Dreaming of a Blue Box ✧ Doctor Who ¹ ✓

69 - The Parting of the Ways (Part III)

Continuing from 'The Parting of the Ways - Part II'

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ROSE WAS LIVING HER WORST NIGHTMARE. The TARDIS was in flight, sending her away from Lily and the Doctor and there was no way to stop it. She left the doors as they were not budging and ran to the console, pushing every button and switching dials, but nothing made it stop. "How do you stop this damn thing!" Rose kicked the console in frustration. "Stop!"

"This is Emergency Programme One." Rose looked to the side when she heard the Doctor's voice. When she saw that it was a blue life-sized hologram of him she hurried to stand in front of it. "Lily and Rose, now listen, this is important."

Rose screamed like it would answer back. "Lily isn't here!"

"If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape."

Rose's heart stopped. "NO!"

"And that's okay." He grinned as if he was happy about this. "Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you girls, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you two home."

"No, but Lily-" She tried more buttons on the console, crying to the machine. "You have to send me back!"

"And I bet you're both fussing and moaning now. Typical." The hologram snorted and shook his head. "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."

Rose paused and looked at the hologram through the tears in her eyes. They fell too fast for her to care to wipe away and her vision blurry because of it. "Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And Red," Hearing the tender way the Doctor said his nickname for Lily hurt her even more. "You once said to me that I was the best thing that had ever happened to you. Know that you mean the same to me." Rose knew her sister should be hearing this, not her.

Rose cried again- her voice was strained. "But she isn't here."

"Over the years, the world will 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." He looked straight into Rose's eyes and smiled. "Have a good life. Do that for me, girls. Have a fantastic life." And vanished.

When the engines stopped Rose sprinted out the doors, growling in anger at seeing the Powell Estate. Feeling defeated and lost, Rose fell to the ground and tucked her head into her knees not caring for the running coming towards her. "I knew it!" Without looking up, she recognized Mickey's voice. "I was all the way down Clifton Parade, and I heard the engines. I thought, there's only one thing that makes a noise like that." He seemed to have noticed her cries. "What happened? Where's Lily?"

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Lily stayed where she stood and let the Doctor storm over to her. "I could ask you the same exact question."

The Doctor made it to her fast, towering over her. His anger radiated off of him. "I was saving you and Rose from dying." He gritted his teeth. "Which is now going to happen to you since you've decided to be an idiot and do this!"

She blinked up at him as the realization hit her. "So does that mean you'd die too?"

He shook his head. "That doesn't matter-"