#posting this here bc i may or may not have uhh forgotten abt all of it

[go-to-the-mirror]

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M, Gen

Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)

Relationships: Ninth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler & Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith/Rose Tyler

Characters: Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith (Doctor Who)

Additional Tags: Whumptober 2023, Episode AU: s01e04-05 Aliens of London & World War Three, can be read as platonic or romantic, but i’m aromantic and my blorbos Are in qprs, Queerplatonic Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Grief/Mourning, title from a jack stauber song, No beta we die like Nine

Language: English

Published: 2023-10-16

Words: 342

Chapters: 1/1

Summary:

Harriet Jones and Rose Tyler manage to survive the bomb unscathed. The Doctor… less so. --- Written for Whumptober 2023, day 16. Inspired by prompt flatline.

Content Warnings:

Bombing (canonical)

Character death (temporary)

Implications of someone being buried alive

“He can’t die like this!” Rose says, not sure who she’s saying it to. “He’s survived so much worse than this, he can’t die like this.”

No one speaks to her, paramedics too busy trying to save the Doctor’s life, trying to save him even though they’ve been doing CPR for too long now and he can’t be alive, there’s no way he’s alive.

Harriet Jones stands next to her, looking on as they finally give up, the one administering CPR standing up to pronounce him dead. They were all in the same room, all three of them knew that they could’ve died there, and it’s just not fair that the Doctor’s… the Doctor… that they got out without a scratch, while he… didn’t.

“Rose?” calls her mum. Rose turns around to see her and Mickey running up towards her.

Rose walks forward and collapses, crying into her mum’s shoulder.

“Wot happened?” Mum asks.

“He’s—“ Rose cuts herself off, unable to finish her sentence, unable to do anything but sob into Mum’s shirt.

Her mum holds her tightly and rubs her back. “It’s alright, Rose. It’s alright.”

“They’re gonna bury him,” Mum says. Rose sits, shivering on the sofa, holding her cup of tea. “Do you want to go?”

”It hasn’t even been an hour,” Rose says.

”I know,” Mum says. “Tell you wot, I’ll get Mickey to come over, and I’ll buy some ice cream, and we can have a big old cry together.”

”You didn’t know him, Mum.”

”I know, sweet’eart, I’m sorry.”

Rose wipes the snot away from her face. “Yeah, it sounds like a plan.”

Rose’s been sitting, curled up practically in Mickey’s lap for about fifteen minutes, before she sits up, blood running cold.

”What’s going on?” Mickey asks, startled.

”Mickey,” she begins. “He has two hearts.”

”What?”

”The Doctor has two hearts.”

Suddenly, Mickey gets it, and his face looks exactly as terrified as Rose feels.

Rose wipes the tears from her face; all grief replaced with a cold, hard determination. “Do you have a spade?”