A Place in Time (23/30)

[amberfocus]

                                                                                                     Banner by Megz33

Chapter Twenty-Three:  Brought to Light

Rose woke herself screaming. She sat up in bed, the unfamiliar sensation of two hearts thumping rapidly in her chest. The Doctor’s arms went around her immediately. “What is it, Rose?” his voice asked close to her ear as the lights came up dimly.

“You fell,” she said panting. “You fell into the Void. And I…?” She shook her head. “I couldn’t stand to live without you and so I let go. I followed you into the Void. I let myself die. Doctor, it felt so real.”

The Doctor’s arms tightened, holding her more securely. “I think it was real, Rose. Just not for us.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You do. You just don’t remember.” He kissed the side of her face. “So much happened that you have forgotten.”

“Then I need those memories back, Doctor. I need to know what happened.”

“If I unblock them Rose, I may not be able to take them away again. Your brain has been altered. What might have worked before…well, you may end up with memories you don’t want to keep.” He pulled her around so she was looking at him. “They may hurt too much.”

He smiled gently at her. “I can look at them without you being aware of them, sort through them and figure out what is affecting you so.”

Rose shook her head stubbornly. “I need to know, Doctor. Just walk with me through them. That’s all that I need. Your hand to hold.”

The Doctor nodded. “Now then?”

“Yes.”

He put his fingers to her temples and she relaxed. Rose saw herself standing in the center of a pale white room and she was shining with golden light. Then she saw the Doctor cross that room, stand beside her and take her hand. He shone as well, a curiously silver glow.

“Walk with me, Rose,” he said and they turned and walked towards a door at the far end of the room. As they went through the gap Rose recognized the control room of the TARDIS. She saw her Doctor, she saw herself, and then she saw him, the Doctor that wasn’t right.

Together they walked up to the man who was wrong. He held out his hands to them both and they took them, creating a small circle. Rose flashed into the blackness of space, a million pinprick stars about them, and she saw the memories of the man who was wrong. She watched him build a fissure in the Void, watched him backtrack across his time line in the quest to save…her. His Rose. A Rose that despite all he did do, he could never be with again after the final separation he could do nothing to prevent.

She could smell his anger and his grief and tasted his consuming madness, watched as he killed his TARDIS in one last desperate punch into a universe he did not belong to, felt the heat and the terror as the universe burned. A universe her own Doctor had visited by mistake, one he might have gotten trapped in. One he might have died in. She watched the wrong Doctor fall into insanity.

“No.” And the word had echoed painfully through her brain. She did not know if she spoke it or if it was the TARDIS, her Doctor’s TARDIS, that had joined with her to yank him from his interference, to try to calm the madness in his mind, and had pulled him onto the deck where he looked up into the eyes of her Doctor and herself.

And then she moved, leaving that man behind, feeling her own Doctor clutching tightly at her hand as they spiraled through the vastness of space and they found themselves in Torchwood Tower in another universe, watching events play out wrong.

She watched as this Doctor’s lever did not lock, watched as he moved it back into place, watched as his legs rose up behind him. She could hear the screams of her own voice blending with the screams of another Rose, begging him to hold on, and when he could not, when he lost his grip and spiraled into the Void, she watched herself make the decision to not live without him, watched herself let go and follow that Doctor into death.

“NO!” And the scream echoed even louder in her mind this time, augmented by not just the TARDIS of her Doctor, but the TARDIS of the Time Lord and the Rose that had fallen into the Void. And she felt the power of both vessels flow into her. She reached out with her mind and she plucked that Rose from the Void and watched her fall onto the deck of her own TARDIS.

And then the two ships intensified the power between themselves and Rose, and she picked up the wrong Doctor, the different Rose and she erased the memories of things gone wrong, she healed the sanity of that Doctor, and she placed them down in the universe where one had ceased to exist for moments and one never had existed before, put them where they would most benefit the time line and then together slammed the gate of their universe shut hard behind them, forever sealing them in.

