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Rose landed in a small garden that looked like it hadn’t been properly maintained in years. She looked around hopefully, but there was no sign of the TARDIS anywhere, and she couldn’t help letting out a disappointed sigh. But there was no reason to head back now, not when there was still a chance that the Doctor might show up at some point in the next thirty-seven minutes.
For now, Rose just wanted to figure out where exactly she was. It was late-ish, but there were still lights on in the house next to the garden, so Rose walked up the cobble path covered in overgrown weeds, and knocked on the front door.
There was a long pause, and then it finally swung open. There didn’t seem to be anyone there at first, but then Rose glanced down and spotted a little girl with a shock of red hair on her head. “Oh- uh, hello. You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s anyone called the Doctor around here?”
The girl frowned. “Are you hurt?” She had a Scottish accent even though Rose had thought the coordinates said she was in England (because didn’t just about everything important in her life happen in England?)
Rose shook her head. “No, no I’m fine. I’m just looking for him, is all. He’s a- a friend of mine, but we got split up, and he’s a very difficult person to track down.”
“Have you tried the phone book?”
Rose blinked once, and then smiled at the innocent suggestion. “Not yet, no. I’ll have to try that. Anyways, I’ll just be…” she trailed off when she realized that there was something strange about this house, or maybe about the girl, though it was hard to tell when the girl was standing in the house. “Sorry, this is probably an odd question, and you don’t have to answer it since I know I’m just a stranger, but are you alone here?”
The girl narrowed her eyes and gave Rose a sharp look, but after several seconds passed, her shoulders slumped down, and she just shook her head. “My aunt’s home. She’s sleeping, though.”
It occurred to Rose for the first time that ‘late-ish’ by her standards was really quite late for a little girl. “Oh- did I wake you up? I’m terribly sorry about that. I’m not usually so rude. Guess my- friend did start to wear off on me.”
“Your friend the doctor?”
Rose could tell just from the way the girl said it that she meant doctor like the human noun, which was a common enough mistake. “Actually, he’s not technically a doctor- or maybe he is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gotten around to it at some point- but no, he’s just called the Doctor.”
From the way the girl twisted her features, it was obvious that she didn’t believe Rose. She put her hands on her hips and had the most dubious look Rose had ever seen on a face so young. “Well doesn’t he have a name?”
Rose sighed, and couldn’t help the fond smile that spread across her face as she thought back to the day she’d learned the Doctor’s true name. It was a precious memory of a time long-passed, when she’d learned something that only two other people in the universe knew. “He does, but it’s a secret.”
The girl’s eyes widened, and she immediately jumped up and down a couple of times. “I can keep a secret, I promise! Rory always tells me all his secrets and I’ve never told anyone them!”
It was hard not to find that enthusiasm endearing, and Rose almost regretted that she’d have to let the girl down gently. “I’m sorry, but it isn’t my secret to tell. The only people allowed to know the Doctor’s real name are the ones who have married him. I’m his third wife- or, well, technically second depending on who you ask, so only me and two other people know it.”
The girl immediately shook her head. “Nevermind, then. Marrying people is gross.” After a few seconds passed in silence, Rose stood up straight, and stretched her arms up over her head to hear satisfying cracking noises from her shoulders. “Wait, are you leaving?”
Rose glanced down at her watch. Thirty-one minutes until she had to leave. But she knew that she should really let the poor girl get some rest after having woken her up so rudely in the first place. “Yeah, I think it’s time to move on.”
She started to turn, but then there was suddenly two tiny hands grabbing Rose’s sleeve, and even though Rose could have easily pulled herself free from the grip, she didn’t want to knock over the child. “Don’t go yet, please!” There was something desperate in the girl’s voice, and Rose wondered if maybe she hadn’t woken her up after all. “I’m so sc- please don’t go.”
Rose sighed, and crouched down again to get a better look. “You know, I’m a grown-up, much older than I look, and I still get scared of things all the time. It’s okay to be scared or upset.” She hadn’t planned on asking, and she knew that it could potentially cause problems if she returned the gesture, but… “What’s your name?”
