Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

     The phrase 'lone wolf' is a confusing one. Sure, wolves can be seen by themselves in the wild, it isn't the most uncommon thing in the world, but the phrase itself just doesn't feel right. It's a piece of a puzzle that doesn't quite fit where you want it to, and you just can't seem to find the matching colors in the picture displayed brightly on the box. Because why would the creature most famously known for being one with a pack be best categorized alone? Wolves thrive in a pack, spend most of their lives in the company of others considered to be family, and if that's ripped away from them, if they're abandoned, there's a forty-nine percent increased likelihood they end up someone else's next meal or rotting on the side of the freeway.

     At least that's what the National Geographic special on Slate Wolves is relaying to Rose Tyler as she picks at the leather of her armchair at two in the morning. She isn't sure this wolf species existed in her previous home although she suspects they're practically the same as their Grey Wolf counterpart. The statistic seems severe too, like this world is just that bit more violent, that bit more volatile, that wolves have to truly claw and gnash and rip their way through life if they want any chance to survive alone. Rose thinks the narrator's soothing drawl over images of beasts drenched in rain and the blood of their wounds, sick and on death's door, is blasé enough to be irrationally angry at a man she has never met, probably never will meet, and is just doing his job. 

     She channel surfs between sitcom reruns and infomercials on stainless steel kitchenware until it's socially acceptable to be awake.

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     They diagnosed her with insomnia not long after she was left on the beach, her socks soaked through with seawater because "five and a half hours Mum, he said to always wait that long." Five and a half hours and not a moment before then, she would stay rooted in her spot, shoes planted underneath mounds of sand, legs unwavering under the pressure of wind and passing time. Six hours later, her knees solidly slammed into the ground. An extra thirty minutes because the man with a time machine had an aversion to punctuality. Most found it annoying or downright life-altering, twelve months instead of twelve hours. Rose found it charming, as if his chronic lateness was to be expected, because how could you expect someone who once spent four straight hours talking about the regional dialects of inhabitants of the neighboring galaxies without realizing she had been drawing tattoos with a pen on his hand to be aware enough to be on time to anything. 

     She never learned that his awareness of her never wavered, that while he meandered on he was acutely focused on every detail etched into his palm, that he just felt too relaxed to care and knew how she'd smile if he played into the act of ignorance.

     So insomnia is the diagnosis this week. The week before that it was anxiety, the week before that some estranged version of survivor guilt and PTSD she denied lived in any part of her. The Torchwood doctors Pete set her up with are kind, as soft-toned as that damned documentary narrator, and quite honestly make her want to crawl out of her own skin sometimes. If she has to sit through another talk on the stages of grief she isn't sure someone in that room won't end up with a surgical instrument lodged in their leg. The recipient of said surgical instrument is to be determined but she supposes it's a fifty-fifty shot between Franklin and herself. Franklin, because Doctor Holiver was pushing it a bit for her, just Doctor was so far out of the question it didn't exist in the realm of possibilities, and Rose wonders if she will be capable of rational thought regarding the best times of her life at some point in the next decade or so.

     It's insomnia this week, which makes sense quite honestly, and is easier to swallow than the slew of buzzwords they've thrown at her so far which she supposes is the reason everyone seems to be walking on eggshells around her and the reason Pete made her see someone for her "health" in the first place. She still thinks pulling out the "your mother is worried sick about you" card was a cheap trick. It wasn't as if she wasn't aware of it, quite the opposite really, after so many phone calls and pleas for her to stay living in the mansion. "Just for now" her mother had said as she was already loading the Jeep with the few cardboard boxes she had filled. Just some necessities, some clothes she ordered online with Pete's credit card after realizing how much she truly needed if she wanted to live in this world. It took her weeks to even do just that. The question of how much she wanted to "live" in this world was still up in the air. But there were steps forward. A Jeep with three boxes and a four-inch by four-inch flat with plain cream walls, a small TV, and a peeling leather armchair.

