Necessity

by Kathryn Andersen

Words:15100
Universe:Doctor Who
Summary:There is no Bad Wolf. Rose has to get back to the Doctor the hard way.
Spoilers: all of Season 1 of New Who (aka Season 28), especially "The Parting of the Ways" and "Dalek"; some dialogue is taken from those episodes.
Category: Alternative Universe

Author's notes at the end of the last chapter.

Chapter 1: Necessity Exists

"Necessity exists."
- Liaden saying

A miracle doesn't always happen in an instant. Sometimes it takes hard work, time and perseverance. When time is not bent, there is no Bad Wolf to set things right, only Rose.

The sky is grey, as it always is, as it always was here before the Doctor came into her life. The wooden bench is hard, as she stares at nothing.

"You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about the Doctor." Mickey had followed her from the chip shop.

"How do I forget him?" she replied. The words echoed through her head, from the Doctor's message to her: I'm dead, or about to die any second, with no chance of escape.

"You've gotta start livin' your own life," Mickey said. "Y'know, a proper life like the kind he's never had. The sort of life that you could have with me."

She knew what Mickey wanted, but she couldn't give it to him. She stared at the asphalt in front of her, eyes following the curves and curlicues of the word written in chalk at her feet. "Eternity," she muttered.

Mickey glanced down. "Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Some guy went around writing that on pavements everywhere. I think he's dead or something. Must be a copycat."

"Eternity," Rose repeated. Her heart lifted. "Eternity!"

"What are you going on about?"

"The TARDIS is a time machine!" Rose said, leaping to her feet. "I've got plenty of time!"

"That's just what Jackie was sayin', it hasn't happened yet -"

"I can get back, I know I can get back. Get back and help him escape. Ten seconds later." She ran, on feet light with hope.

"Nuts," Mickey muttered, but she was already gone.

###

The sky was still grey. There was a black stain on the road next to the TARDIS, and the smell of burnt rubber lingered faintly in the air. Rose and Mickey leaned against the bonnet of Mickey's mini, staring at the TARDIS.

"There's gotta be something else we can do," Mickey said.

"Mum was right. Maybe we should just lock the door and walk away." Let the TARDIS die. Let this old box gather dust.

"I'm not havin' that," Mickey said with a frown. "I'm not havin' you just give up now, no way. We just need to... to do something different, maybe."

"Like what? A bigger car?"

"How'd the thing open up the first time?"

"The extrapolator tore open the rift," Rose said. "The rift! In Cardiff! It's still there! We need to take the TARDIS to Cardiff!"

Mickey eyed the TARDIS. "I suppose we could load it up on a tow-truck," he began, then both their eyes were drawn to the rumbling sound of an engine, as a large tow-truck turned the corner towards them. "Like that one."

Their eyes widened as the truck stopped and Jackie got out of the front seat.

"I tried to get the rescue truck but it was only free until six. Gotta get this back nine sharp tomorrow, so get on with it," Jackie said.

"How'd you know we needed to take the TARDIS to Cardiff?" Mickey said.

"Cardiff? I thought you wanted to break it open?" Jackie said.

"Plan B," Mickey said.

"Mum, where the hell'd you get that from?" Rose burst out.

"Rodrigo, he owes me a favour, never mind why," Jackie said, "but you were right about your Dad, sweetheart. He was full of mad ideas, and it's exactly what he would have done." She tossed the keys to Mickey. "Get on with it, before I change my mind."

###

It was a long drive to Cardiff, mostly in silence. The tow truck was of the kind which tipped up and the car was pulled up and carried on the back, but it had still taken all three of them to get the TARDIS on board. Rose kept on looking at the TARDIS chained up behind, wondering if it was secure.

"It's not gonna fall off," Mickey said. "And if it did, it probably wouldn't have a scratch."

"Yeah, he said the hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get in, and they'd tried."

They lapsed into silence again.

###

"This better be the right spot," Mickey said.

"We're lucky this is a public square," Rose said. "Back in 1869 this was a morgue."

The paving of the square still showed signs of the earthquake that had rocked Cardiff when the rift had begun to open when they'd been there before. The Teigr Bae Atomic Plant project was on indefinite hold. With the mayor missing, presumed dead, all the irregularities had been coming to light and the project would probably be scrapped altogether.

"Let's get that chain," Rose said. Mickey unhooked the chain from where it had been winched up again, and they both entered the TARDIS.

