does anyone know if theres any fic out there of this christmas special? like i imagine some will get made now that we know itll never happened, but im disappointed NOW and i still want answers even though we're technically never going to get any. i just got excited to see billie in DW again and now i have a hole that only fic can fill i may even write my own
so please send me literally anything i dont care if shes the doctor or rose or bad wolf or if 14 is in it or if he isnt or literally anything ill read all of it. and if youre seeing this in the future this applies to you too
I literally don't care if she's the Doctor or not, Billie Piper was on my screen looking just as beautiful as the day she first caused me to have my gay awakening, I'm fucking SAT.
tl;dr - anything everlark that ISN'T canon compliant, no age difference or toastbabies.
obviously everlark centric, but I'm open to any minor ships (even everthorne as long as it's endgame everlark). anything that ISN'T canon compliant (canon divergence, Panem AU, modern AU, all of it). really the only thing I'm not into is age difference, or anything that contains their children (unless it's like a looooong fic and it's a ways off). basically I'm open to most things! I just feel like I'm in a dry spell and I haven't found a good fic in a while.
also if you want to check my bookmarks to see if I've already read it, my ao3 is the same name. but you don't have to.
what do you like the most about rose? and ten? and tenrose?
Good lord anon you can’t just spring this sort of question on me and not expect me to get completely sucked in. I’ve giffed a lot of this because I realise it is WORD heavy, and also because I’ve finally got a week off uni and I miss photoshop.
Ramblings under the cut!
What do you like the most about Rose?
Where do I even START. I think, when it comes down to it, I love Rose’s compassion and care for others. RTDs characters had so much of this in general, but there was something I loved about Rose’s, and I think it was because it often went hand in hand with her flaws and advanced her overall character development. Rose could get jealous, as she did with Reinette and Sarah Jane, and Rose could be awful to Mickey and drive him away, she could be selfish in constantly choosing the Doctor over her family, and she could often be so caring that she makes decisions for those people based on what she thinks is best.
But Rose also helped Reinette when she could see she was afraid. Mickey’s trying to rush Rose because the Doctor’s freaking out — and we all see that he leaves Rose behind in the midst of it all. But Rose stays to make sure Reinette is okay. I’ve always loved the fact that she asks Mickey and the Doctor to wait because she can see Reinette is upset.
Rose also was catty and jealous and rude to Sarah Jane, but she was the one who wants to put it aside and just have a friend. I don’t talk about that scene enough because it really is one of my favourites, but the way Rose can spot something ugly in herself and try to find a friend out of someone she perceives as a foe is so wonderful, and I wish I could be that damn strong.
Rose wasn’t the kindest to Mickey, and a lot of people say she strung him along. But that’s not to say that she didn’t love him dearly, and she was just like any other nineteen-year-old who fell in love and didn't want to hurt either person she cared about. But she did, she hurt Mickey and only realised when it was too late. And by the time Rose sees him again she’s learnt where she went wrong and has a respect for him she didn’t have before. You can see it in the way she tells him it’s good to see him and he’s the bravest man she knew — she’s being sincere, with no hidden agenda and no flirting, just showing her appreciation and love for her oldest and dearest friend.
Rose is always so quick to take people in her arms and under her wing and I love it because you can see it’s in her core character. Sometimes shows will make the kind female character be the one with the most compassion and care but you can see it in Rose from the start that it’s a part of who she is, and even to the point of it being one of her flaws. I think a well-known example of this is how she’s so overly protective of Gwyneth that she doesn’t even give Gwyneth a chance to speak for herself, and because she realises what she’s done she learns how to find the balance between looking after somebody and protecting them without compromising their voice in return (see: Dalek, where she’s asked to order it to kill itself and she does so, even though she doesn’t want to).