     It's insomnia this week, which explains why she's out for a walk in the dead of night in the middle of the suburbs. She could hear her family's voice in the back of her head, could hear his voice, telling her of the danger she was practically inviting by doing as such. She rationalizes that after facing down two, count em', two genocidal alien races on a number of occasions, she refuses to believe a mere mugger will be the one to take her down. It's a ridiculous notion. She finds that she doesn't care. Besides, she's made up her mind that this world won't be the one to kill her. No, this world is a liminal space. An in-between. A segue between the parts of her life she really is living for. It's her first week in the labs at Torchwood. Part of the deal between her and Pete. She sees a doctor, he gives her access to whatever resources he has available to him to try and get her home , and they both don't go into too much detail about her life as a field agent to her seven-month pregnant mother at Sunday dinner. Win-win, everyone goes home happy. Hopefully.

     It's insomnia this week, and she wonders just how ironic her life can truly get when she's stopped by the sound of light footsteps next to her. A trail of pawprints is left in the mud behind her, and to her right is a small dog. It barely comes up to her shins as it stops next to her, looking up expectantly. Like it's waiting for her next move. "Forward? To the side? Your choice," its eyes are telling her, and it's the eyes that make her stop in the first place. They're ice blue, almost ghost-like in their clarity, and the stars above are reflected perfectly in their iris'. She looks at those eyes and for the first time thinks of him without an immediate wave of pain. The same blue as the man she fell in love with and continued to fall deeper as their hue shifted entirely. She smiled, the smallest of smiles, at the image of its gun-metal black fur drowning in that leather jacket.

     Her smile drops as she examines it. It's a husky seemingly, but most of its fur is matted and covered in dirt and chips of mulch. She scans the ground behind her. The only footprints are hers and her companion's. She doesn't dare kneel on the ground, keeps a healthy distance between her and it, because it is all it is right now. Just a dog, out for a walk, just like she is. Its mother is probably close behind, never mind that a dog this small should never be separated from its mother in the first place. Can't think of a mother who would willingly let it go astray. Someone or something else will help this dog because it cannot be her. This is a liminal space. She is not staying here. 

     The dog paws at her shoelace and she takes off across the street. It will be fine on its own, it will have to be. So will she, she thinks harshly. Because she has to be.

     She stops as she reaches the other end of the sidewalk. Fourty-nine percent. Fuck that narrator to hell. She turns on her heel, sits on the ground with open arms, and lets the ball of blood-splotched, flea-infested, matted beyond belief fur settle in her arms before swiftly taking it home. They could be alone together.

Chapter Text

     Early October was a favored time of year for a young Rose Tyler. Past the slog of starting school back up, well into hoodie season, and an excuse to spend the next thirty or so days planning the most elaborate Halloween costume possible with the limited resources available while finding every way possible to scare the shit out of her friends. Suffice it to say, Mickey Smith was usually on high alert for his best friend to be hiding behind every corner of every hallway for the entire first half of fall, only for her to find more elaborate ways of terrorizing him when he started cataloging all of her usual tricks. 

     Her favorite holiday was something of an event each and every year and Rose had a personal mission to go all out for it. This resulted in three separate cavities, four all-night-long raves in the Tyler flat, two broken car windows, and one sprained ankle running away from her geometry teacher since the aforementioned car windows happened to be attached to his Ford Fiesta. Were attached at one point, absolutely shattered and covered in egg yolk at another. She had sprinted a mile and a half across town in a whole Zombie Bride get-up only for her entire grade to pin the crime on a JV track star all too happy to bask in the credit. But at that point, the social battlefield that was the classroom had already lost all its previous charm, and she wasn't exactly planning on staying to see her near-failing grades through the end of the semester. She was already one foot out the door, chasing adventure wherever she could find it. Adventure just so happened to be moving out at sixteen, only to fall back into her mother's waiting arms six months later with nothing but scars to show for it. Halloween was a small affair that year, but the endless movie marathon made her finally feel like she was home again.

