Another Dimension (Tenrose AU)

4: Stop Them, For Me

And we ran. It was just like the old times: me and the Doctor, the Doctor and me. We were back together.

But I wasn't here for the Doctor. I was here for the world.

I needed to remember that.

Oh, we ran through those streets. And as we ran I remembered myself doing the same thing on other planets, in other dimensions, in the orbit of a black hole. Hell, I had missed travelling with the Doctor. So much.

Not that I believed it would last forever. This was just a random, lucky second chance.

It wouldn't last forever.

As much as I knew that, right in that moment, it felt like it would. Just holding his hand and running through those streets, running like I could never, ever stop. I wasn't tired and I never would. I could never tire of this. It was impossible - and despite the fact that my life was in his hands every second of those journeys, I stayed because I believed in him.

Yes, I believed in him.

I still do.

We round a corner and suddenly he stops. He lifts his hand to my face and whispers.

'If I can't do it...stop them, for me, Rose. Stop them for me.'

Right there in that little moment I know that I need to do it. If he tells me to do something, I do it, and I do it as well as I can. I learnt that a long time ago.

But it had never occurred to me that the Doctor might not be able to stop them...they feared him. He was 'The Oncoming Storm' - they even have a nickname for him because they are so scared. He can do it. He can stop then. The Doctor can stop anyone.

If he can't, I will.

I'll do it for him.

As we turn around another corner we see a huge fleet of Daleks descending from the sky. I am about to run when the Doctor stops me. 'Don't run,' he whispers. 'You'll make things worse.'

As a Dalek flew down closer and closer to me, I closed my eyes and stood my ground, pretending it wasn't there. I opened my eyes and I was staring right into its huge blue eyestalk. I gulped and didn't move an inch.

'You are identified as Rose Tyler, human.' I closed my eyes and breathed out as the mechanic creature moved past me slowly. It came face to face with the Doctor and I knew what I had to do.

In order to save the Earth, I had to save the Doctor. Even if it meant losing my life.

I'd do it any day. For him.

As the Dalek identified him as alien and then again as The Oncoming Storm, the wind rushed in my ears as I ran towards him, and into the space between the Doctor and the Dalek.

I hold up my shaking hands in surrender, less than a centimetre between me and the Dalek's eyestalk. 'You take him, you take me,' I whisper. 'What are you gonna choose?'