Act Three
II
It
pauses at an argument. "You know he will call this wrong,
Rose Tyler," the voice says, and she nods, because it's true.
There is right and wrong in his world, and he walks the abyss between
them, sometimes falling down. He does trade death for life sometimes,
and would it be so wrong if she did too? Yes. "No,"
the voice says. "This will make you even. He rewrites history.
Why can't you?"
She
knows what she wants, what she wants the script to be. All good and
all life and all hers. Her Doctor, more than safe. A little Pride and
Prejudice, a little Harry Potter, a little Around the World in Eighty
Days ('Without me, Rose, it would've taken a hundred and eighty!'),
and a little Rose and the Doctor. He'll forgive her. He always does.
Perhaps there is a little comfort
in knowing you died for a good cause. Is there?
Yes. No. "It
is worth changing?" the voice asks, and it's her voice now, her
question. The burn is paused and she's waiting for the answer.
No. Yes. It pauses at an
argument, and she's it.
The TARDIS jerks violently as it lands, and she almost falls and realises her mind has been wandering again. The Doctor doesn't even seem to notice her, eyes already on the screen. She knows where they are, can feel it in her buzzing body. Satellite Five, and she's calling to herself, using the time vortex. Calling to herself as the Emperor Dalek calls to her first. Becoming seduced by fantasies and whispers. She knows it for what it is, but she can't stop listening.
I bring life.
"Bad idea, crossing my own timeline," he mutters darkly. "Let's hope the Daleks don't think to check a floor below again or we're seriously in trouble and paradox. Such a bad idea, this."
"So why are you?" she asks, and he finally notices her awareness of her surroundings.
"Because you need me to," he says simply. "This is killing you."
II
It's
killing her. It's mirror dancing, fantasy reflecting life reflecting
her. It's time, time calling to her with all its possibilities and
all that can be rewritten. He's taught her that. In this moment, she
is the editor and it's her script. "Yes," the voice
says. "I can teach you to survive it. Hide me with time. He will
live, you will live and it will all be as you want." "Rose?"
the Doctor asks, looking at her oddly. "Are you here? You look
distracted." "I want you to live," she
whispers, and clings to him.
"You're going to live," he says, determined and terrified and angry. She wants to agree, but she knows she can't. It more important he lives.
II
"I am alive," he reassures her, looking a little confused.
No,
he's not, she thinks. He died for her and she didn't want him to. He
died and everything changed and the familiar is more safe. "Do
you regret it?" "What?" "Me."
II
"I shouldn't have," he says, and she realises she's spoken the last out loud. "You were vulnerable."
You were you, she thinks, and that was enough for me.
"Selfish," he mutters, and she knows he's thinking of himself.
II
"Selfish," he mutters, and she thinks of herself. Yes. Herself.II
She can see herself, feel herself. Rose and the time vortex. That's how she saved him. That's how she can change it all. Take the power. Use the power. Change. Carve a new timeline, carve it into whatever she wants.
"It is worth changing?" the other
her asks, and she wants to nod. Yes.
She just needs to convince herself.
II
"Convince me this is right," she whispers.II
"This isn't right..."
II
"This is right."
II
No.
II
Yes. "We're
here."
II
You're here.
"It hurts," she whispers, and in a second he's by her side, steadying her.
"Rose, listen to me. It's the time vortex, do you understand?"
"It's me," she mutters, correcting him. "It's my voice."
"It's the Emperor of the Daleks using you, Rose. I'm going to stop him."
The voice laughs in her head, and she wants to laugh too.
II
Jack laughs and she flings
herself into his arms, feeling so much joy it's painful. "Easy
there, or you'll wear me out before the Doctor gets a chance to,"
Jack laughs, and she laughs, and the Doctor laughs too. This
is life.
II
"I can make this life better," she says, and feels the time vortex beckon. She can master it. She just has to listen to the Dalek. She just has to bring life instead of death.
"No."
"Yes."
II
"No
way!" Jack laughs. "Way," she says, and grins.
"I changed the world completely starkers..."
II
She's naked, but she can't feel cold, can only feel the burn in her own mind, calling out to her, and the burn beyond that, the burn in the Emperor's mind, pleading for his life with a fantasy.
Stop the burn, Rose Tyler. Stop the burn and all will change.
"Rose!" the Doctor pleads, and there is desperation and hurt and anger in his voice.
"You don't have to die," she says, and grins at him. He should be happy. He should be kissing her with joy. He should be hers and familiar and alive and smiling. Everything she wants.
"Rose... Don't."
"You don't have to be afraid," she goes on, and everything burns in her. She puts a hand to his cheek and feels the cold of his skin. She can make it burn. She can make everything burn. "You don't have to be selfless. I can save the world and save you."
"No," he says, shaking his head. "You save the world this way, you do lose me."
She hesitates for a moment, and she can feel the voice in her, urging her on, reassuring her, seducing her.
The Daleks go away. The Daleks are nothing.