     During her second week on the TARDIS, Rose had asked the Doctor if he could keep track of a few dates for her in relation to her own timeline, just to keep herself grounded and her sense of time at least a little intact. When they were readily approaching the date circled on a pinboard in the TARDIS media room, she got to work. Streamers, pumpkins, anything and everything she could find to decorate with was set out. She had a feeling the old girl lent her a hand too when she walked out of her room one morning to find there wasn't a surface untouched, even the top of the console room was thoroughly decked out. 

     It was around then that Rose found out she was only the second most Halloween-enthused individual aboard the ship, falling just shy of Jack's genuine honest blinding smile as he planned what he ensured would be the best night of her life to date. This involved throwing a dart at a list of the top ten nightclubs of 34th century Earth, an unholy amount of Hypervodka to pregame with, and several group Halloween costume ideas. Jack was going through his list of possible musical references inspired by his physical list of rankings on every Broadway show he had snuck his way into, a list she assumed may be slightly biased toward the ones with cast members he ended up in bed with once the curtains fell, before suggesting they all go as different Heathers. Rose was fully on board with it but still championed going as The Powerpuff Girls instead. The pair had expressed their absolutely childlike giddiness to the Doctor in the form of an elaborate presentation about team bonding and the joys of dancing with thousands of masked strangers in what he later described as five-story cesspool of sweat and idiocracy. His response to the costume idea was a resounding "fuck no." He was in a green t-shirt and small bowtie exactly one week later.

     The next Halloween was much lower-key but no less special. The day itself snuck up on her and would've gone entirely unnoticed if not for the giant bowl of candy and popcorn she woke to after a night curled up on the couch in the media room. The ceiling above her acted as an observatory to the star system they were currently parked inside and offered the only light in the room. The floor was littered with pillows and blankets from the previous nights because things had changed between them. An invisible chain had been pulled but neither put up any fight against it. 

     The couch had become a neutral zone, distanced enough from their own rooms, their own beds, to not have to address whatever they were, but comfortable and small enough that they had rarely strayed more than five inches away from each other, and if they did it was mere milliseconds before hands were clasped together in an effort to not have to drift astray. Because after losing your face to a TV and facing down what by all accounts could have very well been the Devil himself, and wasn't that just a can of worms to pretend isn't open, one tends to reprioritize. They collapsed into each other's arms once the nightmares started. They had barely left the couch since. Waking up alone for the first time in three days had been enough to send Rose into a brief panic before she spotted the bowl on the table and a kiss was dropped on her forehead. It was followed by a floppy witch's hat that when placed sunk down below her eyes before she adjusted it. The marathon this time was Disney movies because they had had enough horrors for now.

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     Halloween snuck up on Rose Tyler for the second time in her life when she entered the only convenience store open at two a.m. within walking distance of her apartment and was promptly greeted by a singing skeleton decoration that had her jumping at least a foot in the air. The small husky she had currently bundled in her now mud-stained hoodie was shaking even more than on the trip over because early October was not a favored time of year by young malnourished runts with their ribs showing through their stomachs. Rose's new companion chose then and there to give its best attempt at a howl which turned out to not be much more than a high-pitched yelp but at least it startled the cashier drooling on the counter awake. The lanky teen guarding the cheap cigarettes behind the table to the utmost of his ability had the gall to give Rose a look of harsh questioning before quickly looking away to pretend he was doing anything else. Whether it was because he was deterred by her overall aura of "do not ask" or pitied the decrepit twenty-year-old clearly in need of a shower, sleep, and professional help he was thoroughly unprepared to give, she had no idea. 

