Just a Thought

I just realized that I was much more regular in my posting back in High School and the early days of college, even if it was all mostly complaining about my day. Yeah, I've been going through back posts. XD

There was even a point where this blog was being used for schoolwork, can you believe it?

Wow. XD I really was a dedicated blogger way back when wasn't I?

Doctor Who Fic: Forever (10.5/Rose/11)

Title: Forever
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All characters and concepts of Doctor Who belongs to all affiliated creators and producers and distributors. I make no money off this work of fiction.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Mentions of 10/Rose/10.5 and 10.5/Rose/11
Summary: The last stop of the Doctor's Farewell Tour before Lake Silencio is a place he knows he's better off staying away from.

~*~

It was a dangerous thing to do, going back to a time when the universe was so unstable and forcing open a crack in space and time. Still, it was his Farewell Tour, his LAST farewell tour, and surely he couldn't be expected to settle for a Rose who couldn't recognize him because she's yet to meet him, or a Rose who knew him but couldn't be allowed to know him for fear of the timelines collapsing.

It's stupid and dangerous and his hearts are pounding, pounding and drumming so hard against his ribs that he thinks it's a miracle that they haven't burst out of his chest in a shower of blood, bone and gore. Still, it's quiet in the facility, and he knows he only has so much time. Knowing how his former regeneration thought, with a bit of leeway to compensate for what the metacrisis clone would have gotten from Donna, he'd planned the coming conversation to the last chronom. But it didn't mean he had much time to spare.

He checked the perception filter before slipping the cord over his head and tucking the rose shaped pendant under his collar, out of sight. He scanned the Vortex Manipulator, borrowed from Jack Harkness for this one visit, with his sonic screwdriver to ensure that everything was working as it should. He checked the device that he'd rigged to keep the crack open until his return (Couldn't risk being trapped on the other side, who knows what would happen?), and took a step back. He pointed the Sonic Screwdriver and turned it on. The crack groaned and slammed open and he lept forward, flipping switches and pressing buttons, and the device hummed to life as the crack opened a bit wider before settling. The pale light spilling though the Rift dimmed and vanished to reveal an empty room on the other side.

The Doctor took a deep breath, adjusted his bowtie, tugged his jacket to settle properly on his shoulders, and stepped through the Rift.

~*~

It hurt, being left behind. After all that work put into finding him, he just dropped her back off in Bad Wolf Bay in the parallel universe with a clone of himself. It didn't matter that the clone, now called John Noble, had all the memories of the original and loved her just as much as the original. He just wasn't him. It was supposed to be Rose and the Doctor in the Tardis, forever, not Rose and the Clone and the new Tardis. She hated it. Hated it.

Still, for the sake of her mum and Pete, because the Doctor was right the first time round. Pete was not her dad, no matter that he accepted her as his. For her Mum and little Tony and Pete, who she'd come to love like a doting uncle, and for John, whom she had come to love as a friend, she pretended to be madly and wholly in love. She pretended to be happy. But she wasn't. She wasn't.

She understood why he'd done it. She and John had talked about it, and while she wasn't angry about it any more, she still didn't like it.

Still. It was doubly hard, because everything was changing all around her, and she was not. Even John was changing, and she knew that if this kept up, they would come to hate each other, and the thought of hating any aspect of the Doctor frightened her. She wasn't happy. She'd never be happy unless she was with her Doctor again.

~*~

She didn't accept him. She didn't love him, not in the way hewanted her to. But Rose was right in this much, John Noble was only a copy of the Doctor. He has equal amounts of Donna Noble and the Doctor in him. This means that sometimes he's ruder and more emotional than the Doctor ever allowed himself to be, but sees and understands more than Donna ever wanted to. This means that the love he had for Rose was shifting. It wasn't the intense all devouring love he'd felt back before the split, it was changing into something softer, more tender, more platonic.

Still, he loves Rose, he wants her to be happy, (really happy, not this terrible pretending that would eventually break her, but a true, soul deep happy that she's only ever been with the Doctor) the only thing he'd brought with him away from the Doctor, the only thing that was constant in his ever changing life was Rose, and how much he loved her. It didn't matter that it wasn't the all consuming love from the beginning, it was still love. So he'd find a way to send her back. Send her to himself, the original Doctor, and let her have her forever with him, especially now that she could give it to him.

Because in the end, much as he loved her, he was becoming tired of being second best. It was only a matter of time before that niggling disquiet became resentment and hate, and the last thing he wanted was to hate Rose.

Cracks were appearing in the skin of the universe, and he'd find a way to use them to send her back to the Doctor.

This way, he'd stay here, he'd miss her, but he would still love her. Rose would be happy. He'd keep loving her with a bittersweet love, because she was far too good and sweet a person to be hated. And he loved her so very much that the thought that one day he'd come to resent her, and she him, scared him witless.

~*~

The Estate was dark and quiet. It was to be expected considering the time. He didn't walk right in. He was a bit reckless but he wasn't stupid and he didn't look like he had in the last incarnation. The household security was like as not to shoot him on sight if he tried. That's where Jack's Vortex Manipulator came into play. He pressed several buttons, and vanished in a crackle of light and electricity.