"The Daleks go away. The Daleks are nothing," she repeats.
"The Daleks are death," the Doctor replies, the killer in him speaking. She doesn't want the killer. She wants the fantasy.
II
Fantasy...
Kissing him, feeling his heartbeats as if they were hers, holding his
heart in her hands as if it was hers. Yes, it's a fantasy. He's a
fantasy, memories romanticised by time. It's not that she doesn't
like the new him. It's just easier to form the old him, memories her
only hindrance, and one time can tear away at. He looks at
her, and she wonders.
"Do
you remember what you said to me, at number Ten? 'I could save the
world, but lose you'?" "Yes," he says
quietly. "What if... What if it'd been me, been... My
choice?" For a moment, there's only silence and his gaze,
holding her, reading her. She knows he doesn't quite know what she's
implying, but that he understands it all too well. "You'd
save the world," he says and breaks her heart. Because he's
right, because he's selfless, because he's fucking noble and he's
shaped all those things in her too and she knows what she has to
do. It's just... "Rose," he whispers, and
his breath brushes across her lips with agonizing tenderness as he
leans in. "It won't work like this anyway. It can't be all that
you want. It won't be me, just a placeholder for all your fantasies.
If you love me... Let me go." It's just that she does
love him. "I'll kill you..." "No, you
won't. I'm still there, waiting for you. Still me, Rose. You know
that." "I'm sorry," she whispers and closes her
eyes. One more heartbeat, and he's kissing her, just the way she
wants it, just the way it can't be. "It is worth
changing?" the voice asks, and this time, it's only hers,
sounding childlike. A child with all of time in her head and so much
still to learn. Yes, she wants to say, but she can't. Not at
that cost. Not at that thing's urging. Not at that loss. Not at...
No. "No." The Emperor screams, and it is pain
and despair both, the link between them fading. "I will not die!
I cannot die!" Everything dies, she thinks. She
lets go.
II
She lets go. Time screams as it leaves her, the Daleks scream as they die, and everything, everything is a roar. The Doctor dies.
The Doctor lives.
"Rose!"
He catches her and the silence is a dirge.
II
The sun is setting when he finds her outside the TARDIS, grass bending to the lazy wind. She can see he's still worried, but he's let her have space and time and a trip to some peaceful alien planet where she can just watch the unfamiliar sky. Given that the Doctor is here, she's sure there will be some trouble sooner or later, but for now, there's just the sun setting and the sky turning faintly green.
He flops down next to her rather unceremoniously, the wind giving his hair a good ruffle. She knows he won't mention that they've slept together. No, he's too selfless for that, probably ready to blame fever and Daleks and the reversed polarity of neutrons and anything that will save her embarrassing explanations. Maybe he's not sure she's ready. Maybe she isn't either.
"I knew it wasn't right," she says after a while, plucking apart a strand of grass. "Maybe that's why I was calling out to myself, looking for an argument."
"And the Emperor of the Dalek was looking for someone to use," he says softly. "He's always been good at that. They kill so easily, and are so unwilling to suffer the fate themselves."
He sounds bitter, but she doesn't ask. Not now. Maybe she will, one day.
"Maybe you just wanted to share the pain," he goes on.
"It's better with two?"
"Sometimes."
She nods, because it's true, and somewhere in her head, the memory of the past him nods too.
"You kept fighting me too, like the voice of my reason. The past you, I mean," she explains, and he looks a little flattered, and a little guarded.
"Did you prefer me as I was?" he asks lightly, but the question is anything but light.
"No... Yes... I don't know. You're both..."
Amazingly, he doesn't look hurt. He just looks understanding.
"There are times I remember what I was... And miss it," he says solemnly.
"Even if you were never ginger?"
He grins. "Even so."
She smiles briefly, fighting to voice the confused mess inside her. "Was it really you? The past you, I mean. Or was it... The time vortex? Me? My delusion? The Emperor's words?"
"What would you like it to be, Rose?"
She thinks, and he is silent beside her, waiting. It was what she wanted it to be, and perhaps that was the problem.
"It felt like... Just like you needed me more then," she says hesitantly.
"Maybe I did," he says earnestly, and she bites her lip, wanting to taste blood. "Maybe that wasn't all good."
She looks up sharply, and his gaze catches her, brown eyes with so much gentleness it almost hurts.
"You can need something too much, Rose," he says, and something in her that feels old and wise recognises it for truth.
"I know," she says quietly, and he takes her hand. A comforting gesture, but she wonders who needs it the most. Maybe what he does for her is also what he wants himself. Maybe he's a little bit selfish too. Maybe he's selfish enough.
She hopes so. Oh, she hopes so.
Maybe she would like it to be a goodbye, she thinks.
"Hello," she says, and he grins, as if he understands.
Yes.
II
It ends with a silence, and his hands in hers, the sky above them and time at their feet. It isn't as she would have written it, but it is what it is, him and her and life still to come.
She can live that play.
FIN