     "Your dog's…cute," the cashier whose nametag proudly announced he was either named 'Nate' or 'Nole' depending on how you read his chicken scratch handwriting said to the creature currently whimpering around a mouthful of Rose's sleeve. She could see where the hesitation would come from, the current state of its fur so covered in dirt you could barely see its true color. "Where'd you get it"?

     "A couple of streets over, near that little canal the sewage drain leads to." She shifted the pup in her arms and placed the dog-safe shampoo and canned food on the counter. "Think it got these cuts winnin' fights against the snakes that live in the pipes."

     The dog continued to cry in her arms.

     "Yeah, real beast you got on your hands there." Nate/Nole bagged her items before handing them back over. "You sure the thing don't got rabies?"

     "Dunno. Would watch out for symptoms in the next few days though. I hear it could be airborne," Rose replied with a sharp smile before pivoting toward the automatic doors. "Night!"

     She heard a muffled curse under the breath of the poor kid now frantically typing on the work computer to find the nearest walk-in clinic. Serves him right. Her dog was perfectly normal. They'd be fine. 

     The husky took a brief break from its shivering to lick at its paw before bracing itself for the cold walk home.

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     Rose figures making it a whole three hours without breaking down should be considered an accomplishment. The rainfall interrupting the previously dry evening wasn't what did it, even when she realized, panting for breath alongside her new housemate, that she hadn't had a reason to run from anything in months. The bath wasn't what did it either as she tried to keep a healthy indifference toward the creature she knew would be left behind once again someday as the knots and mud cleared away to reveal the beautiful black coat she had got a glimpse of earlier. Not even the fact that the dog had settled enough under the warm water that despite her fears that this process would be a nightmare, the opposite was true and it seemed to drift off to sleep under her hands.

     No, it takes a whole three hours before the inevitable breakdown. 

     After toweling off the once again shaking pup, Rose gets a good look at the state of it. There are a few cuts on its paws and back, most likely from the environment it was traversing. All the fleas seem to be gone although another look in the coming days wouldn't hurt. But it's small. Doesn't even cover the full length of her arm, small. Rose decides there is a simple remedy to this and pours the new food into a bowl meant for ice cream before placing the dog on the ground to eat. It proceeds to sniff at the kibble and nudge it with its nose, before turning away to stare at Rose confused. 

      "Look," she gets on the floor and taps at the bowl, "it's for you, you gotta eat." One more nudge and another few steps back are taken with still nothing eaten. The dog yips quietly before choosing to tug at Rose's pant leg instead. "No, come on, we gotta get some food in you and then we can go to bed." She flips the dog around toward the bowl again but with another cry, it just backs away again.

     "What, do you just not like it? Do you want somethin' else? We can get other stuff in the morning but we just have this for now- or wait," she pulls out her phone as she walks over to her fridge and scans the contents inside. It's a pretty abysmal sight of leftover pizza, some condiments, and mostly empty shelves. She finds what she's looking for though.

      "Site says you could probably' have this." Probably. Night one and were already cutting corners. Nice going, Tyler. Regardless, she sticks out a piece of Turkey right under the nose of the pup. It takes one lick before crying at it. "No, come on, please , we have to do this." Not even a sniff this time, the dog just stares back at her with a tilt of the head. "You have to eat something , don't you get that? You're a dog , all dogs ever wanna do is eat, now come on, have it." Nothing. Just her own eyes reflected at her in the blue of the dog's. "What don't you get?! You're not gonna fucking live if you don't eat, now just eat the damn thing!"

     At that, the dog's nails can't scratch at the hardwood floor fast enough to get away from her before cowering into the corner of the kitchen. It whines quietly into its paws as it sinks further and further back and away.

