Dårlig Ulv Stranden

[preserved_ginger]

Title: Dårlig Ulv Stranden
Characters: Rose Tyler, The Doctor
Pairing: Doctor/Rose
Rating: 12A
Disclaimer: Not mine; just borrowing.
A/N: The dialogue (well, most of it) is taken from the Season 2 transcripts at Who-Transcripts.AtSpace.Com.
Summary: He loves her enough to say good-bye.

She'd thought - after that hideously painful episode where a wall technically four inches thick (but in practice millions upon millions of miles) separated her from the man she loved, the emotionally-scarred, war-damaged alien she'd so recently told she would stay with for ever – that that was it, that she would never see him again, and would have to live however many years of her life without him.

She should have known that nothing was as simple as that when it came to the Doctor. A few months later, she'd heard him whisper to her in her dreams, calling her to him; at first she'd dismissed it as a whimsical fantasy, a wish-fulfilment dream; at least, she had until he called her again. And again. And still kept calling her now.

So that's why, eventually, she's ended up waiting here on a god-forsaken beach in south-east Norway, hair blowing in the breeze, waiting for something that might never happen. And then, out of nothing, he's there. She knows he's there, she can feel it. If she turns – as she turns – she sees him looking at her, although it doesn't really look like him. It brings back a long-hidden memory of something she thought she'd forgotten – Emergency Programme One, a lifetime ago.

“Where are you?” Get the simple questions out of the way first, she thinks; knowing him there'll be much more complicated ones to ask later.

“Inside the TARDIS.” Even his voice sounds different, as if it's coming from a long way away (and it is, of course; over an entire universe and more). “There's one tiny little gap in the Universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection, I'm in orbit around a super-nova.” He chuckles softly, to himself, but there's no humour in the sound. “I'm burning up a sun just to say good-bye.”

See, he seems to be trying to say to her, I told you I would never leave you behind. I told you you were different – maybe now you'll believe I was telling the truth.

She shakes her head, in disbelief that he is actually here and refusing to believe that he isn't here to take her back.

“You look like a ghost.” She sees him wince at that, and curses herself silently. “Ghost” was probably not the best choice of words for her to use.

“Hold on ...” She sees him taking the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, aiming it somewhere in the TARDIS, and the projection strengthens. He finally looks as if he's really there, and she walks over to him and extends her hand towards his face as if to touch it.

“Can I t...?” She's never seen his eyes look so old, so sad, before.

“I'm still just an image. No touch.” The terrible sadness in his eyes is echoed in his voice as he says that she can't. She hates herself for doing it, but she can't for the life of her stop her voice from trembling, cracking slightly.

“Can't you come through properly?” She'd thought that the expression in his eyes couldn't get any sadder. She's wrong.

“The whole thing would fracture. Two Universes would collapse.”

“So?” The unreality of this is fast catching up with her; she didn't entirely mean it but she isn't entirely joking, either.

The smile he gives her is full of sadness. She watches him watching her for a few minutes before The Doctor drags his eyes away from her for long enough to look at the desolate beach they're standing on.

“Where are we? Where did the gap come out?” Typical Doctor, she thinks; always wanting to know things.

“We're in Norway.”

“Norway? Right.” She can't help herself; suddenly, their roles are reversed – he can't seem to speak for love or money and she can't seem to shut up.

“About fifty miles out of Bergen. It's called Dårlig Ulv Stranden.”

That gets his attention. His eyes snap back to hers, and the expression in his eyes is full of panic.

“Dalek?” Bless him, she thinks, as she corrects him gently.

“Dårlig. It's Norwegian, for 'bad'.” He continues to stare at her, and the panic is still very clear to see in his expression. “It translates as 'Bad Wolf Bay'.” She can't get away from that phrase, can she? It follows her everywhere, even into this accursed parallel universe. The irony of it makes them laugh for a second, but again there's no humour in the sound. She is first to speak again. “How long have we got?” The answer she gets isn't promising.

“About two minutes.” The pain washing over her is agony; she hopes he isn't feeling this (although she suspects he is, and that he's trying to hide it from her). She forces herself to laugh against the darkness that threatens to envelop her at knowing that there's two minutes left of her only love before she mightn't ever see him again. The next words come out of her mouth before she even knows she's thought them.

