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Her father believed in one thing: he believed in her.
Her mother believed in family and hope and love. She didn’t believe in impossible, for she’d seen its weakness too many times to believe its strength.
Her grandmother believed in the insane and the mundane. She believed everything was better with a cup of tea.
Her granddad believed in science and devotion. He believed grand mum always knew best and that if anything blew up it was always the Doctor’s fault.
Mia Tyler believed in a lot of things.
She believed in science and miracles and that sometimes there was no answer as she grew up with her father tinkering at the kitchen table, his research spread out across the living room. The way he’d smile when the unexpected happened, the frustration when he couldn’t figure something out and the shine that appeared in his eye once he accepted that.
Mia believed in monsters for she had heard the stories of Daleks and Cybermen, seen the wreckage after an invasion attempt or the scars on her mother’s back. Had met them in her very home, and then again in her dreams. But she also believed in heroes. In the ordinary. In safety and comfort.
Mia Tyler also believed in true love. She believed because she saw it every day for the first eighteen years of her life. Saw it in the way Mum made Dad a cup of tea, or when Dad would look at Mum with a stupid smile on his face and say her name. “Rose Tyler,” because Dad took her name when they married. Mia saw it when they hugged or held hands. The way they spoke when Nan was around—Dad’s exaggerated whining and Mum’s ford exasperation. She saw it when, after a really bad day at work, her parents refused to let each other out of their sight, even if they pretended otherwise. And Mia felt it with every praise, every hug, and every kiss she received from her family.
Mia believed in horror and tragedy. She believed in nightmares brought to life. That the universe was cruel and unforgiving because she saw how her father cried when he thought no one was around and that whenever he had one of his episodes, Mum was the only one who could calm him. She heard the screams when one of her parents would wake up from a nightmare that was more fact them fiction. Even at Christmas, she saw it. The unease Nan felt around the tree, or the way she would never let Granddad cross the street alone, saying: “This time it’ll have to take both of us.” She saw the cruelty when she learned about Cybus Industries in school, heard it when Dad spoke about his home and the children he’d had before. He never spoke of the war with her, and as Mia grew older she realized the terrifying implications of that.
But through her mum, grandma, dad, granddad, and even Uncle Tony (and stories of Uncle Micky and brave Uncle Jack), Mia believed in strength. The strength of heroes like her parents. The strength of mothers who said the world with a cup of tea. The strength of strangers who sacrificed themselves for ever one else. She saw it daily in her parents, but never so much as she saw it in Nan the day her husband died. Mia remembered Nan holding his hand in the hospital, reminding Granddad who she was every fifteen minutes— reminding him who he was occasionally—until the dementia killed him. Later, when asked, Grandma would scoff and say, “Of course he’s dead. I outlived him once, and he outlived me once. Wasn’t about to let him win, now was I?” and everyone would ignore the tears in her eyes because Granddad was gone and Nan had learned a long time ago how to live without him.
But if Mia had to say she believed in one thing—if she had to make a declaration like her father liked to—and one thing only, then she believed in the impossible. Her entire life was steeped in the unlikely and the improbable. Her parents were the stuff of legends and her father often called Mum impossible, and she would tease him about not knowing the meaning of the word. But Mia knew the truth. That the universe (the entire multiverse, really) was cruel and unforgiving, tearing love away from people, causing misery and tragedy to innocents. Hope was intangible and unreliable, but ultimately constant in all things, something both of her parents assured her of a hundred times over. But if that was the nature of the universe, the love that was between the Doctor and Rose Tyler to exist in the universe was simply impossible and Mia Tyler believed in them. Worlds had burned and civilizations had perished—universes had separated and dimensions froze, but in the end it was always the Doctor and Rose Tyler, just as it should be, saving the day.
And Mia was certain that the day her parents died—suddenly and unexpectedly while visiting Barcelona—they were happy and that they were together.