AND finally, because I think this moment gets overlooked: the way Rose is about to murder Elton for upsetting her mum and then, moments later, sees he’s upset and comforts him. Come onnnn Rose Tyler STOP THIS
I realised as I was getting into this that I’m going down a ROSE TYLER IS AMAZING AND THIS IS WHY AND THIS IS WHY AND ALSO THIS IS WHY so I’m going to stop here and round up with her compassion is my fave thing about Rose.
What do you like the most about Ten?
Hands down, his story arc. I was speaking to somebody recently (think it was you @momsravioli?) and I think one of the things I miss the most about RTD’s era is how each (well, both) Doctors had their own arc.
I can look back on Nine’s story and immediately remember how he develops as a character, why he does so and how, and what that meant for Nine as a separate character, just as Rose and Martha and Donna were. You see him caring so little for his own life in Rose, then you see him sacrificing his life in the end. But it’s so much more than that, because you see how he begins to care. He’s always cared for the human race, but you watch him in 1.02 take Rose to see the Earth blow up in his own helpless grief and sees how it hurts her, and just like that he has somebody now to care about, even if it isn’t himself. So he takes her home, even if he can’t go home himself. And then you’ll see it throughout the rest of the season how he begins to find reasons to love again and, in the end, he loves himself enough to die for love after having lived through so much hate and grief. It’s so wonderful and bittersweet and that’s what I think of when I think of ‘the Ninth Doctor’.
That turned into a “what do you like about Nine” answer lmao, so now for Ten. Ten’s always thought of as perhaps the most lovable, adorable, friendly and silly Doctor which is what makes his character arc that much more tragic. Because the more he loved the less he got in return until it got to the point where he became so exhausted that he just gave up.
You watch Nine die for a woman he loves and Ten’s story was all about how much he did love that woman. He loved Rose with everything he had, and he lost her. And it broke him.
But, with the help of Martha (and Donna briefly before her, too!), he learns to love again. He’s a bit more guarded, mostly because he can see what’s happening with Martha and her feelings towards him, but because he’s so heartbroken still. But, nevertheless, he loves Martha by the end. And he doesn’t do it right, so he loses her.
He stumbles upon Donna once more and finally finds somebody to love who loves him equally, and Donna was the best thing that ever happened to Ten. And you can see how he’s hardened after having loved so fiercely and lost so ruthlessly. But Donna taught him to keep going, because she was the only character who watched him from the outside, seeing him in the Runaway Bride having lost somebody who meant everything to him, and then seeing him again having only lost somebody else and she thinks to herself how much heartbreak can one person go through? The Fires of Pompeii is a classic example of how Donna pushes Ten to just hold on, just keep going, because he’s so willing to give everything up and she asks him to save “just one person”. It reminds him why he’s doing it, why he’s travelling around the universe because Ten is easily his most depressed, not in season 3, but in season 4 because he’s just so tired. He can’t save them all, but he can save one. And that is all you can do, and that is enough, because with that one you can then save another, and then another, and then another. And then he loses Donna, too.
Even just those three is enough to exhaust a person emotionally and want to give up entirely on all aspects of love and care. But, in the middle of all this, he reconciles with Jack, then loses him. He’s reunited with Sarah Jane, an old dear friend, and loses her. He finally sees eye to eye with Mickey, and loses him. He finds Rose again, impossible though it were and he might finally have a chance to be happy, and he not only has to loose her all over again, but he has to watch her fall in love with somebody else. He loses Jackie, a woman who took him in as her own and he, once again, loses Martha. In the end, rather than lose one more person, rather than lose Wilf, he just collapses and gives up. He’s tired, he’s absolutely shattered and broken and barely coping by the end, he’s the Doctor with the largest family and he dies all alone, in the TARDIS.
If Nine’s story was all about learning to love and cope again after war, Ten’s story was about testing that growth, throwing him more and more grief and pain and seeing if he could cope until, one day, he just can’t. People think of Ten, and they think of gleeful Fear Her, season two daft Ten, and that is true, that is him. But in the end, too much was taken from him and you get this sense of cathartic purging when he finally does regenerate and that is tragedy done right.