The girl looked confused, like she’d somehow thought that they’d already done proper introductions. “I’m Amelia Pond.”
Rose rolled the name over in her mind for a moment before offering Amelia a big grin. “That’s a lovely name. Sounds like something right out of a storybook. Well, Amelia Pond, when it comes to making the scary things go away, I’m not very much help, but I’ve seen a thing or two in my time, so if you’re willing to tell me what has you so frightened, then perhaps I might be able to do something about it.”
Amelia’s grip on Rose’s sleeve loosened somewhat at the realization that Rose wasn’t going to just waltz off. “Really?”
“As long as it’s something I can fix within the next twenty-eight minutes, then yes.” She let Amelia take her hand and lead her inside the house, and up the stairs. They went into a bedroom that must have been Amelia’s, and then they both stopped at the same time to stare at the giant crack that ran across the wall. Rose wasn’t sure what the exact problem was, but she got shivers down her spine, and she just knew that there was something seriously wrong. “That is… hmm.” She turned to look at the girl. “I’m terribly sorry, Amelia, but I don’t think that there’s anything I can do here. Unfortunately, my expertise lies more in talking down aliens with plans of global domination, not… this.”
Amelia looked at Rose with wide eyes, and it almost hurt to see the amount of trust in them despite the two having only known each other for a few minutes. “What is it?”
Rose shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not exactly sure. But it seems to me like it’s not quite…” she trailed off as she walked closer to the crack and reached out to touch it. She felt Amelia tug sharply on her arm to try to stop her, but Rose continued forward anyways. She felt the smooth wall under her fingers, even when she touched the widest section of the crack. “Here,” she finished softly. She could feel something inside of her scream out from the wrongness of the fissure. She’d wondered before how it was possible to make the jumps again, but she was pretty sure that she had just found the answer to that. “It’s not a crack in your wall, it’s a crack in time. Maybe space too.” She glanced down at her watch. Twenty-three minutes left. “I can’t stay here long to protect you from this, but I urge you to figure out other accommodations until this is gone. Convince your aunt to move, whatever it takes.”
Amelia’s bottom lip trembled. “Is it really that bad?”
It was a terrible thing to confirm a child’s fear, and Rose hated to do it, but it would be much worse to pretend that there was nothing wrong when something so clearly was. “Yes. Maybe the Doctor is going to come here and take care of it. It would explain why I came here. Listen to me very carefully, Amelia. If a blue wooden police box shows up, and a skinny man with a brown jacket comes out of it, then you can trust him to help you.”
Amelia sniffed once, but she didn’t cry. She just furrowed her eyebrows. “If the person you’re looking for is going to come here, can’t you just wait for him?”
“Oh I would love to,” Rose admitted. “I would wait hundreds of years for that man- and I have. But unless he shows up in the next nineteen minutes, there’s nothing I can do.” She lowered herself down and reached out to gently take hold of Amelia’s shoulders. “Listen to me, this is very important. If the Doctor shows up, then you cannot tell him that you saw me. At all. I need to find him at a very specific point in time, and if this isn’t the right point, him knowing about me could mess up a lot of stuff. Like the entire universe, maybe. Can you promise me that you won’t say anything about me to him?”
Amelia hesitated for a moment. “Will you stay with me for as long as you can?”
Maybe Rose had never wanted children, or maybe the time had just never been right for them, but either way, at the moment Rose was glad to have never become a mother, because she just knew that she would give in instantly if her child ever flashed those eyes at her. “Alright. Why don’t we go wait out in the garden?”
It was a bit chilly out, but Amelia dragged her comforter out with her, and Rose wasn’t bothered by the temperature. They both laid out on the grass and stared up at the sky. Amelia pointed to every star and constellation, and Rose told her the names and stories of all of them (making up a few for the ones she didn’t know).
“I promise I won’t tell the Doctor about you,” Amelia said suddenly. Rose smiled gratefully, and then pointed to the next star.
The time passed by all too quickly, and then Rose only had a minute left. “Amelia Pond, no matter what happens, I need you to be brave for me, okay? I promise that everything will be alright, but I don’t know when-” and then Rose was gone, back to the starting point. She threw down the dimension cannon and sank down in front of the nearby computer so that she could start running calculations. She was determined to find her Doctor, no matter what.
