The Fire of a Time Lord
"Rose's eyes, full of warmth and stars and love, reveal the actual truth of his soul. Despite the carnage and darkness that cast shadows over his hearts, a woman as compassionate, clever, and kind-hearted as Rose - Rose, who once convinced a Dalek to feel mercy purely by touching it - sees him as he is and still loves him so completely that she crossed countless universes to find him. The raging fire in his soul cannot possibly compare to the undeniable truth of her light."
A Journey's End fix-it in which the metacrisis Doctor is never made, Jackie Tyler isn't there so Rose can stay forever, and Rose and the Doctor have a proper reunion scene.
Part 1 of 4 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
A/N: It's hard to call me a Doctor Who fan because I've never seen Classic Who nor Chibnall onwards, and I've only seen Moffat-era episodes once or twice. But MAN, OH MAN have I seen RTD1-era episodes dozens of times! So "canon compliant" is beyond my actual knowledge, but this pretty much follows the canon of this singular adventure with some changes.
I'll be posting this in parts each day for 4 days.
MILD SPOILER / WARNING: While this is a fix-it, Donna's memories are still erased in the end. But I think I've written it in a way that ends better for her. There's also fully a time skip of when Donna (and Tentoo in the show) are supposed to save the day. I just couldn't figure out a way to write that with the changes I made, so please just use your imagination to fill in that blank. I'm here to write sappy character beats, not sci-fi plots! I just can't be bothered with it too much lol.
-----
When you met Rose in that parallel world, what did she say?"
"Just... the darkness is coming."
Surely there was more warning than that. "Anything else?" the Doctor presses.
Donna hesitates as her eyes focus on something behind him. A small smile tugs at the corner of her lips. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"
What?
She says nothing more, instead responding to his stunned silence with a simple nod of her head. The Doctor's hearts leap into his throat, already jumping to conclusions against his better judgment. Does she mean what he thinks she means? He turns around to follow her gaze, and his hearts stop altogether when his eyes lock onto the target.
Impossibly yet unmistakably, at the end of this abandoned and Dalek-torn street, stands the woman who, until this very moment, lived amongst his most precious dreams. Even from this distance, Rose Tyler's smile radiates across the space between them. And maybe it's a trick of the light, or maybe it's his own lovesick hearts bending his perception, but the Doctor swears there's a glow around her as if she had descended from the heavens itself. She may as well have, because there is not a chance any of this is real.
She starts jogging towards him, confirming that she isn't just a cruel mirage his mind conjured to fabricate hope. His legs start moving before his mind can process anything beyond the impossibility of her presence. She's certainly in this current space at this current time, and there's only one reasonable response to this information: run.
The Doctor runs flat out towards her in the fastest sprint he's ever ran in his life. Yet it still isn't fast enough. Two years and a universe apart, and this short distance between them is all too much to bear. His feet fly off the pavement. His lungs strain from the effort. His hearts scream her name.
In the final few metres of their sprints towards each other, Rose slows down to brace herself for the crash of their bodies, but The Doctor has no intention of slowing down. When at last they meet, he grabs her waist and uses his momentum to lift her into a twirling hug. Rose's delighted squeals fill his ears, and his hearts threaten to explode out of his chest. He laughs giddily. He laughs so much it almost feels like crying. Maybe it is crying. He feels so much in this moment that the only emotion he can truly identify is soul-deep relief, as if there was a tension knot deep within him that has finally loosened and freed itself from its tangles. Daleks and stolen planets and voids all melt away around them until it's just the two of them swinging in this hug, laughing hysterically into each other's shoulders.
Reluctantly, the Doctor puts her down and pulls slightly apart so he can really look at her at last. She glows even now, with their faces mere centimetres apart, the radiance of her smile nearly overwhelming up close. Both his hands lift up to gently cup her face and verify once more that she is, in fact, not a dream. It can't be. Because dreams are but a de-saturated imitation that pale in comparison to the actual, Technicolor, and intoxicating experience that is Rose Tyler within his arms. His thumbs swipe across her tear-stained cheeks, his own face undoubtedly as wet as hers, and he's completely awed by how warm and solid and real she feels beneath his fingers.
"Rose," he gasps, still only half-believing this is his reality. Before she even has a chance to reply, he smothers the words forming on the crest of her lips with a crash of his own, desperate to drink hers in with the fervour of man discovering water in a desert. He entangles his fingers in her hair as Rose tightens her grip around his shoulders in the near impossible task of bringing their bodies even closer together. No void could stand between them now. He pours into this kiss with the strength of the past two years he was robbed of her presence, plus the power of all the days he let slip past when they could have had this all along.
One thing becomes abundantly clear in this reunion: the Doctor has been a fool. He had been denying himself happiness for so long and for no reason. The carefully constructed rules he kept for himself feel so pointless now, especially when the seemingly endless gulf of his despair could so instantly be shrunk by the blinding joy of embracing the only woman his hearts ever ached for. Why should he obey rules that separate him from the one thing that keeps him fighting? Sod the rules! It's clear they do nothing for him. Because despite the desolation surrounding them, the only thing that matters now is the softness of her lips, the urgent pressure of her tongue against his, the synchronised beating of her single heart against his two, and the feeling that the ever-present void in his life that opened the day he closed the universe's has finally, finally, been sealed.