      "No I-I didn't…I just need you to…" and hence the inevitable. She slides down the wall of her cabinets down to the kitchen floor, strip of turkey still in hand and the tears fall silently because she can't do this, no matter how much she pretends she can. Because it's impossible. Because she can't even admit how fucked her life has become because admitting it is the first step to accepting it and what could she ever accept about any of this. Because how is she going to break the universe in half without her A-Levels? Because how is she going to break the universe in half before it breaks her first? Because how is she going to break the universe in half without him to lead the way? His voice in her ear reciting every rule that governs time and space with so much passion that it didn't matter that every other word flew over her head, she couldn't help but smile at his never-ending lecture. His hand in hers tracing a path through the stars because they were theirs to traverse. His coat on her shoulders at the end of a day of trying . Of the days where impossible meant nothing to them.

     Because how is she going to break the universe if she can't even save herself? Because how is she going to break the universe if this dog won't even fucking eat?

     It isn't long before exhaustion takes over her, days of no sleep claiming her in the end, and Rose drifts off against the door to her pantry. She does not dream. She is fast asleep when, eventually, the small pup ventures out from its hideaway, gives a small lick to a dried tear track on her cheek, and swallows the whole piece of turkey from right out of her hand before tucking itself back into it's corner.

Chapter Text

There are some decisions you make knowing nothing good will come from it. Choices of necessary evil to keep the relative peace of one's mind intact. A simple bargain. Rose gets her own flat if her mother gets the spare key. A shrill cry of her name from the doorway wakes Rose after a four-hour nap on her kitchen floor. The utter cacophony of barking that occurs immediately after is enough indication of the chaos to come. Rose bangs her head on the oven a few times before picking herself up to face whatever awaited her.

Jackie Tyler was practically backed up against the door by a ball of fluff that couldn't be more than five pounds and half a foot tall. Despite her mother's yelling and brandishing of a purse as a weapon, she can't help but feel slightly proud at the dog's shared annoyance and pride in the fact that she probably wouldn't have any issues with burglars in the near future.

"Is that a wolf?! Why do you have a wolf?!" Her mother stares down the dog as its barking settles into a low growl at Rose's feet. Its tail is whipping back and forth and its ears are flattened to its skull. 

" Really? This thing couldn't do much more than nip at your ankles, and you're freaking out?"

"You weren't answering your phone! What was I supposed to think?!" 

"Literally any number of other valid reasons I wouldn't pick up early Sunday morning. I was sleepin'." Rose kneeled down to place her hand at the back of the dog's head.  Almost immediately it recognized that she wasn't threatened by the intruder so it ducked between her legs with a lick to her palm. "Ain't a wolf either, it's a husky I think."

"Well forgive me but when's the last time you slept past seven? Used to dread havin' to get you up for school but lately it's like you're allergic to a good night's sleep. What happened to the girl who used to nap until sundown on the weekends?"

'Want the list?' Rose thought bleakly to herself. It could have been for any number of reasons but she supposed losing the hum that used to sing her to sleep was a big one. No white noise machine she tried even came close to the sounds she used to drift off to, somehow comforted by the endless void of space the ship floated in. Although back then space acted as a sandbox of possibilities, not the being of emptiness she regarded it as now, light pollution from the city blocking any chance she had of mapping a sky full of stars she hadn't seen yet.

She had tried in the beginning, on nights where hope for the future outweighed the loss of the present. She sat on the roof of the Tyler mansion, notebook in hand, and did her level best to chart the blinking lights above. Trying to find anything familiar, something to go off of, a north star in both the literal and metaphorical sense. There would be a day, not long from then she was sure of it, that she'd relay to him what she'd found. Where she'd get to introduce him to a new map of the sky, a new mythology characterizing its design, a new set of patterns she charted on her own, just for him. She thought she had spotted this universe's version of Orion before realizing the finer details of his lectures on the constellations were beginning to leave her memory altogether. She stopped going to the roof after that.

"Besides," her mother continued, snapping her out of thought. "You're in your running clothes.

"Fell asleep right when I came home I guess."

"In the kitchen?"

"Are we just criticizing me this morning or did you come here for a reason?" Rose scooped the dog up into her arms and held it to her chest. It had seemed to calm down almost fully and tucked its head under her chin.