,,,
Amelia wondered if she was supposed to be more startled when the woman disappeared suddenly, but instead of being surprised, she found that it seemed like a perfectly natural thing to happen. Sure, she’d never seen anyone disappear like that before, but something about that woman had made such a thing seem all too possible.
Even though she didn’t want to return to her room to face the crack alone, but she needed to be brave for that woman- whose name Amelia didn’t even know- because the Doctor was going to come and fix everything.
,,,
Two weeks later, after Amelia prayed for someone to come and help, she decided to ask for a policeman. If the Doctor wasn’t a doctor and he had a police box, then he had to be a policeman, right? Just moments after she finished, there was the sound of a loud crash outside, and Amelia hurried to pull on her robe before going out.
There, pressed up precariously close to the shed, was a blue police box with gray smoke rising up out of it. She hurried over to try the door, but it was locked, so Amelia stepped back and impatiently waited for the Doctor to come out. When the doors did pop open, she didn’t expect a giant hook to catch the edge of the box, and then a man with unruly black hair emerged.
He was soaking wet, which was bizarre, and he certainly wasn’t what Amelia had expected. There was no brown coat, and the man seemed to be about average width for his height. Was that not the Doctor? He finally caught sight of her, and grinned, talking so quickly that Amelia nearly couldn’t keep up.
After feeding him half the kitchen, and watching him settle for the truly disgusting combination of frozen fish fingers dipped in custard, he asked what had her so scared, and Amelia relaxed. He could have ditched the coat and gained weight, but if this wasn’t the Doctor that had been promised to her then why would he have come from the police box, and why would he care about the crack in her wall? So Amelia brought him upstairs and listened to him promise that he would fix everything, and bring her along as soon as he came back.
She didn’t expect to wait eleven years, and at a few points during that time, she couldn’t help thinking about the blonde woman who had showed up before the Doctor. The woman had said that she’d waited hundreds of years for the Doctor, so surely something about him must be worth waiting for.
,,,
Amy grinned in delight at the sight of all the Doctor’s former companions. A very small part of her was jealous to learn that she was not even close to being the first friend to travel the universe with him, but in the end, the Doctor was so lonely and he deserved to always have people.
The grin faded, though, when one of the faces that flashed across the screen was a familiar one. She immediately demanded that the TARDIS go back to that one, but the TARDIS ignored Amy’s order. The Doctor seemed startled enough by the look on Amy’s face that he obliged.
There, across the screen was a just slightly younger version of the woman who had been looking for the Doctor. Amy squinted at the photo as she tried to think back to everything that had happened that night, and one particular thing slipped out before she could stop herself. “Of course she traveled with you, she’s your wife!” Then she wanted to smack herself in the forehead when she saw the Doctor staring at her, so many emotions warring across his face that it was impossible to pick out just one.
“What?” he croaked out. “What are you talking about? She’s not my- I mean we never got the- I mean we didn’t- couldn’t-” He cleared his throat as he looked back and forth between Amy and the photo. “Have you met Rose before?”
“Rose? That’s her name? It suits her.” She continued to study the photo, and then she nodded once because she knew that she was right. But Rose had asked her to not say anything to the Doctor, had said that the universe could be at risk if she did, and oh why did her big mouth have to just blab like that?
The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest as he gave Amy an intense stare. “Tell me.”
“She told me not to,” Amy said with a small wince. A hurt look crossed the Doctor’s face, so Amy hurried to explain. “I remember she said something about needing to find a specific version of you, and she said you’d be skinny and have a brown jacket.”
The Doctor’s entire body seemed to collapse despite the fact that he’d barely moved a muscle. “Was she wearing a blue jacket?” Amy nodded once, and then the Doctor sank down into the jumpseat. “Oh.”
Amy hated to see the Doctor hurting like that, and wished that she hadn’t said anything at all. “Doctor? Will you tell me about her?”