“I can't think of what to say!” She doesn't want to look at him; she can see the pain of all this in his expression and it is killing her that she can't reach over to him and hold him until it goes away, like she has been able to do these past two years and more. She'd lost count of how many days she'd been with him – both of him – a long time ago. She notices that The Doctor has seen her parents and Mickey, all waiting by the Jeep in the distance (giving her much-needed privacy for her conversation, for which she is grateful beyond words.)

“You've still got Mr. Mickey, then?” Can she tell him? She can't not tell him, but how can she tell him when she doesn't know whether she'll ever be able to see him again? She hedges; tells him the bare minimum facts.

“There's five of us now. Mum, Dad, Mickey ... and the baby.” She's sure she didn't imagine the expression that passes over him; and then, when his next words are in the soft, tender tone he's only ever used when the two of them were alone, in their most private moments, she realises she doesn't need to tell him anything at all.

“You're not ...?” She doesn't need to tell him anything at all, because he knows. Oh, he knows. So she lies, a white lie; always wanting to save him from any pain she can.

“No.” She laughs a little, but her eyes betray her. “It's mum.” The Doctor laughs, and the sound of it tells her that although he'll not say a thing, he knows she's lying. He looks over at her mum; probably as much to get his emotions under control as for anything else.

“She's three months gone.” She's telling him what he wants to know without him having to ask, as she's always done since she's known him. “More Tylers on the way.” He's looking at her again, and there is so much emotion in his eyes it's almost as much as she can do not to cry.

“And what about you? Are you...?” Please, Rose, talk to me. Tell me. She can hear his thoughts almost as if he'd spoken them.

“Yeah, I'm-- I'm back working in the shop.” As if he's going to believe that, she thinks. And the tone of his voice when he replies proves her right.

“Oh, good for you.” She laughs, and this time, for once, there's a slight tinge of humour.

“Shut up. No, I'm not. There's still a Torchwood on this planet, it's open for business.” She starts crying; this time she doesn't even attempt to cover up the fact she's doing so. “I think I know a thing or two about aliens.”

She's read of voices full of tears in the romance books she's so fond of, but she's never heard anything that could be described as such before. Until he speaks again.

“Rose Tyler. Defender of the Earth.” He looks at her again like he is starved for her and can't get enough of the sight of her. He's trying to memorise what I look like, she thought suddenly. He doesn't think he'll ever see me again. Then she sees him swallow visibly, and she suspects she's not going to like what he says next. And she's right – she doesn't.

“You're dead, officially, back home. So many people died that day and you've gone missing. You're on a list of the dead.”

She wishes she could stop crying.

“Here you are,” he continues, smiling at her with an emotion in his eyes she can't quite identify. “Living a life day after day. The one adventure I can never have.” She has to ask him. The uncertainty – even if she's now almost certain she knows the answer – is killing her. She's sobbing now, loudly, and it sounds so ugly, but she can't help it.

“Am I ever gonna see you again?” And immediately she regrets asking; he looks as if he's barely holding it together and wants to just hide himself away somewhere and cry himself sick.

“You can't.” And then the conversation changes and it feels like that conversation she had with him at Christmas, when he'd regenerated, and the circumstances now are so bloody different she feels physically sick.

“What're you gonna do?”

“Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life. Last of the Time Lords.” She's reasonably sure this is killing him as much as it's killing her. His reaction to her next question proves it.

“On your own?” He nods, not able to trust himself to speak; his eyes never leaving hers. She looks at him, crying in earnest now, and she knows that although she's told him this so many times before, she needs to tell him again; he knows already but he needs to hear her say the words.

“I lo--” She breaks down completely and he can only look at her, helplessly, while she struggles to regain her composure enough to get this message, so so important, across to him. “I love you.” The look in his eyes is enough to break the coldest heart. His tone is again the soft and tender one that he only ever uses with her.

“Quite right, too.” And she knows he has the message clear. She doesn't mind if he doesn't say it back; he's said it to her so many times in both words and actions – and if he didn't love her, he would certainly not be in orbit around a bloody super-nova to say good-bye! His eyes are locked with hers. “And I suppose ... if it's one last chance to say it ...” He pauses for what can only be milliseconds.

“Rose Tyler ...” And as his image fades away, and she buries her face in her hands, sobbing wildly, she hears him speak directly into her mind. “I love you. Darling, darling Rose; so much. So very much.”