What do you like the most about Ten/Rose?
Okay so besides the fact that this is the way they look at each other when they’re reunited when it should have been impossible
The best thing, for me, about Ten and Rose is their friendship, and how they treat each other equally and with respect. This show could have so easily been unbalanced — what with a Time Lord taking a working-class nineteen-year-old woman through time and space. And, of course, you can make it obvious that she teaches him as much as he teaches her, she saves his life as much as he saves hers, and RTD did that. But it’s the little things that show you how much they love each other as people, not necessarily romantically (unless you want to interpret it that way) but they completely and utterly adore one another.
It’s in the way they touch each other and subconsciously reach out for the other in times of danger or in care
The fact that they can be miserable but they will always try to make the other less so.
The little things they get each other that are tiny details but show so much — like how Rose gets him the little cake with ball bearings on and he gives her a pink party hat because it’s her favourite colour (and not to forget the pink helmet in the Idiot’s Lantern!)
And of course it’s just in the way they look at each other when the other isn’t watching. They just adore each other, selflessly, and it comes across so warm and equal and caring that it’s no wonder they fell in love. You watch it happen, you see it slowly develop and you feel it and understand it because it’s in everything they do for each other.
Phewweeeeee what an ask! This also completely looks like I sent myself an anonymous question as an excuse to bang on about ten/rose/tenrose and I LOVE IT THANK YOU
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Characters: The Doctor (Doctor Who), Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith (mentioned), Jackie Tyler (mentioned), Pete Tyler (mentioned)
Additional Tags: Introspection, Character Study, The Doctor Loves Rose Tyler, Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, Angst, Heartbreak, Heartache, Heartbreaking, this is going to hurt
Summary:
The most painful snippets of Doomsday, all played out from The Doctor’s POV.
wait a second moffat wrote the girl in the fireplace? i thought russell t davies wrote it 😶
Sadly, yes! I’m gonna do a v quick and rambly analysis for you to highlight the differences between RTDs writing an Moffat’s, and then you’ll be able to see how much GITF sticks out like a sore thumb.
Disclaimer: RTD had his problems, massively, but in general he errs on the side or emotion and sacrifices story in the process, whereas Moffatt focuses too much on story and loses that warmth in doing so.
Characterisations/companions
RTDs characters are humans; we all relate to Rose, Martha and Donna. Rose was so bloody plain and boring and ordinary it hurts, but she was so human and that’s what earned her place aboard the TARDIS. That’s what made the Doctor fall in love with her, and made him rediscover the good in the universe once more. Martha was an average, hard-working medical student just trying to pass her exams and that intelligence and resilience and courage earned her place. That’s what challenged the Doctor intellectually, taught him to trust again and in the end Martha healed him. Donna had no life aspirations, fell in love too easily and was blind to the danger around her and was loud and brash, but so caring. She taught the Doctor one of the most valuable lessons he could have learnt - that saving one is always better than saving none. That he didn’t have to be alone. And that’s what taught the Doctor strength in relying on others, what forced him to decide who he wanted to be after so much pain and grief and it’s what made him keep trying.
Moffat’s characters are enigmas; Amy was the girl who waited, only special because she met the Doctor so young. Clara was made to save the Doctor, she was his saviour throughout all of time, and River was conceived aboard the TARDIS and through some complicated trickery married the Doctor because “it already happened”. Their characters were only relatable in their wit but, essentially, they could do no wrong - this was because they were all the same: Moffat’s idea of a Strong Female. Outspoken, not afraid to say what they want, clever-witted and puts the Doctor in his place (more on that, later.) Amy could wear short skirts if she wanted to because she was a Strong Female, and then when she died she was recycled into Clara. They didn’t really teach the Doctor much, and the Doctor didn’t do much in terms of bringing out their strengths. That’s not to say the characters didn’t change, an example being how Amy learned to fall in love with Rory and choose the average love in the end because it best suited her and it was what she wanted, but it didn’t do much in terms of teaching children what’s important, how to recognise when something is right and wrong and how to take your own character and your own strengths and build on them.
