amberfocus | Devastate (4/4)

A/N: Recognizable dialog is from Parting of the Ways and one line from The Doctor Dances.

Turning Points

Every decision he’s ever made comes down to this moment. Rose is safe and he thinks he can do it again; sacrifice the lives on one planet to wipe the Dalek scourge from the face of the universe. He listens as the fighting draws closer and closer, as Jack and the ragtag group of humans buy him time. He hears the sound of gunfire and the screams of the dying. He hears little Lynda with a Y cry out and forever be silenced.

Then Jack’s shouting at him. “Doctor, you’ve got twenty seconds maximum!” It will just be enough.

Sure enough, seconds later the delta wave machine is completed. “It’s ready,” he says and realizes the sound of gunfire has stopped. He looks up to see the Daleks roll into the controller’s room, realizes what that and the silence have to mean for Jack and he feels a twinge of sorrow at the loss of that good man.

He is surrounded by Daleks and yet he still stands defiant amongst them. “You really wanna think about this,” he tells them. “’Cause if I activate the signal, every living creature dies.”

The emperor glares at him from the view screen. “I am immortal,” he grates out.

“Do you wanna put that to the test?” questions the Doctor.

“I want to see you become like me,” the creature tells him. “Hail the Doctor, the great exterminator. The Doctor feels a twinge of conscience. For a few seconds he flashes on that moment in a bunker in Utah not too long ago when it was only him, one Dalek and Rose. When Rose made him see that he was being exactly like the creatures he had fought against for so many years. He hadn’t wanted to be like them then. He didn’t want to be like them now. But that choice, how could he make that choice and let them live to destroy everything they ever touched?

“I’ll do it,” he yells, his hands going to the plungers. He isn’t sure in that moment if he is trying to convince the Daleks or himself. He feels a tinge of madness in his thoughts as possible outcomes to his decision crowd his mind.

“Then prove yourself, Doctor,” barks the emperor. “What are you? Coward or killer?” His hands shake on the plungers and he is so close to pressing them down, so close to ending it for every living thing in the vicinity including himself. But then his hands slide free as he stands up and makes his choice. He can’t, he won’t do it again. Not wipe out so much life. He can’t bear it. And Rose is safe. That is all that matters. Rose is safe. He can die at peace.

“Coward. Any day.” And he lets the fear show for just a moment on his face.

The emperor sounds almost gleeful as he tells the Doctor of his fate, that he will die at the whim of the Daleks.

“Maybe it’s time,” he says. And maybe it is. He closes his eyes and he waits for fate to deal him his final card. Fate has its own plans in store for him and he hears the whooshing of the TARDIS filling the controller’s room. He turns in shock, fear, and devastation at the sight of his beloved ship materializing behind him. It cannot be. Because if it is, it means somehow his beautiful Rose has gotten the ship to come back and she is no longer safe. But that is nothing to the horror he feels when the doors open and the brilliant golden light of the Time Vortex emerges and within its blinding glare…his Rose.

What has she done? He falls to the ground fearing now for her very life, for what she is doing is the most dangerous thing he can think of anyone ever doing. She has absorbed the heart of the TARDIS, melded and merged with his ship in some way, and if she doesn’t give the power up soon it will kill her.

“What have you done?” he asks her despite knowing exactly what she has done. He wants to hear the words from her lips, hopes that in some way he can be wrong in his conclusions, but what she says disabuses him of any hope on that score.

“I looked into the TARDIS and the TARDIS looked into me.” Rose's voice is curiously augmented, higher pitched and somehow more refined. Even her accent is different, smoother, almost elegant.

“You looked into the Time Vortex! Rose, no one’s meant to see that.” He’s frightened beyond the telling of it now. There is so little time for her to let go of the power and still be able to survive it. Rose silences the Daleks when they try to interfere, turns their weaponry off and looks back at the Doctor.

“I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words…I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here.”

