amberfocus | Just Missed

A/N: So my brain's been in the off position regarding Nine today and this particular little fic came out instead. It's a companion to this one shot: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/903.html that I wrote ages ago. Ten/Rose, sort of. Angst. Yeah, sorry.

Just Missed

She’d spent so much time searching for him. So much time when she’d managed to cross the universal barrier for hours at a time. Always she was too late. Always he’d been and gone. Every single time she’d just missed him. It had almost broken her, but there had never been another choice for her. She always had to go on. She was Rose Tyler. That’s what she did.

She had really thought this time would be different. She’d had two whole days to search for him. She’d even had her Superphone, never dreaming the TARDIS interface would be so badly damaged in an attack it couldn’t receive incoming calls.

So she’d joined the others in fighting the threat as she’d been trained to do. Feet on the ground, head down, weapon up, back to back, eyes on the prize. She’d liked them. She’d liked them all. There was the scrappy red-head, Donna with the big mouth and the brazen style. Then there was the tiny black woman, Martha with eyes so startled and unsure when Rose had introduced herself, yet who she ended up trusting with her life. And Jack, her beloved Captain, a man she’d thought it as likely to see again as her first Doctor.

And they’d been wonderful and she’d felt almost at home, almost in a family again. But that family was incomplete. Without the Doctor her family would never be complete. Not this one and not the one she’d left behind her.

She knew that time was winding down; that she’d be pulled back soon, that she couldn’t stay even as the battle ended, even as they were victorious, even as somewhere else the Doctor succeeded in his part of the plan and the mother ship exploded with spectacular results in the atmosphere. They were so happy, the others, none of them knowing that she’d have to go even though Martha had finally managed to get a message through.

She explained in halting, broken words to Jack, relayed her message, gave her heart to her friend to give to the Doctor. Jack was devastated as he held her, but there was so much understanding in his eyes and he relayed everything the Doctor had ever told him about loving Rose Tyler. She handed him a data disc and he promised to give it to the Doctor.

She felt the beam of light before she saw it, the circle expanding in the air. As it encircled her she heard the first stirrings of the TARDIS engines, saw the doors fling open and that beloved man dart out of his ship. Already it was too late. The recall was impossible to counteract. It was coded to her DNA. She couldn’t resist the pull.

He raced desperately towards her as she began to fade. She reached for him as he reached for her but there was no stopping the process as she was yanked back into the other universe, the one she’d spent the last six years in, knowing it was the last time she’d be able to make the trip. The machine was shot. This last desperate trip had been foolhardy at best.

She wiped away her tears as she became solid again then looked around the control room. Her eyes met Mickey’s, then Jake’s, then focused lower to the ground at the little girl with unruly brown braids who flung herself from Mickey’s arms and raced towards her, throwing her arms about Rose.

“Did you do it, Mummy? Did you find Daddy?”

Rose shook her head and buried her face in the little girl’s hair. “No, sweetheart,” she said. “I just missed him.”