The air flickered, and the image of the Doctor appeared.

"This is Emergency Program One."

"What?" Mickey gaped.

"Rose, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated then it can only mean one thing: we must be in danger, and I mean fatal. I'm dead, or about to die any second, with no chance of escape."

"I have to get back," Rose whispered.

"And that's okay, hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home. And I bet you're fussin' and moanin' now. Typical!"

"He got that right," Mickey muttered.

"But hold on, and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Program One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do: let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it, no one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on, and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing, that's all, one thing: have a good life. Do that for me, Rose, have a fantastic life."

"He's right," Mickey said. "It's not just your life you'd be riskin'"

"I can't let him die, Mickey!" Rose said. "Give me that chain!"

Mickey handed it to her, and she looped it around the edge of the console. He trooped out the door, and she could hear him starting up the truck's engine. The chain tautened, then strained.

"Open up, you've got to listen to me," Rose said. The engine whined, the console creaked with stress.

And a deep bell started ringing.

Rose's head snapped up. "The cloister bell! Oh no!" She tried to unhook the chain, but it was pulled too tight. "I'm sorry!" She dashed out the door, yelling, "Mickey, stop! Stop it!" She hammered at the window of the truck. "Stop!"

Mickey stopped the engine. "What you want me to stop for?"

"The cloister bell is ringing. We have to stop."

"Huh? What's a bell got to do with it? I don't hear anything."

"Of course not, it's inside the TARDIS," she said. "It rings when the TARDIS itself is in danger."

"In danger? What's the danger?"

"We are," Rose said.

Mickey opened his mouth, and shut it again. "We're wrecking it, aren't we?"

Rose nodded and ran back into the TARDIS, Mickey following.

"Is it okay?" He could hear the bell ringing once he stepped inside.

Rose shrugged. "How should I know?" She unhooked the chain.

The bell stopped.

"Looks like the TARDIS knows what you're doing, anyway," Mickey said.

"You're right!" Rose said. "It's listening!" She hit the console with her fist. "Why won't you take me back?" she addressed it.

"Needs someone at the controls, don't it?" Mickey said. "It may be alive, but what if it's like a horse - needs somebody to steer?"

"It's more intelligent than that," Rose said.

"Well, maybe it's just stubborn, then," Mickey said. "If you want this to go anywhere, you gotta do it the hard way - learn how it works."

Rose looked at the controls with dismay. "I don't know anything about this stuff! I wouldn't know where to start!"

"Well," Mickey said, "you could start with your A-levels."

###

Rose started with her A-levels. She moved to Cardiff, living inside the TARDIS, which still sat over the rift. She figured that the fuel of the rift would stop the TARDIS fading away, keep it awake. She moved in so that the TARDIS wouldn't forget her, would keep listening. And also because it saved on rent. Nobody looked at her twice when she went in and out of it every day; there seemed to be something about the TARDIS that made people ignore it, just as they'd ignored it the last time it had been parked in the Millennium Square.

Mickey would have been willing to share, though. He moved to Cardiff too, though he denied it was just to be with her. "Maybe I need a fresh start," he said. "My rep at home isn't that great, is it? Maybe it's better to be somewhere where the cops don't think I'm a murderer."

Rose didn't try to dissuade him. It was good to have someone there, someone who knew, someone to grouse with, someone to watch telly with, even though they often didn't want to watch the same things.

Studying was hard. Maths, physics and chemistry weren't soft subjects, and though she'd done well in her GSCE, they hadn't been her prime studies. But she couldn't start the TARDIS by speaking French at it. Sometimes, when the numbers scrawled on the page looked like dancing sticks, she'd just sit in the console room on a second-hand beanbag, listening to the Doctor's message. It only ever seemed to come on when it was needed, when she had to remind herself why she was doing this.

She studied history as an act of faith; faith that she would succeed, and travel through time and space again.

"Though they get it wrong," Rose complained to Mickey. "Like the newspapers. Pretend things didn't happen, make them up."

"Yeah, they still think the Slitheen thing was a hoax. And all the other stuff," Mickey said. "I took over Clive's website, y'know."

"You?" Rose laughed. "You, running a conspiracy site?"

"Well, he was right, wasn't he?" Mickey said. "The Doctor is trouble."

"He's not immortal, though," Rose said, soberly.

"No," said Mickey. "He isn't." He patted her shoulder.

She smiled, and went back to her history books.

