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18 Seconds... Epilogue

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Epilogue

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” - C.S. Lewis

Rose pried herself from the Doctor’s arms, apologizing for her emotional outburst and shuffled her feet, embarrassed. The Doctor took in the blood still dripping from her left hand, and ordered her to the medbay, where she removed her tweed, wincing both from the pain in her arm and the damage to her coat. She wiggled a finger through the hole, sighing as the Doctor cleaned and dressed the wound on her forearm. “So much for my favorite jacket.”

“I would think you’d have greater concerns than your coat, Rose,” the Doctor scolded, although the twinkle in his eye told Rose he was being playful rather than genuinely annoyed. She smiled at him, which he briefly returned before hopping up on the medical bench beside her. “How, Rose?” The Doctor asked, confusion and curiosity warring on his face.

“How what?” Rose countered, not letting him get away with asking such a general question.

“You know very well what, Rose,” the Doctor said, his annoyance genuine this time. “No one, not even a Time Lord, could give a TARDIS that kind of energy without dying. When you first came in, the TARDIS was entirely dead herself, and you managed to get her charging and recovering again. At the very least, doing what you’ve done should have caused you to regenerate!”

Rose shook her head and laughed slightly at the Doctor’s worried expression and confusion. “Doctor, how do you think my body managed to handle being converted from human to Gallifreyan? That process alone should have killed me. I’ve been carrying residual energy from the heart of the TARDIS since the Gamestation. It’s what enabled my change, and it’s why I haven’t been aging properly—even I’m not thick enough to think that I shouldn’t have aged at least a bit in the past 93 years!”

The Doctor and Rose shared a chuckle at that, and Rose’s smile remained as she talked. “All I’ve done is put back what I borrowed. I still have some of that energy left lurking somewhere in my system, but if it was gonna harm me, it would have done long before now. I might be shaky for the next few days, but I’ll be fine.”

The Doctor nodded at her explanation, helping her off the bench. Rose grimaced as she shifted her wounded arm, and the Doctor’s face filled with concern. “Do you want something for the pain?”

“No,” Rose said, allowing her face to relax. “Pain is good; it reminds me that I’m still alive.”

Rose chose not to look at the Doctor’s face as she left the medbay, leaving it to him to find what wisdom he could in the comment.

~0~0~0~

It took nearly a week for the Doctor and Rose to repair the damage to the TARDIS that falling through the Void and the battle coming back had inflicted on her systems. The Doctor worked on the technical systems that Rose didn’t understand, while Rose soothed and strengthened the TARDIS’s telepathic functions, her bond to the ship growing stronger in the process.

Rose had borrowed a white T-shirt from the wardrobe room, refusing to throw out her damaged pink top and tweed. When the Doctor questioned her during one of their breaks, she had shrugged and simply said that she had worn them for seventy years, and that she had done far worse to them in the past. It was nothing a competent tailor couldn’t fix, for enough money.

Rose stepped out of her shower on the morning (well, she thought it was morning) that she had decided to have the Doctor drop her off, the skin on her forearm mostly healed, and studied herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized herself anymore. There were a few more golden streaks in her hair now, the result of her channeling the vortex energy she carried back into the TARDIS. She was so much leaner, so much harder, than the chavvy blonde who had started traveling with the Doctor all those years ago.

Life hadn’t been easy for her. But, she thought, I still mean what I said back when I was trapped with the Dalek, in Van Statten’s bunker. I wouldn’t have missed it, any of it, for the world. The Doctor is so very much worth the monsters, and the heartbreak. Thank you, Sarah Jane. Thank you, Reinette. You were right, more than you know.

Rose wrapped herself in a towel, walking into the bedroom she had been using. Laid out on the bed, completely repaired and stain-free, were her pink wrap top and tweed jacket. She felt a thrum of appreciation and gratitude from the walls, and the lights brightened a bit around her. Rose smiled, and put on her clothes, patting the wall as she realized that the TARDIS had tailored her jacket—the tweed hugged her curves now, instead of hanging off her shoulders, baggy and over sized. Don’t worry girl, Rose thought up and out at the ship, you’ll have me back before you know it.

