| Date: 12 December 2007
Characters: Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler Location: hotel hallway Link to IJ: thread #3642 |
 She woke on a lush carpet in a lush room; not the floor of Satellite Five, the last place she remembered being. She remembered...she remembered getting the Tardis to bring her back, back to the Doctor and Jack, back to the Emperor of the Daleks. She remembered seeing everything. All of time and space, but it was distant now, a story she was told, not the surge in her veins that she remembered. Rose sat up on the floor, rubbing her arms, head throbbing. She remembered watching the emperor burn. All of the Daleks disappear at her thought, scattered across time and space. She remembered Jack breathing again because she couldn't lose him. She remembered pain, the sun and the moon and the stars aching in her body, part of her. She remembered tears and then she remembered being kissed and feeling everything disappear, glowing and hot into the Doctor.
Then nothing. It was cold here and she grabbed the blanket off the bed, wrapping it around herself until she was warmer, rocking back and forth and achingly lonely after feeling the entirety of time. Eventually she got out of the blanket, decided the Doctor was not coming, and headed out the door, whobbling a little, unsteady on her feet as she headed out into the hall, looking for a familiar face or a familiar anything and looking very lost. She was looking another way when she felt someone come up beside her, turning slightly to ask, "This sounds stupid, but where are we?" |
 "I don't actually know." Rose watched the other her for a long moment, wondering how much younger this version of her was. "Do you know where and when you were before you came here?" |
| Rose turned. And stared, swallowing, "Not exa- Who are you?" |
| "Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf." Rose quirked up the corner of her mouth into a half-grin. "Defender of Earth." Her grin faded. "At least, I was. 'S not much to defend it against that it can't take care of itself." |
| "So you're me," she crossed her arms over her chest. |
| "Looks to be." Rose leaned her back against the wall, bringing her wrist up to tap a command into the computer clasped around it, before holding it out to her younger counterpart. "My computer certainly thinks we have the same genetic structure. Mostly." She grimaced. "A few changes here and there, but..." She shook her head. "Shouldn't know too much about your future." |
| "I don't remember meeting you or this place so maybe you're not my future," she lifted her chin a bit, examining the computer like she understood it. |
| "Maybe not." Rose fiddled with the computer a moment longer. "We could be from different realities. Though we shouldn't be able to slip from one to another this easily." She paused, frowning at the tiny screen. "That isn't helpful, you stupid machine. No indication of where or when we are," she added. "Means we actually have to look." She smiled. "Like having the Doctor around again. How is he?" |
| "I don't know," she said after a moment, "I mean. I'm sure he's fine, but I don't really..." she touched her mouth, confused for a moment before straightening and forcing herself to get her brain together, "He has to be around here somewhere, he must have brought me." |
| "If he brought you here, and he's put any universe in danger, I'll make him regenerate again." Rose smiled grimly. "And if he's yammerin' on at my companion while he's at it, and confusin' him..." She shook her head. "Actually, that's it's own punishment."
She tapped in a scan, looking for a specific piece of alien tech, and frowned when she got more than one hit. "There are at least two people with sonic screwdrivers within a half-mile of us." |
| She looked confused, "Regenerated? What do you mean regenerated?"
She smiled at the other, "Scanning for alien tech?" |
| "Regenerated..." Rose trailed off. "What was the last thing you remember before coming here?" She ignored the second question, focusing instead on how much younger this other her was. If it was before the Vortex, and this Rose's Doctor was here... She gave herself a mental shake, reminding herself that she wasn't twenty any longer, and couldn't pretend to be naive about meddling with timelines. |
| "Daleks." she said after a moment, "Everything turning to dust." |
| "Everything that is, everything that was, and everything that could ever be," she murmured. "He took the Vortex out of me, and it killed him. Only he didn't die, he regenerated. Cheated death, and came back with a whole new face." A soft smile touched her face. "A new him, and a new us, for a little while." |
| She shook her head, "No. He took it but he didn't die. He can't die." |
| "He can." Rose ran a hand through her hair. "He did. And he didn't. New face. No more big ears and big nose. More hair. Traded the jacket and boots for a suit and trainers. Talks more, forgives less." |
| "Now I know you're lying, it's not possible to talk more." |
| Rose laughed. "You'll see." She tapped her wrist computer again. "Pick one of them. And we'll see if it's the Doctor you know, or not." |
| "The Doctor I kno-" she stopped and pointed at the further one, "That one." |