Characters lives and development outside of the Doctor
RTDs characters have a rich and often inexplicit background. We might not see tons of Jackie, but you can absolutely see how Rose is heavily influenced by her and her upbringing. Jackie probably has a combined 30 minute screen time throughout 2 seasons, but so much of Rose’s choices and persona are reflective of being a single child in a single-parent household, having nothing but family to rely on. Same with Martha - you barely see her parents or family but you can see how it affects her and how it’s made her who she is now, how she’s the child in the middle of family arguments and just wants to maintain the dynamic and keep peace. You understand her character, what her life is without the Doctor. And same for Donna, we can see the relationship she has with her grandfather and it is strong and loving and caring and supportive and that’s what made Donna strong and loving and caring and supportive. What’s more is that characters grow the most once they have left the Doctor: Rose defends her own universe and hops between dimensions to protect all universes; Martha walks the Earth to save the Doctor, recognises her love for him is unhealthy so leaves and becomes a doctor for UNIT, continuing to keep the fight strong on Earth; Donna worked hard once she declined the Doctor’s offer to change her life for the better, investigating wrongdoings and strange happenings around her, trying to travel like she said she would even if she failed in doing so. Everybody became better because of the Doctor, they had their lives before him and separate lives after him that weren’t “I am special because I knew the Doctor”.
Moffat’s characters do not exist outside of the Doctor, besides trivia written in the script. Amy was going to marry Rory, and she waited her whole life for the Doctor, but outside of that, what made her who she was in series 5? Why was she feisty and outspoken, what made her relatable to the audience? Clara was, lets face it, exactly the same as Amy in that she was feisty and outspoken, only her entire storyline was based around being the one to save the Doctor. She had a boyfriend, she was a teacher, but her main hook was that she saved our protagonist throughout time. I liked Clara, she was fun and sweet, but I didn’t love her, because I didn’t relate to her at all. She had no flaws, same as Amy. They were just funny and quirky and anytime they weren’t it was because they were a Woman. Now, River Song? I am so disappointed. SITL/FOTD had such potential, but it turns out the woman we saw in S4 never developed, never grew, only existed to be the Doctor’s Wife. Her character is supposed to be the strongest female character, yet she never passed the Bechdel test.
Doctor/companion dynamic
RTD, generally, had an equal balance between the Doctor and their companions. The Doctor was magical, intelligent and powerful, but so were his companions in their humanity. Rose was his equal, Martha was his equal, and Donna was his equal. Even if they weren’t at first, they both taught each other what was right and wrong. The Doctor is definitely not always right just because he is a high and almighty time lord, and its his companions who show him where he’s gone wrong. They don’t reign him in, they don’t keep him close, they challenge his thought process. This is very very important for a children’s show, to send out the message that you can challenge somebody’s beliefs and actions but you shouldn’t forcibly stop them. Having been shown his errors, we see the the evolution of the Doctor’s character, going from lonely cold Nine in ‘Rose’, to the Doctor with the largest family on Earth by the time of ‘End of Time’. The Doctor doesn’t go easy on his companions either, and isn’t afraid to hold back when they’re also acting up. As I’ve said, the Doctor helps his companions be better people so much that they only grow even more once they’ve left - he shows them right and wrong and how to make a different and then when they’re out on the field they do.
With Moffat, the general dynamic is ‘the Doctor is a free soul, can be an arse but his (female) companion makes sure he never gets above himself’ kind of protective element. The companions in Moffat’s era keep him on a leash, make sure he doesn’t get too ahead of himself. Usually, under Moffat’s writing, especially Rose, the person holding the leash was the person stopping the fun. How could the Doctor be free to fuck around with Reinette Poisson when Rose kept nagging him about being late to save her from being chopped up? Under Moffat’s writing, Rose would have snapped at him to keep him in check, and we would have been made to dislike Rose for her possessive quality and preventing the Doctor from making his own choices.