"Rose?" Mickey said after a few minutes.

"Hmmm?"

"What were you doing at Stuart Hoskins' wedding?" Mickey asked.

"What?"

"You were there, the day your Dad died," Mickey said. "You're on the wedding video, though nobody can remember you, can't remember the wedding at all. What were you doing there? Did he have something to do with your Dad's death?"

She slapped him. "Don't you dare! Don't you dare!"

He put his hand to his cheek. "What happened? Tell me."

"It was my fault, don't you blame him!"

"Your fault your father died?"

"My fault he didn't die," Rose said. "I changed history by saving his life. History fought back. Nearly destroyed the world. Don't you remember anything? You were there."

"Something..." Mickey said. "I was scared of monsters. Ran to the church," he said slowly. "But I was just a kid, making things up."

"The monsters were real," Rose said. "Cleaning up the wound, the Doctor said. They made people disappear. Because my Dad didn't die like he was supposed to."

"So the Doctor killed him."

"No!" She raised her hand and Mickey ducked. "My Dad, he..." she broke off, eyes full of tears. "He knew what he had to do, and he did it. He died a hero, he saved the world." Tears trickled down her face. "And nobody knows it but me and the Doctor."

###

"Where's the disc, Mickey?"

"What disc? The one with your computer homework?"

"The one the Doctor gave you," Rose said. "The one that would wipe him from the Internet."

"Dunno what you're talking about," he mumbled, but he didn't meet her eyes.

"Mickey, if you're going to hide something, it's rather stupid to talk about it on a website."

"Oh, that disc," he said.

"Give it here," she said.

"What's it matter if I didn't use it when he asked?" Mickey said. "People deserve to know!"

"What, and I deserve to have people stalking me, reporting when they see me having a drink in a pub?"

"You were missing, Rose, they thought I'd killed you! Of course I wanted to find out where you were!"

"How many times do I have to say sorry?" she said. "And you don't have to look for me now, I'm right here."

"For how long, Rose?" Mickey said.

"As long as it takes," she said. "But you don't need to be plastering pictures of me and him all over the Internet."

"People deserve to know," he said.

"People like Henry van Statten?" Rose said. "I can't believe you interviewed him!"

"Why not? He's a prominent businessman who isn't afraid to say he believes in aliens."

"Of course he believes in aliens - he collects them!"

"I know he collects alien artifacts, he said so in the interview."

"That's when he can't get real live aliens, lock them up, and torture them," Rose snapped.

"He tortured the Doctor? I don't believe it!"

"He hadn't gotten around to torturing the Doctor," Rose said. "I don't think he did, anyway. But he tortured the Dalek."

"One of the things the Doctor's fighting in 200,000 was here? Probably deserved it, it's a thing."

"He tortured it because it wouldn't speak to him," Rose said. "That's all. Just because it wouldn't speak to him. Even a Dalek doesn't deserve that."

"I'm not so sure about that," Mickey muttered.

"You have to give me that disc, Mickey," Rose said. "Run that program, or everything could go wrong."

"What do you mean, everything could go wrong?"

"You interviewed van Statten. But he can't have bothered to look at your site, yet, because he didn't recognise us."

"What do you mean? You're not making sense."

Rose sighed. "We met van Statten in 2012, Mickey. It hasn't happened yet. But if it doesn't happen the way it did, we'll be changing history. And changing history means the end of the world."

"Like what happened at Stuart Hoskins' wedding?"

"Like that, only there'd be nothing obvious to do to put it right."

"Wait a minute, this is rubbish," Mickey protested. "How can you change history when it isn't history? It hasn't happened yet."

"Neither has 200,000 years in the future, but the Doctor couldn't change that either."

"Did you ask him?"

"Yeah, I asked him. That's when he sent me back."

"I'll get the disc."

###

"To Rose, for passing her A-Levels!" Mickey said, gulping at his beer. The bar was crowded, full of other students celebrating, or commiserating, over beer and peanuts. Mickey and Rose had managed to get a small table near the front of the room, still within blaring distance of the pub's TV screen.

"Y'already said that," Rose said, a little tipsy herself.

"I'll say it again if I want," Mickey said.

"'S not enough, y'know," Rose said, suddenly gloomy. "A-Levels not enough."

"Wadda ya mean, not enough?" Mickey said. "You did well."

"Doesn't tell me how to fly the TARDIS," she said. "Just tells me how not to 'lectrocute myself. Just tells me Time Travel's not possible. Never gonna work."

