the last moment (alee - extra rp thread)

There was something rather sobering about almost having lost your life, your boyfriend, your mother, your supposed-to-be-dead father and the love of your life all in the space of a mere twenty four hours. Of course, at first it had all been cause for celebration; the enfolding warmth of hugs abound, of laughter and cheer and that aching sense of relief that all had turned out okay once again.

But gradually celebrations wind to their end; gradually, victory and triumph melts into that final wave goodbye, that step into the TARDIS, and suddenly everything is different; suddenly nothing's the same, and nothing will be, ever again. Mickey, Jackie, Peter - they're all alive, but they couldn't be any further away than they were now. Nothing but a thin thread of string separated Rose from her family - and yet this alternative world line, so close and yet so, so far away, couldn't be any more impenetrable.

Maybe that's what scared her the most; the fact that she'd never see them, any of them, ever again. Never cut the short end of Jackie's scathing tongue, never roll her eyes and cop a small smile at one of Mickey's lame jokes...Never get to know her father, never be allowed to experience a relationship she'd been robbed of when she was merely just a little baby. Never, ever again.

And that's what hurt the most.

The awkward silence lay thick across the TARDIS like a heavy blanket. Not even the Doctor spoke - and dear God, how strange it was to not hear a thing uttered past those lips. She could use anything from him right about now; a sly comment, a bad joke, an awkward attempt at reassurance...anything other than this suffocating silence. All lay quiet, apart from the telltale buzz and thrum of the TARDIS as it hummed to life, and the many click of buttons and push of leavers that in truth Rose had begun to associate with home.

But would it ever feel like home again? It wasn't as if she didn't want to be with the Doctor. (Quite the contrary, there was no other place for Rose in fact.) But the commitment was undeniably terrifying. Never would she see her mother again. Never would she be given the option to have a good old Christmas dinner with the family, something she'd hoped to drag the Doctor to next time. (He wasn't much for the domestic lifestyle, but to hell with it, she'd ease him into it, whether by manipulation or force.)

 None of that now. All gone. Just like that.

And she hadn't even got to say goodbye.

The silence stretched on; more clicking, more incessant humming, and Rose leaned down into her chair, her chin coming to rest upon the cusp of her hands. An attempt at speech wormed its way to her lips, but the words dried and withered upon her tongue. What was there to say at a time like this? The elephant hung heavy in the room - it couldn't be ignored, but Rose didn't really want to acknowledge its existence, either.

It was the Doctor who broke the sober reverie, hands in pockets and an awkward, almost uncertain tinge to his tone. “There’s a gap, a tiny little chip still remaining between the universes. Not enough to go through entirely, but…” Before he finished, her heart rose, her eyes slowly trailed up to connect with his. “If you wanted to say goodbye, there’s a way.”

She pushed up from her chair. "Are you serious?" Abrupt, but how could she deny such an offer? The tiniest chance at saying goodbye to her family, of thanking Mickey and basking in Jackie's smile, and seeing Peter's face - alive - for the very last time. "Doctor, please, I have to-" The breath snagged hard in her throat. One hand grasped at his arm, and she felt water pool into her green eyes. Damn it; she'd never been much of a crier before she met him, but here she was, tearing up again. She bit her lip, her voice trailing off to a thin tendril of a tear drenched whisper. "I have to see them again."

Just once. Just for a fraction of a second.

Just one last time.

skyy and her socks

"Are you sure about this?" No. In all honesty, she wasn't. The thought of seeing her mom again sent a pang stabbing at her chest, the metaphorical knife wrenched and twisting at the very depths of her heart. Because, in some odd way, she knew that seeing her family once more would be like seeing the dead. And if watching her father die countless times before her very eyes was enough to shatter the very fabric of the universe, Rose knew better than anyone what such meddling could lead to.