He sighed, and then abruptly stood up and took Amy’s hand, silently leading her through the TARDIS’ maze-like corridors with none of his usual manic energy. Eventually they stopped in front of a door. It was one that Amy had never seen before, but it stood out because it was wooden, and had a rose carved into the frame. “Even when all the other rooms were deleted, the TARDIS was able to save this one. Probably because of her connection to Rose.” He took a deep breath, and then slowly pushed the door open so that they could step inside.
The first thing that Amy noticed was the sheer amount of pink everywhere. Then she took in the other details. Clothes strewn about the bed and floor, pictures tucked into the frame of a mirror that showed Rose and several other people that Amy didn’t recognize. Little alien knickknacks across the dresser top, a bookcase jam-packed with books from all different times and places. A messily made bed with a jacket neatly folded and placed on the pillow, clearly not left there by the room’s occupant.
The room looked like someone had just walked out of it, but could walk back in at any moment and flop down onto the bed. It didn’t feel like someone was just going to walk in, though. There was no dust anywhere, but Amy still got the feeling that it had been empty for a very long time.
After glancing over the photos, some of which did contain a skinny man with a brown jacket, she looked at the Doctor questioningly, and he sighed. “We met a very long time ago in my timeline, though she was only born a few years before you were. She was the first person to travel with me after the Time War, and she made me feel- well. We got separated, trapped in different universes. Then the stars were going out, so she did everything in her power to find me, hopping all through time and space in that leather jacket.”
“If you know that, then she must have found you, right? So where is she?”
The Doctor closed his eyes, and Amy felt bad for making him dig up the pain of his past, but she also knew that he needed to talk to somebody about it. “She did, and we saved the day, just like always, but then I let her go. I had to let her live the life she deserved, and I- I wonder why she would say she was my wife.”
Amy shrugged. “I don’t really remember. I think she said something about a name? It was a long time ago for me, though. I don’t suppose you could just pop back to when I first met her, and talk to her then?”
She already knew that the Doctor was going to say no, so she was confused when he didn’t. Obviously not because he thought that it was a good idea, but because his face looked frozen in surprise. “A name? Amy, what exactly did she say?”
Amy frowned. “I don’t know, I don’t remember, Doctor. Maybe she just thought it would be easier to get help finding you if she said you two were married.”
The Doctor shook his head, and there was so much urgency in the motion that Amy half-expected him to just run off somewhere while shouting random nonsense over his shoulder. “No, you don’t understand. Marriage for Time Lords is very different than it is for humans. There’s a mental bond put in place where the two share their true names. Only your family and spouse are ever supposed to know it. Normal Gallifreyans still had the mental bonds, but only Time Lords were authorized to use TARDIS’ to time travel, and regeneration is an artificial process given to Time Lords when they graduate from the Academy. The name is a way to ensure that spouses can find each other across time and space and different faces. If Rose called herself my wife, and said she knows my name…” he trailed off, suddenly looking frustrated. “I don’t understand what any of this means! She was given everything she could want, and the last time I saw her, she was trapped in a different universe with no way back!”
Amy reached out to grab the Doctor’s hand. “Calm down. Whatever happened, we’ll figure it out.”
The Doctor nodded, a look of steely resolve filtering in through his eyes. “You’re right, we will. Like you said, we can just go back and-”
“Aren’t you not supposed to do that, though?”
The Doctor frowned. “If I don’t make myself known, if I just listen, then- I just need to hear her exact words so I can-”
Amy crossed her arms over her chest. “I know I suggested it, but only because I thought you would shoot it down! If I’ve learned anything from you, it’s that that would be a terrible idea. I can’t let you do that.”
The Doctor’s shoulders slumped down, and then he sat on the edge of Rose’s old bed, jostling the magazine that had been somewhat hidden between the folds of the blankets. He covered both of his eyes with his hands, and rested his elbows on his knees. Amy sat down next to him, and put an arm around his shoulders. She might not be able to stop her best friend from feeling pain, but she could at least be there for him.