"Don't say that," Mickey said. He put an arm over her shoulder, awkwardly patting it. Rose shrugged it off, and stared dismally at her glass.

Mickey looked up at the TV above the bar, which was showing images of mud-spattered players running and kicking a white and black ball over a wet field. "Wish I knew what they were sayin'. Bloody ST4."

"What d'you mean?" Rose said. "They just said Manchester lost by 4."

"You didn't say you'd learnt Welsh as well," Mickey said.

"Didn't learn Welsh, didn't have time," Rose said.

Mickey stared at her. "But that's ST4, it's all Welsh," he said, pointing at the television.

Rose blinked. "You sure? You're not making fun of me?"

Mickey shook his head. "No."

Rose looked up at the television, down at Mickey, and then smiled slowly as it dawned on her. "Yes!" She gave Mickey a hug.

Mickey hugged her back, never one to look a gift hug in the mouth. "Um, you suddenly remembered you learnt Welsh?" he said, puzzled.

"No, I didn't learn it." Rose was grinning. "It's the TARDIS, it has to be!"

"The TARDIS taught you Welsh?"

"Kind of," Rose said. "Remember I said it was telepathic? That's how we know the language wherever we go - the TARDIS translates everything telepathically. If I understand Welsh, it's 'cause the TARDIS is doing it, because I don't know Welsh myself. The TARDIS is with me!"

"It still won't take you back, though," Mickey said.

"No, but maybe it's saying that I shouldn't give up, y'know?" She sighed. "But how am I going to do that? Nobody here can teach me how to fly the TARDIS, because nobody here knows a thing about it."

"Well, maybe you should find somebody who can teach you."

"Who?"

"I dunno!" Mickey shrugged. "Another time traveller?"

"And how am I going to find one?" Rose moaned. "The problem with time travellers is that you know where they've been, but not where they're going to be."

"Unless they've already been there," Mickey said slowly. "You said you've already been to 2012, didn't you?"

"I can't waltz up to the Doctor in 2012 and say 'hey, teach me how to fly the TARDIS because you're going to strand me here in the face of certain death, oh and hello Rose, meet Rose!' Been there, done that, destroyed the world, remember?"

"What about that Jack guy? Is he turning up anywhere around here?"

Rose frowned. "Not that I can remember. We met in World War Two - and besides, same problem: we hadn't met before, so we can't meet in his past, and I don't know his future 'cause he's stuck on the same stupid space station as the Doctor!"

"Maybe one of the UNIT people? The Doctor worked with them in the past..."

"Most of the experts got killed by the Slitheen, remember? And why would he have told any of them how to work the TARDIS? He didn't tell me." She sighed.

"Anyone else you can think of? Aliens, even?"

"Yeah, well, I can think of one alien that would know, or probably be able to figure it out, but it's going to kill itself, so that's pointless."

"What alien?" Mickey asked.

"The Dalek," Rose said. "Van Statten's Dalek."

"That's crazy!"

"Well, it would know," Rose said.

"But those things are evil," Mickey said.

"Not this one, not completely," Rose said musingly. "It was part human, you see. Part me. It wanted to be free."

"Yeah, well so did Margaret the Slitheen, that didn't make her good!" Mickey said. "If the Doctor hadn't mucked up her tele-thingy, she'd have been off like a flash."

Rose's eyes widened. "What did you say?"

"I said Margaret the Slitheen was evil."

"No, not that," Rose interrupted him. "You said about her teleport thing..." Rose put her chin in her hand and stared at nothing. After about five minutes, she sat back.

"I think I have a plan," she said.

"What plan?" Mickey asked.

She told him.

"Are you completely nuts?" he exclaimed. "That is freakin' insane!"

"I could do it," Rose said. "I'll be careful."

"Careful? Careful?" Mickey said. "One slip and the world is toast! I can't believe you carried on about that stupid disc, and now you're sayin' you want to do something ten times worse! How could you?"

"Because I have to."

"No, you don't have to," Mickey said. "If something's impossible, it's impossible. If the Doctor was here he'd be the first to tell you to stop bein' so stupid."

"Well, he's not here, that's the bleedin' point!"

"You're not doing it, I won't let you."

"Don't you dare tell me what do do, Mickey Smith!" She poured her drink over his head and stormed out.

He thought he'd give her a week to calm down. But when he went to the Millennium square, the TARDIS was gone.