“Rose, you’ve got to stop this. You’ve got to stop this now!” He is shaking now he’s so afraid for her. He can sense each second slipping away. Each second between almost too late and too late and it’s all slithering away like the sands in an hour glass. “You’ve got the entire vortex running through your brain. You’re going to burn!” He’s pleading desperately, looking into eyes full of golden power and swirling light.

For a moment her eyes clear and she looks down at him. “I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false god.” And in that moment he realizes the depth of Rose’s love for him. That he is everything to her like she has become everything to him. That her love for him burns even brighter than the vortex she has absorbed. That as much as he had wanted to keep her safe, she wants him protected in that same way. She loves him with her entire being. And it’s going to be her destruction.

“You cannot hurt me! I am immortal!” grates the emperor.

Rose’s focus snaps back onto the Dalek who has set himself up as a god. “You are tiny,” she declares. “I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence and I divide them!” She raises her hand and focuses the power, her eyes once again glimmering with the energy of the vortex.

The Daleks begin to disintegrate. “Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends.”

“I will not die. I cannot die!” protests the emperor even as Rose destroys every single bit of his fleet and he begins to dissolve himself.

“Rose, you’ve done it. Now stop,” the Doctor tells her. “Just let go.” She has seconds, just seconds left and it is her choice in this moment that will decide whether she lives or dies.

Turning Point A

He feels relief as she focuses clearly on his face, her eyes turning brown and she nods at him. With two seconds left in which her life will be spared she voluntarily lets go of the power, feels it surge out of her and back into the TARDIS and he is on his feet and she is stumbling into his arms.

He holds her tighter than he’s ever held her before and then he’s pushing her back and shaking her. “What were you thinking, Rose, what were you thinking?” he demands of her. Then before she can even form a coherent thought to answer him he’s kissing her hungrily and passionately, his tongue pushing its way into her mouth and trying to meet up with her soul.

She clutches desperately at his jacket, her fingers fisting in the leather as she kisses him back, lets her tongue slide all over his and meets his desperation with her own. When he finally releases her, a wash of dizziness overwhelms her and she sways.

The Doctor catches her, suddenly afraid that despite his knowledge that she’s let go of the power just in time, something is still horribly wrong with Rose. She leans away from him and vomits onto the deck plating then collapses against him in a faint. He lifts her into his arms and carries her back into the TARDIS and into the infirmary.

He is scanning her for residual traces of vortex energy and though he doesn’t find it he does pick up something odd about her DNA. He takes a blood sample and prepares a slide, setting it under the microscope.

“Doctor!” He freezes at the sound of Jack’s voice. It’s impossible. He was sure everyone on the station had been killed. “Doctor!”

“In the infirmary, Jack!” he calls out and the other man is soon joining him.

“Rose? How? How’d she get the TARDIS to come back?” Jack asks. “Is she all right?” he adds.

“I don’t know. I’m finding out now. But you, Jack? How’d you survive?”

Jack looks sheepish. “Everyone else had been killed. They were about to mow me down when I hit my vortex manipulator. I jumped down to level one a week from now. There was nothing more I could do to delay the Daleks and I figured I’d be safe from the delta wave by then. It’d have turned itself off. I thought maybe you’d find a way to survive, get the ship to come back.”

Jack takes a breath. “When there were still signals coming up from Earth and no sign of the Daleks I figured you’d found another way, so I hopped back to about fifteen minutes after I left. I came up here and saw the TARDIS. Now what happened?”

“Rose did it. She channeled the power of the vortex and got my ship to fly back here and she wiped out all of the Daleks, Jack. She ended the Time War.” He looks back down at the fragile form of Rose lying on the table in front of him. “She ended the Time War,” he repeats in awe then leans forward and kisses Rose gently on the forehead.

“What’s wrong with her? Did it damage her?” Jack asks.

“It’s what I’m trying to find out. I think she let go of the power in time. Every bit of my time sense tells me she did. But she was sick and then she fainted. I was just checking her blood.” He moves away from Jack and looks at the slide under the microscope. “But that can’t be!” he declares.