Now look GITF: you can see how Moffat’s tendencies present in the script. Ten is very similar to Eleven in that he’s a flirt, he can do no wrong and whenever he does, it’s condoned - perhaps because woe is he, Suffering From The Time War, the Lonely God etc. He literally hurts every single person in that story, actively, and yet we’re supposed to feel sorry for him. He doesn’t own up to or face the consequences for any of his actions in that episode. But that’s ok, because he’s a man, and that’s just what happens.
Rose didn’t exist in this episode outside the Doctor. Her entire story was based on how she was left behind. She did a little bit of exploring, but other than that she was catty, jealous, a chance for Moffat to enact his fantasy that she was a chav and therefore not classy enough to be worthy of screen time. Also, TW, as Moffat commented, you can understand why Jimmy was abusive now, right? She is hella annoying and we’re all a bit sick of her, including the Doctor.
Anyway, I digress. Compare Rose’s jealousy in GITF with Rose’s jealousy in the episode prior, School Reunion. In SR, Rose is nasty, petty and a whinge, but her jealousy was pivotal in her character arc because it’s the episode in which Rose is knocked off her high horse and realises she isn’t the first. Despite this, she and Sarah Jane bond and become friends and Rose even invites her along the TARDIS because that’s what Rose does: she’s caring and compassionate and tries to always see the best in people. But in the following episode, her jealousy is a trope, it plays no part in the story other than to give the Doctor another reason to want to leave her behind and run into the arms of the beautiful, classy romantic interest. Especially following how her character dealt with jealousy in SR, it just doesn’t add up, and contributes massively to the reason why people think S2 Rose overall is annoying. It all boils down to this episode, because its the only time her annoyingness is completely without explanation to her development or the story itself.
And finally, the way Moffat portrays women comes to light so blindingly in this episode. Reinette Poisson is one of my favourite women of history and she is amazing. Utterly incredible. The things she achieved in her life and her influence during the Enlightenment was immense. But we don’t know any of that based on this episode. So many people only know her for GITF and they hate her, because she became a spanner in the works of the Doctor and Rose’s relationship, because she was flirtatious and bold and all because of the way she was characterised by the man who wrote her. We only hear of her achievements when Ten gushing over just having snogged her. Once again, a woman’s achievements are only of note if she’s sexy.
Anyway. That got a little out of hand sorry! Turns out I had a lot to say 🤷🏻♀️ I’ll forever be bitter about GITF because it could have been done so well, and it’s just so disappointing that it instead demonstrated every possible awful and oftentimes OOC trait each character possessed and ruined an icionic historical lady in the process. Alas.
Hello love. first off, I hope this works, I can’t see the image so I’m not fully confident that this is submitting properly. But if it is - I got the wild idea to make you a little graphic, seeing as A. I love you. B. you love Christmas. C. You love Ten x Rose. and D. the final push I needed to get back into computer art was you.
So this is what I spent my morning doing. As you know, this is really my first ‘proper’ graphic, so sorry its not great. Considering I’ve literally never done anything like this before, I’m actually pretty pleased with it.
Anyways! Hope you like it. Merry Christmas boo.
- submitted by @arcadeyouthunknown
I… oh my word. I am speechless. You bloody RASCAL. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE MY LIFE NOW THAT IT IS COMPLETELY CHANGED BY THIS.
A. I love you too; B. I’m going to pretend you love Christmas as much as me cos it’s the only way for A to be true; C. DAMN RIGHT; D. FUCK. fuck fuck fuck. FACK. never has there been such declaration of love as strong as this one. Also, FAN.TAS.TIC GRAPHIC. GOODNIGHT.
SUMMARY: Rose asks Martha what she meant what she’d said “Oh my god, he found you.”