~*~

He'd sensed him almost as soon as he'd arrived, the soft brush of a Time Lord mind against his. The Doctor had come. It was why, despite the late hour, he was still awake. There was a crackle of light and electricity John smiled at the young looking man with green eyes with floppy hair and dressed in tweed with red bracers and blue bow-tie who appeared in front of him.

"Look at you!" John said cheerily, "Just look at you! You've changed!" He leaned forward and said in mock-astonished tones, "You've gotten younger!"

The Doctor smiled wryly, "And you've changed also. Age seems to be treating you well."

"Yeah? To be expected, right? Ten years and all..." John rubbed his sideburns, which had started to grey. "So..."

"I thought you'd want to know, since the timelines have since diverged," the Doctor murmured, "I encountered River Song again."

"Oh."

The door into the study opened slightly and in the reflection on the window, there was a flash of pink and gold at the door. The two versions of the Doctor ignored it.

"Did you ever find out who she was to us?"

"Yes."

The Doctor sat down in one of the armchairs by the fire, and the Human Doctor leaned forward as the Doctor told him everything, from wiping Donna's memories to save her to the discovery of who River Song was. It was a bit odd, telling someone who was essentially himself what had happened. But it felt good. He was glad to be able to speak to another Time Lord who understood. Their timelines and memories had diverged enough that they were quintessentially two separate people. It felt nice to be able to talk to someone who wouldn't judge his choices, who understood the reasoning behind them, who recognized how the ramifications of those choices followed him. It was nice to just talk.

"The daughter of your companions huh? Domestic." John joked weakly.

He knew that there was more that the Doctor wasn't telling him.

"I'd always known I'd take her to Daryllium one day," the Doctor confessed, "I never thought it would end quite like this though."

"Doctor?"

The Doctor raised sad green eyes to meet the brown of his clone, "Last night I took River Song to the Singing Towers of Daryllium. Today, it is the Twenty-Second of April in the year 2011 and it is currently 5:02 AM. In twelve hours time, on the shores of Lake Silencio in Utah, at the hands of my wife, (John's eye's widened, "What?" he cried. The Doctor continued as if nothing had happened.) I die."

"What?!"

"Permanent death this time."

"WHAT?!"

"NO!"

The door swung open with a crash and the two men twisted in their chairs to stare at the woman in the doorway.

"Rose!" the two Doctors cried.

"Doctor... You can't!"

Both men cringed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks again. The location was different, the circumstances were different, but oh, so many things were the same. Rose, their precious, beautiful Rose, was crying again, all because of the Doctor who was, once again, saying goodbye.

"I have to Rose," the Doctor said sadly, "It's a fixed event."

"But you can't!"

"I have to."

"Not really," John mused, "It just has to look like you died."

"Easier said than done."

"It would be easy I think," John said softly, "Get a Teselecta or a Ganger and send them in your place." He paused. "Maybe not a Ganger. You'll want a corpse that won't de-constitute itself after the first shot. A Teselecta or a Clone may be the best choice then, since River likely knows to burn the body when a Time Lord dies."

The Doctor studied John and said softly, "'Demons Run when a good man goes to war/Night will fall and drown the sun/When a good man goes to war/Friendship dies and true love lies/Night will fall and the dark will rise/When a good man goes to war/Demons run, but count the cost/The battle's won but the child is lost.'

I'd never risen higher, but likewise, I'd never fallen lower. I've become too big, too noisy. The word 'Doctor' means wise man and healer, a word that the universe got from us. If I continue as I have, then what will I become? Already the name 'Doctor' has begun to warp. Did you know, in the Gamma Forests, the word Doctor means 'Great Warrior'? This can't continue, and if I have to die to step back into the shadows, then..." he hesitated briefly, "then so be it."

John looked sad as he shrugged, "It's your life, I suppose. We don't have much in the way of how you live or die." He gave the Doctor a penetrating look before saying, "But you should consider this, what will Rose do after I die?"

The Doctor looked confused, "What?" A hint of his tenth self leaked into the question, which made Rose give him a teary smile. He felt his hearts twist.

"Ten years, Doctor. It's been ten years since we last saw you," Rose whispered, "John changes, Mum changed, Pete changed, even Tony is all grown up, but look at me. Ten years and I'm still the same. I'm still the same while the world changes around me."

"Oh, Rose..." the Doctor stood up and pulled Rose into his embrace. She clung to the lapels of his tweed overcoat as if her life depended on it, her tears soaking into his collar. "I didn't know," he whispered into her hair, "If I'd known..." The Doctor swallowed hard and murmured, "All I wanted was for you to be safe and happy, I thought if you had something of myself to hold on to..." his voice cracked, "but all I've done is hurt you. I'm so sorry, Rose..."

"Take her with you when you go," John said firmly, "You've taken River to Daryllium, you know what's next. And Rose needs you." He smiled wryly, "Besides, now you can have the forever she promised you."

"But what about you?"

"I'll be fine." John smiled, "I got a gift, a wonderful, irreplacable gift. For ten years, I got to have domestic with a good woman who tried for love of us both. I'll hold the shared time close to my heart and move on. Exactly like a human would."

The Doctor looked between Rose and John and nodded. "I'll be without a wife soon anyway," he said softly, "It'll be good to have a friendly face on the Tardis."

Rose gave the two a watery smile. "I'll go pack my bag. Oh, and I'll have to call mum and Pete."

"Write them a note," John suggested, "I'll deliver it in the morning."

~*~

Finite