gotosleep_idiot | November & December Test Drive Meme

"Well, it's not a trap, it's a multiverse nexus. Read the pamphlet, Bowtie Boy, I don't wanna repeat the same old things. And I guess I should really make one just for people from our world," a sigh, "Fluffy talked about it but you know how you are."

"Hey, bowties are cool! And I don't procrastinate, I'm a time traveler. I'll do it last week. You'll see."

"No, they're not. Time can't travel here. Only you can. If the weeping angels catch you, they'll eat your memories of time. There's no time vortex here, no flow of -- that's what I was trying to show you earlier. Sorry. I'm so sorry, but it's going to feel a bit like you've been cut off until you can bend it better. The Master's got a jumpstart on you there. Also because he didn't spend so long whinging about traps, funny enough."

"Unless you're implying I'll be here forever, I'll be in time again, thanks. Never said it would be useful when I'd do it, just that I would. As for the Master, well he's always liked to make people think he was ahead of them and where he actually is, didn't he?" His hearts were thumping even as he reminded himself it was a trap. Still, bit of a here are your lives, and he couldn't say he liked it, but he did, a little. Even if she wasn't real, a moment back of Rose, of the Master being alive? Even knowing it was all probably fake, ah, these were memories he'd hold, all the same. Ghosts of the past, but without all the messy haunting bits.

"You can go back, but there's no point to it. You have extra infinity here with your own face, an entire multiverse to explore, no TimeLords or Rassilon to answer to, and even now you don't want to take it." Rose shook her head. "I swear I will never understand you."

A wry grin, "Well, yeah, but this time he actually is. He's living with River too."

"If I even believed this was real, I might have all that, yeah. But you know what I don't have? The Ponds. All of time and space. MY TARDIS. Who cares about forever with this face, forever isn't promised to anyone, you know. If this is all real, of course I'll talk to River before I go, few others. But I've just had hours of trying to stay in one place, Rose Tyler, and I won't have it again. If that is how time passes for everyone else, I'll just as soon get back in my Tardis, thanks all the same. All of time and space, everything that was, everything that will ever be, and you think I'd just stay in one place, let it all pass by?" Watch the people he loves grow old? He couldn't. He wouldn't. He refused. Utterly refused.

Bad enough waiting for the monster with Van Gogh. Then the black boxes and sitting for what felt like centuries on the Ponds' sofa. Just to sit around here and watch everyone die? Thanks, no. There's a whole universe full of things he's never seen out there waiting for him. New friends to meet, new kinds of pudding to try, new places to run.

He might as well have just forgotten about her the way her face falls.

It's hard, keeping her emotions separate enough to identify and deal with them. To keep them calm. But Rose does action first, and separating the emotions and the why's later.

So there's an obvious barrier on her face, a chip on her shoulder, where she's gone dark and cold too. "Then turn around and go back through the gate. And when you're done trying, because some silly tiny part of you that you refuse to acknowledge still wants to be here... then come find me."

And she just turns to leave.

"Oi. You're just going to go? Rose I knew would be right there holding my hand and coming with me." So this was all a trap then. Good to know. Now he just needs to find out who set the trap and make them understand the cost of using THAT FACE against him. Guilt, was what it was. Just guilt.

Rose is so tempted to punch him, and it shows in her quivering balled fists.

"The Rose you knew DID promise you forever! AND YOU big-Chinny went and forgot the promise, and replaced me!"

HUFF. "I said all of the Multiverse. And you're too busy bein' convinced I'm too human or fake to ever know something you don't! Multiverse. Parallel universes. All of the time and space of those. But nooooooooooo. Lock yourself to just ONE instead of infinity! Go on! Swan back! Find the precious Ponds! Can't stick around to have dinner with my Mum, but 'ey! Adopt a whole bleedin' family without me! River said you would have wanted kids here, and you could have knocked me over with a feather! Mr. I Don't-Do-Domestics settling down?! Fine that." HUUUUUUFFF.

Such a growl. "I'm going back to my husband. You said yourself, you'd rather talk to the River here anyway, so go! Do that!"

"Replaced you? Replaced you? I seem to recall you being quite happy with my body double, thanks. You could have said no, you could have pushed back into the Tardis and left him there, or dragged him along with. You honestly think any of us would have stopped you? You chose, Rose Tyler. YOU. Not me! Never me!" Oh. He was angry. Not too fond of angry.

