cross legged. The room was hardly more than a meter squared, with a ceiling that, she knew if she looked, would stretch up farther than she could see.
Finally, she trained her gaze upwards, until she was looking directly into her eyes in the mirror.
Except, it wasn't the face that she’d gotten used to. It was the face she’d worn when she was human, blonde, upturned nose, so so young. The mascara-ringed eyes blinked at her, once, twice, and the third time, they blinked gold. The gold expanded, covering her reflection like a mask until it formed something distinctly wolf-like. Like the jackal heads on Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The wolf’s head mask stared at her as much as she stared at it. Eventually she reached her hand up to her face, her real face, and pulled the mask off, watching it dissipate in her hands. When she looked up again, her new face had returned again.
She grinned, and the reflection grinned back, though its teeth may have been slightly more pointed. The better to eat you with. The Tardis whispered in her own voice, teasing her.
There was a knock at the door, and Rose stood up in a hurry, startled. When she opened it, she shielded the room from view with her body. She blinked, feeling the racing of her hearts slow just a little. “Yaz?”
Yaz stood in front of her nervously, tapping her foot and practically vibrating with nerves. “Can we talk?”
———
They were in Yaz’s room, which was very strange for Rose, as she’d never been there before. It wasn’t like other’s rooms were off-limits, but it felt different in the Tardis, more vulnerable than it would have if they weren’t on a sentient ship. The room reflected a lot of who Yaz was, deep navy walls, plain but well made decor, lots of pictures of Yaz and her family, and over the bed frame she’d pinned a small rainbow flag.
Rose loved it.
“Right,” Yaz said, pacing back and forth. Slowly, Rose sat down on Yaz’s bed, watching her. “What exactly would it mean, being immortal? Would I be like you and the Doctor, a Time Lord?”
“No,” Rose shook her head. “the whole Time Lord thing was a complete accident. Impossible to replicate. Besides, Time Lords aren’t actually immortal. You’d be like Jack, unable to age or die. You’ll become a fixed point in time.”
“And when a person is a fixed point? What happens then?”
“Any moment you step into the timeline, it becomes fixed. Like if you were to be there at… I dunno, Hiroshima, then the bombing of Hiroshima could never be changed, no matter what any time traveller tried to do.”
“Crap,” Yaz said, and she plopped herself down on the bed next to Rose. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”
“Yeah, it is.” Rose hesitated. “But… If you’re human, you’ve only got so many years to love the Doctor and for her to love you back. You could spend the rest of your life with her, but she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with you.” She very subtly wiped at her eyes. “And she deserves to spend her many years with someone like you. Kind and good.”
Yaz stared. “Rose…”
“It’s true.” Rose smiled at her. “I remember, with Faltencio. You could have left me behind, but you didn’t. You’re amazing, Yaz.”
“So are you” Yaz put a hand on Rose’s cheek. “You’re my friend Rose, I love you.”
“‘love you, too, Yaz.” Rose grinned. But it slipped away as something dawned on her. “We change, but feelings stay.”
“What?”
Rose sprung up, excited. Now it was her that was pacing the room. “I’m dense! Of course! Yaz, once a Time Lord feels love for another, that love becomes an actual part of them. A Time Lord’s personality may change, but who they are as a person never does. We assumed that she would have to make a choice, but she doesn’t!” She grinned. “She loves us.”
“So that means…” Yaz processed it for a second. “No one’ll be hurt. No one’s heart needs to be broken.” Her face broke out into a brilliant smile. “She’s gonna love that.” Yaz stood up. “I’ll be right back!”
Hardly more than a minute later, she came back into the room, the Doctor in tow, pulled by her hand, looking like she had no idea what was going on. “What is it?” She asked, positively startled.
“I’ve made my choice.” Yaz smiled. “Just this once, everyone is gonna get a happily ever after.” She turned to Rose. “Do it.”
———
———
———
Tucked away in the depths of the Tardis library, there’s a little red book, written in the ancient language of the Time Lords, from the very beginning of their species, but this book doesn’t have an end. Because so long as the Doctor, the Bad Wolf, and Yazmin Khan walk the Universe, the Time Lords will never die.