,,,
The Doctor grinned as he watched Rory and Amy twirl around the room, Amy’s wedding dress flying up every time the song sped up. He’d been to lots of weddings before, even a few of his own (though he didn’t really count most of them), but he couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy just to be in attendance. Maybe it’s because he was grateful to even exist, but there was also more to it. Seeing Rory and Amy finally happy and together and so madly in love made the Doctor’s hearts ache a bit, but he couldn’t deny that seeing any of his companions get their happy ending was a rare and beautiful thing.
The Doctor had enough energy to easily keep bobbing around with the kids for a while, but once the slow dances started, he slipped out of the room. He was truly happy for the Ponds, but he needed a breath of fresh air.
He sat on the steps in front of the function hall that the reception was taking place in, and leaned back on his hands so that he could stare up at the clear blue sky. It was the perfect day for a wedding. “Penny for ‘em?” a familiar voice asked.
The Doctor thought that he was hallucinating for a minute as his head jerked to the side. There was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen, of a young woman with bottle-blonde hair and worn denim and a t-shirt for a television show that the Doctor was pretty sure didn’t exist. He leapt to his feet, mouth suddenly dry and useless, all of his usual gabbing ability lost.
She gave him that tongue-touched grin, and then took a few steps closer to the Doctor, though she left some distance between them, as if she was trying to stop the Doctor from being spooked. He finally found his words, though he cursed himself when all that he managed was, “What are you doing here?”
Rose just laughed, and reached into her pocket to pull out a familiar looking card. “I was invited, if you can believe it. It wasn’t easy for this to get delivered to me, considering I’m officially dead and all, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you just how tenacious your Amy is.”
The Doctor looked at Rose’s jacket, and felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Rose, you can’t- you’re not-” She held her arm up, and it took the Doctor a moment to figure out what he was supposed to be looking at. Then his eyes widened, and he looked back up at Rose’s face. “No dimension cannon.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Those days are long behind me. The first and second time. Come on, did you really think that I wouldn’t take advantage of a crack in the universe to slip through to this side?”
“But what about the one I left you with? Are you really-” married, he wanted to say, but was too much of a coward to ask, even though it’s what he’d wanted for her.
Rose reached out, but didn’t move closer to the Doctor, forcing him to close the gap between them so that he could take her hands. Even in this new body, their hands fit together perfectly. “We had a very long and happy life together, Doctor, but in the end, our lifespans weren’t as equally matched as you thought they’d be. I waited for a long time, to mourn and to be on my own. And then one day I realized that the dimension cannon worked again, even though I didn’t realize why. I’ve been looking for you ever since, but you are a very difficult man to track down.”
Before the Doctor could say anything to that, the doors behind them burst open, and then he heard Amy’s loud voice full of delight. “You came! You really came! I wasn’t sure- but you’re here!”
Rose pulled away from the Doctor, and he had to resist the urge to grab her back as she moved to pull Amy into a hug. “Looks like you’re all grown up now. And I was right about the Doctor showing up for you, even if he wasn’t exactly the Doctor I expected.”
Amy laughed. “Yes, you were right.” Then she took a step back. “I broke my promise, and the universe did technically end. I’m sorry.”
Rose blinked a couple of times, and then shrugged. “Well, as long as it started up again, who am I to complain?” Then she gave Amy a quick once-over before grinning. “You look gorgeous. Congratulations.”
“Thanks!” The Doctor cleared his throat and gave Amy a pointed look, and she had the audacity to roll her eyes at him. “I’m going to head back in so that I can dance some more with my husband, but later, you and I should talk. I’m sure we can swap all kinds of stories about that troublemaker over there.”
The Doctor tried to sputter out some kind of defence, but he couldn’t truthfully deny that he tended to cause a lot of trouble. Amy walked over to give the Doctor a quick kiss on the cheek, and then she went back inside like she said she would.
Alone again, the Doctor pulled Rose closer to him. “So you’re here for good then?”
She nodded, and had that patented Tyler look of determination that meant nothing would be able to get in her way. “For as long as you’ll have me.”
The Doctor grinned. “Then you, Rose Tyler, have just signed yourself on for a very long trip.” Then he did what he’d wanted to do for so very long, and he leaned forward to kiss Rose Tyler.