"And how am I to see all of that without my Tardis, who you said isn't really here? Or did you want me to just abandon her? And If River says she thinks I'd want children? Well rule number one, Rose. She learned it from me." Did River want kids, or did she just say that to throw Rose off stride? Probably that second one. "So yes, go on back to the person who only looks like me, but never was actually me. But don't you think, not for one second, Rose, that the choice was ever anything but yours."

That hurts and she's so confused. She chose Meta? She thought it was just universes collapsing. Rose choosing one Doctor over another just sounded... unlike her.

"I didn't live that," she said quietly, hurt and stunned.

"You do it on your own power, stupid--" she could barely get a word in edgewise though. "What's rule number 1? I thought it was don't wander off."

But by the end of it, she was fifty times more wanting to punch him, hair on end, hackles raised, and really raging, "OF COURSE HE'S THE DOCTOR! HE'S TEN TIMES THE DOCTOR YOU'LL EVER BE! If anyone's just an impostor, it's you! Swannin' in, actin' like everything is just a puzzle!? Nine was NEVER like that! We got involved! We helped people! Who are you trying to help other than just feeling sorry for yourself?!"

"Well I DID!" he yelled, then stopped himself. "Angry. I don't like being angry. But there we are, I'm angry." And he made mistakes when he was angry. Mistakes that cost his best friends their baby, that gave River a harder life than she ever should have had at the hands of Kovarian.

"Even if I had that power, and flying without a Tardis is NOT pleasant, thank you, even if I had that power, I'd not abandon her. She'd never abandon me. Everyone else leaves in time." Leaves, or dies. "But not the Tardis, and I'll not just sit and twiddle my thumbs, thanks all the same."

"You think the Metacrisis Doctor was more the Doctor than I am? Well then fine, I leave you to him, Rose Tyler. Because no, I don't care to help the people who try to trap me. Not any more. The people who try to hurt me by kidnapping and hurting my friends?" A hand through his hair. He didn't want to be angry, didn't want to be mad. Not even at a fake of Rose. So who am I trying to help? Whoever else might fall into this trap. You think this is the first place to try and drag Timelords out of the universe? I'll not see any more Tardises eaten, thanks. No more parts of friends sewn and stitched up onto other people. And for you, just for you, I'll give you this. This one thing. This one thing that others have learned, that whoever set this trap and used your face to torment me will learn, Rose who isn't Rose Tyler, there is one thing that you should never put in a trap. Never. Not if you want to survive. And whoever is using this place to trap Timelords? Just made that mistake."

She took a deep breath.

She'd seen Fluffy get angry. Hella angry. Freeze over the ocean and wreck it on a temper tantrum angry. But the fear of Valeyard lingered... and it wasn't going to stop her.

She gently and firmly hugged the Doctor, no matter how angry he was. "I'm not abandoning you. I didn't abandon you." She finally understands how Fluffy feels about other people telling him he did things that were just... impossible. He wouldn't. Not ever. She gently pulled the Doctor's head down and kissed his forehead, taking both of his hands in her own. "The TARDIS will come, but ONLY when she wants to. I need you to listen very carefully, my Doctor. No one is taken here against their will. No matter how much you think it's impossible, you really did just answer another call for help. It's just... a little harder than normal."

She rested her forehead to his and let go of one hand to hug his chest. "I didn't marry Meta. I married Ten. From before he regenerated. He asked me here. I didn't know he'd lost me either. Although if you're like this with River, I have no idea why she doesn't get along with Fluffy. All he is is brutal and mean to her, and then everyone blames me because I was here first and they think I've got some sort of magic mind control on him. Bit mad really." A sigh. "I've never met Meta. I promised Fluffy, he and I aren't going back. Timelines continue without us, no need to see it. I've met your past though, and me choosing any part of the Doctor without the rest doesn't sound like me. It's been the majority of my fights here. Ten wanting me to choose him over the rest, and me refusin'." A shrug.

"You're safe. You're safe Doctor, I will keep you safe. Not forever, but just long enough you don't have to be scared anymore, okay?"

"I'm not scared," he said. Rule number one, shut up. Just... shut up.