After a moment that seems both indulgently long and agonisingly ends too soon, Rose pulls away with great effort to catch her breath. A dazed look briefly passes over her face before she breaks into the widest, tongue-tipped smile he has ever had the privilege to witness. Though he could (and would) have kept that kiss going for hours with his respiratory bypass, her smile alone causes his breath to hitch in his throat. She breathes out the sweetest sentence to grace his ears: "Hi, Doctor."
Suddenly, Donna's voice tinged with terror punctuates the air. "Doctor!"
Still gripping Rose to him, he whips his head around to heed Donna's warning. His stomach plummets before his brain can even register the danger his eyes catch sight of. Why does it always have to be a Dalek every bloody time? The Doctor pushes Rose behind him just as the wretched creature screeches "Exterminate!"
*****
"I'm sorry, it's too late... I'm regenerating."
An inferno rampages across every cell in the Doctor's body, torching everything down to the base molecules and forging new configurations between them. The one thing he holds onto in the firestorm is the shattered look of desperation on Rose's face as she pleads with him not to change. His literally burning hearts twinge as he remembers how hard his last regeneration was on her at first. But this body was made for her. He had died out of love for her last time, and from those ashes rose a man whose every fibre was encoded with that love and sacrifice. This body is the body that felt her loss so deeply in the hollows of its bones because it had imprinted the memory of her wrapped in his arms. Losing it would feel like forgetting after he'd only just got her back. So why tamper with a good thing? Surely he can stay the inevitable course of change.
The thought hits him like lightning. The hand! He knew he kept it around for a reason.
As soon as the winds of the inferno point towards the path of restructuring, the Doctor fights to gather all of the randomised regeneration energy and direct it towards a single point outside of him. His disembodied hand siphons all of it so forcefully that it feels like a creature whose tendrils are buried within his veins is being ripped away from him. At last, the final bit of regeneration energy is pulled out of him, throwing him backwards and nearly flat on his back. The fires within him die down to a simmer, and everything remains how he last left it. No need to look in a mirror or pull on his face to check; this is the same body that Rose loves and that loves her back.
"Now then. Where were we?"
The Doctor leans down to blow the excess regeneration energy from his spare hand. When he looks up, the faces of his three friends still look completely gobsmacked, huddled together as they are. The explanation he provides for his unchanged face sounds a bit convoluted as he says it, and their continued silence makes him a bit nervous. Especially Rose's. He gets up, not wanting to feel like he's begging for acceptance yet still desperately hoping she'll approve.
"Remember? Christmas Day, Sycorax. Lost my hand in a sword fight? That's my hand." The concern in her eyes still does not dissipate. He has no choice but to straightforwardly ask, "What do you think?"
Rose steps tentatively closer to him. His hearts beat a deafening thrum in his ears while waiting for her evaluation.
"So⌠you're still you?"
A smile tugs at the corners of his lips. "I'm still me."
They meet in the middle to gather each other into another crushing hug. It's a hug he's felt hundreds of times before when he last had Rose with him, yet now it feels so novel. His cells must have regenerated enough to feel tingly and fresh despite his appearance remaining the same. His body takes in every sensation in detail to re-memorise the topography of her curves and scent of her hair. He could keel over from the absolute ecstasy of reacquainting himself with the essence of Rose, and he isn't even done yet. He is determined to not follow the same foolish patterns in this new version of himself.
So, for the second time in twenty minutes, the Doctor kisses Rose Tyler.
This time around, he tries to take his time with it. In this moment, there's no need for a long-awaited passionate kiss in the throes of a mid-battle reunion. His new cells in a technically new body will gladly luxuriate in the opportunity to familiarise themselves with every dip and swell of her lips and will mould their shapes to match. Overcome by the inherent romanticism of their union, he cradles her neck and dips her back for dramatic flair. Rose giggles around his lips but does not dare break apart.
Unfortunately, someone interrupts by loudly (and rudely) clearing their throat.
The Doctor pulls them back upright and begrudgingly tears away from the moment, growling in frustration. He glares daggers at Donna and Jack. The captain, for his part, has his hands up in surrender and appears genuinely apologetic for the interruption.
"Listen, Doc, I'm happy for you two crazy kids, but we're kind of in the middle of a universe-wide Dalek invasion here."
Rose, still entangled in their embrace, bites back, "Oi, give us a mo', will ya? I've just found him after five years of looking and only now saw him literally die in front of me."
The Doctor looks down at her, eyebrow raised. "Has it really been that long for you?"
Before Rose can reply, Donna marches up to them and plants a hand on either of their shoulders to physically pull them apart. A whine escapes out of the Doctor. "The pair of you can speak without being all over each other, thank you. You're making the rest of us well uncomfortable."
Suddenly, the lights dim around them. The TARDIS cloister bell rings one measly ring and falls silent with the rest of the ship. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Doctor runs to the console. "They've got us!" None of the buttons or levers responds to his touch. "The power's goneâŚ" Panic rising, he runs around the console to test other buttons along the way. "It's some kind of chrono loop!"
As soon as he says this, the ground shifts beneath his feet. All four of them flail to grab hold of the closest object.
The Daleks are taking them.
-------------
A/N: Thanks for reading to the end! The next part will come out tomorrow.
Also, this is legitimately the first fanfic I've ever managed to finish enough to post, so please be gentle đĽş
