InsaneJournal

Who: Rose and Ten
What: Rose is fed up with the death. And does something completely stupid
When: Thursday evening
Where: TARDIS
Rating/Warnings: Character death so high
Status: Complete
Note: Although she may have wiped out the Toclafane, as has been pointed out by the mods it isn't for long. They'll be replaced quickly.


’Don’t be stupid’

It was the last thing she could read from Sirius. He had suffered as much heartbreak as she. She knew how close he was to Morgana, and then his brother. She couldn’t let him hurt anymore, she had to stop this. And it wasn’t just him.

She couldn’t sit back and watch this happen any more than it was. Too many people had lost their lives, their friends and family. The people they love. And none of them deserved it. Especially when, considering what she did to the Daleks, there was a way out. She just had to find a way to open the TARDIS console and when she saw K-9 sitting happily in the console room with her it was immediately obvious. He seemed to quite like her now, and the Doctor had pointed it out more than once. Something about him sometimes favouring those who traveled with him more than himself. So she quickly moved to kneel next to the dog.

“K-9 I need you to do something for me. Can you use anything you have to open the console? I need to do something, and your help will make it so much easier.”

K-9’s job wasn’t to ask questions, she knew that. He obeyed and protected, and even if he happened to know what could happen if she opened it, he didn’t have a place to refuse her. His loyalty to her was too strong and she knew that.

“Affirmative, Mistress.”

“Good dog,” she said with a small smile, running her hand over the metal before pressing her lips to him. “Thank you, K-9.”

She took a few steps back, taking a deep breath as she kept her eyes firmly on the console. She vaguely heard K-9 before a bright light shone into her eyes and she was filled completely. Once all the light had dimmed before her eyes and grew stronger behind, she turned and faced the door. Her head was already starting to ache she knew she didn’t have a lot of time. A few minutes at most, if what she knew from before and what she felt in her head was any indication. She was soon at the doors of the TARDIS, taking a few steps out. The world was falling apart around her and she could hear each scream as someone was killed, each laugh as the Toclafane rejoiced in the kill.

But this was one kill they could not claim for themselves. Time has had her hands on Rose for years.

She didn’t have to say anything before the skies began to clear as the millions of evil metal killers disintegrated. She could try. She could maybe get the vortex back into the TARDIS before it was too late. But she could feel it. It already was too late. She stumbled back a little, crying out as she grabbed onto the edge of the doorway. She didn’t have the strength but she knew this was likely to happen. She was well aware of it when she made her decision.

The Doctor had been far away, hidden in the depths of the TARDIS, at the end of a hundred looping corridors and doors, hidden away from the world as he worked with one of the Toclaphane shells Merlin and Adam had provided. He couldn’t kill them, couldn’t bring himself to kill them even if this version of humanity was cannibalized and mutated beyond recognition, stripped away to the very worst part of themselves.

He hated it. It broke his hearts a little every time he’d thought about it. And they’d taken the other Doctor. The Master hadn’t stopped them, and now he didn’t have the other him to fall back on, to help him fix it. He was left with this empty, hollow spot, knowing that a version of himself was lost somewhere, that people were hurting and dying and there was nothing he could do to make it stop.

No. That wasn’t true. There had to be something. Perhaps if he....

He felt it before he knew what it was. A surge of power that lifted the hairs on his arms and made every cell in his body hum. And something deeper, a shift in his very self that came with a change in time and space. The Vortex, he realized. The Time Vortex that stewed and pulsed and lived in the pit of the TARDIS. It was out. That raw power of Time was out and he’d felt something like this before, a long time ago, that feeling that something was very wrong with the Universe, that it was tipped too much in someone’s direction. Someone could do too much. What...

Rose.

The shell clattered to the floor and he was gone, long legs and trainered feet pounding on the metal ramps and staircases, flinging himself through doors. No. She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t. But it was Rose, so she would and there was nothing he could do and how had she even got in and why wasn’t he there with her?!