"And I always answer calls for help, and you know that. That's even how I met River the first time. First for me, not her. Sent a call for help to me, too early. Before I knew her. I came when you needed me that first day too, didn't I? Back when I was all ears and thought wearing a dead cow and a jumper made me edgy." He kissed her forehead back, but then stepped away to look her in the face. "But even if you don't remember that Rose, it isn't something I could ever forget. I don't know why you made that choice, you never stopped to tell me. You were halfway down his throat and didn't even notice I walked away. And I am NOT like this with River, thank you very much!" If this was all real and a past face of his was hurting River there would be words. Not enough words to create a paradox, over a pair of docs, he hoped. But words. Then he'd take River out for a proper date to remind her that she got the best looking face, thank you very much.

"And how do you think the timelines can go on, if we just stay here, Rose? Have you met Donna yet? All you did with Donna, all you saw in a universe without me. I made myself too big, too loud, too noisy. I get that now, I do. But all that still had to happen. The bad with the good. You're the one that drilled that into our thick heads, you know."

Does Rose know why he has this face? Why he is this man he is now? How much she broke both his hearts choosing the human him, even if he'd as good as told her to? That she chose that to be the first last and only time she ever did what he said? How much he ran after that, trying to escape the emptiness inside him, flying alone in the Tardis? She didn't know any of it. The Master coming back, unless he told her of course. Would explain some of what she said. But...

But Rose left him. Would he have done what he did on Mars if she'd been there? Would she have made him help from the start? Or would she be the reason he left before he could make a mess of things? Would he have left Christina De Souza or would she have come with them for a time?He didn't doubt for a second that he'd help wilf again. Rose there or not, he would save Donna's grandfather, his friend. But would he have hesitated as he did, if Rose were there? He didn't like who he'd been after Rose left.

When she was gone, when she was trapped... there was a part of him still trying to live up to how she saw him, to be HER Doctor. When she came back, it was like one of his hearts had been returned to him. And then she left. Not like Martha who made him keep a phone and called him when she wanted to. Rose picked a Doctor, and it wasn't him.

Even here, it wasn't him. Because whoever that man was she married? That wasn't the man who watched Rose walk away. The man who took a young face and crashed into Amelia Pond's garden box to fix a crack in her wall.

Guilt. That was what Rose Tyler was now. Here and there, she chose someone else. And he had to stop letting that hurt him. Not sure how, yet. But he had to.

Rose's face scrunched up more than ever, trying to fight back the tears. He still didn't know she really was her or he wouldn't say it, but she didn't want him to take it back, if that was how he truly felt. Was hurting.

"Stop. Stop it," she pleaded, tears starting to fall in spite of herself. She dragged him along impatiently to get to a cafe and order chips and tea.

She felt like when her parents were fighting again. You're not like this! You loved each other!

Sitting quietly across from him, still crying, Rose didn't have words. She couldn't apologize for something she hadn't done. Couldn't make it better. Understood why Fluffy would rather believe a lie.

"Why didn't you stop me then?" she sniffled. "I never cared about you being human or alien. Or your curse of the TimeLords. Never ever." More sniffles, more crying, she didn't let go of his hand. Wouldn't, in fact. "Why didn't you just say you wanted me instead of leaving me?" She started really bawling. All the pain of hurting and lashing out at the other Doctors had built up into a feral cry of agony finally. Three's words, and everyone insisting she didn't know or understand 10 as well as she thought. "I thought it was just the Universes would collapse again! I don't want to go! I don't want to leave him!!!" Brb, sobbing uncontrollably.

"I fought so hard, so many demons, so many universes where you died! I just had to watch you die over and over and over and there was NOTHING I could do about it! And now you're telling me we both just gave up on each other! That doesn't even make sense!" So much bawling.

Fake or not, this was ripping his hearts to shreds. He got a napkin and started awkwardly wiping her tears. He should say spoilers, he'd already said too much. And for all he knew, this conversation happened and was why she chose, because he told her she chose. Could he change things? Here? Now? If he had the right lie, could he change her choice? could he risk it?

For Rose Tyler, if this really was her, yes. He'd still find his Amelia, the Tardis would see to that. Probably Rory would join them to keep Rose and Amelia from ripping into each other, another buffer. Which meant everything would still happen for River well enough. And somehow he suspected River Song would understand about Rose. But could Rose understand about River? Sure. Sure she could. Micky traveled with them a bit. She'd loved them both, she'd understand him loving both her and River. So if he got her to make the other choice, there wouldn't actually be a paradox. He could get to keep Rose without hurting anyone else.

But what lie could he tell? What story could he spin? How could he make her make the other choice? Go back into the timeline and fix things the way they should have been fixed.