- *Requested by @arcadeyouthunknown
CHAPTER: 1/1
TAGS: friendship, Donna Noble (deserves her own tag), Martha Jones (a second newly created tag)
AO3: amity / REQUESTS: submit here
Rose had almost forgotten the feeling of jealousy, at least when it came to love. Martha Jones, former companion to the Doctor. She’d been hopeful that perhaps she was an older companion, one before herself, because seeing her Doctor with another companion already stung. Knowing that he’d now travelled with more than one other - two women, no less-
She sighed. She hated this side of her. Donna was gorgeous, accomplished, well spoken and clever. Even on that parallel world of hers she never gave up, and when she did, she only tried harder to keep the fight going and make things right. But see, Rose had faced jealousy when it came to other companions but she could compartmentalise them, as it had never been with her Doctor. But Donna was. A companion to the Doctor she knew and loved. And, by the looks of it, this bloody gorgeous, accomplished, well spoken and clever Martha Jones had been too.
“Oh my god. He found you.”
Rose shook her head, fighting back the prick of tears that had no right forming. She glanced around at the rest of the room; Mickey and her mum chuckling between themselves; Sarah Jane and Jack looking as though they were getting to know one another for the first time. Or was that just the way Jack spoke to people? The Doctor - well, the one she knew anyway - was running his sonic screwdriver over the new one, bouncing ideas off Donna as he did. Martha had separated herself to take a phone call and Rose had watched her, losing herself to her train of thought. Part of her wanted to quiz her, find out every detail of hers and the Doctor’s relationship: were they together; had they been together; was she in love with him; was he in love with her? Her heart sank - was that why he was being so distant with her at the moment? Let her down gently. He’s moved on, found somebody new and Rose showing up on his doorstep threw a spanner in the works. She took one last look at the Doctor - the man she’d fought to get back to, the man she thought would hold her close and never let go of her again and yet now completely ignoring her - and, feeling the heat of rejection spread throughout her core, sniffed in annoyance at herself. For god’s sake Rose, pull yourself together. But then she saw Martha hang up the phone and look at the room too, before she caught Rose’s eye and smiled sheepishly.
Be nice.
Rose smiled back and waved awkwardly. They edged towards each other, meeting in the middle at the control panel.
“Hi. Rose.” Rose introduced herself, even though she apparently already knew who she was.
“Martha.” She smiled in return. A lovely, warm smile. Genuine. Rose liked her already.
“I, er, liked your thinking. Back there. With the key thing.”
Martha laughed nervously. “Thanks. Although I’m glad I wasn’t called out on my bluff. Would have been quite the statement to put on my CV for my time working for UNIT, eh?”
“‘Martha Jones: wiped out the Earth’.”
“I’d only really be able to get a job with the Daleks after that.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Introspection, Character Study, Episode: s02e03 School Reunion, Angst, The Doctor Loves Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler Loves the Doctor, Not Beta Read
~~~~~~
The Doctor watched as Sarah and Mickey walked out of the shop, K9 in tow, and towards her car. His eyes were following them, but his mind was elsewhere, far away, lost back in her words.
You just dumped me. Did he? He hated that word. Dumped. Like she was nothing special. She was Sarah Jane! She was amazing! All the same, he couldn’t help from thinking that she wasn’t actually wrong, in a way. His hearts broke as he thought about it. You just dumped me. Her voice echoed in his head, words settling in, invading his mind and soul as he realized what he did to her. He looked at her as she loaded K9 into the back of his car, a chill setting in as the thought shook him to his core.
“So how’s Sarah Jane?”
He almost jumped at the sound of Rose’s voice, somewhere off behind him, as she pulled him out of his thoughts. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a second to collect himself as he tried to push Sarah’s words from his mind. He was about to respond when he turned and looked up at the blonde.
She wasn’t happy.
He silently chastised himself for almost not hearing the malice in her voice, for letting his thoughts cloud his ability to hear the tone of Rose’s words and understand her mood without even seeing her.