When Rose stepped into the console room, the Doctor was already dancing around the controls. He started speaking, trying to keep a cheerful mask, but he did not look up at Rose, telling her everything he felt with that action alone. “Right. I’ve reset the TARDIS’s internal chronometer, so after I drop you off and suppress the memories it will only seem like a few hours have passed instead of eight days…”

The Doctor trailed off and paused his movement as Rose put a hand on his arm. He swallowed heavily as he finally looked her in the eye. Rose allowed her mental shields to drop, the warm gold of her thoughts mixing with the Doctor’s stormy grey in a tender caress. A tear dropped down the Doctor’s cheek, as he confessed, “I don’t want you to go.”

“I have to,” Rose said softly, her hand stroking his arm as her thoughts brushed against his, attempting to soothe. “There’s a younger version of me that needs to be picked up in that alley, and an older incarnation of you I need to find and snog senseless.”

The Doctor let out a grim chuckle, shaking his head and looking away. “You said no, you know.”

Rose shrugged and the corner of her mouth quirked up. “Yeah, but you forgot to tell me something.”

“I did?” The Doctor looked at her, perplexed.

“Yes.”

~0~0~0~

Rose stepped away from the TARDIS, leaving the alleyway as she listened to it dematerialize behind her. As she looked around, though, she realized that the Doctor's driving had been off, again. There were no people on cell phones, no SUVs, and the fashions were all wrong.

After wandering for about half an hour, she finally found a newsagent's, and quickly scanned a paper for the date. September 12th, 1978. And the paper had been the Western Mail, not the London Times. The Doctor had dropped her twenty-eight years and 213 kilometers off. Oh well, she thought as she strolled down towards the river, at least it's not Aberdeen.

Two weeks and one fake identity later, she was sitting back in a rather uncomfortable chair in a stuffy office, obviously the domain of a military man. Said military man entered the room, and gave Rose an annoyed glance, sniffing in a disapproving manner before sitting behind his desk. “Ms. Zły Wilk, is it? I don't appreciate having my time wasted by precocious girls who somehow manage to talk their way past security checkpoints. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hand you over to the civilian authorities and be done with you.”

“Col. Crichton, I assure you, I'm neither a girl, nor a waste of your valuable time, although I'm fairly sure the label of 'precocious' will do quite nicely,” Rose said, giving the Colonel a warm smile. “A little birdie told me that UNIT is in need of a new scientific advisor, and I’ve come to offer my services, if you’ll have me.”

~0~0~0~

The Doctor shook his head, clearing his mind and forcibly reeling his thoughts in from where they had wandered to. He wasn’t sure why he was allowing himself to become so preoccupied with thoughts of Rose. She had turned him down, for Rassilon’s sake!

He turned to glance at the monitor, noting that he had been brooding for almost three hours. The TARDIS was drifting in the vortex, no longer moving towards a specific destination. He double checked, and discovered that the temporal anomaly he had originally set the TARDIS towards had disappeared, apparently having resolved itself without his interference. There’s a first time for everything, he mused.

The Doctor stopped short, and a wild grin bloomed across his face as he reset the coordinates to take him back to the alley where he had just left Rose and her idiot boyfriend. Time!

The Doctor was heading down the ramp as soon as the TARDIS shuddered back into reality. He threw open the door, taking in a smiling Rose and a bewildered Mickey. He tried not to sound too desperate, as he extended his second invitation to Rose, leaving the door open behind him, somehow sure that she would come rushing in behind him.

“Did I mention it also travels in time?”

~fin~
Title: 18 Seconds to Make Old Things New Again - Epilogue
Fandom: Doctor Who
Character/Pairing: Nine/Rose, OC
Rating: PG this chapter, R for whole fic
Warning: A little bit of blood
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I make no money from this.
Spoilers: TPoTW, AoG and Doomsday
Summary:He'd just left Rose Tyler behind in an alley. So what was she doing nearly a hundred years in her relative future? And what's with all the Zeppelins?

Epilogue - "Oh well, at least it's not Aberdeen."

AU, missing scene from Rose and post-DD. Nine/Rose fluffy bits.

Well boys and girls, this fic is finally finished, to my relief and elation. I'd like to thank everyone who has poked me to finish, as well as the fine people at Time and Space for the screencaps used in the headers. To everyone who's left a review, your feedback has been what's kept me going with this, even through a 2 month bout of writer's block. There are going to be at least 2 more multi-chapter stories in this series, Maybe Too Soon and Loom/Pulse.
© 2008 - 2024 amberwind
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MystiStar's avatar
I found this fic on Teaspoon and I quite enjoyed reading it. I love Rose's coat...I kinda wish to steal it :iconteheplz: Thanks for posting!

(will there ever be more? :la:)