“What? What is it?” Jack wonders.

“I’m seeing bits of triple stranded DNA shed in Rose’s blood cells.”

“How is that possible?” Jack asked. “Rose’s human. She’s got double stranded DNA.”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor says. “She can’t have it unless…” He stares back at Rose in wonder and then rummages in a drawer until he finds a Doppler device and runs it over Rose’s abdomen. The steady sound of a strong heartbeat fills the room.

Jack and the Doctor meet eyes over Rose’s prone form. “She’s pregnant?”

The Doctor’s face breaks out into a tremendous grin. “I don’t know how it’s possible. But, yeah, she’s pregnant. And the only way she can have my type of DNA carried as waste in her own cells is if she’s carrying my baby.”

Jack looks down at Rose and then up at the Doctor. “I’m going to be an uncle,” he says in shock. He leans forward and kisses Rose lightly on her forehead and then comes around the table and hugs the Doctor tightly. “Congratulations.” The Doctor hugs back tightly then returns to Rose.

He picks up her hand and waits a few minutes more until her eyes flutter open. “Hello,” she says.

“Hello,” he replies. “Welcome back.”

She grins up at him for a moment then sits up suddenly and hits him on the arm. “Don’t you ever, and I mean ever, send me away from you again!” He gathers her up tightly into his arms.

“No, Rose. Never. Not ever again. Not you,” and he rests his hand over her abdomen protectively. “And not this one, either,” he says.

Rose looks at him in astonishment. “You know?” He nods. “And…are you happy?” she asks hesitantly.

“Yes, Rose. Oh, yes!” He kisses her and then he pulls back. “But I don’t ever want you to do that to me again. No channeling the Time Vortex. You could have killed yourself. You could have killed the baby. That kind of power is too raw, and it’s dangerous enough for Time Lords. Humans, well your junk DNA protected you just long enough for you to do what you had to do, but seriously Rose, any longer than what you did and you’d be dead. So promise me,” he orders.

She nods. “I promise.”

The Doctor looks around between himself, Rose and Jack. “Everyone lives,” he says softly. “Just this once, everyone lives.”

Turning Point B

“Rose, you’ve done it. Now stop,” the Doctor tells her. “Just let go.” She has seconds, just seconds left and it is her choice in this moment that will decide whether she lives or dies.

“How can I let go of this?” she asks him. “I bring life.” He feels Jack, who he had felt die not that long ago, return to life, become a fixed point in time and realizes she’s brought him back but done it too well. He’s immortal. The Doctor is horrified.

“But this is wrong!” he tells her anxiously. “You can’t control life and death!”

“But I can,” Rose tells him. “The sun and the moon, the day and the night. But why do they hurt?” He sees the pain on her face and he knows she’s held the power within her for too long now. It kills him to realize she’s going to die. His Rose, his beloved Rose.

“The power’s gonna kill you and it’s my fault!” he can’t look at her and turns his head away.

“I can see everything,” she tells him and it frightens him enough to look back at her again. “All that is, all that was. All that ever could be.”

No, no, no! What has he done to her? He rises to his feet. “That’s what I see. All the time. And doesn’t it drive you mad?” he asks her.

“My head.” Tears fall down her face.

“Come here,” he says.

“It’s killing me.” She moves to him.

“I think you need a doctor.” He takes her hands and pulls her to him. He knows what he can do now. He can take the power from her in a kiss, pull it out and return it to the TARDIS. He can take the damage it has done her upon himself, gift her with his own life force to heal her, and allow himself to regenerate. His lips meet hers and the power transfers. It lasts the space of ten of her heartbeats and he can feel every one of them pulse through him as the change begins to trigger inside his cells.

He releases her from the kiss, his body filled with power, and she faints. He lowers her gently to the deck plates and then turns towards his ship, carefully releasing the power back into her heart. He knows in that moment that nothing will ever be the same. But Rose will live, and when it comes down to it, that’s all he ever wanted.

To Be Continued in Guilt: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/151012.html