His face dropped in response to seeing hers. Mickey was right. The missus and the ex. Another term he hated. His eyes met hers, and he could see the pain and desperation written all over them. Or maybe he was just getting good at reading her.
“Rose. What’s wrong?”
He kept his voice level, soft - like talking to a scared puppy. The emotions written all over her face were surely answered with his own - care, concern, and a deep seated longing for her utmost well-being.
“Nothing!”
She looked down at the cuff of her sleeve and started fiddling with it in a way that he knew meant she was lying. This was far from nothing. If her face didn’t already give it away, her mannerisms always would. He already knew what this was about, and he wasn’t ready for it.
“It’s just… it must be nice to catch up with old friends”
She tried her best to hide the pain from her voice. But he could hear it. The way she spun the word friends, twisted it with a raw bitterness that she was failing to hide in her face as well.
The Doctor’s face darkened as he realized what this was heading towards. He couldn’t handle this. Not now. Not after Sarah. They locked eyes for a few seconds, and then The Doctor tore his away, hurrying out the door.
Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, Rose had her own ideas in mind. He saw her in his peripheral vision, rushing up behind him to follow him outside.
“How many of us have there been traveling with you?”
The Doctor kept walking. Please dont. Not now. He tried his best to keep his voice level, but he was getting increasingly annoyed. By the Krillitanes, by her, by this cursed life that drove everyone that The Doctor ever got close to into agony. He barely spared a glance backwards as he replied.
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it does, if I’m just the latest in a long line.”
Long line? He’s 900 years old. What? Did she think he was all alone for 900 years? Sometimes it really was obvious just how young and naive she was. He turned finally, accepting that this was happening. whether he liked it or not.
“As opposed to what?”
He realized as he said it that he was being harsh. He didn’t need to see her face to know that he struck deep. But there she was. Recoiling like he’d struck her. It hurt him, deep down into the very core of his being. He didn’t want to see her like this. Couldn’t bear that he was the cause.
“I thought you and me were… I obviously got it wrong.”
Ouch. Now he was the one who just got struck. He never wanted her to think that way, that they were anything short of what they were. Listening to her speak these fears with such terror and pain in her voice made him crumble.
“I’ve been to the year five billion, right, but this. Now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind.”
The line trudged up emotions within him that he’d tried so hard earlier to bury down deep. Sarah. He’d never meant to leave her behind. Never meant to leave any of them-
“Is that what you’re going to do to me?”
“No. Not to you.”
He replied so quickly he almost caught himself off guard. He wanted her to know - needed her to know that she was different. She was unlike anyone he had ever met.
“But Sarah Jane? You were that close to her once, and now… you never even mention her.”
She didn’t understand. How could she? The 20 year old girl from London. He bit back the resentment building up inside him. Not at her, but at himself. For putting her in this position, for allowing him to get so close, for breaking her heart.
“Why not?”
Something inside himself snapped. A barrier on his emotions. He couldn’t hold himself back. The night had been toying with his emotions, and now they were all spilling forward. When he spoke, his walls broke down, and he became totally unhinged.
“I don’t age. I regenerate.”
He seethed with the unfairness of it all. Oh, how much he wanted to be with her. Wholly, unreserved. Without the inevitable end and him having to live without her. Whether now or in 40 years time. How could he carry on, knowing it was bound to end before he was ready?
“But humans decay. You wither and you die.”
He practically spat the line. Boiling inside his own mind, burning with the rage and the frustration of having to do this. Having to say this to her. His Rose. She’s standing in front of him with tears welling up in her eyes. And it hurt. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold her, wipe away her tears…
“Imagine watching that happen to someone that you -”
Bollocks. He was so far into his emotions that he almost said it. That tiny four letter word that meant so much to her. Of course he loved her. But he couldn’t love her in the way that she wanted him to. The way that she deserved to be loved. If there was anything he had learned from the conversation with Sarah Jane, it’s that he can’t let another human get that close.
“What, Doctor?”