But they weren't dead. They were very much alive. Just beyond her finger's reach. His hand tightened around her arm ever so slightly, and the serious weight of his tone both frightened and left her undeterred. A heavy breath flowed past her lips; she broke away from his grip, the small of her back leaning to rest against the TARDIS control board, hands curling tight around its sheen rim. The pregnant pause that lay fat in the air was both suffocating and awkward; words felt dry upon her tongue, half baked sentences toppling dead before they even left her mouth.

A thin tendril of her voice remained, and finally she grasped onto its fragile thread. "I have to." It seemed almost unearthly, how shallow she sounded, and how her words tumbled out just above a whisper. Her tone gained strength however at the next part, green eyes meeting his own dark brown pair, and a tinge of defiance alighted within her voice. "Doctor, mum and Mickey are there. Not to mention -" It still tasted strange, calling that man who wasn't technically her father, well, her father - "dad."

She bit her lip, a spot of metallic blood blossoming from the bite, though the sting hardly proved a distraction. Her mind was made up. Rose gave a firm nod, unable to keep the wobble out of her voice this time; "I have to see them again. To say goodbye."

skyy and her socks

She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to hear how...how this lifestyle was temporary, how someday it would all come to an end, because dear God that was the last thing she wanted. Fingers drummed against the sheen metal surface of the panel, the Doctor's words tinging heavy at her ears; she knew what he was saying, even if she didn't want to entirely believe it. And, well, he spoke sense. His arm reached for her own, a cold hand grasping around the fabric of her shirt, her skin tingling beneath at the touch.

They'd had this discussion before, Rose recalled - but that was when she'd had a choice in the matter. Now...well, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't anxious about the whole situation. There was that bubbling froth of familiar anticipating mingling within her chest, alongside that raw throb of grief, and that heavy, aching longing to see her mother one last time, to see Mickey's smile and to carve even the most minute of Peter's features to memory. And now that chance loomed so close, so tantalizingly near. She needed it. Just one last time, to convey to them just - well - everything.

Then his words struck. “Rose. I know the decision’s been made, and it can’t be changed. But I need to know you are serious about staying here.” And when she met his face once more, traced his tousled hair and how smooth to the touch his skin seemed from here, there was something else that suddenly snagged at the peripheral of her vision, something that drew her attention away from his countenance, something that had her pushing away from the panel and saw her craning over the fine line of the Doctor's shoulder.

She'd seen plenty of things before on her travels with him - and nowadays, Rose found it hard to be surprised by anything. Faceless mannequins jolting to life? Psh, pretty standard by now. Farting aliens from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorian? (Hell yeah! Pronouncing it right even in her head!) Bo-o-ring! Hell, she'd seen planets and futures and werewolves and the dead gone walking, things she'd thought had only ever been a product of science fiction or some elaborately conjured fantasy from the mind of a rather talented genius.

But this?

Well, let's just say, this was the first time she'd ever seen something like this.

The Doctor's speech had become a background drone, and it was only the forceful "Rose?" that snapped Rose out of her reverie. She quirked a brow, quite speechless again, though this time for different reasons. Her anxiety, her fears, her trepidation - all melted away, all forgotten in the rush of a moment. She leaned back against the panel once more, glancing once at the Doctor, and then over his shoulder again. She bit on her lip, unsure on how to paraphrase this next sentence.

"Uh...yeah, no, it's nothing," she said, waving her hand, a tinge of a familiar wonder returning to her tone as she pointed in the direction of her gaze. "I just thought you'd like to know about the bride in a wedding dress we've got on board." She paused, one hand coming to rest on the panel as her head came to tilt against the flat of her shoulder. "Didn't know you were the marrying type, Doctor." She couldn't swallow a small twinge of a smirk, which felt so refreshing upon her lips, despite the situation at hand. (Actually, Rose, now is not the time, her brain echoed. There's much more pressing questions to ask.)

And then came that alarmingly shrill slice of a voice.

"Who ARE you?"

