Run. (The DoctorxRose One-Shots)

Run.

I could hardly sleep that night. The next morning was my eighteenth birthday. The next morning I would wake up with a tattoo of what my soulmate's first words to me would be. I finally managed to drift to sleep though. It had been a long and exhausting day of worrying what words I would be stuck with on my body for the rest of my life and where. What if I woke up the next morning with "Oh god, who are you?" tattooed across my forehead? Or what if I woke up with something even worse? I dreaded to think about it. Eventually, after I had climbed into bed and turned off the lights and laid there for at least two hours, my eyelids began to grow heavy.

*******

"Rose!"

I sat up in bed quickly, blinking against the light. It was morning.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart!" my mum shouted again.

"G'morning, Mum," I said, laying back down and covering my head with the covers. "Five more minutes please?"

"No, it's your big day!" she said, yanking the covers off of me.

I groaned, but rolled over and sat up.

"Well, I don't see a tattoo," my mum said, looking me up and down.

I woke up pretty quickly after that. I had forgotten about the tattoo. I looked down at myself. I didn't see a tattoo anywhere. It must be hidden under my clothes. I was relieved, but I needed to find that tattoo. I stood up and ran into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I pulled off my shirt first. I still didn't see a tattoo. I turned around so I could see my back in the mirror. Still no tattoo. I went to pull down my shorts when I caught a glimpse of it in the mirror. It was on my left hip, right across the bone. I pulled my shorts down so I could see it better.

"Well, that's rubbish!" I said out loud. "I can't even read it!" Instead of proper letters, it was just lots of circles. Big circles with little circles overlapping inside. I shook my head. This can't be my tattoo. I removed my shorts all the way but there were no other tattoos. I pulled my hair up so I could check the back of my neck. I even looked at the bottom of my feet, but there were no other tattoos. I sighed in frustration. The circles were my tattoo.

I went downstairs where my mum had made me a special birthday breakfast.

"Well, Rose, let me see," she said too enthusiastically when I entered the room. I sighed but pulled down the waistband of my pants for her to see. "What does that mean?" she asked after examining the circles.

"How should I know?" I said, sitting down and putting my face in my hands. "I'll bet it means I haven't got a soulmate."

"That's not what it means," my mum said, patting my shoulder. "Maybe it just means he'll be hard to find."

Silence was my only response.

********

It had been over a year since my eighteenth birthday. The tattoo had faded into the background. I hardly thought about it now. I was so over soulmates and circles.

My alarm woke me up at 7:30 just like any other day. My day proceeded just like normal until I went to bring Wilson the lottery money. Somebody was playing a horrible prank on me, all these moving mannequins. Then out of nowhere, a man grabbed my hand and said one word.

"Run."

*********

I watched the TARDIS disappear.

"Come on, let's go," I said, helping Mickey to his feet. "Come on." As we began to walk away, we were turned around again by the sound of the TARDIS coming back. The door opened and the Doctor leaned out.

"By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?"

I smiled and turned around to face Mickey. "Thanks," I found myself saying.

"Thanks for what?" he asked.

"Exactly," I replied. I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before turning around and running towards the Doctor and my new life.

"Alright then, Rose Tyler, you tell me. Where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time?" the Doctor asked as I stepped through the doors. "It's your choice. What's it gonna be?"

"Uh, " I said, "forwa-" then cut myself off, noticing something on the screen in front of me. "Those circles!" I said instead. "I know them!" The Doctor just stared at me. "Well, I don't know them," I amended, "but I've seen them before. I recognize them."

Then it all came rushing back to me. My eighteenth birthday and the circles on my hip. "What are they? What do they mean?" I asked the Doctor, who still hadn't said a word.

"They're words," he said. "The language of my people."

"Then can you read this?" I asked, pulling down the waistband of my pants to show him the tattoo on my hip.

"It says 'run'," he replied. I was silent for a moment, my mouth hanging open then I let out a sharp laugh.

"What?" the Doctor asked. "What is it? How did you even get that tattoo?"

I finally managed to stop laughing to say, "It's... I don't know. I just got it one night. Woke up with it in the morning. I don't really remember getting it. I suppose I was just drunk or something."

He looked at me with mild confusion. I bit my lip, hoping he hadn't seen through my lie. I mean, I couldn't just tell him. You don't tell someone you just met that they're your soulmate. "Okay," he eventually said, "So you were saying, forwards in time?"

"Yeah," I said and he went to work on the controls.

"How far?" he asked. I smiled before answering, my mind actually much farther away than the conversation we were having. I could get used to a life like this.