Out There ✿ The Doctor [1]

19- The Parting of Ways

Avery hadn't thought she would hear the Tardis again so soon. It had only been about a few weeks for her when she heard that lovely sound and took off at a sprint until she found it. She wrestled her key into the lock and burst through the doors to find Rose standing right there and a hologram of the Doctor that was speaking, "—We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape."

"No!" Rose exclaims, stepping forward, not even acknowledging her sister's appearance as Avery stared wide-eyed, taking in the hologram's message.

"And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The Tardis is taking you home."

"I won't let you." Rose tells him, moving closer to the hologram.

"And I bet you're fussing and moaning now. Typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The Tardis can never return for me. Emergency Programme One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do. Let the Tardis die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one'll even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world'll move on and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, one thing." The hologram turned its head to look at Rose, "Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life." The hologram flickers out.

"You can't do this to me. You can't." She rushes towards the console, pressing buttons and flipping switches, but nothing seems to work, "Take me back! Take me back! No!" Avery rushes forward and grabs Rose's hands before taking her hands, hugging her tightly as she cries. Rose breaks out of her grip and runs out the door only to return a few moments later and begin flipping switches again, begging, "Come on, fly. How do you fly? Come on, help me!"

"Stop, it's not going to work." Avery grabs Rose's hands again, holding them tightly as she asks, "Rose, what happened?"

Rose's eyes welled up with tears, "There were Daleks, Avery, and he sent me home." Her lip trembled, "He's going to die and I can't do anything to help him." She hugged Avery tightly as she cried into her shoulder. Avery stared over Rose's head, stunned and horrified and devastated.

***

Avery sets down two cups of tea in front of her and Rose as Jackie and Mickey are eating their meals out of polystyrene containers at her coffee shop. "And it's gone up market, this place. They're doing little tubs of coleslaw, now. It's not very nice. It tastes a bit sort of clinical." Jackie rambles to Mickey.

"Have you tried that new pizza place down Minto Road?" Avery asked Mickey and hermum, trying to keep the conversation light. Mickey nods in reply.

"What's it selling?" Jackie inquires.

Avery and Mickey share a look before the latter answers, "Pizza."

"That's nice. Do they deliver?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, Rose, have something to eat." Jackie tells her older daughter worriedly.

"Two hundred thousand years in the future, he's dying, and there's nothing I can do." Rose says, holding her head in her hand.

"Well, like you said, two hundred thousand years. It's way off." Jackie responds.

"But it's not. It's now." Rose snaps, "That fight is happening right now, and he's fighting for us, for the whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips." Avery wraps her arms around Rose, head resting on Rose's shoulder as she hugs her tightly.