And then he realized that the best lie... was to say he lied. A lie so mixed with truth even River would have trouble sorting it. He fought the grin, kept his face serious. This could fix things, could fix everything.

"Because I lied to you," he said softly, taking her hands. "I told you that the other me needed you, was born for you. I didn't know then how to fix the situation, and I thought you would. You're like me, Rose," he was sure that bit would hit the ego and help. "You can find solutions best when it is darkest. I couldn't see any other way to help him, so I thought you would. But I know the way now. Neither of us figured it out then, but I've had two hundred year since to think." More, hush. "There were others there that could help him. Micky, your mom, Unit. Remember this, Rose. Send him to Unit, your father would help, then you could come back with me. We could fix all of this. Rose Tyler and the Doctor, in the Tardis, yeah?"

"Torchwood," Rose covered her head with her arms and sniffled. "UNIT's stupid."

She tried to let the emotions calm down, stop tearing her to shreds, actually process them, analyze, think carefully.

"They always said it you know. Four and Three and 8. They said it even about 9. That I chose 10. I didn't want to. I didn't understand why I couldn't be everywhere at once here."

She fiercely rubbed a fist over her eyes and face and slowly got up and gave him a big hug again.

"I can't go and change it. If you remember it, that's how it happens. Otherwise it creates flaws and really could destroy the universes. I thought... I thought it was Fluffy and you getting to have Gallifrey back, just not me. I thought it was still a good thing and everything would be okay because you had friends and River and --"

Rose started bawling again and buried her face in his chest, hugging and clinging around his neck. "I never wanted to leave you!!!" Bawling. "I gave up everything for you over and over and over again. Family, friends, home, everything, I never looked back, never regretted it, and now you're saying it's for naught? What kind of rubbish is that??? Fluffy's right to reject the future!" Sniffles and hiccups.

He rubbed her back helplessly.

"Hey, hey there, Rose. This is me, the Doctor. All this time I've had to reason things out, you think I'd tell you to change if I wasn't sure it would all work out fine? Trust me, trust the Tardis, we can make this work. Already worked out how. And you'll love the...."

Wait. Wait.

"What? What about Gallifrey?"

Just... what?

Rose rubbed her eyes and sniffled more. "You get Gallifrey back," she said numbly. It wasn't fair. She always said she wasn't a planet or a whole people, but she was pretty damn fantastic. Now what, she had to compete with them? She couldn't. "The weapon to destroy it, either it took on being me, or I put myself inside it with Bad Wolf. So I've been in its head. In Rassilon's. Gallifrey comes back and Clara convinced Rassilon to give you more regenerations because he wanted to use your confession dial and the Master to trick you into explaining about the Hybrid." Gosh, talk about spoilers...

"Wait... what? Clara? Who is Clara? You were in the Moment... no, think I would have remembered that, actually."

The Hybrid? How could Rose know about the Hybrid? Had he ever mentioned that? Not sure. Spent so long trying not to think about those days it is all a bit of a blur, all running and snogging her when she wasn't her and cat nurses and cybermen. He couldn't honestly say any more. But no... none of this made sense, none of it could be real.

But what if it was... Oh... To be able to fix things so Rose was back with him, without messing up anything else and get Gallifrey back? Undo what he'd done? No, that was a double paradox at that point. Too much. He'd have to choose. One or the other. But he couldn't choose. Wouldn't choose.

Then a thought occurred to him. Bit of a thought. Not a good sort of thought, but the led in the belly sort of a thought. Had Rose known that when she chose? Did she choose the other him... to trade herself for Gallifrey? To take that choice from him? He wasn't sure if he should be angry at that or relieved or thankful or just sad.

The question came down to if this was really Rose, because he needed fish fingers and custard. Or.. Oh! "Yorkshire pudding!" No, he was not explaining the thought process that got to that.

"You don't even call that life the Doctor, how would you know?" she gave up and flomped onto the ground as a wolf.

At the last part she tilted her head and flicked her ears. "Is that a swear in another planet?" It could be, for all she knows. Belgium is.

How... how could she know that? Unless she was either real and had done all that... or this trap was just really... really... weird.

"What? No. To eat."

More ear flicks. "Okay. I want chips. Big surprise, I know."

"Right. Chips and yorkshire pudding, good to have something to dip the chips in."

Yes. Yes he was going to do that.

"No." She made a face. Extra comical as a wolf. "Well YOU can, but I want vinegar and pepper on mine! Weirdo!!"

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