He was terrified. Terrified of what he almost admitted. Terrified for what he was about to do to her. Maybe it was better this way. Push her away before she gets attached to him. As attached as he’s getting to her… In the end, it’ll hurt them both less. He swallowed hard.
“You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can’t spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone.”
He choked out the word, it tasted terrible on his tongue. He hated being alone. But it was a fact. It killed him to break her heart like this, but there was no other way. She needed to realize what she was getting herself into. He had no other choice.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble
Additional Tags: Introspection, Character Study, Episode: s04e11 Turn Left, Not Beta Read, The Doctor Loves Rose Tyler
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“Yes, you are. You’re brilliant.”
Donna was never one to accept just how amazing she was. Even after she saved his life numerous times, even after she had an entire universe created around her. She was always convinced that she wasn’t anything special. The Doctor hoped that someday she would come to accept just how fantastic she really was.
“She said that.”
Donna’s voice brought him out of his thoughts.
“Who did?”
“That woman… I can’t remember.”
The Doctor pushed away the thoughts of that woman being the one woman he’d thought about every day for years. It was impossible.
“Well, she never existed now.”
“No, but she said the stars… She said the stars are going out.”
Well that settled it. Something that was happening solely in Donna’s parallel world. Something that didn’t matter anymore. He wanted to break it to her gently. That world may have only existed for mere minutes, but to Donna that world was her whole life for years.
“Yeah, but that world’s gone.”
“No, but she said it was all worlds. Every world. She said the darkness is coming, even here.”
Every world. Who did he know that could have that kind of knowledge about what was happening in parallel universes? His vision flashed of a girl with a huge, dazzling smile and blonde hair. No. It was impossible. Even still, he found himself asking.
“Who was she?”
It was impossible. Parallel worlds were sealed off. He kept trying to tell himself that. It’s impossible, and nevermind that, it’s dangerous. There is no traveling between worlds without risking everything.
“I don’t know.”
He tried again. Putting it in simpler terms that would mean nothing to Donna, but everything to him.
“What did she look like?”
It was impossible. There was no point in trying. But for some reason, he needed to know. The thought of someone being able to cross between universes meant that his world and every world was in need of saving. But beyond that… Rose. He bit back the thought as soon as he had it. It was impossible.
“She was blonde.”
The images flashed in his mind again. Her golden hair illuminated in the sunlight. His heart ached. For the first time, he dared to hope. But hope was a scary thing to have. Hope meant hoping for the walls of the universe to be breaking down. How selfish was that? But still, he had to know.
“What was her name?”
“I don’t know.”
He was growing desperate now. He had to know. He was struggling to keep his voice level - the fear, the terror, the hope - it was all fighting its way toward the surface.
“Donna, what was her name?”
“But she told me to warn you. She said… two words.”
Two words flashed into The Doctor’s brain, two words that coincided so well with Rose Tyler. Two words that served as a message, as a warning. Images flashed freely in his head now, no barrier to hold them back. The cybermen in Torchwood, the last time the walls were breaking down. Rose in agony as she was pulled towards the void. He could faintly hear her screams. Her face as she stood on Bad Wolf Bay and told him that she loved him. A face he could never see again.
The Doctor fully lost the grip on his voice, his words wavering as he struggled to speak.
“What two words? What were they? What did she say?”
It was impossible. She was trapped there. Parallel worlds were sealed off. But still.. if she came back….
That would mean the collapse of reality.
“Bad Wolf.”
Horror. Dread. Excitement. His thoughts broke down, the only coherent voice echoing in his brain was Donna saying those words. Bad Wolf. Rose can access different universes, meaning the walls of the universes are breaking down. Bad Wolf. Rose’s universe runs ahead of his, meaning that whatever is happening already happened there, and she’s coming back to try and stop it. Bad Wolf. Rose is coming back.
The emotions swam around in his brain, ruminating as he worked though everything, piece by piece. The answer was obvious.
The universe is in danger. Everything else would have to wait.