“Rose!” He was in the main console room, face drained of colour as he hung from the banister, staring across at her. Rose. His Rose. Her eyes were glowing, time shifting within the familiar stare as she gaped at him. He had to take it from her. It might be too late, but he had to try. “What have you done?” he breathed, before stumbling towards her. “Rose, what have you done?”

Rose immediately held her hand up. She knew what he would do if he got close to her and she wasn’t going to let it happen. She couldn’t let it happen. Last time he saved her his face changed, she killed him. And she wasn’t going to kill him again. She made her peace with the idea of death the moment she decided that she was going to go ahead with this.

“Don’t. You can’t, Doctor. I know it’s too late. I can feel everything screaming in my head, but they’re gone. It’s done.”

She wanted so much to ask him not to be angry at her but she knew in her heart that even doing something he was so against he could not be angry at her. The light was fading, strange that it was considering the burning only got more intense. Crying out, she felt her legs give way and the only thing she could grab was the Doctor. But she refused to let him take this away from her. She was not going to deprive this universe of two Doctor’s, God knows how much they need the one.

“It hurts,” she said quietly, the young girl that she really was cracking through her voice. She could feel hot tears running down her cheek before she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw as pain ran through her. But she had to look at him, she had to force her eyes to stay on him. “I love you, my Doctor.”

She was burning. It was too much for her human body, holding the vortex inside her. He knew what it felt like, to see every war, every death, each moment stretched out, things which could be, things which were fixed and things that could change. Things he saw every day but wouldn’t fit inside her. It was destroying her. And he couldn’t do anything about it because it was too late. He’d caught her in time before, before too much damage had been done. But now he couldn’t do anything for her. He was helpless, completely and utterly useless to do anything but hold her on the first ramp of the TARDIS, bathed in the glow from the cracked console with K-9 watching on.

“I love you,” he told her. “It’ll stop hurting. It’ll be okay soon.” He pressed his lips briefly to her forehead, holding them there so she wouldn’t see the pain that creased his brow and distorted his features. The Time Lord pulled back after a moment, looking over to the empty sky outside, then to the empty centre of the ship. The untamed power of time, waves of power which normally pulsed there were suddenly contained inside Rose’s slender frame. And they were killing her.

“You did amazingly,” he told her, forcing himself to look into her failing eyes. He’d lost so many people in his long life. He wished it would stop hurting. “You’re brilliant,” he assured the girl in his arms. ”I love you.”

The second he looked away she took the chance to curl her head closer to him. She just wanted to hold him but she hadn’t the strength. All she could do was search for his hand and link their fingers. A hand to hold, that had always been what they needed with each other. And now she was going to have to leave his hand empty. She shouldn’t be leaving him, but she took a slight comfort in knowing that the Doctor still had others. He had Jenny. And Rose really hoped the girl would help him, take his hand.

She forced a smile on her face when he looked to her again. Bit she knew her eyes didn’t shine and her lips were quivering with her attempt to stop tears. Not that they were. Another pain, stronger this time, ripped right through her and her hand held onto the Doctor as if his hold could manage to stop it all. She wanted to push herself up, get closer or kiss him or something. But she could only push herself close enough for their noses to touch before her eyes once again scrunched up in agony before she went limp in his arms, the golden light of the vortex leaving her as she exhaled for the last time.

He clutched at her, some insane thought thinking he could keep her here with him if he just held tight enough. Because he hadn’t done that last time. Hadn’t held on tight enough and he’d lost her. But it didn’t work. She was gone, the vortex leaving her in a stream of blinding light and power that was ignored as it flew back to its hold in the centre of the ship. Leaving the Doctor sat alone on the ramp, cradling the shell which had been his Rose, golden hair spilling over him as he held her close and rocked and pressed his face close.

Alone. Again.

K-9 trundled over, metallic head bowed as he came to rest beside his Master, staying to watch and guard until the Time Lord recovered enough to wipe his face, grit his jaw, and carry on. Because that was what he did.

He carried on.

On his own.