...Like that. Yeah.

skyy and her socks

"What?"  The Doctor's voice echoed loud amid the sheen gold of the TARDIS, and honestly, no other word in the dictionary could sum up this moment quite as well. Truly, there were many questions that lay thick upon Rose's tongue, just begging to be freed. Because - really - what could be said in the face of a situation like this one? There was a bride, draped in silk white, everything from her face to her limpid blue eyes and the way the shock sparked clear across her lips resonating as purely human. Not an alien, not some creepy, headless life form, certainly not a frog. A human stood there, looking just as shocked as they.

Yep. What? pretty much summed it all up.

There was a brief moment of utter, pure silence, crackling with tension and skepticism like never before; then the cacophony struck like the slap of thunder. "Who are you?" Her tone was shrill, the shock scribbled blatantly across her countenance. At once Rose pushed away from the panel of machinery, blinking several times, as if unsure what stood before them was a mirage or some sort of trick of the light or anything other than an actual human being. Unlike the Doctor, however, Rose at least maintained some of her sense.

"I could say the same to you," she shot back, a disbelieving tinge hinting at her voice. And then the desperation hit, swamping the confusion in its murky shadow; memory flooded back, fraught with grief, and she gave the Doctor one long, simmering look, her eyes containing all that had to be left unsaid - keep it open. Please. For as long as possible.

Her ingenuity kicked in, and she tried to put the thought of her family out of her mind, of Mickey and her mother and parallel dad all stranded in a place so close and yet so far away, with only a tiny, ripped seam keeping them linked. They had minutes, seconds even, and she had to say goodbye, she couldn't not see them again -

But no. Now wasn't the time. Rose squashed those burbling emotions of fear and uncertainty - and instead, pointedly fixed her eyes on the bride in white. "We're in flight. That is, that is physically impossible," the Doctor babbled, as he began tinkering and flipping at a vast array of buttons and switches. "Rose! You tell her! It's impossible, isn't it?"

"How should I know?" Rose shot back; his babbling nonsense was edging at her mounting frustration now.  "You're the Doctor. Isn't that your job?" Oh god, this was all way too confusing. And as if to add salt to the wound, it had happened at the worst of times. Her shrill voice cut through the blanket of utter cacophony once more, each word surging with desperation and rage. "Tell me where I am. I demand you tell me right now where am I?"

It was Rose, ever quick on her feet, that interjected this time, replying with only what seemed sensible enough. "You're inside the TARDIS." The silence that followed was suffocating, save for the bride's quickly snapped, "the what?"

"Y'know..." Well, no, she didn't know - but how could she go about explaining this? "It's like a - a spaceship." Too fast? "Well, it is a spaceship." A heavy pause. The thing is, when you live with the Doctor, everything becomes incredibly normal - including the whole idea of traveling through time and space in a tiny blue police box. Rocking back on her heels, Rose folded her arms and pressed them close to her chest, one eyebrow quirking and a skeptical frown tinging down at  her lips. "Wait, how'd you even get in here?" (Crap, she was sounding like the Doctor now!)

But Rose's rather feeble explanation was sliced through with a tone as shrill as the squeal of a mouse, and dear God, could she bellow any louder? "Well, obviously, when you kidnapped me." The bride's eyes were fixed on the Doctor now, a light of understanding sparking within their depths. "That's what you did, isn't it? Drugged me, didn't you? Some sort of pervert and...what?" Her gaze quickly snapped to Rose, much too stunned to refute. "An accomplice? Another one of your victims? I'm having the police on you, me and my husband - as soon as he is my husband - we're going to sue the living backside off you."

With a whip of her dress the bride strolled briskly past, heading for the sealed door as she babbled her meaningless threats. Rose threw another glance at the Doctor, then at the foolish woman, hands clasping around the knob of the door. But what about the void - but what about her - but what about mum and Mickey and - but -

It was over.

She knew that deep in her heart.

And she threw away that sweltering thought, swore to dwell on it later, and shot the Doctor one sharp glare for help because, hell, they had a suicidal bride on their hands.

What a way to restart their adventures.

skyy and her socks