And as the power of one TARDIS withdrew from her forever, she looked into the heart of her own, the one that still sang through her veins, looked into space and realized there were too many alone, too many versions where things had not worked right, two many versions of Rose and the Doctor alone. She cried for those painful losses, sought for a way for it to be made right, felt the TARDIS cry out and heard the cry echo through eternity.

And she was joined. TARDIS after TARDIS shot her through with their power and she moved to set things right, to make sure that he was never alone, that she was never alone, that they were together wherever they could be. It was interference on a massive scale and yet…it was all that ever could be and it was a glimpse of something she had seen before, back when she had simply joined with one TARDIS to be one Bad Wolf. Bad Wolf no longer existed. The Doctor had been right to call her Rose Plus…everything. For in that moment she had been everything.

For a moment she felt her mind tipping over into madness and it was only the Doctor’s hand in hers, and his voice in her mind, that carried her through it as TARDIS after TARDIS withdrew from her body and mind and heart. “Hang on, Rose, the memory is almost over.” And she pushed through it, despite the pain and the fear and held tight to his hand. Then it was just one TARDIS, the one that loved her and her Doctor, that remained with her. She felt it slowly withdraw, leaving only the smallest link in her brain.

And she stood again in the empty white room, glowing golden, the Doctor beside her shimmering in silver, hands held tightly. He walked her through a different door. Her eyes opened as his hands fell from her temples. They looked at each other in shock and frightful amazement, tears on both their faces in the memory of the Doctor who had gone insane enough to destroy his TARDIS in his quest to find his Rose.

“I’m sorry, Rose,” he said, his breath ragged. “I can’t do anymore right now. I know there are more memories that need to be recovered, but…” He shook his head. “That was like nothing I’ve ever felt.”

“Shh,” she said, bringing his hands up and kissing the knuckles of each hand. “It overwhelmed us both.” She reached up to wipe the tears from his face and he did the same for her.

“The madness, the desperation, Rose…” He broke off then met her eyes. “I felt that when I lost you. I never let it go like that…but…” He shook his head violently. “I remember at one point wanting to do whatever it took.” He drew in another ragged breath. “He killed his TARDIS…”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

“How could I?”

“You didn’t. You couldn’t.” She kissed his eyes trying to erase the anguish she saw there.

“But--.”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t you. Anymore than the Rose who let go on purpose to follow her Doctor into the Void was me.” She rained kisses on his face. “You would never do that. You’d move heaven and Earth, but you would never destroy time lines and you would never kill your TARDIS.”

Then he was kissing her desperately and hungrily, her response no less intense than his own, and with no conscious thought, he took her. They moved together aggressively in their grief and desire to forget and to seek comfort and love and healing in a way much unlike their previous loving. And in that final moment of completion, it was not stars that burned across their minds, but a universe itself.

Ch. 24:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/55702.html

Comments

[wiggiemomsi.livejournal.com]

Again, always loved this story, from the time I first found it on Teaspoon. Very, very powerful.

Your strong Rose & loving Doctor characterizations -- in all your stories -- are always so believable and wonderful.

*Hugs*

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It is a very special story to me. My first real epic.

[sunnytyler001.livejournal.com]

OMG! This story is a pure wonder!
I hope RTD will allow them to be happy... if he doesn't, we'll still have your brilliant fics!

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Thanks. And I doubt RTD will allow much for their happiness unless he does it in a fast forward way, sort of like how the Doctor saw his life with Joan play out in Human Nature/Family of Blood. I could be happy with something like that, if they played out his life with Rose and then he returned to his own universe afterwards. Not as good as having Rose back, but if
BP really is pregnant, that's not likely no matter what.

[sunnytyler001.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe Rose will be our Penelope, waiting for the Doctor's/Odysseus to come home ... because she's pregnant (with Jenny... lol) and she can't travel anymore.

[absolutbritish.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more to wiggiwmomsi's and sunnytyler001's statements...

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

re: A Place in Time (23/30)

[acciochocolate.livejournal.com]

More intenseness! I like how you have taken the concept of the Bad Wolf and made it into something that can help many.

Re: A Place in Time (23/30)

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's Rose all over again, though.