Jackie sighed and placed a hand on her daughter's arm. "Of course not. Wanted to check on you is all."

"Thoroughly checked," Rose muttered back before sighing deep, regretting it. "Sorry. Long night."

"Can see that," her mother smiled as she stuck her hand out under the dogs nose. It gave her fingers a quick few nudges before starting to lick at them. "Must taste the food I held this morning. It's actually quite sweet."

Rose moved the dog so its head was out in front of its body, rather than in her neck. "Likes you I think."

"Is it a boy or girl?"

"Dunno."

"What you name it?"

"Didn't."

"What? Why? Needs a name he does." Having seemingly gotten over their first encounter, Jackie's mothering instincts took over as she lifted the dog out of her daughter's arms to hold herself. Rose mentally stopped the timer in her head that was counting until her Mum started coddling the thing. She lasted a full minute longer than Rose thought she would, so credit where credits due.

"He?"

"I think he's a he."

"You can't tell from just lookin' at it."

"Sure I can, you can tell those sorta things."

"I think pregnancy is making you a bit mental, and anyways he doesn't need a name."

"You said he."

"Mum."

"Where'd you get im' anyways?" Jackie wasn't even looking at Rose anymore, fully focused on running her fingers through the dogs short coat. "He's all...patchy." The dog whines a bit when her hand goes over a rough spot before it goes back to licking.

"I think he knows you're insultin' him."

"Gonna call you Patchy."

"You're not callin' him Patchy."

"Oh," Jackie says down at the dog. "Now she has an opinion."

"Will you stop? M' not even keepin' him." The damn thing had the gall to stop squirming in her mother's arms and look at her like it fully understood what was said. 

The obvious question on her mother's lips died off. She knew why he wasn't staying. Couldn't stay when one day its owner just stopped coming home. 

The two of them had discussed Rose's plans to find her way home, but after the first couple of blowout fights that transitioned into long terse silences and further into meltdowns in each other's arms, they tended to avoid the conversation as much as possible now. Jackie just hoped she'd still be around to meet her baby brother.

"Then why'd you get im' in the first place?" The dog still hadn't stopped staring at Rose.

"Was out in the woods. By itself. Injured. Couldn't just leave him."

"Could have brought him to a shelter."

"It was late."

"Vets open late. They'd have taken him."

"Oh my god , I get it okay? But I saw him there, alone, abandoned, and I didn't...I didn't even think I just..."

"You needed him just as much as he needed you." 

Rose scoffed as she turned and stared out a window, trying to look anywhere but the pairs of eyes in front of her. "I didn't need a dog, Mum."

"I don't mean it like that. If you had dropped im' off somewhere, or just left him there, you'd worry, wouldn't you? Even if you knew he'd be okay?" She turned her daughter back toward her. "You needed to make sure, to take care of him yourself, because he came up to you and put his trust in you." 

And that was the root of it all, wasn't it? She had a chance to give the dog what had been ripped from her. This dog, knowingly or not, looked at her and asked for help. Asked for a warm home. Asked for love, for stability, after everything it'd known in it's few short weeks of life was gone. And she'd be damned if she let it keep suffering, not when he could still have a happy ending. Whether or not it truly was to be determined, but wasn't everything else just as up in the air? He had fought and lived, just like she was fighting and living, and saw an escape from this life in her arms. So she took him back from her mother with a simple "Yeah...he did."

The dog placed a single lick on her chin before falling asleep in her embrace. Fell asleep like it was the easiest thing in the world. Rose supposed it was. Falling asleep cocooned in blankets and leather jackets and tan coats and tight but gentle arms was one of the greatest feelings in the world. No wonder it's insomnia this week. The dog gives a happy chuff in its sleep. "Suppose I could think of a name."

Chapter Text

Her phone buzzed from the spot on her chest. In a rare turn of events one of the three names in her contacts was still awake.